A fifth and final (redacted) report released by the Senate intelligence committee panel that spent three years investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election provides new details about Donald Trump’s relationship with Moscow, concluding that the Kremlin launched an aggressive effort to skew the results of the vote in Donald Trump’s favour.
The panel found that that the Russian government meddled in the 2016 election to help Trump become president, Kremlin’s intelligence apparatus viewed Trump’s aides as easy to manipulate, and that people in Trump’s close circle were eager for help from Russia.
The nearly 1,000-page document goes beyond the last investigation into the matter by special counsel Robert Mueller, and lays out connections between Trump and his top aides with Russian government officials in the months leading up to the election, most notably the link between former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Konstantin V. Kilimnik, a Russian career intelligence officer. The report describes close ties between the two, having worked together for over a decade in Ukraine, and notes the possibility of Kilimnik’s involvement in the GRU’s hacking and dumping of Democratic party emails. It also states that Manafort’s position and proximity to Trump, and willingness to share information with Russian affiliates represented a “grave counterintelligence threat”.
Additionally, the document states that WikiLeaks played a key role in Russia’s effort to assist Trump’s campaign against Hillary Clinton, and likely knew it was helping Moscow. It accuses Russian President Vladimir Putin of personally directing efforts to hack computer networks and accounts of the Democratic Party, and leak controversial information about Clinton, and other Kremlin-associated actors of consistently spreading misinformation about the events of 2016.
The exhaustive report is likely to be the most definitive public account of the 2016 election controversy. When asked about it, Trump said, “I don’t know anything about it. I didn’t read it,” adding that it was “all a hoax”.
The report, which according to the committee is “the most comprehensive description to date of Russia’s activities and the threat they posed”, however, does not come to a final conclusion about whether there is enough evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to sway the election in its favour, thereby leaving its findings open to partisan interpretation. Some Republicans on the panel have asked for explicit language in the document stating that Trump did not coordinate with Russia, but Democrats have argued that the report clearly points to such cooperation.
GOP Senate Report Says Russia Aggressively Meddled in 2016 US Election
The document says Russia used Manafort and WikiLeaks to boost Trump.
August 19, 2020
US President Donald J. Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. SOURCE: BBC/REUTERS