WASHINGTON (CN) — The Senate Intelligence Committee wrapped up its long-running investigation of Russian meddling in U.S. elections on Tuesday with a sharp indictment of Paul Manafort, the now-convicted former chairman of President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.
In just under 1,000 pages, the fifth and final report says Manafort posed “a grave counterintelligence threat” because of his proximity to then-candidate Trump and a willingness to disclose information to individuals closely affiliated with Russian intelligence services.
The bipartisan findings follow more than three years of investigation, including more than 200 witness interviews and the review of over a million pages of documents, and reaches similar conclusions to those made by former special counsel Robert Mueller.
Notably, the report reaches no determination on whether Trump’s campaign coordinated or colluded with Russia to change the outcome of the 2016 election, though Democrats and Republicans each submitted “additional views” on the conclusions to draw from the findings.
U.S. officials tagged Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime Manafort associate whom Mueller indicted for obstruction of justice and conspiracy, as a Russian intelligence officer for the first time Tuesday.
Manafort communicated with Kilimnik directly and indirectly throughout his time running Trump’s 2016 campaign, the report states.
“On numerous occasions, Manafort sought to secretly share internal campaign information with Kilimnik,” the report lays out.
But the Senate was unable to nail down why Manafort shared sensitive internal polling data and campaign strategies with Kilimnik and to whom the Russian actor passed the information along.
“The committee obtained some information suggesting Kilimnik may have been connected to the GRU's hack and leak operation targeting the 2016 U.S. election,” the report states, referring to the Russian military intelligence agency.
Manafort was found guilty of eight criminal counts brought by Mueller, unrelated to Russian meddling, including bank fraud.
While Mueller reached distinct conclusions on the extent of Russian interference in the 2016 election, and the willingness of the Trump campaign to benefit from Russian-led hacks, the former special counsel did not charge any Trump officials with conspiring with Russia.
But Democrats said the latest report unambiguously shows that the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian efforts to land Trump in the White House, revealing for the first time Manafort’s direct connections to Russian meddling in his links to Kilimnik.
The Democrats further argue that the former Trump campaign chairman took steps to hide his communications and lied to federal investigators about his possible connections to the Russian hack-and-leak operation targeting the Democratic National Committee.
“This is what collusion looks like,” Senators Martin Heinrich, Dianne Feinstein, Ron Wyden, Kamala Harris and Michael Bennet wrote.
For Republicans, however, the extensive Senate investigation leaves no room for doubt that there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
“Decisions taken were the result of a foreign policy viewpoint, not illicit Russian influence. We feel Volume 5 should have explicitly stated this,” Senators James Risch, Marco Rubio, Roy Blunt, Tom Cotton, John Cornyn and Ben Sasse wrote.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also said the report reinforces the now-accepted conclusion that foreign actors targeted U.S. elections three years ago and continue to do so today.
“The committee’s findings, along with other information recently released by the Intelligence Community, confirm what we already knew: Russia, China, Iran, and other foreign actors want to influence our politics, interfere with our elections, and stoke fear and division among Americans,” the GOP leader said in a statement.
But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Intelligence Committee’s detailed review adds to the Mueller report by making clear the Trump campaign sought out information from the Kremlin.
