The US House Intelligence Committee has completed its interviews with various witnesses in relation to the ongoing investigation into whether or not Russia and President Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with each other to affect the outcome of the 2016 Presidential Election, signaling an end of the investigation.
While Democrats have contended that the election was interfered in by the Russians that allowed President Trump to win the presidency, a top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee stated that they found no evidence of collusion involving President Trump’s campaign and the Russians, The Hill reported.
The investigation draft report
The GOP Intelligence Committee investigation report, approximately 150-pages, will be distributed to committee Democrats for evaluation sometime on Tuesday. The investigative document declares that there is no proof of any collusion among Trump’s campaign member and the Russians. The top Republican on the committee, Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX) stated, “We found no evidence of collusion.” Conaway further stated that bad judgment and inappropriate meetings were found but outside of that, no collusion was found.
The report also disputes the intelligence community’s view that Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, had shown an election favorite and wanted then-candidate, President Donald Trump to win over Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, an issue that President Trump had also challenged.
Criminal leaks in relation to the dossier
The GOP House Intelligence Committee report will further include an assessment concerning the criminal leaks in relation to the Trump dossier, though Conaway stated that he and the committee had no hard evidence for any criminal actions to be sent to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The House committee in their report also added some suggestions for both houses of Congress as well as the executive branch, to center on improving the election security process, in dealing cyber-attacks, and the United States support to European partners. With the issuance of the report, it’s very unlikely that both the Republicans and Democrats will come to the same conclusion due to the bitter infighting among both parties and committee members since the 2016 Presidential election and President Donald Trump's win.
The complete coverage of the House Intelligence Committee report can be found at the Hill.com.