Senate Intel Committee Finds That Russia Acted to Aid Trump in the 2016 Election
The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee offered support for the intelligence community in a report finding that Russia acted to aid President Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In their report…
The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee offered support for the intelligence community in a report finding that Russia acted to aid President Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
In their report, which was released on Tuesday, the Senate Intel Committee stated, “The Committee found the presents a coherent and well-constructed intelligence basis for the case of unprecedented Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
In their assessment — released publicly in January of 2017 — the intelligence community wrote:
“We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.”
The Senate Intel Committee’s report is mostly redacted but the non-redacted version offers several conclusions, including that the Steele dossier “did not inform the analysis of the Intelligence Community Assessment,” as Politico reporter Kyle Cheney points out.
In tweets, Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) stopped short of noting that the report found that Russia aided Trump in the 2016 election, but said that Russian interference should be considered “the new normal.”
Ranking Member Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) was more blunt in his response, saying, “The ICA correctly found the Russians interfered in our 2016 election to hurt Secretary Clinton and help the candidacy of Donald Trump. Our review of the highly classified ICA and underlying intelligence found that this and other conclusions were well-supported.”
The bipartisan Senate findings break with President Donald Trump, who has criticized reports on the intelligence community’s findings on Russia, saying at rally in February, “It’s disinformation — that’s the only thing they’re good at, they’re not good at anything else, the get-nothing, the do-nothing Democrats — that Putin wants to make sure I get elected.”
Lawmakers have already been reportedly warned that Russia is allegedly aiming to interfere in the 2020 presidential election — a report Russia has denied.