WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday praised a draft Republican report from the House intelligence committee which said there was no collusion or coordination between his campaign and Russia, thanking the panel for their conclusion.
After a yearlong investigation into Russian meddling, Texas Rep. Mike Conaway announced Monday the committee has finished interviewing witnesses and Republicans have already completed a draft report saying there is no evidence of collusion. They are expected to share the document with Democrats for the first time on Tuesday.
Conaway is the Republican leading the House probe, one of several investigations on Russian meddling in the 2016 elections.
The finding enraged Democrats who said Republicans are protecting the president by cutting the probe short. But it thrilled Trump, who told reporters Tuesday morning the White House is “very, very happy” with the GOP conclusions.
“It was a powerful decision that left no doubt and I want to thank the House intelligence committee,” Trump said.
Conaway previewed some of the report’s findings Monday, but said the public will not see the full document until Democrats have reviewed it and the intelligence community has decided what information can become public, a process which could take weeks. Democrats are expected to issue a separate report with far different conclusions.
“We found no evidence of collusion,” Conaway told reporters, suggesting those who believe there was collusion are reading too many spy novels. “We found perhaps some bad judgment, inappropriate meetings, inappropriate judgment in taking meetings. But only Tom Clancy or Vince Flynn or someone like that could take this series of inadvertent contacts with each other, or meetings or whatever, and weave that into sort of a fiction page-turner, spy thriller.”
In addition to the statement on coordination with Russians, the draft challenges an assessment made after the 2016 election that Russian meddling was an effort to help Trump. The January 2017 assessment revealed the FBI, CIA and NSA had concluded the Russian government, at the direction of President Vladimir Putin, waged a covert influence campaign to interfere in the election with the goal of hurting Democrat Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and helping Trump’s campaign.
House Intelligence Committee officials said they spent hundreds of hours reviewing raw source material used by the intelligence services in the assessment and it did not meet the appropriate standards to make the claim about helping Trump. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the intelligence material.
Conaway said there will be a second report just dealing with the intelligence assessment and its credibility.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a statement soon after the GOP announcement, saying it stood by the intelligence community’s findings. DNI spokesman Brian Hale said the office will review the findings of the committee’s report.
According to Conaway, the report will agree with the intelligence assessment on most other details, including that Russians did meddle in the election. It will detail Russian cyberattacks on U.S. institutions during the election and the use of social media to sow discord. It will also show a pattern of Russian attacks on European allies — information that could be redacted in the final report. It will blame officials in former President Barack Obama’s administration for a “lackluster” response and look at leaks from the intelligence community to the media.
It will include at least 25 recommendations, including how to improve election security, respond to cyberattacks and improve counterintelligence efforts.