HOUSE INTEL CONCLUDES NO COLLUSION IN 2016 CAMPAIGN

House intel concludes no collusion in 2016 campaign

GOP’s anti-Trump stance led to problems with Carter Page, George Papadopoulos

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Friday, April 27, 2018

There is no evidence President Trump’s campaign colluded or conspired with the Russian government during the 2016 election, but both his team and the Clinton campaign had “poor judgment and ill-considered actions,” the House intelligence committee concluded in a report Friday.

The report dings Mr. Trump’s family for making an attempt during the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer to try to get damaging information on Hillary Clinton, but says that was ultimately unsuccessful.

And the report blames the anti-Trump attitude among the GOP establishment in 2015 and 2016 with forcing the campaign to turn to less accomplished and more questionable foreign policy advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page — both of whom became subjects of FBI investigations over their relationship with Russian entities.

But there is no evidence of successful conspiracy or collusion, the panel concludes.

“When asked directly, none of the interviewed witnesses provided evidence of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government,” the report says.

Committee members also decided a widely-questioned change in the Republican Party Platform at the 2016 convention regarding Ukraine was actually anti-Russia, not pro-Russia, and said there’s no evidence then-campaign Chairman Paul Manafort was involved. Mr. Manafort has been indicted by the special counsel for his work with pro-Russian entities in Ukraine.

And the committee said there’s no evidence anyone in the Trump circle was involved in the theft of Democratic National Committee or Clinton campaign figures’ emails — though “Trump associates had numerous ill-advised contacts with Wikileaks.”

The heavily-redacted 253-page report and a 98-page response by the committee’s Democrats come after a year of investigation into the allegations that dented Mr. Trump’s early months in office.

Overall the report confirms what’s been widely reported: Russian-backed operatives mounted a low-cost but highly effective interference campaign that included cyberattacks, online trolling, propaganda and stolen emails.

The FBI’s response “was largely inadequate,” Homeland Security’s efforts to get states to take the threats seriously were rebuffed and the Obama administration failed to tell the Trump campaign some of its figures posed counterintelligence concerns.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/27/house-intel-concludes-no-collusion-2016-campaign/?