House Intelligence Committee Completes Russia Probe: ‘No Evidence of Collusion’ Between Trump Campaign, Russians
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The House Intelligence Committee has found there was no evidence of collusion by the Trump campaign with Russians, according to a one-page summary of its findings released on Monday.
“We have found no evidence of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians,” said the summary.
The draft report, written by the committee’s majority, will be provided to Democrats on the committee Tuesday for review and comment. It will then be submitted for a declassification review and be made public.
“The report’s completion will signify the closure of one chapter in the Committee’s robust oversight of the threat posed by Moscow — which began well before the investigation and will continue thereafter,” said the summary.
Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX), who ran the committee’s probe, discussed the extensive efforts behind the findings on Fox News’ Special Report after the summary was released.
“Well, the headlines are that we’ve reached that point where we’ve interviewed all the folks we need to. We’ve looked at some 300,000 documents, 73 interviews that we’ve done across the course of this thing, trying to answer the four questions that were originally set out for the committee to answer,” he said.
“Yes, the Russians tried to interfere with our election process. Yes, they had cyberattacks, active measures going on. We could find no evidence of collusion between either campaign and the Russians,” he added.
The draft report contains more than 40 initial findings, which encompass Russian attacks on European allies, Russian cyberattacks on U.S. political institutions and their use of social media to sow discord, and the “lackluster pre-election response to Russian active measures.”
The report will also concur with the Intelligence Community Assessment’s judgments that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections, but disagree with the assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin preferred Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.
Some Russian social media efforts appeared to promote events in support of Clinton, according to indictments issued by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The committee will continue its investigations into the unmasking of Americans’ names in intelligence reports, as well as abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and other matters, the summary said.
It will also continue to investigate how the Trump dossier “made its way from Russian sources to the Clinton campaign,” as well as “problematic contacts” between senior Intelligence Community officials and the media.
Shortly before the summary was released, investigative journalist Sara Carter reported that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper allegedly leaked to CNN early last year that President-Elect Donald Trump and President Obama received a classified briefing on the dossier.
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