Release of report formally shuts down the House investigation into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian hackers
The House committee responsible for the congressional Russia investigation has voted on Thursday, March 22 to release the Republican members’ report, which found that there was no evidence of collusion between Russia and the presidential campaign for Donald Trump.
The vote, which was along party lines, formally shuts down the House’s nearly year-long investigation.
“Today we are one step closer to delivering answers to the questions the American people have been asking for over a year,” Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), the Republican leading the probe, said in a statement.
Earlier this month, the Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee found that there was no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government to sway the 2016 election in Trump’s favor, despite concerning events that were revealed over the course of the last year.
In the year that the committee has been investigating, it rebuked Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page for providing an “incomplete” account of his questionable trip to Moscow in July 2016.
The report also found that associates of Trump had “ill-advised” interactions with the controversial website WikiLeaks, which the IC say helped in Russia’s efforts to propagate hacked emails from the Democratic Party and then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Most shockingly was the discovery that the president’s son Donald Trump, Jr. had an encounter with a Russian government official at a National Rifle Association event in 2016, which according to the report was one of the several “possible” attempts by Moscow to create a backchannel (a covert communication channel) with Trump’s transition team after the election.
Despite the findings which have raised more questions from the Democratic committee members, the Republican leaders concluded that
“Possible Russian efforts to set up a ‘back channel’ with Trump associates after the election suggest the absence of collusion during the campaign, since the communication associated with collusion would have rendered such a ‘back channel’ unnecessary,” committee Republicans wrote.
The Democratic minority view — which posits that there is much more to inquire about and opposes the closing of the probe — will be turned over on Monday, March 26. Both reports are in the hands of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) for declassification.
Unsurprisingly, the Democratic minority in the House intelligence committee has criticized its Republican counterparts. It’s unclear why Republicans have claimed there is evidence of collusion — the GOP has declined to discuss their decision with the media — but ranking committee member Rep. Adam Schiff of California suggests partisan loyalty is the culprit.
“Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee protected President Trump at the cost of conducting a serious investigation,” Schiff said after the Republican committee members announced their decision. “Russian interference was successful because the beneficiary of their help has refused to condemn it. The lack of a serious investigation by the GOP is an invitation for Russians to do it again.”
In their initial announcement that they were closing the investigation, committee Republicans have concluded that Russia was responsible for efforts to undermine American political institutions throughout the 2016 election.
They have found that Russian hackers staged a pattern of attacks on democracy through using social media to establish partisan strife among users and lodging complex cyber operations that “continue to present a profound threat.”
Trump and his perceived ties to Russia have been a topic of discussion since the former reality star was first elected into office. This week, Trump was widely criticized for congratulating Russian President Vladimir Putin for his election win, despite explicit demands from the White House to not do so.
The House committee’s investigation does not affect that of special counsel Robert Mueller’s independent probe, which is separate from the House investigation. However, Democrats fear that the soon-to-be-released report could sidetrack Mueller’s team.
“It really is a fundamentally flawed document, and there’s not much that can rescue it,” Schiff said on Thursday.
