MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin says Russia wasn't involved in the hacking of emails of the U.S. Democratic Party, but thinks the release of the information was a benefit.

Some American officials have claimed that Russian military intelligence was behind the hacking, which provoked a political scandal in the U.S. by revealing apparent prejudice in the Democratic National Committee against Hillary Clinton's challenger for the presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders.

"At the state level, we certainly weren't involved in this," Putin said in an interview with the Bloomberg news service, according to a transcript released Friday by the Kremlin.

Putin said it wasn't important who conducted the hacking, but "what's important is that there was material that was released to the public."