Comm on Intelligence sen

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https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/

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wapo: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/senate-intelligence-trump-russia-report/2020/08/18/62a7573e-e093-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html

no lnx

National Security

Trump’s 2016 campaign chair was a ‘grave counterintelligence threat,’ had repeated contact with Russian intelligence, Senate panel finds

Karoun Demirjian and

Ellen Nakashima

August 18, 2020

President Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman posed a “grave counterintelligence threat” due to his interaction with people close to the Kremlin, according to a bipartisan Senate report released Tuesday that found extensive contacts between key campaign advisers and officials affiliated with Moscow’s government and intelligence services.

In its report, the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee states that Trump’s then-campaign chair Paul Manafort worked with a Russian intelligence officer “on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election,” including the idea that purported Ukrainian election interference was of greater concern.

It found that a Russian attorney who met with Manafort, along with the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and his son-in-law Jared Kushner at Trump Tower in 2016, had “significant connections” to the Kremlin. The information she offered them was also “part of a broader influence operation targeting the United States that was coordinated, at least in part with elements of the Russian government,” the report stated.

But the panel also concluded that the FBI’s handling of Russian threats to the election was “flawed” and that the bureau gave “unjustified credence” to allegations about Trump’s Russia ties made in a dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, “based on an incomplete understanding of Steele’s past reporting record.”

Document: Read the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election]

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s three-and-a-half year investigation stands as Congress’s only bipartisan examination of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The panel, significantly, agreed that the FBI overestimated Steel’s reliability and that Manafort and other aides exposed the campaign to undue Russian influence. But its leaders were noticeably divided along party lines in how they interpreted the report’s significance, and several committee members — including its acting chairman Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — endorsed dissenting conclusions about Trump’s own culpability.

The partisan divisions are a sign that the panel’s tome likely will not put to rest the political wrangling over how seriously to treat foreign interference in U.S. democracy as the country heads into its most divisive election in modern history.

“After more than three years of investigation by this Committee, we can now say with no doubt, there was no collusion,” a group of six panel Republicans, including Rubio, wrote in a statementinstead accusing the Democratic Party of coordinating with foreign actors to produce Steele’s dossier.

“In 2016, the Democratic Party, using a series of arm’s length transactions, hired a foreign citizen to seek out dirt on a political opponent, provided by foreign sources,” the Republicans wrote, attacking the FBI for “sloppy work and poor judgment.”

Five Democrat senators — including Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), the party’s 2020 vice-presidential nominee — asserted the report “unambiguously shows that members of the Trump Campaign cooperated with Russian efforts to get Trump elected.” Referring specifically to their findings on Manafort, the Democrats wrote, “This is what collusion looks like.”

The intelligence committee’s vice chairman, Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), who did not sign onto the Democrats’ dissenting views, noted “a breathtaking level of contacts between Trump officials and Russian government operatives that is a very real counterintelligence threat to our elections,” and he encouraged “all Americans to carefully review the documented evidence of the unprecedented and massive intervention campaign waged on behalf of then-candidate Donald Trump by Russians and their operatives and to reach their own independent conclusions.”

The committee’s past chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who oversaw the bulk of the investigation and also steered clear of the GOP’s dissent, struck a position in the middle.

“One of the Committee’s most important — and overlooked — findings is that much of Russia’s activities weren’t related to producing a specific electoral outcome, but attempted to undermine our faith in the democratic process itself,” he said in a statement. “Their aim is to sow chaos, discord, and distrust. Their efforts are not limited to elections. The threat is ongoing.”

Senate panel told Justice Dept. of suspicions over Trump family members’ Russia testimony

Burr and Warner launched the committee’s probe before Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 and sustained the bipartisan investigation over the following three and a half years, even as other Congressional investigations into the same matter faltered along partisan lines. Since the Senate Intelligence Committee began its probe, former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III also released a 448-page report on Russian interference in the 2016 election — and Trump was impeached and acquitted after Democrats accused him of coercing Ukrainian leaders to interfere in the 2020 election.

Though the committee’s probe covers much of the same turf as Mueller’s investigation, it was different in nature. Mueller was running a criminal probe; the Senate committee was conducting an intelligence investigation — a distinction that helps to explain some of nuanced differences between their conclusions.

The Senate panel’s probe, which was mostly driven by the committee’s bipartisan staff, included more than 200 witnesses and considered evidence relating to Russian disinformation, Trump’s personal, business and campaign contacts with Russians and the transition period following the 2016 election.

At one point, the document all but concludes that Trump aides were duped and manipulated by Russian interests they were too callow to understand.

“Russian officials, intelligence services, and others” acting in concert with the Kremlin “were capable of exploiting the transition team’s shortcomings,” the report concluded. “Based on the available information, it is possible — and even likely — that they did so.”

The report also presents a damning portrait of the Trump campaign’s hasty move in March 2016 to assemble a foreign policy team, asserting that it had recruited inexperienced people without thoroughly vetting them and thus potentially exposed itself to Russian influence.

“Ultimately,” the committee wrote, “the foreign policy team exposed the Trump Campaign to significant counterintelligence vulnerabilities.”

The committee pointed to Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who attempted to secure a face-to-face meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin through “highly suspicious” contacts with people close to the Russian government. Ultimately, investigators concluded, Papadopoulos “was not a witting co-optee of the Russian the Russian intelligence services. The panel also found that while Russia seemed to show an interest in campaign adviser Carter Page, investigators “found no indication that Page had useful Campaign information for the Russian intelligence services to extract, nor meaningful influence for them to exploit.”

The committee did find however that Putin personally directed the 2016 hack-and-leak campaign targeting the Democratic Party, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Clinton campaign. The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks “actively sought and played a key role in the Russian campaign and very likely knew it was assisting a Russian intelligence influence effort,” the report stated, surmising that a Russian military spy agency, known as the GRU, transferred hacked emails to WikiLeaks likely because it offered a more effective platform for publicity than the GRU’s own methods.

Yet investigators could not “reliably determine the extent of authentic, nonpublic knowledge” Trump’s friend Roger Stone had about WikiLeaks’s coming releases and shared with the campaign.

The panel noted that its investigation was hampered by several witnesses’ refusing interviews and to produce documents, citing Fifth Amendment rights that protect against self incrimination. These included Stone, Manafort and Rick Gates, the campaign’s deputy chair at that time. The panel’s request to interview Julian Assange was rebuffed.

The committee also outright accused Blackwater founder and Trump supporter Erik Prince of stonewalling its investigation, saying that it was “hampered by a lack of cooperation” and that his account of a controversial 2017 meeting in the Seychelles alongside a Russian official was “brief and deceptive.”

The committee previously released other volumes detailing aspects of its inquiry. Those reports focused on U.S. election security, Russia’s use of social media in disinformation campaigns, the Obama administration’s response to the perceived threat in 2016 and the intelligence community’s joint assessment that Russia had interfered in an attempt to tip the scales in Trump’s favor.

Yet the panel’s effort to maintain a bipartisan approach has not saved it from partisan scrutiny. Last year, the panel came under fire from Senate Republicans after issuing a subpoena for Donald Trump Jr. to come in for a second round of testimony.

After his testimony, Trump Jr. was one of several witnesses that the panel referred to the Justice Department for closer scrutiny over discrepancies between their testimony and that of Gates, the ex-deputy campaign chair who was a key witness in Mueller’s probe.

Earlier this year, Burr stepped aside as panel chairman after coming under scrutiny over stocks he sold in industries hit badly by the coronavirus pandemic. Rubio has been serving as acting chairman in his place.

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ref

no lnx

National Security

Senate panel told Justice Dept. of suspicions over Trump family members’ Russia testimony

Donald Trump Jr. departs Capitol Hill in June 2019 after meeting privately with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.]

Karoun Demirjian,

Ellen Nakashima and

Matt Zapotosky

August 15, 2020

The Republican and Democratic chairmen of the Senate Intelligence Committee notified federal prosecutors last year of their suspicion that several individuals, including President Trump’s family members and confidants, might have presented misleading testimony in the panel’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, people familiar with the matter said.

The list of individuals included the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, whose accounts of their pre-election meeting with a Russian lawyer were contradicted by the president’s former deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates in interviews that were part of the criminal investigation led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, these people said. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss what remains a highly politicized and sensitive matter.

Inside the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting: A droning Russian lawyer and hot pink jeans, but no Clinton dirt]

But the intelligence committee, one person said, reserved its harshest allegations for the president’s former chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, former campaign co-chair Sam Clovis and private security contractor Erik Prince, saying it had reason to believe all three had lied to congressional investigators — a potential felony.

The committee’s concerns were detailed in a formal letter sent to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., in June 2019, people familiar with the matter said. Existence of the letter was first reported by the Los Angeles Times late Friday night.

The Senate Intelligence Committee referred several individuals’ testimony to the Justice Department over the course of its 3½ -year probe, citing discrepancies in their accounts, three officials said.

The panel, which has prided itself on having pursued its investigation without the politically charged disruptions that have undermined similar probes undertaken by other congressional committees, already has issued reports affirming that the Russians worked to damage Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election while bolstering Trump. It is expected to release the final volume of its findings as soon as next week.

The committee’s referrals were signed by then-Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Vice Chairman Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), officials said. Some letters went to Mueller, whose investigation focused not only on Russia’s activities in 2016 but also on whether anyone within the Trump campaign conspired with those efforts. Others went to the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office.

It is unclear whether the Justice Department took action on the referrals. Officials there and with the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.

A referral is a tip that Congress suspects a crime was committed but does not by itself spark an investigation, let alone a prosecution. Prosecutors generally view referrals from Congress with suspicion, often seeing them as partisan attempts to embarrass political opponents — although this referral was made with bipartisan agreement. Others fall short of alleging serious legal wrongdoing.

Burr acknowledged in 2018 that the panel had made criminal referrals — and that “in a lot of those cases, those might be tied to lying to us.” At the time, he said the intelligence committee had interviewed more than 200 witnesses. His office declined to comment for this report.

According to the Los Angeles Times, which viewed a copy of the referral letter, the committee told the Justice Department than Bannon may have lied about his interactions with Prince and others regarding a meeting Prince held in the Seychelles with an official close to President Vladimir Putin.Prince had told Mueller’s team that he briefed Bannon on the meeting, which occurred before Trump’s inauguration in early 2017; Bannon denied the conversation took place.

Last year, shortly after a report was released detailing Mueller’s findings, the Democrat-led House Intelligence Committee made a criminal referral to the Justice Department for Prince, accusing him of intentionally misleading the panel during its examination of the 2016 election. The Times article also notes that Clovis was referred for possibly lying about his contacts with a Republican operative spearheading an effort to obtain undisclosed emails from a personal computer server belonging to Clinton.

William Burck, a lawyer for Bannon, declined to comment, saying “it’s impossible to respond to something I’ve never heard about before.”

Victoria Toensing, a lawyer for Clovis,said: “You mean former Chairman Burr, who is under investigation for insider trading, also doesn’t know the legalities of a false statement? Mr. Clovis testified at length before the special counsel’s grand jury and was never charged. After his testimony, we never heard again from the special counsel.”

The Justice Department has been investigating stock sales Burr made before the coronavirus pandemic crashed global markets, and in recent months seized his cellphone and executed a search warrant for his electronic communications. Burr stepped down as committee chairman amid the probe.

Matthew L. Schwartz, a lawyer for Prince, noted that Prince had testified to the House Intelligence Committee in November 2017 and his testimony has been public for years. That committee made a criminal referral in April 2019. “It unsurprisingly went nowhere,” Schwartz said in a statement. “If members of the Senate likewise made a referral — which we don’t know anything about — there would be nothing new for the Department of Justice to consider, nor is there any reason to question the Special Counsel’s decision to credit Mr. Prince and rely on him in drafting its report.”

Democrats examine Erik Prince’s statements on Seychelles meeting

Prince, according to a person familiar with the matter, never testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, though he provided a copy of his House testimony to that panel.

The letter sent to prosecutors last year was divided into two sections, according to two people familiar with its contents. The first named those suspected of making false statements: Bannon, Clovis and Prince.

Its second section raised concerns about other witnesses whose testimony was contradicted by Gates, though it did not pointedly make a false-statements allegation, people familiar with the letter said. In addition to Trump Jr., that section of the letter also cited Trump’s former communications director Hope Hicks and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Schiff says Donald Trump Jr. refused to answer some questions

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said Donald Trump Jr. did not answer some questions in a closed hearing on Dec. 6, 2017. (The Washington Post)

“We are fully confident in the testimony and information provided by Donald J. Trump, Jr.,” said Alan Futerfas, his lawyer. “In our view, this is a non-story.”

Trump Jr. says he’s ‘not at all’ worried about perjury charges

A lawyer for Manafort declined to comment. A representative for Kushner did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Hicks declined to comment immediately, citing a lack of familiarity with the referral.

Trump Jr., Kushner, Hicks and Manafort all either took part in or were involved in strategizing how to speak to the media about a June 2016 meeting at Manhattan’s Trump Tower with Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer promising damaging information about Clinton.

Trump Jr., who first sat for a lengthy interview with the Intelligence Committee investigators in late 2017 and returned under subpoena to speak with the full panel in June 2019, told investigators that he never informed his father about the Trump Tower meeting. But Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen told investigators working with Mueller that he recalled otherwise.

Cohen told Mueller’s team of being present when Trump Jr. “told his father that a meeting to obtain adverse information about Clinton was going forward,” according to a report detailing the special counsel’s findings. Cohen said he did not remember whether the meeting was connected to Russia, Mueller’s report said. He was later sentenced to three years in prison for, among other crimes, lying to Congress.

Gates, meanwhile, told Mueller’s team that he recalled that in the days before the Trump Tower meeting, Trump Jr. announced at a regular gathering of senior campaign staff and Trump family members that he had a lead on negative information about Clinton’s family foundation, according to the special counsel’s report. Among those present, Gates told Mueller, were Manafort, Hicks and Eric Trump, another of the president’s sons.

Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this report.

Karoun Demirjian

Karoun Demirjian is a national security reporter covering Capitol Hill, where she focuses on defense, foreign affairs, intelligence and policy matters concerning the Justice Department. She was previously a correspondent based in The Post's bureau in Moscow. Follow

Ellen Nakashima

Ellen Nakashima is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter covering intelligence and national security matters for The Washington Post. She joined The Post in 1995 and is based in Washington, D.C. Follow

Matt Zapotosky

Matt Zapotosky covers the Justice Department for The Washington Post's national security team. He has previously worked covering the federal courthouse in Alexandria and local law enforcement in Prince George's County and Southern Maryland. Follow

Volume II: Russia’s Use of Social Media

Volume II of the report is 85 pages long.

Like the first volume of the report issued by the Special Counsel investigation into the interference,^[20][21] the joint press statement issued by the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in October 2016,^[22] and the declassified Intelligence Community assessment released in January 2017,^[15] the second and fifth volumes of the report concluded that the Russian interference occurred primarily by hacking-and-dumping operations targeting the internal communications of the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Clinton campaign officials (specifically John Podesta) and active measures social media campaigns (particularly on Facebook and Twitter) to influence the electorate to vote for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the general election.^[30]

The second volume of the report notes that the active measures social media campaign also attempted to influence voters to vote for Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary elections, for Donald Trump over Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio in the Republican primary elections, Jill Stein as well as Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the general election, and targeted the consideration of Mitt Romney to serve as U.S. Secretary of State in the Trump administration with an opposition campaign during the Trump transition.^[31]

Other platforms identified by the second volume of the report as being used for Russian active measures on social media included Instagram, YouTube, Google+, Google Search, Gmail, Google Ads, Google Voice, Reddit, Tumblr, and LinkedIn, while other platforms were used as well.^[32] While the second volume of the report cites a 2016 study published by the NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence that found that entities supported by the Russian government have employed paid online trolls to post misleading information on Wikipedia in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the report did not identify Wikipedia as one of the Web 2.0 services used by the Russian government to influence voters in the 2016 presidential election.^[33]

Subsequent declassified Intelligence Community assessments and press statements released discussing Russian interference in the 2018 elections, the 2020 elections, and the 2022 elections have likewise concluded or stated that the interference occurred primarily by active measures social media influence campaigns and not by cyberattacks on U.S. elections infrastructure—including by spreading disinformation about the security of the elections infrastructure itself to undermine confidence in U.S. election processes and in democracy in the United States by the American public.^[43][b][c]

...

Volume V: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities

Volume V of the report, with 966 pages, was released to the public on August 18, 2020, albeit heavily redacted.^[49][50] The report concluded that "the Russian government engaged in an aggressive, multi-faceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election".^[49] The report investigated "many aspects of the counterintelligence threat posed by the Russian influence operation", which targeted both the Trump campaign and the election.^[50]

Findings on the hack and leak of Democratic Party material

The Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that Russian president Vladimir Putin had ordered the 2016 Democratic National Committee cyber attacks and the subsequent leaks of stolen material damaging to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.^[51]

The committee wrote that Trump's presidential campaign "sought to maximize the impact of those leaks to aid Trump's electoral prospects". The Trump campaign "created messaging strategies to promote and share" the material, and "encouraged further leaks". The Trump campaign tasked Trump associate Roger Stone to gather information about WikiLeaks' release of the material; Stone reported to Trump and senior campaign members.^[52]

Findings on Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik

The Senate Intelligence Committee assessed that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's "high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services" was a "grave counterintelligence threat".^[50] The foremost individual was Manafort's employee Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian.^[50] The committee identified Kilimnik as a "Russian intelligence officer"; describing that Manafort and Kilimnik had a "close and lasting relationship" even through the 2016 election.^[53] Manafort repeatedly tried to "secretly share internal Campaign information with Kilimnik", including "sensitive internal polling data or Campaign strategy".^[53]

The Senate Intelligence Committee introduced a new allegation regarding Kilimnik, that he "may have been connected" to the Russian military intelligence's hack and leak of Democratic Party material. However, the report's discussions on this topic are redacted.^[54] Manafort's connection with the Russian hack and leak operation is "largely unknown", but possible, given "two pieces of information" the committee found; the details of such information were also redacted.^[53]

Findings on the Transition

The Transition section of the report mentions that "Russia took advantage of members of the Transition Team's relative inexperience in government, opposition to Obama Administration policies, and Trump's desire to deepen ties with Russia to pursue unofficial channels through which Russia could conduct diplomacy."^[55][56]

Background on Page and Limitations on the Committee's Investigation

The Inspector General of the Department of Justice found serious FBI errors in the application for surveillance on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign aide, while concluding that Page's travels in Russia and his past connections with Russian intelligence officers justified the FBI's concerns.^[11][57] Despite Page producing electronic documents and sitting for an interview that lasted six and a half hours, "The Committee had significant challenges in its attempt to understand Page's activities, including his role as a foreign policy adviser to the Trump Campaign."^[11][58]

The Steele Dossier: Its Origins and Handling

The report notes that the Steele dossier, a private intelligence report written by Christopher Steele, alleging a "well-developed conspiracy of co-operation" between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, "found that the tradecraft reflected in the dossier is generally poor relative to IC standards; the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and many who the Committee spoke with at the FBI also found serious fault with Steele's tradecraft."^[11][59]

Republican and Democratic "additional views" and disagreements

The Senators' conclusions were sharply divided along party lines as to the degree of involvement by the Trump campaign and "whether to absolve or condemn the Trump campaign".^[60]

The New York Times wrote:

"The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, found insufficient evidence to accuse anyone associated with the Trump campaign of engaging in a criminal conspiracy with Russian intelligence officials conducting interference operations. But Mr. Mueller left unanswered the murkier question of what constitutes cooperation or collusion outside the context of a criminal violation. While the Senate report established broad bipartisan agreement about what happened in 2016, Democrats and Republicans could not agree whether those facts added up to collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government."^[60]

"Additional Views": Republicans

Senators Risch, Rubio, Blunt, Cotton, Cornyn, and Sasse stated:

"The committee found no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government in its efforts to meddle in the election... After more than three years of investigation by this Committee, we can now say with no doubt, there was no collusion."^[61][62][60]

Some Republican Senators wanted to "state more explicitly that Trump's campaign did not coordinate with Russia. They say that while the report shows the Russian government 'inappropriately meddled' in the election, 'then-candidate Trump was not complicit.'"^[63]

While the other GOP Senators signed the GOP "Additional Views" statement, Richard Burr, "the chairman who led the investigation", and Susan Collins did not sign it.^[63]

"Additional Views": Democrats

Senators Heinrich, Feinstein, Wyden, Harris, and Bennet stated:

"The Committee's bipartisan Report unambiguously shows that members of the Trump Campaign cooperated with Russian efforts to get Trump elected."^[64][60]

"It is our conclusion, based on the facts detailed in the Committee's Report, that the Russian intelligence services' assault on the integrity of the 2016 U.S. electoral process[,] and Trump and his associates' participation in and enabling of this Russian activity, represents one of the single most grave counterintelligence threats to American national security in the modern era."^[65][66]

Comparison to Mueller investigation

The Democratic senators described significant differences between the Mueller investigation and the Committee's report:

"While Mueller's was a criminal probe, the Senate investigation was a counterintelligence effort with the aim of ensuring that such interference wouldn't happen again."^[63]

The Senators wrote:

"There is also important additional context that should be provided to the reader regarding what the Committee's Report is, and what it is not. The Committee's Report does not duplicate the Special Counsel's investigation. The Special Counsel's work was criminal in nature, not a counterintelligence investigation. Counterintelligence investigations address intelligence questions pertaining to national security threats, not merely statutorily prohibited crimes. That is why the Committee pursued its investigation from a counterintelligence, perspective. And it is why the Special Counsel's inability to 'establish' a criminal conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and Russia does not convey the breadth and complexity of the threat presented by their actions."^[67]

Reactions

President Donald Trump

President Donald Trump, when asked about the report on August 18, 2020, said he "didn't read it".^[68][69]

Democrats

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer responded to the fifth volume release by saying "Despite nearly four years of repeated warnings from America’s national security officials, President Trump has failed to protect America’s elections and even opened the door for Vladimir Putin to again attack our country in the same insidious way."^[70]

Russia

Russian state news service TASS responded to the release of the fifth volume on August 18, citing a statement by Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for Russian president Vladimir Putin, saying "The Kremlin regrets that as the U.S. presidential elections in November 2020 approach, more and more reports of alleged attempts by Russia to interfere in the electoral process will appear," such statements "have nothing to do with the truth".^[71]

Notes

The committee had been led by Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), until he stepped down from the chair position when the FBI began a probe of his stock-trading activities.^[3]
Similarly, a report prepared for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee released in January 2018 detailed allegations of Russian government interference in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum including by active measures on social media,^[44] while the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament released a report in July 2020 that likewise noted that open source studies have concluded that Russian interference occurred in the referendum including by active measures on social media.^[45]
The Intelligence and Security Committee report also notes that open source studies have concluded that a Russian influence campaign occurred in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum,^[46] and both the Intelligence and Security Committee report and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee report both detail the hack-and-leak operation alleged to have been conducted by the Russian government during the 2017 French presidential election.^[47][48]

References

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ggl 7 25 SENATE report russia interference election rubio

[### Rubio Statement on Senate Intel Release of Volume 5 ...

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence | (.gov)

https://www.intelligence.senate.gov › 2020/08/18 › pres...](https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/2020/08/18/press-rubio-statement-senate-intel-release-volume-5-bipartisan-russia-report/)

Aug 18, 2020 — The Senate Intelligence Committee conducted a bipartisan and thorough investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election and undermine our ...

[### Senate panel finds Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. ...

PBS

https://www.pbs.org › newshour › politics › senate-pan...](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/senate-panel-finds-russia-interfered-in-the-2016-us-election)

Aug 18, 2020 — The Trump campaign's interactions with Russian intelligence services during the 2016 presidential election posed a “grave” counterintelligence threat, a Senate ...

[### S. Rept. 116-290 - RUSSIAN ACTIVE MEASURES ...

Congress.gov

https://www.congress.gov › senate-report](https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/116th-congress/senate-report/290/1)

Senate report on RUSSIAN ACTIVE MEASURES CAMPAIGNS AND INTERFERENCE IN THE 2016 U.S. ELECTION, VOLUMES I-V. This report is by the Intelligence (Select)

[### Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence United ...

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence | (.gov)

https://www.intelligence.senate.gov › 2020/08/18 › pub...](https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/2020/08/18/publications-report-select-committee-intelligence-united-states-senate-russian-active-measures/)

Aug 18, 2020 — Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 US Election Report Volumes IV Together with Additional Views

[### Senate report outlines 'grave' Russian threat in 2016 ...

Roll Call

https://rollcall.com › 2020/08/18 › senate-intelligence-c...](https://rollcall.com/2020/08/18/senate-intelligence-committee-russian-interference-2016-election-report/)

Aug 18, 2020 — The Senate Intelligence Committee released its final report on Russian interference in the 2016 elections, detailing ties with the Trump ...

[### Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian ...

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Senate_Intelligence_C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Intelligence_Committee_report_on_Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_presidential_election)

The Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the United States presidential election, officially titled Report of the Select ...

[### A Collusion Reading Diary: What Did the Senate ...

Lawfare

https://www.lawfaremedia.org › article › collusion-readi...](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/collusion-reading-diary-what-did-senate-intelligence-committee-find)

by T Carney · 2023 · Cited by 3 — Our summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's final report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

[### Senate Panel Details Ties Between 2016 Trump Campaign ...

The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › U.S. › Politics](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/politics/senate-intelligence-russian-interference-report.html)

Nov 4, 2020 — Kilimnik to Russia's major election interference operations, conducted by the intelligence service known as the G.R.U.. Democrats highlighted Mr ...

[### Republican Senators Misrepresent Their Own Russia Report

Lawfare

https://www.lawfaremedia.org › article › republican-sen...](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/republican-senators-misrepresent-their-own-russia-report)

Aug 18, 2020 — The Senate Intelligence Committee's Russia report is a serious piece of work. Too bad its authors are not taking it seriously.

[### Senate Releases Final Report On Russia's Interference In ...

NPR

https://www.npr.org › 2020/08/18 › senate-releases-fina...](https://www.npr.org/2020/08/18/903616315/senate-releases-final-report-on-russias-interference-in-2016-election)

Aug 18, 2020 — A GOP-led Senate panel released a report Tuesday that details extensive contacts between Trump campaign advisers and Russian intelligence in 2016.

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320 insider trading

https://www.propublica.org/article/senator-dumped-up-to-1-6-million-of-stock-after-reassuring-public-about-coronavirus-preparedness

warner dem vice chair

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Select_Committee_on_Intelligence

...The Select Committee on Intelligence was preceded by the Church Committee (1975). Senator Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) became the first chairman of the committee when it was established until 1979.^[5]

Former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet was staff director of the committee when David Boren of Oklahoma was its chairman. The committee was the center of much controversy and contention during the run-up to the war in Iraq in 2002 and 2003, when chairmanship of the committee changed hands following the November 2002 election. Among the committee staff members at that time were: Pete Dorn, Professional Staff Member;^{[clarification} ^needed] Jim Hensler, Deputy Staff Director; Vicki Divoll, General Counsel; Steven Cash, Professional Staff Member & Counsel; and Alfred Cumming, Minority Staff Director.

On July 9, 2004, the committee issued the Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, and on June 5, 2008, it issued a long-delayed portion of its "phase two" investigative report, which compared the prewar public statements made by top Bush administration officials to justify the invasion with the intelligence information that was available to them at that time.^[6]

In a March 6, 2008, letter to the Senate leadership, 14 of the 15 then members of the Committee proposed the creation of a new Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Intelligence to prepare the annual intelligence budget.^[7] The proposed Subcommittee, on which members of the Intelligence Committee would be heavily represented, would increase the Committee's influence and leverage over executive branch intelligence agencies, and require continuing disclosure of the annual budget for the National Intelligence Program. The proposal has been opposed by the leadership of the Senate Appropriations Committee, however.^[8]

In 2013, and beyond, the SSCI received renewed attention in the wake of Edward Snowden's disclosures regarding the NSA surveillance of communications. Senator Dianne Feinstein and the SSCI made several statements on the matter, one of which was notably disputed: that the NSA tracked US citizens locations via cellphone. Later, the SSCI Staff Director, David Grannis, claimed that the NSA did not collect cellphone location, claiming the Senator was "speaking extemporaneously".^[9] The SSCI later came to prominence in relation to voting to publish in March 2014^[10] and then publishing in December 2014 of a report on the policies of the CIA on torture.

Beginning in 2017, the SSCI has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, possible incriminating links between members of the Russian government and Donald Trump's presidential campaign, and the security of election processes in the United States.^[11]

Members, 116th Congress

Majority	Minority
Richard Burr, North Carolina, Chairman Jim Risch, Idaho Marco Rubio, Florida Susan Collins, Maine Roy Blunt, Missouri Tom Cotton, Arkansas John Cornyn, Texas Ben Sasse, Nebraska	Mark Warner, Virginia, Vice Chairman Dianne Feinstein, California Ron Wyden, Oregon Martin Heinrich, New Mexico Angus King, Maine^[12] Kamala Harris, California Michael Bennet, Colorado
Ex officio	Ex officio
Jim Inhofe, Oklahoma Mitch McConnell, Kentucky	Jack Reed, Rhode Island Chuck Schumer, New York

Source: Member list^[13]

Members, 115th Congress

Majority	Minority
Richard Burr, North Carolina, Chairman Jim Risch, Idaho Marco Rubio, Florida Susan Collins, Maine Roy Blunt, Missouri James Lankford, Oklahoma Tom Cotton, Arkansas John Cornyn, Texas	Mark Warner, Virginia, Vice Chairman Dianne Feinstein, California, Ron Wyden, Oregon Martin Heinrich, New Mexico Angus King, Maine^[14] Joe Manchin, West Virginia Kamala Harris, California
Ex officio	Ex officio
Jim Inhofe, Oklahoma Mitch McConnell, Kentucky	Jack Reed, Rhode Island Chuck Schumer, New York

Source: Member List^[15]

Chairs

===

russia nra sen intel comm chair?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/senate-intelligence-wants-documents-on-nras-russia-trip

betsy woodruff

Senate intelligence committee has asked the National Rifle Association to provide documents on its connections to Russia—including documents related to a 2015 trip some of its top leaders made to Moscow. That’s according to two sources briefed on the committee’s activities.

The NRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Spokespersons for Sen. Richard Burr, the intelligence committee chair, and Sen. Mark Warner, the panel’s ranking member, declined to comment on the record.

The NRA’s Russia connections have drawn growing public scrutiny after a key figure in Russian outreach to the powerful gun lobby, Maria Butina, was indicted in July on charges of being an undeclared Russian operative connected to the country’s intelligence apparatus. Butina sought to use guns as a lever to tilt the Republican Party in a pro-Kremlin direction, creating a political firestorm for the NRA in the wake of her arrest. The intelligence committee’s document request is just one part of the aftermath.

Butina, whose Russian political patron Alexander Torshin is a senior figure in the country’s powerful central bank, ran a Russian gun-rights organization called the Right to Bear Arms. In December 2015, the group sponsored an NRA delegation to come to Moscow for a week. NRA dignitaries also met with another influential Russian, the former deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin. Torshin subsequently came under U.S. sanctions; Rogozin had been under sanctions since 2014.

Товарищ

Kremlin & GOP Bigwigs Have a New Friend

Tim Mak

Former NRA President David Keene and soon-to-be president Peter Brownell were both on the trip. Accompanying them were Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, NRA donors Jim Gregory and Arnold and Hilary Goldschlager, and Jim Liberatore, the president and CEO of the Outdoor Channel.

The intelligence committee isn’t the only Senate panel interested in the trip. The Senate Finance Committee has for months sought NRA documents about the controversial excursion.

Earlier this year, the NRA faced persistent questioning from the Finance Committee over the trip and whether it received money from Russia. The NRA, in a series of letters to the committee, initially denied receiving money from Russia. But in an April 10 letter to Sen. Ron Wyden, its general counsel John Frazer acknowledged receiving “a total of approximately $2512.85 from people associated Russian addresses” and “about $525” from two Russian nationals living in the United States. It also acknowledged “membership dues” from Torshin, a non-voting life member of the NRA since 2012.

“[G]iven the extraordinarily time-consuming and burdensome nature of your requests, we must respectfully decline to engage in this beyond the clear answers we have already provided,” Frazer wrote in April, three months before Butina’s arrest.

The heightened congressional scrutiny of the NRA comes as one of its former top attorneys, William Brewer III, has faced legal challenges of his own.

In September, federal Judge Liam O’Grady chastised the Texas attorney for failing to disclose that a judge in Texas had sanctioned him for more than $133,000 for using an unethical polling practice to influence a jury pool. Brewer challenged that judge’s move, and an appellate court upheld the penalty. The appellate court’s ruling noted that the judge who first sanctioned Brewer found his attitude in that process to be “dismissive and uncaring.”

When Brewer appeared before a Virginia federal court to represent the NRA—in litigation over its “Carry Guard” insurance program for gun owners who shoot people—he asserted that he had not “been reprimanded in any court.” When the judge learned about his prior sanction, he yanked him off the case, as *Texas Lawyer* detailed.

Brewer has said he didn’t commission the poll, according to Texas Lawyer, and that he neglected to reveal the sanction to O’Grady because he was appealing it to Texas’s highest state court. His firm still represents the NRA.

https://www.alternet.org/senate-intel-committee-splits-nunes-led-house-panel-agrees-putin-interfered-2016-help-trump

Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday split from their colleagues on the House Intelligence Committee, agreeing with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to help then-candidate Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton.

The announcement of the completed review of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Russian activities in the 2016 U.S. elections was announced in a press release from committee chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) on Wednesday.

“We so no reason to dispute the [IC] conclusions,” Burr said. “There is no doubt that Russia undertook an unprecedented effort to interfere with out 2016 elections.

Committee vice chairman Mark Warner (D-CA) agreed the ICA conclusions “were accurate and on point,” adding Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the interference himself “for the purpose of helping Donald Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton.”

The Senate intel committee’s conclusions are markedly different than those reached by the House Intelligence Committee, led by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA). In a 250-page report, House Republicans said they came to "concurrence with the Intelligence Community Assessment's judgments, except with respect to Putin's supposed preference for candidate Trump.”

Senate Intel Cmte Chair @SenatorBurr: “Committee staff have spent 14 months reviewing the sources, tradecraft, and analytic work (of the ICA findings on Russian meddling in #2016), and we see no reason to dispute the conclusions.”