Washington A nearly 1,000-page report released by the House of Representatives on Tuesday documents a broad set of links and interactions between Russian government activists and members of the 2016 Trump campaign, adding new details and dimensions the account set last year by special adviser Robert Mueller and raising concerns about counter-awareness of certain Russian efforts that may have continued into the 2020 election season.
Tuesday’s report was the final, and long-awaited, chapter of the commission in its more than three-year inquiry into Russia’s 2016 election interference, marking the conclusion of what was considered to be the last and likely only bilingual congressional inquiry into the matter. Tension of 966 pages concludes, like other assessments of Russia’s efforts, that Moscow “was engaged in an aggressive, multifaceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.”
The report details extensive contacts between Trump President Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian national who has worked closely with Manafort for years. The report highlighted Kilimnik as a “Russian intelligence officer”, and said Manafort, for reasons the commission could not determine, sought to “secretly share internal campaign information with Kilimnik.” It also said the commission “got some information” that Kilimnik linked to Russian intelligence services’ attempts to hack and leak information to harm Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.
Overall, the report said, Manafort’s proximity to then-candidate Trump “created opportunities for the Russian intelligence services to exert influence and obtain confidential information about the Trump campaign.” Manafort’s willingness to share information with Kilimnik and other Russian operatives, it concluded, “posed a serious threat to countermeasures.”
Manafort was condemned last March after a seven-year prison sentence for fraud prosecutors stemming from the special lawyer’s investigation, although he was released to prison at home, to deal with concerns about the coronavirus.
The report also documents, in complicated detail, interactions between Trump associate Roger Stone and Wikileaks – which at the time was still considered a “journalistic entity” by the US government instead of a hostile organization, the report notes – as Wikileaks timed and released hacked documents that were intended to harm the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
“WikiLeaks actively sought, and played, an important role in the Russian influence campaign and probably knew that it helped a Russian influence tension,” the report said. “Trump and senior campaign officials sought prior information about the planned release of WikiLeaks through Roger Stone.”
It says Mr Trump ‘directed’ campaign ‘officials’ to stay in touch with Stone, who also made many phone calls to Mr Trump throughout the spring of 2016, according to the report. The authors described the campaign as “aroused” by the news of the planned releases of WikiLeaks, noting that its senior officials for the most part “appeared indifferent to the significance of purchasing, promoting or distributing materials from a Russian intelligence service” hack-and-leak campaign. ”
Stone was convicted in November of seven crimes stemming from Mueller’s investigation, and sentenced to 40 months in prison. Mr. Trump planned Stone’s sentence last month. In written responses to the special counsel, Mr. Trump denied that he had any recollection of conversations about WikiLeaks with Stone.
In a statement accompanying Tuesday’s release of the report, Republican Senator Marco Rubio, the commission’s acting chairman, said investigators “found absolutely no evidence” that the Trump campaign “merged” with the Russians. but said the commission’s unforgivable evidence of Russian found interference. “
Senator Mark Warner, the commission’s vice chairman, said in a statement that the report details “a breathtaking level of contact between Trump officials and Russian government officials that poses a very real threat to counter-awareness before our elections.”
“This can not happen again,” the Virginia Democrat said. “While we are in the heat of the campaign season in 2020, I strongly urge campaigns, the Executive Department, Congress and the American people to listen to the lessons of this report to protect our democracy.”
The Senate committee’s report covers much of the same territory as that of Robert Mueller’s investigating judge, but is almost five times as long as the comparable part of the Mueller report. In a rare, wide-ranging interview in 2019, then-chairman Richard Burr of the CBS News commission said he believed the commission had interviewed several witnesses outside the scope of Mueller’s investigation.
“I think it’s safe to say we interviewed people that I do not even know if the special council knows about them,” Burr said at the time. The North Carolina Republican resigned from the presidency in May amid an investigation into his shares. Rubio, a Republican from Florida, now serves as acting chairman of the panel.
On Tuesday, Burr said the threat of Russian interference in US elections “continues.”
“One of the commission’s most important – and overriding – findings is that many of Russia’s activities were not related to producing a specific election outcome, but sought to undermine our belief in the democratic process,” he said. he in a statement. “Their goal is to sow chaos, discord and mistrust. Their efforts are not limited to elections.”
The Mueller report, released in April 2019, documented extensive interactions between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian operatives, but did not find that there was a criminal conspiracy between them. Six former employees of the Trump campaign have been accused or convicted of crimes – especially for lying to investigators – and more than two dozen Russian operatives have been accused by the special advocate of participating in election interferences. Overall, Mueller’s report resulted in 37 prosecutors pleading guilty.
The House Committee’s inquiry, first launched in January 2017, was almost entirely staff – led and involved interviews with hundreds of witnesses, including some abroad, and the review of more than a million pages of documents. Their work stood in contrast to other congressional candidates, including one led by the House Intelligence Committee, who suffered wounds caused by leaks, partisan fighting and politically divisive conclusions. Burr and Warner declare their intention to present a consistently united front from the outset, and only to take exploratory steps on which they both agreed.
The commission has recognized the Special Advocate’s recommendation to open criminal probes after some witnesses appeared to give false or misleading testimony to investigators. In 2018, Burr publicly stated that the commission had submitted criminal referrals to the Justice Department based on eyewitness testimony. It remains unclear whether the department has acted on those recommendations.
Monday’s release comes as a separate probe led by U.S. Attorney John Durham – which focuses on the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s links to Russia, as well as, controversially, some of the analytical works of the intelligence community on the actions of Russia – is said to be approaching final stages.
On Friday, newly released court documents showed that former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith would plead guilty to falsifying a document used to obtain oversight of a former Trump campaign adviser. They did not show that his actions were part of a broader conspiracy against the president, who has long decided to view control of his campaign’s ties to Russia as a “hoax” or a “witch hunt.”
The release of the volume also comes amid an unusual warning from the US intelligence community that Russia’s election interference teams have passed in 2020, and that Moscow is actively trying to “denigrate” the candidacy of Democratic nominee Joe Biden. China and Iran, which have told the intelligence community that they would rather not win Mr Trump re-election, are also considering taking action in the run-up to the election.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has previously released four parts of its final product. The first focused on election security and was made public in July 2019. It was followed by a second, released in October 2019, about the coordinated campaign that Russia was conducting on social media. The third evaluated the Obama administration’s response to Russia’s efforts. And the fourth, released in April, evaluated the intelligence community’s assessment 2017 of Russia’s election interference and found the work “coherent and well-crafted.”
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