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House Intel Panel Finds No Collusion Between Trump Campaign and Kremlin

Democrats in the US House of Representatives will continue to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election despite the House Intelligence Committee report released on Friday, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.
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"House Democrats will continue to investigate Russian attacks on our elections," Pelosi said on Friday. "We will not relent in our effort to follow the facts and secure our elections from foreign interference. We have no time to waste."

Earlier on Friday, the US House Intelligence committee has revealed its final report, sharing its findings regarding alleged Russian meddling in the vote and accusations of collusion between Moscow and President Donald Trump's campaign team.

Pelosi said Republicans on the Intelligence Committee must release the transcripts from the investigation in order to ensure the public has all the information about the "Trump-Russia scandal."

According to the document, entitled "Report on Russian Active Measure," the panel concluded that there was no collusion between the sitting president's election campaign and Russia. The committee, however, suggested that Moscow had allegedly attempted to sow division in the United States by carrying out cyberattacks and influencing social media users.

"Finding #10: Russian intelligence leveraged social media in an attempt to sow social discord and to undermine the US electoral process," the report said.

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"The Committee also found that the Clinton campaign and the DNC, using a series of cutouts and intermediaries to obscure their roles, paid for opposition research on Trump obtained from Russian sources, including a litany of claims by high-ranking current and former Russian government officials," the report said. "Some of this opposition research was used to produce sixteen memos, which comprise what has become known as the Steele dossier."

The panel recommended that the US Congress consider updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in order to allow investigators to obtain warrants for probes involving international cyber actors.

"Recommendation #6: Congress should consider updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to cover malicious international cyber actors," the report said.

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To date, parts of the report have not been disclosed out of national security concerns; the Republican Party promised to put pressure on intelligence agencies in order to unveil more details.

"The Intelligence Community has finished its declassification review of the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation final report," Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said in a statement. "However, we object to the excessive and unjustified number of redactions, many of which do not relate to classified information. The Committee will convey our objections to the appropriate agencies and looks forward to publishing a less redacted version in the near future."

The commitee has also concluded that former director of national security James Clapper provided inconsistent testimony to Congress about his contacts with media.

"Finding #44: Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, now a CNN national security analyst, provided inconsistent testimony to the Committee about his contacts with the media, including CNN," the report read.

The Democrats, in turn, have vehemently criticized the document's conclusion, insisting that the committee did not interview enough witnesses and gather enough evidence to substantiate its finding.

READ MORE: Russian Embassy in US Slams State Department Over Meddling in Domestic Election

In 2017 Special Counsel Robert Mueller launched an investigation into Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential elections, claiming that Moscow had colluded with President Donald Trump's campaign team to influence the outcome of the vote. Russia has consistently denied any involvement, dismissing the accusations as "absurd," while Trump has repeatedly denounced the Mueller probe as a "witch hunt."

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