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Senate Panel Says Russia Worked To Help Trump In 2016 Election

Senate Panel Says Russia Worked To Help Trump In 2016 Election
Senate Panel Says Russia Worked To Help Trump In 2016 Election
 The United States Senate Intelligence Committee found that the Kremlin undertook a concerted campaign to meddle in the 2016 presidential election on behalf of Donald Trump as the Republican-led panel issued its fifth and final report on Tuesday in its inquiry into political interference.

The study (PDF) also reported that the WikiLeaks website played a central role in Russia's effort to exploit the 2016 election, and probably knew that it was funded by Russian intelligence.

The study purposely refuses to come to a definitive conclusion as to whether there is ample proof that the campaign of President Trump orchestrated or colluded with Russia to swing the election to him and away from Democrat Hillary Clinton, leaving its results open to political interpretation.

The report alleges that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort worked with Russians, including oligarch Oleg Deripaska, before and after the 2016 election that pitted Trump against Clinton.

This describes significant connections between Trump associates and Russians, identifying a strong professional relationship, for example, between Trump campaign manager Paul Mananfort and Konstantin Kilimnik,  who is the committee describes without equivocation as a Russian intelligence officer.

The panel found Manafort's role and proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence, saying his "high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services ... represented a grave counterintelligence threat".

The report notes how Manafort shared internal Trump campaign polling data with Kilimnik and says there is "some evidence" that Kilimnik may have been connected to the Kremlin's operation to hack and leak Democratic emails, though it does not describe that evidence. In addition, the report says that "two pieces of information" raise the possibility of Manafort’s potential connection to those operations, but what follows next in the document is blacked out.

According to the Senate paper, Russia was attempting to discredit inquiries into its role in electoral meddling.

"From late 2016 to at least January 2020, the Committee identified multiple Russian-government actors regularly circulating conflicting false narratives that sought to undermine investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections and disseminate false information about the 2016 events," the report said.

The Senate panel described its report, totaling more than 1,300 pages, as "the most comprehensive description to date of Russia's activities and the threat they posed". The bipartisan investigation lasted almost three and a half years, much longer than the other probes.

The latest assessments were contained in the fifth and final chapter of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on allegations that Russia sought to help Trump defeat Clinton.

Previous chapters have ratified US spy agencies' findings, made public in January 2017, that Russia had sought to help Trump in 2016 by denigrating Clinton, making it harder for her to win, and harming her presidency if she did.

A group of Republicans on the panel presented the report with "additional views" that it should state more explicitly that Trump's campaign did not coordinate with Russia. But Democrats on the panel put forward their own views, arguing that such collaboration is clearly shown in the study.

The most comprehensive public account of the 2016 election debacle is likely to be the last chapter of the committee report released as Trump prepares to face off against Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.


SOURCE: News agencies

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