Paul Manafort was a ‘grave counterintelligence threat,’ had repeated contact with Russian intelligence, Senate panel finds
President Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman posed a “grave counterintelligence threat” due to his interaction with people close to the Kremlin, according to a bipartisan Senate report released Tuesday that found extensive contacts between key campaign advisers and officials affiliated with Russia’s government and intelligence services.
In its nearly 1,000-page report, the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee found that Trump’s then-campaign chair Paul Manafort worked with a Russian intelligence officer “on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election,” including the idea that purported election interference emanating from Ukraine was of greater concern.
The investigation determined that a Russian attorney who met with Manafort — along with the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and son-in-law Jared Kushner — at Trump Tower ahead of the 2016 election had “significant connections” to the Kremlin. The information she offered them was also “part of a broader influence operation targeting the United States that was coordinated, at least in part with elements of the Russian government,” the report stated.
But the panel also concluded that the FBI’s handling of Russian threats to the 2016 election was “flawed” and that the bureau gave “unjustified credence” to allegations about Trump’s Russia ties made in a dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, “based on an incomplete understanding of Steele’s past reporting record.” [Continue reading…]