Mark Hosenball
The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee concurred with spy
agencies’ findings that Russia sought to boost now-President Donald
Trump’s 2016 campaign, according to a bipartisan report declassified and
released on Tuesday.
The report found that the Central
Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of
Investigation had coherent and well-constructed grounds to conclude that
Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed to undercut Trump’s 2016 rival,
Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Trump, who has consistently bristled at
suggestions that foreign interference helped his upset 2016 victory,
has sought to discredit the intelligence agencies’ findings as the
politically charged work of a “deep state.” Russia has denied that it
was behind any efforts to meddle in U.S. elections.
The Senate
report - the fourth of five chapters so far released - found that the
CIA and FBI had high confidence in their findings that Russia was trying
to boost Trump’s chances, while the NSA was only moderately confident
on that point.
It said that interviews with officials who drafted
and prepared the intelligence community assessment had “affirmed that
analysts were under no political pressure to reach specific
conclusions.”
The report comes as Trump seeks re-election,
looking ahead to a November match-up in which he will likely face
Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden.
The committee report
on the Intelligence Community Assessment, is heavily redacted, which
sources familiar with the document said was because it is extensively
based on documentation and testimony that remain highly classified.
“One
of the ICA’s most important conclusions was that Russia’s aggressive
interference efforts should be considered ‘the new normal,’” said the
committee’s chairman, Republican Senator Richard Burr.
The
committee is still working on a final chapter summarizing its
investigation. Congressional sources said that unlike the first four
chapters, which present conclusions agreed upon by the committee’s
Republican majority and Democratic minority, the fifth chapter will
reflect at least some partisan differences over the extent to which
interference by Russia influenced the result of the 2016 U.S.
presidential election.
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