House committee backs GOP report ending Russia meddling investigation
WASHINGTON — The House intelligence committee voted Thursday to approve its final report into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, ending its inquiry and giving a final endorsement to the GOP conclusion there was no coordination between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia.
The full Republican-written report will be released to the public after intelligence agencies conduct a classification review, which could take weeks.
The document is likely to please Trump but is fiercely opposed by committee Democrats, all of whom voted against approving it. The Democrats say the investigation was shut down too quickly and that the committee has not interviewed enough witnesses or gathered enough evidence to make such a definitive assessment.
After the vote, Republicans released a summary of 44 findings, including conclusions that there were Russian cyberattacks on U.S. political institutions and that Russians leveraged social media in the U.S. to sow discord. The report echoes GOP criticism of the Justice Department and intelligence agencies.
On the subject of collusion, the report says that “when asked directly, none of the interviewed witnesses provided evidence of collusion, coordination or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.” The Republicans say they found no evidence that Trump’s “pre-campaign business dealings” formed any basis for collusion.
The report also appears to try and clear numerous Trump associates from wrongdoing.
The GOP document says there’s no evidence Trump associates had anything to do with hacked emails stolen from Democrats during the campaign, though it does mention “numerous ill-advised contacts with WikiLeaks.” The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., messaged with WikiLeaks during the campaign.
An assessment released in January 2017 by U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russian military intelligence provided hacked information from the Democratic National Committee and Democratic officials to WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks has denied that Russia was the source of emails it released.
The report also concludes there’s no evidence Trump Jr. discussed the election with a Russian official he met at an National Rifle Association meeting in 2016, and says the younger Trump and other campaign officials did not receive any derogatory information about Democrat Hillary Clinton at a June 2016 meeting with Russians in Trump Tower. Emails showed that Trump Jr. and others attended that meeting with the expectation of receiving such information.
The committee concluded that meetings between the Russian ambassador in Washington and Trump campaign officials, including now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, did not represent coordination with Russia in any way. Sessions was also interviewed by the committee.