This archive report was first published on 21 April 2020.
Published on April 21, 2020, a Senate report has vindicated the intelligence community's findings on Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
The report, led by a Republican committee, found that analysts were not pressured to reach specific conclusions about Russian interference. In fact, 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 also examined the inclusion of material from a notorious dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer. Although elements of the dossier were included in an annex to the intelligence assessment, it was not used in the body of the I.C.A. or to support any of its analytic judgments.
The Senate report stands in contrast to the conclusions in 2018 of the House Intelligence Committee, which took issue with intelligence officials' conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to harm Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump. The House committee cited breakdowns in 'proper analytic tradecraft,' but many House Republicans who were involved later disavowed that conclusion.
