The Trump Campaign's Cooperation with Russia
The Committee's bipartisan Report unambiguously shows that members of the Trump Campaign cooperated _with Russian efforts to get Trump elected. It recounts efforts by Trump and his team to obtain dirt on their opponent from operatives acting on behalf of the Russian government. It reveals the extraordinary lengths by which Trump and his associates actively_sought to enable the Russian interference operation by amplifying its electoral impact and rewarding its perpetrators - even after being warned of its Russian origins. And it presents, for the first time, concerning evidence that the head of the Trump Campaign was directly connected to the Russian meddling through his communications with an individual found to be a Russian intelligence officer.
These are stubborn facts that cannot be ignored. They build on the Committee's bipartisan findings in Volume 2 and Volume 4 that show an extensive Kremlin-directed effort to covertly help candidate Trump in 2016, and they speak to a willingness by a major party candidate and his associates, in the face of a foreign adversary's assault on the political integrity of the United States, to welcome that foreign threat in exchange for advancing their own self-interest.
The Committee's bipartisan Report found that Paul Manafort, while he was Chairman of the Trump Campaign, was secretly communicating with a Russian intelligence officer with whom he discussed Campaign strategy and repeatedly shared internal Campaign polling data. This took place while the Russian intelligence operation to assist Trump was ongoing. Further, Manafort took steps to hide these communications and repeatedly lied to federal investigators, and his deputy on the Campaign destroyed evidence of communications with the Russian intelligence officer. The Committee obtained some information suggesting that the Russian intelligence officer, with whom Manafort had a longstanding relationship, may have been connected to the GRU's hack-and-leak operation targeting the 2016 U.S. election. This is what collusion looks like.
The Committee's bipartisan Report found that a member of the Trump Campaign's foreign policy advisory team was provided with advance notice of the Russian plot to anonymously release hacked emails that would damage Trump's opponent, and the Report found that it is implausible that this information was. not passed to the Campaign. The advance notice of a forthcoming covert Russian intervention on Trump's behalf came from an individual linked to the Russian government, and took place in April 2016, prior to any public awareness of the Russian meddling effort. No authorities were notified.
The Committee's bipartisan Report found that Russia's goal in its unprecedented hack-and-leak operation against the United States in 2016, among other motives, was to assist the Trump Campaign. Candidate Trump and his Campaign responded to that threat by embracing, encouraging, and exploiting the Russian effort. Trump solicited inside information in advance of WikiLeaks's· expected releases of stolen information, even after public reports widely attributed the activity to Russia, so as to maximize his electoral benefit. The Campaign crafted a strategy around these anticipated releases to amplify the dissemination and promotion of the stolen documents. Even after the US. government formally announced the hack-and-leak campaign as a Russian government effort, Trump's embrace of the stolen documents and his efforts to minimize the attribution to Russia only continued. The Committee's Report clearly shows that Trump and his Campaign were not mere bystanders in this attack - they were active participants. They coordinated their activities with the releases of the hacked Russian data, magnified the effects of a known Russian campaign, and welcomed the mutual benefit from the Russian activity.
Additionally, the Committee's bipartisan Report shows that, at the June 9, 2016 meeting in Trump Tower, senior members of the Campaign sought, explicitly, to receive derogatory information for electoral benefit from a Russian lawyer known to have ties to the Russian government, with the understanding that the information was part of "Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." Prior to and during that meeting, members of the Trump Campaign's leadership clearly stated their desire to receive the promised derogatory Russian information, and ultimately they also clearly expressed their displeasure that the Russian information that was presented was not sufficiently damaging. That the Campaign leadership's desire to coordinate with Russia failed in this particular instance is hardly exculpatory; instead, it is emblematic of the leadership's mindset, intent and willingness. to work with Russia in hopes of influencing the U.S. election to their benefit. The Committee's investigation found that the Russian lawyer that the Campaign leadership met with in Trump Tower, and one of her colleagues who also participated in the meeting, both have significant and concerning ties to Russian intelligence.
Trump's Russia-friendly statements and policies during the Campaign did not occur in isolation. The Committee's bipartisan Report shows that, during the campaign, Donald ' Trump and the Trump Organization were pursuing a business deal in Russia. This is a topic about which the Campaign and its associates misled the public and Congress. The Committee's Report shows that Trump's outreach to the Kremlin began early and that during the Republican ' ' primary campaign, around the time that Trump authorized pursuit of the Russia deal, Trump asked for an in-person meeting with Putin. That request was relayed to the Kremlin. The Committee's Report shows that, during the campaign; Trump was kept up-to-date on the .progress of the Russia deal and made positive public comments about Putin, in connection with the campaign, while deal negotiations were ongoing. During the campaign individuals working for or with the Trump Organization were in contact with the Kremlin regarding the deal and sought to leverage Trump's positive comments about Putin to advance the deal. A U.S. intelligence assessment indicates that Putin, who ordered the Russian operation that assisted Trump in the 2016 election, had a preference for leaders whose business interests made them more likely to deal with Russia. This made Trump uniquely appealing in Moscow, and the Committee's investigation found that Kremlin-directed influence efforts worked to undermine Republican candidates who ran against Trump in the U.S. presidential primary.
There may be some who attempt to minimize the seriousness of Trump's actions, or the actions of his associates, by arguing that these individuals were motivated simply by self-interest or self-promotion. This argument overlooks that when self-interest is intertwined with the goals of a malign Russian influence operation, and when self-interest promotes the known Russian effort while also being promoted by that same Russian effort, then self-interest and Russia's interest become one and the same. Moreover, this argument misunderstands the deep counterintelligence vulnerability that is created when those who seek positions of great power, or proximity to that power, are willing to trade away national security for personal gain. There is good reason that such individuals are Putin's preferred interlocutors, and there is good reason why the U.S. security clearance application asks extensively about vulnerabilities that could be used as leverage, including foreign financial interests.
Candidate Trump's pursuit of private business in Russia during the campaign, and his Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort's deep financial ties to a Kremlin-aligned Russian.oligarch during the campaign, are not the only sources of leverage to which Trump and his Campaign were vulnerable. The Committee's bipartisan Report shows that dt1ring the campaign Trump maintained personal correspondence with a Russian oligarch and his adult son on topics including the upcoming U.S. election. The Moscow-based oligarch and his son, who were involved in offering the Trump Campaign derogatory information related to the election and who gave Trump a sizable gift during the Campaign, maintain significant and concerning connections 'not only to Kremlin leadership but also to Russian organized crime. Trump had previously done business with the oligarch in Moscow. The Committee's Report also shows that prior to and during the campaign, Trump was informed of alleged compromising tapes of him in Moscow. These allegations are separate from Christopher Steele's reports, which were not used to support the Committee's work. The Committee found that the Russian intelligence services clearly engage in the collection of compromising information for leverage, and that there may be substance to some of the allegations regarding Trump, which leaves open an ongoing concern about Russian influence operations.
Finally, the Committee's bipartisan Report shows that almost immediately following Election Day in 2016, the Trump transition responded to Russia's election-'interference not by supporting punitive action, but rather by holding a series of secretive meetings and communications with Russian representatives that served to undercut the outgoing administration's efforts to hold Russia accountable. The transition's openness to this private Russian outreach prior to taking office, so soon after Russia's interference on Trump's behalf, combined with Trump publicly questioning Russia's involvement, signaled that there was little intention by the incoming administration to punish Russia for the assistance it had just provided in its unprecedented attack on American democracy.
