Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are questioning the intelligence community’s judgment that Russia’s Vladimir Putin specifically tried to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. That judgment “did not employ proper analytic tradecraft,” committee Republicans charge in a new set of findings released Thursday. But the exact reasons for the committee’s skepticism remain secret, at least until a full report is released later.
Here are the two brief references to Putin’s intention included in the newly-released findings:
The first, “Finding #15,” says House Intel Republicans agree with and support the intelligence community assessment’s finding that Russia tried to meddle in the 2016 election. Indeed, the committee makes a number of recommendations based on that fact. But “Finding #16” refers to the assessment’s specific judgment about Putin and Trump, suggesting it was somehow improperly reached.
A little background: The intelligence community released two statements on Russian meddling: a brief, preliminary one, dated Oct. 7, 2016, and a more complete one released Jan. 6, 2017. The Oct. 7 statement said only that Russia’s intention was “to interfere with the US election process.” The Jan. 6 assessment said Russia’s goal was specifically to help Trump and hurt Clinton.
Here is the relevant portion of the Oct. 7 statement:
And here is the relevant portion of the Jan. 6 intelligence community assessment:
We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence.
Something happened between the Oct. 7 and Jan. 6 intelligence community statements. One obvious explanation is that the intelligence community learned more about Russian interference, enough to draw a conclusion about Putin’s motive. But House Intel Republicans appear to believe that the intelligence community used some sort of improper process to reach that conclusion.
In other words, the committee GOP seems to be suggesting that the intelligence community might have cooked the books, sometime between Oct. 7 and Jan. 6.
But in what way? How could that have happened? Some point to an article in the Washington Post, dated Dec. 10, 2016, headlined, “FBI and CIA give differing accounts to lawmakers on Russia’s motive in 2016 hacks.” The paper reported that in a meeting a few days before Dec. 10, committee members asked FBI officials if they concurred with the CIA’s finding that Putin was specifically trying to help Trump and hurt Clinton.
“For the Democrats in the room, the FBI’s response was frustrating — even shocking,” the Post reported. While the CIA had earlier made “‘direct and bald and unqualified’ [statements] about Russia’s intention to help Trump,” the paper said, “the FBI is not sold on the idea that Russia had a particular aim in its meddling. ‘There’s no question that the Russians’ efforts went one way, but it’s not clear that they have a specific goal or mix of related goals,’ said one U.S. official.”
So in December 2016, House Intelligence Committee members, in face-to-face meetings with intel officials, got the clear idea that some elements of the intelligence community believed strongly that Putin tried to help Trump, while other elements felt that the connection was not nearly so clear.
By the time the intelligence community assessment was released on Jan. 6, the FBI had signed on to the conclusion that Putin tried to help Trump. But House Intel investigators have reviewed the original intelligence that went into the intelligence community assessment, and they appear to think something was amiss.
Last week, when Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, who formally ran the investigation, revealed a few of the House report’s findings, he said he did not think it was possible to conclude definitively that Putin was trying to help Trump.
“It was clear that [Putin] was sowing discord in our elections, pitting one American against another, tried to influence it through social media and other things,” Conaway said, “but we couldn’t establish the same conclusion that the CIA did that they specifically wanted to help Trump.”
After Conaway spoke, some Republican members appeared to back away a bit from his words. But now, in the newly released findings, the committee supports Conaway’s statement.
The full Republican report on the Trump-Russia investigation will not be released for several weeks, while the intelligence community — yes, the same intelligence community discussed and criticized in the report — looks it over for classified information. And even when it is released, Republicans on the committee might prepare a separate report specifically on the Putin-Trump finding.
In the end, it is not clear if the committee will argue that the intelligence community assessment was wrong in assessing that Putin clearly favored Trump over Clinton or if it will argue that the intelligence community assessment’s conclusion is unreliable. The situation is murky, and it is impossible to know the real story. In any event, there is more, apparently, left to learn.
