Posted on 07/04/2018 1:10:50 AM PDT by gattaca
The Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) that found Russia interfered in the 2016 election in an effort to help President Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton is "a sound intelligence product." The newly released, unclassified 7-page report -- whose conclusions the Republican-led committee previewed in May -- put to rest some questions that had arisen about the integrity of the assessment and the political agenda of the agencies that authored it.
"The Committee has spent the last 16 months reviewing the sources, tradecraft and analytic work underpinning the Intelligence Community Assessment and sees no reason to dispute the conclusions," said Chairman Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, in a statement accompanying the report's release. "The Committee continues its investigation and I am hopeful that this installment of the Committee's work will soon be followed by additional summaries providing the American people with clarity around Russia's activities regarding U.S. elections."
In its report, the committee said it had conducted numerous interviews with senior intelligence officials and reviewed the analytic procedures that informed the ICA, which was commissioned by former President Barack Obama in late 2016. The committee's report stated unequivocally that it concurred with the ICA's assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign aimed at the election, and that he and the Russian government had developed "a clear preference for President-elect Trump."
It also said that further details have come to light that "bolster" the ICA's findings about the extent of Russia's efforts to undermine the U.S.-led liberal international order and hinted at new findings by the committee that have "exposed a far more extensive Russian effort to manipulate social media outlets to sow discord."
Unlike Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee -- whose final report indicated that the ICA's findings on Putin's strategic intentions "did not employ proper analytic tradecraft" and said it had identified "significant…failings that undermine confidence in the ICA judgments" -- the Senate report made no mention of shortcomings. Instead, it said, "the analytical disagreement was reasonable, transparent, and openly debated among the agencies and analysts, with analysts, managers, and agency heads on both sides of the confidence level articulately justifying their positions."
Of the three agencies that contributed to the ICA, the CIA and FBI offered assessments on Putin's objectives with "high confidence," while the NSA's assessment was issued with "moderate confidence."
Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee said at the time of the majority's report's release that they had found no fault with any of the tradecraft underlying the ICA.
The Senate Intelligence Committee did fault the ICA on two fronts. It said the assessment failed to provide an updated account of the capabilities of RT, the Russian state-funded television network. And, it said, the historical context provided about Russian interference in U.S. domestic politics was "perfunctory," and could have presented a "more relevant historical context."
Mr. Trump has been a frequent critic of the work of the intelligence community in general and of some of the ICA's core findings in particular. Last week, Trump tweeted, "Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election! Where is the DNC Server, and why didn't Shady James Comey and the now disgraced FBI agents take and closely examine it? Why isn't Hillary/Russia being looked at? So many questions, so much corruption!"
The Senate's report said none of the analysts contributing to it provided any indication their findings resulted from political or other demands, saying it "heard consistently that analysts were under no politically motivated pressure to reach any conclusions."
"All analysts expressed that they were free to debate, object to content, and assess confidence levels, as is normal and proper for the analytic process," the committee wrote.
It also noted that the so-called Steele dossier, which the president and some Republican critics say wrongly prompted or informed an investigation into Trump's campaign, "did not in any way inform the analysis in the ICA ... because it was unverified information."
Tuesday's report was one of several the committee will issue as part of its investigation. Reports on the role of social media and on the question of whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia are expected to be completed in the coming months.
"While our investigation remains ongoing, we have to learn from 2016 and do more to protect ourselves from attacks in 2018 and beyond," said Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Virginia.
What deep state morons. Are all congress-losers compromised? I guess being a Patriot and being honest are so “then”. Pathetic.
Spot on...I’m confident Vlad would like to see a weakened Hillary as President.
“Pure bullshit.
These nevertrump dimwits are still trying to cover for Hillary and her Uranium giveaway.
By doing so, these lowlife bastards are covering for Mueller, Obama and a whole bunch of other lowlifes involved in that traitorous act.”
16 months of squandered time and money for these dumb bastards to come up with a crock of shit.
Burr and Warner...oh Geez. I wouldn’t let those two assholes try and paint my garage.
What’s going to be their excuse in 2020?
The report is simply a whitewash. Words without evidence to support arguments. There is one paragraph that is really disturbing and seems to say everything that needs be said of this report:
The Committee finds the difference in confidence levels
between the NSA and the CIA and FBI on the assessment that
“Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President
elect Trump’s election chances” appropriately represents
analytic differences and was reached in a professional
and transparent manner.
And to think Obama was so flexible with his pal Valdimir Putin that Hussein told his czar of cybersecurity to stand down in the face of this Russian intervention...
A huge giant half truth and half truth’s amount to a lie.
The truth is yes Russia tried to meddle in the U.S. election.
The lie is that they did so with intent to bolster Trump, who unlike the Clintons had never gotten any benefits from nor given any benefits to Russia.
The truth is the Russian intent was to advance any pre-existent discord in the American electorate.
The truth is that both major parties were advancing on the themes that rode as well on that discord, and collectively through all sources and venues put massively more into their efforts than the tiny efforts of Russia.
Thr truth is that whatever the Russian effortts were, they were not a factor in deciding the election.
U. S. Senate Select Committee On Intelligence
Republicans
Richard Burr
North Carolina
Chairman
James Risch - Idaho
Marco Rubio - Florida
Susan Collins - Maine
Roy Blunt - Missouri
James Lankford - Oklahoma
Tom Cotton - Arkansas
John Cornyn - Texas
Democrats
Mark Warner
Virginia
Vice Chairman
Dianne Feinstein - California
Ron Wyden - Oregon
Martin Heinrich - New Mexico
Angus King - Maine
Joe Manchin - West Virginia
Kamala Harris - California
What a load of BS.
They act as if RT, the Russian state-funded television network, was doing something undercover. It was right there in front of anyone to see.
RT was no more biased than Al Jazeera. So the only propaganda we had was from Russia? The USA has certainly used radio for propaganda purposes. Therefore, we should not by hypocrites if others do it.
If RT preferred Trump, who cares? It’s not like the muslim brotherhood, CAIR, Al Jazeera, and the foreigners donating millions to the Clinton Foundation were supporting Trump.
Here is a list of the Senate Committee:
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/committees/SLIN
Most all of them are big piles of @#%&.
That’s not complete. Note McCain, Mitch, etc. .....
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/committees/SLIN
Yeah, that’s a bunch of DC gobbledygook which translates to they don’t have a clue. Also, aspire means a desire or wish for something not an actual achievement.
Senate and Intelligence = Oxymoron
“WTF is wrong with my generation that we let this bullshit happen?! “
It is caused by the mindset of the voters which allowed Obama to happen to the country for 8 horrific years. Whether the country has actually gotten well yet remains to be seen.
Illogical Mr. Spock. Why would Putin try to help Trump, his outspoken enemy in favor of good old reset Hillary his dedicated friend? Illogical to the max.
And the Brits meddled to elect Hillary.
I’m betting Germans did what they could to help Hillary...
Because Trump’s campaign messages made Russians believe he was not as insane as McCain, not as sneaky as Obama, so they had preference for him in good faith.
Nothing wrong with it.
It will be pathetic If Trump supporters still prefer the endorsement of Germany, France, Canada, Vatican.....
So what if they did interfere, is it Trump’s fault? Trump wasn’t running the country at that time, it wasn’t Trump’s job to prevent Russian interference - how could he?
Now, WOULD THEY MIND investigating whether the FBI also interfered in the election.
So the question is, were they allowed to vote on this issue? I cannot find the vote count and who voted which way to determine if they voted. Chances are pretty good that McCain did not vote.
Also though, government track is not a government website, whereas my source was. So perhaps that is why they do not include ex officios.
Russia did meddle and would have meddled regardless of who was running, that is not the question. (Our American govt does the same overseas but in different ways and with different rationales and modes of approach.) The question is not about Russia’a innocence, it is whether the Trump campaign colluded and the answer is no.
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