Senate intelligence panel: Russia intervened in 2016 election to help Trump

The Senate intelligence committee says it agrees with a 2017 assessment by intelligence agencies that Russia intervened in the presidential election earlier to hurt the candidacy of Democrat Hillary Clinton and to help Donald Trump.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr said in a statement Wednesday that his staff has spent 14 months "reviewing the sources, tradecraft, and analytic work, and we see no reason to dispute the conclusions."

That's in contrast to the House intelligence committee, which agreed with the majority of the report but said last month that the agencies "did not employ proper analytic tradecraft" while assessing Russian president Vladimir Putin's intentions.

Lawmakers on that committee said they agreed that Putin had wanted to hurt Clinton, but did not agree that meant he wanted to help Trump.

“There is no doubt that Russia undertook an unprecedented effort to interfere with our 2016 elections,” said Senator Burr, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a statement issued with Mark Warner, its most senior Democrat. 

“The Russian effort was extensive, sophisticated, and ordered by President Putin himself for the purpose of helping Donald Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton.”

The findings of the committee, one of several probes into alleged interference in the election, which has been denied by Russia, were in line with the general conclusion of the US intelligence community. 

“After a thorough review, our staff concluded that the [Intelligence Community Assessment] conclusions were accurate and on point,” Mr Warner said.

Copyright Associated Press, all rights reserved.

The Gayly. May 16, 2018. 12:04 p.m. CST.