Russia helped Trump in 2016: US Senate panel says, breaking with House

Washington: The Senate Intelligence Committee has determined that the US intelligence community was correct in assessing that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election with the aim of helping then-candidate Donald Trump, contradicting findings House Republicans reached last month.

"We see no reason to dispute the [intelligence community's] conclusions," the committee's chairman, Senator Richard Burr, a Republican, said on Wednesday in a joint statement with its vice chair, Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, who added: "Our staff concluded that the ... conclusions were accurate and on point. The Russian effort was extensive, sophisticated, and ordered by President Putin himself for the purpose of helping Donald Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton."

This marks the second of four interim findings the intelligence committee has said it will publicise before tackling the more consequential question of whether Trump and his associates colluded with Russia to influence the election's outcome, allegations the president has denied and sought to discredit. The committee, which earlier this month released related findings on election security, is expected to publish a comprehensive final report this fall.

Wednesday's announcement comes amid growing Republican scrutiny of the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, whose team also is examining whether Trump's campaign coordinated with the Kremlin and if the president obstructed justice in a bid to limit the probe's scope.

Senator Mark Warner at the South by SouthWest conference in Austin.Credit: Bloomberg

The Senate committee's findings clash with the House GOP's determination that the intelligence community did not follow its own best practices in concluding the Kremlin favoured Trump in the election. The dispute - and the questions it now raises about which record of events is most accurate - could complicate the Republican Party's messaging heading into the 2018 election season.

Trump has taken umbrage at the intelligence community's determination that the Kremlin favoured his candidacy over Clinton's. The president cheered the House Intelligence Committee's report, claiming on Twitter that it vindicated him by finding there was no evidence his campaign colluded with Russia.

Although the Senate Intelligence Committee has yet to weigh in on the collusion allegations, Burr and Warner have hinted for days that their panel's interim findings on the intelligence community would depart from those reached by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee. "I'm not sure that the House was required to substantiate every conclusion with facts," Burr told reporters last week, promising the Senate panel would "have the facts to show for" its conclusions.

Warner said Monday that, "Everyone that we've ever had testify still stands by the full findings of the ICA," referring to the intelligence community's assessment. "We've had all the Obama officials, we've had all the Trump officials. Every person," he added.

Asked on Wednesday about the discrepancy between the two panels' conclusions, Representative Devin Nunes, a Republican from California, the House Intelligence Committee's chairman said: "That's nice." He declined to elaborate. Nunes, who became the subject of an ethics inquiry last year, delegated day-to-day oversight of the panel's Russia investigation to Representative Michael Conaway, Republican of Texas, but remained peripherally involved, approving subpoenas and other related actions.

Conaway's office did not immediatley repond to a request for comment.

House Democrats, who roundly disagreed with the House GOP's findings, praised the Senate Intelligence Committee's conclusions. Representative Adam Schiff, the House intelligence panel's ranking member, said in a statement that he "fully concur[s] with the conclusion of the bipartisan leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee that the ICA's determination that Russia sought to help the Trump campaign, hurt Hillary Clinton and sow discord in the United States is fully supported by the evidence."

On Wednesday, Senate Intelligence Committee members met in closed session to discuss their findings with former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA director John Brennan, and former National Security Agency director Admiral Mike Rogers. None has wavered from the conclusions about Russian interference in the election, according to senators who were in the room.

Former FBI director James Comey had also been invited to testify about the findings to the panel, but did not attend.

Washington Post