The Senate Intelligence Committee released the fifth and final volume of its report on Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election, revealing new details about Russia’s efforts and about flaws with the U.S. government’s response and investigations.
The 966-page report is largely unredacted, though key sections are blacked out. It “lays out its findings in detail by looking at many aspects of the counterintelligence threat posed by the Russian influence operation.” The bipartisan Senate committee, led by acting Republican Chairman Marco Rubio of Florida and Democratic Vice Chairman Mark Warner, touched on a host of topics to provide “the most comprehensive description to date of Russia’s activities and the threat they posed.”
The committee found that “certain FBI procedures and actions in response to the Russian threat to the 2016 elections were flawed, in particular its interactions with the DNC about the hacking operation and its treatment of the set of memos referred to as the Steele Dossier.” The senators criticized the bureau for botching its response to Russian hacking, writing that the FBI “overly adhered to the letter of its procedures in dealings with the DNC, rather than recognizing the gap between those procedures and the effective pursuit of its mission.”
The senators further criticized the handling of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier, noting that the FBI “gave Steele’s allegations unjustified credence, based on an incomplete understanding of Steele’s past reporting record” and “used the Dossier in a FISA application and renewals and advocated for it to be included in the Intelligence Community Assessment before taking the necessary steps to validate assumptions about Steele’s credibility.” Additionally, the FBI “did not effectively adjust its approach to Steele’s reporting once one of Steele’s subsources provided information that raised serious concerns about the source descriptions in the Steele Dossier,” the report said, adding that Steele’s dossier “lacked rigor and transparency about the quality of the sourcing.”
The report also concluded that “any allegations in the media” regarding Trump campaign associate Carter Page’s activities in Russia in 2016 “as well as almost all assertions about Page in the ‘Steele Dossier’ remain unverified.” The committee “found no evidence that Page made any substantive contribution to the Campaign or ever met Trump” and “found no indication that the Campaign took action on Page’s offers” of setting up a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s December report criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against Page and for the bureau’s reliance on the Democrat-funded discredited dossier compiled by Steele. Declassified footnotes from Horowitz’s report indicate that the bureau became aware that Steele’s dossier may have been compromised by Russian disinformation, and FBI interviews show Steele’s primary subsource undercut the credibility of the dossier.
The DOJ watchdog called the FBI’s explanations for these mistakes “unsatisfactory across the board” and testified that he wasn’t sure if the errors were “gross incompetence” or “intentional.” In January, the Justice Department determined that the final two of the four Page FISA warrants “were not valid.” The FBI told the Foreign Intelligence Surveilance Court it was working to “sequester” all the information from the Page wiretaps, and FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress he was working to “claw back” that intelligence. The FBI director also testified that the bureau likely illegally surveilled Page.
The senators also concluded that Putin “ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign for president” and that “Moscow’s intent was to harm the Clinton Campaign, tarnish an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the Trump Campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the U.S. democratic process.” The report further assessed that WikiLeaks “actively sought, and played, a key role in the Russian intelligence influence effort and very likely knew it was assisting a Russian intelligence influence effort.” The committee said that “the Trump Campaign sought to maximize the impact of those leaks to aid Trump’s electoral prospects.”
Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation concluded that the Russian government interfered in a “sweeping and systematic fashion.” Mueller’s team “identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign” but “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
The senators detailed the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting between members of the Trump campaign and a number of Russians and “found evidence suggesting that it was the intent of the Campaign participants, particularly Donald Trump Jr., to receive derogatory information that would be of benefit to the Campaign from a source known, at least by Trump Jr., to have connections to the Russian government,” but “the Committee found no reliable evidence that information of benefit to the Campaign was transmitted at the meeting, or that then-candidate Trump had foreknowledge of the meeting.” The Committee “assesses” that two meeting participants, Russian American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, “have significant connections to the Russian government, including the Russian intelligence services,” and “the connections the Committee uncovered, particularly regarding Veselnitskaya, were far more extensive and concerning than what had been publicly known.”
The senators focused on former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, saying his connections to Russia and Ukraine began in late 2004 when he started working for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, concluding that “the Russian government coordinates with and directs Deripaska on many of his influence operations.” The committee also concluded that Russian national Konstantin Kilimnik, who became Manafort’s primary liaison to Deripaska, “is a Russian intelligence officer.” During the 2016 election, Manafort “directly and indirectly communicated with Kilimnik, Deripaska, and the pro-Russian oligarchs in Ukraine,” and “on numerous occasions, Manafort sought to secretly share internal Campaign information with Kilimnik.” However, “the Committee was unable to reliably determine why Manafort shared sensitive internal polling data or Campaign strategy with Kilimnik or with whom Kilimnik further shared that information.” The senators also claimed they “obtained some information suggesting Kilimnik may have been connected to the GRU’s hack and leak operation targeting the 2016 U.S. election.”
The senators also concluded that Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos “was not a witting co-optee of the Russian intelligence services, but nonetheless presented a prime intelligence target and potential vector for malign Russian influence.” The committee found evidence that Papadopoulos “likely learned about the Russian active measures campaign as early as April 2016” from mysterious Maltese academic Joseph Mifsud, whom the senators described as having “longstanding Russia ties.” The investigators “could not determine if Papadopoulos informed anyone on the Trump Campaign of the information, though the Committee finds it implausible that Papadopoulos did not do so.”
The U.S. intelligence community concluded earlier in August that the Russian government is “using a range of measures to primarily denigrate” presumptive 2020 Democratic nominee former Vice President Joe Biden. The Chinese Communist Party wants Trump to lose reelection, and the Iran regime is seeking to undermine his presidency.
