In a far-reaching account of Russia’s efforts to compromise the 2016 presidential election, the Senate Intelligence Committee offered new details Tuesday on the roles played by Donald Trump’s campaign advisers and their willingness to take advantage of a Kremlin-directed attempt to undermine the candidacy of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Across nearly 1,000 pages, the Republican-led Senate panel not only documented the interactions of Trump campaign officials with Russian contacts but faulted the FBI, in part, for providing a “veneer of credibility” to an uncorroborated dossier that sought to disparage Trump in the run-up to the 2016 election.
Paul Manafort (and Konstantin Kilimnik)
Trump’s former campaign chairman was singled out for some of the harshest criticism by the committee, which cast the high-flying political consultant as “a grave counterintelligence threat.”
For the first time, the committee unequivocally identified Manafort business associate Konstantin Kilimnik as “a Russian intelligence officer.” The committee’s assessment of Kilimnik went further than an investigation of Russian election interference prepared by Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller.
Before joining the Trump campaign in March 2016, Manafort “directly and indirectly” communicated with Kilimnik, according to the Senate report, and “on numerous occasions, Manafort sought to secretly share internal campaign information” with the Russian operative.
Read it yourself:Senate Intelligence Committee report, more on Manafort and Kilimnik pages 158-169
After dual convictions on financial fraud charges in Alexandria, Virginia, and Washington, arising from the Mueller investigation, Manafort was sentenced to more than seven years in prison. In May, he was released to home confinement because of the risk posed by the coronavirus pandemic in federal prison.
Roger Stone (and WikiLeaks)
Stone, the self-described political dirty-trickster, gets his share of attention in the Senate report, but it is not likely to please Trump, his longtime friend.
The Senate report found that Trump spoke with Stone about back-channel efforts to communicate with the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks about the release of emails stolen by Russian hackers that were damaging to Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.
Trump told Mueller’s team, in written responses to investigators’ questions, that he did not recall discussing WikiLeaks with Stone.
“Despite Trump’s recollection, the committee assesses that Trump did, in fact, speak with Stone about WikiLeaks and with members of his campaign about Stone’s access (to the group) on multiple occasions,” the report said.
Read:More on Stone, Trump and WikiLeaks pages 222-251
Stone was convicted of lying to Congress about his interactions with the Trump campaign and Wikileaks. He was set to begin serving his 40-month sentence when Trump granted him clemency.
Donald Trump Jr. (and Trump Tower)
Russia’s effort to influence the campaign, the Senate panel concluded, extended to Trump’s family and the base of the real estate development enterprise: Trump Tower in New York.
Senate officials concluded that in a meeting June 9, 2016, (page 332) with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower, “it was the intent of the campaign participants in the meeting, particularly Donald Trump Jr., to receive derogatory information that would be of benefit to the campaign from a source known … to have connections to the Russian government.”
Investigators “found no reliable evidence that information of benefit to the Trump campaign” was provided during the meeting.
There also was no evidence that Trump had advance knowledge of the meeting.
Nevertheless, investigators concluded that the offer of information was part of a “broader influence operation targeting the United States that was coordinated, at least in part, with elements of the Russian government.”
Christopher Steele (and the FBI)
The FBI’s investigation into Russian interference did not escape scrutiny from Senate investigators.
The committee seized on the bureau’s handling of a dossier, prepared before the 2016 election by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, that purported to document Trump’s activities and associations in Moscow.
The FBI, including the bureau’s leadership, considered the unverified information as “extremely sensitive and potentially relevant to ongoing investigations.” Senate investigators concluded that Steele’s reporting was “assigned credibility based on flawed understanding of his past work with the FBI.”
“The dossier joined a stream of intelligence and investigative reporting about Russia’s attempts to interfere in the 2016 elections,” even though the FBI “never fully explored the allegations in the dossier or Steele’s trade-craft,” the senators said.
Senate investigators said the FBI’s efforts to investigate the allegations in the dossier were focused largely on identifying Steele’s source network. Though the bureau attempted to corroborate the dossier’s contents, the Senate panel concluded that effort was “lacking in both thoroughness and rigor.”
Trump and his allies in Congress have repeatedly used the discredited dossier as a bludgeon to disparage the Mueller investigation and the Senate inquiry.
More: Start reading on the origins of the Steele dossier on page 846
Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/08/18/senate-intel-panel-offers-playbook-russian-interference-2016/5603001002/
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