The US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, dominated by the Republican majority, announced on Monday that it has found no evidence of collusion between Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russia during the 2016 US presidential campaign.
Republican members of the commission said they had completed their investigation of Russian interference, and published on a page their main conclusions. They should be immediately challenged by the Democratic members, who have denounced for months the partisan conduct of this parliamentary inquiry, in order, according to them, to protect the Republican President.
Among the conclusions announced Monday, elected officials deny that the US intelligence services, announced in January 2017, on the alleged preference of Vladimir Putin for Donald Trump in 2016 against Hillary Clinton.
Republicans take note of a number of Russian cyberattacks against US political institutions in 2015 and 2016, including social networks. But they criticize the administration’s “failing response” before the election, and say they have investigated how Russian sources have fed an anti-Trump search file funded by Camp Clinton.
Finally, elected officials highlight “problematic contacts between senior officials of the intelligence community [of the Obama era, Ed] and the media,” according to the summary posted by the commission Monday.
The report, which is over 150 pages long, contains more than 40 “initial conclusions” and more than 25 recommendations. He will be presented to the Democratic minority on Tuesday for comment. The committee will then have to vote to submit the report to a declassification procedure so that it can be made public.
This is not the only congressional survey on Russia. The Senate Intelligence Committee is finalizing its own independently, and unlike the House, a majority and minority are working together to publish a joint report.