washington post trump tries to force ukraine to meddle in the 2020 election

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”. elections and spread false information about the events of 2016,” the report said. “The Committee observed numerous Russian-government actors from late 2016 to at least January 2020 consistently spreading overlapping false narratives which sought to discredit investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Russia tried to discredit investigations into its role in election meddling, according to the Senate document. 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. 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.

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”. Trump tells Putin ‘don’t meddle’ in US elections It lays out significant contacts between Trump associates and Russians, describing for instance a close professional relationship between Trump campaign chairman Paul Mananfort and Konstantin Kilimnik, who the committee describes without equivocation as a Russian intelligence officer. The report purposely does not come to a final conclusion about whether there is enough evidence that President Trump’s campaign coordinated or colluded with Russia to sway the election to him and away from Democrat Hillary Clinton, leaving its findings open to partisan interpretation.įormer Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort worked with Russians, the report alleges, including oligarch Oleg Deripaska, before during and after the 2016 election that pitted Trump against Clinton.

The report (PDF) also alleged the WikiLeaks website played a key role in Russia’s effort to influence the 2016 election and likely knew it was assisting Russian intelligence. The United States Senate intelligence committee concluded that the Kremlin launched an aggressive effort to meddle in the 2016 presidential contest on behalf of Donald Trump as the Republican-led panel on Tuesday released its fifth and final report in its investigation into election interference.

Washington post trump tries to force ukraine to meddle in the 2020 election