AP News: Trump campaign’s Russia contacts ‘grave’ threat, Senate says

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump campaign’s interactions with Russian intelligence services during the 2016 presidential election posed a “grave” counterintelligence threat, a Senate panel concluded Tuesday as it detailed how associates of Donald Trump had regular contact with Russians and expected to benefit from the Kremlin’s help.

The nearly 1,000-page report, the fifth and final one from the Republican-led Senate intelligence committee on the Russia investigation, details how Russia launched an aggressive effort to interfere in the election on Trump’s behalf. It says the Trump campaign chairman had regular contact with a Russian intelligence officer and that other Trump associates were eager to exploit the Kremlin’s aid, particularly by maximizing the impact of the disclosure of Democratic emails hacked by Russian intelligence officers.

The report is the culmination of a bipartisan probe that produced what the committee called “the most comprehensive description to date of Russia’s activities and the threat they posed.” The investigation spanned more than three years as the panel’s leaders said they wanted to thoroughly document the unprecedented attack on U.S. elections.

The findings, including unflinching characterizations of furtive interactions between Trump associates and Russian operatives, echo to a large degree those of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and appear to repudiate the Republican president’s claims that the FBI had no basis to investigate whether his campaign was conspiring with Russia.

Trump, who has repeatedly called the Russia investigations a “hoax,” said Tuesday he “didn’t know anything about” the report, or Russia or Ukraine. He said he had “nothing” to do with Russia.

While Mueller’s was a criminal probe, the Senate investigation was a counterintelligence effort with the aim of ensuring that such interference wouldn’t happen again. The report issued several recommendations on that front, including that the FBI should do more to protect presidential campaigns from foreign interference.

The report was released as two other Senate committees, the Judiciary and Homeland Security panels, conduct their own reviews of the Russia probe with an eye toward uncovering what they say was FBI misconduct in the early days of the investigation. A prosecutor appointed by Attorney General William Barr, who regards the Russia investigation with skepticism, disclosed his first criminal charge Friday against a former FBI lawyer who plans to plead guilty to altering a government email.

Among the more striking sections of the report is the committee’s description of the close, professional relationship between former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik, whom the committee describes as a Russian intelligence officer.

“Taken as a whole, Manafort’s high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik, represented a grave counterintelligence threat,” the report says.

The report notes how Manafort shared internal Trump campaign polling data with Kilimnik and says there is “some evidence” Kilimnik may have been connected to Russia’s effort to hack and leak Democratic emails, though that information is redacted. The report also says “two pieces of information” raise the possibility of Manafort’s potential connection to those operations, but what follows is again blacked out.

Both men were charged in Mueller’s investigation, but neither was accused of any tie to the hacking.

A Manafort lawyer, Kevin Downing, said Tuesday that information sealed at the request of Mueller’s team “completely refutes whatever the intelligence committee is trying to surmise.” He added, “It just looks like complete conjecture.”

Like Mueller, the committee reviewed a meeting Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., took in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer he believed to have connections with the Russian government with the goal of receiving information harmful to his father’s opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The Senate panel said it assessed that the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, has “significant connections to the Russian government, including the Russian intelligence services,” as did another participant in the meeting, Rinat Akhmetshin.

The panel said it uncovered connections that were “far more extensive and concerning than what had been publicly known,” particularly regarding Veselnitskaya. In a statement, Akhmetshin said he was “exonerated, yet again, of the false claim that I am a Russia spy.”

The report also found no reliable evidence for Trump’s longstanding supposition that Ukraine had interfered in the election, but did trace some of the earliest public messaging of that theory to Kilimnik and said it was spread by Russian-government proxies who sought to discredit investigations into Russian interference.

The committee said that messaging campaign lasted to “at least January 2020” — after the House had impeached Trump for pressuring Ukrainian officials to investigate the family of Democrat Joe Biden, now Trump’s general election opponent. During that effort, some Republicans, including Trump, argued Ukraine was meddling, not Russia. Trump was acquitted by the Senate.

The report purposely does not state a final conclusion, as Mueller did and as the House intelligence committee’s 2018 report did, about whether there was sufficient evidence that Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russia to sway the election to him, leaving its findings open to partisan interpretation.

Several Republicans on the panel submitted “additional views” to the report, saying it should state more explicitly that Trump’s campaign did not collude with Russia. They say that while the report shows the Russian government “inappropriately meddled” in the election, “then-candidate Trump was not complicit.”

The panel’s acting GOP chairman, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, signed on to that statement but the chairman who led the investigation, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, did not. Burr stepped aside earlier this year as the FBI was examining his stock sales. Another Republican committee member, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, also did not sign on to the GOP statement.

Burr, who submitted the report before he stepped aside, often faced criticism from his GOP colleagues for working with Democrats on the probe and for summoning sensitive witnesses, such as Trump Jr.

The top Democrat on the panel, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, commended Burr for sticking with the investigation despite criticism from all sides. He said Burr “tried to stay true to that north star of ‘we’re going to put out all the facts.’”

Warner said the report was designed to “let every American make their own judgement.”

A group of Democrats on the panel submitted their own views, saying the report “unambiguously shows that members of the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian efforts to get Trump elected.” Warner did not sign on to that statement.

Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, did not sign on to that statement, saying he believed the report should be bipartisan. But he said in an interview that he believes the report is a “warning.”

The report is “not a hoax,” King said. “It’s just one more set of facts that’s hard to ignore.”

Mueller concluded in his report issued last year that Russia interfered in the election through hacking and a covert social media campaign and that the Trump campaign embraced the help and expected to benefit from it. But Mueller did not charge any Trump associates with conspiring with Russians.

The Senate report did fault aspects of the FBI’s investigation, suggesting for instance that agents did not respond with sufficient urgency to the hacking of Democratic National Committee email servers.

The report also criticized the FBI’s reliance on opposition research about Trump’s ties to Russia that was compiled by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, whose work was financed by Democrats.

The committee found the FBI gave Steele’s “allegations unjustified credence” as it relied on the dossier of research in seeking court approval to wiretap former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. It says many of the dossier’s allegations remain uncorroborated “nearly four years after Steele delivered the first of these memos.”

A separate investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general also faulted the FBI for errors and omissions related to the Steele dossier.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration announced wide-ranging actions Wednesday meant to call out Russian influence in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, unsealing criminal charges against two employees of a Russian state-run media company and seizing internet domains used by the Kremlin to spread disinformation.

The measures represented a U.S. government effort at disrupting a persistent threat from Russia that American officials have long warned has the potential to sow discord and create confusion among voters. Washington has said that Russia remains the primary threat to elections even as the FBI investigates a hack by Iran of Donald Trump’s campaign and an attempt breach of the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris campaign.

One criminal case accuses two employees of RT, a Russian-state funded media organization that was forced by the Justice Department as a foreign agent, of covertly funding a Tennessee-based content creation company to publish nearly 2,000 videos containing Russian propaganda. The defendants, who remain at large, used fake identities and the company was unaware it was being used by Russia.

In the other action, officials announced the seizure of 32 internet domains that were used by the Kremlin to spread Russian propaganda and weaken global support for Ukraine.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said the actions relate to Russia’s use of state media to enlist unwitting American influencers to spread propaganda and disinformation.

Intelligence agencies have previously charged that Russia was using disinformation to try to interfere in the election. The new steps show the depth of U.S. concerns and signal legal actions against those suspected of being involved.

“Today’s announcement highlights the lengths some foreign governments go to undermine American democratic institutions,” the State Department said. “But these foreign governments should also know that we will not tolerate foreign malign actors intentionally interfering and undermining free and fair elections.”

In a speech last month, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Russia remained the biggest threat to election integrity, accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin and “his proxies are using increasingly sophisticated techniques in their interference operations. They’re targeting specific voter demographics and swing-state voters to in an effort to manipulate presidential and congressional election outcomes. They’re intent on co-opting unwitting Americans on social media to push narratives advancing Russian interests.”

Much of the concern around Russia centers on cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns designed to influence the November vote. The tactics include using state media like RT to advance anti-U.S. messages and content, as well as networks of fake websites and social media accounts that amplify the claims and inject them into American’s online conversations. Typically, these networks seize on polarizing political topics such as immigration, crime or the war in Gaza.

In many cases, Americans may have no idea that the content they see online either originated or was amplified by the Kremlin.

“Russia is taking a whole of government approach to influence the election including the presidential race,” an official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said this summer during a briefing. The official spoke on condition of anonymity under rules worked out with that office.

Groups linked to the Kremlin are increasingly hiring marketing and communications firms within Russia to outsource some of the work of creating digital propaganda while also covering their tracks, the officials said during the briefing with reporters.

Two such firms were the subject of new U.S. sanctions announced in March. Authorities say the two Russian companies created fake websites and social media profiles to spread Kremlin disinformation.

The ultimate goal, however, is to get Americans to spread Russian disinformation without questioning its origin. People are far more likely to trust and repost information that they believe is coming from a domestic source, officials said. Fake websites designed to mimic U.S. news outlets and AI-generated social media profiles are just two methods.

Messages left with the Russian Embassy were not immediately returned.

Tucker covers national security in Washington for The Associated Press, with a focus on the FBI and Justice Department and the special counsel cases against former President Donald Trump.

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Donald Trump's former campaign adviser stands accused of working with the Russians and laundering cash they paid him, prosecutors announced Thursday.

Dimitri Simes, a Russian-born U.S. citizen who advised Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, is named in a Justice department indictment accusing him and his wife Anastasia of accepting more than $1 million, a car, and driver as payment from the state television network, a press release shows.

If convicted of the charges, the two face a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Russia Channel One was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2022 over the nation's invasion of Ukraine, according to the Justice department.

Simes, 76, has a home in Virginia but remains at large and is believed to be in Russia with his wife, prosecutors said.

His wife Anastasia is also accused of providing art and antiques to a sanctioned oligarch, prosecutors said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation raided Simes' home in AugustSimes' home in August.

At the time, Simes, speaking to Russian state media company Sputnik, suggested he is a target of political persecution, saying that the FBI search “clearly is an attempt to intimidate, not only somebody from Russia, but just anyone who goes against official policies and particularly against the deep state.” He added, “My suspicion is that instead of trying to get me to come to the United States and to interrogate me or even to arrest me, their real purpose is to make sure that I would not come back.”

Simes' son on Thursday echoed these sentiments on X Thursday afternoon.

"[President] Joe Biden and his stooges are impotent cowards," Dimitri Simes Jr. wrote. "Our family is safe and sound in Russia. We will not be intimidated. In fact, we’re only going to get louder. Stay tuned!"

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Republican National Committee (RNC) co-chair Lara Trump insisted Sunday she had "no idea" after appearing on podcasts that Russia allegedly funded.

In an interview on NewsNation, host Chris Stirewalt asked Trump if the RNC was concerned after the Department of Justice revealed a Russian influence operation to push Kremlin-friendly messages in conservative media.

"I think it's always concerning when there's anyone other than an American citizen or Americans trying to decide and influence American elections," Trump argued. "You had the Clinton campaign actually colluding with Russia in 2016 to try and sway an election. Nothing ever happened in terms of our campaign. Nothing ever happened in terms of our candidate."

Stirewalt pushed back by noting that Trump had appeared on at least one podcast that Russia allegedly funded.

"You appeared twice on a podcast hosted by someone who prosecutors indicate received some of this Russian money," the host explained. "Have Republicans let their guard down in terms of this stuff? Is more vigilance required here?"

"I'll tell you, I had no idea," Trump insisted. "And I don't think anyone who ever appeared on any of those podcasts, as everyone said, we had no idea about it."

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"I think we're all vigilant," she continued. "Look, our campaign and Donald Trump was accused of colluding with Russia incessantly for years."

"So we are always aware of it, and we are always on top of it."

Watch the video below from NewsNation or at the link.

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SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (AP) — Ohio stationed state police at Springfield schools Tuesday in response to a rash of bomb threats — the vast majority that officials said came from overseas —- after former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance falsely said legal Haitian immigrants in the small city were eating dogs and cats.

Schools, government buildings and elected officials’ homes in Springfield were among the targets of more than 30 hoax threats made last week that forced evacuations and closures. Two more schools had to be evacuated on Monday, and the high school was threatened on Tuesday. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said a foreign actor was largely responsible, but he declined to name the country.

Even with dozens of Ohio State Highway Patrol officers fanning out to protect the Springfield City School District’s 18 schools, many parents opted to keep their children at home. At one elementary school, some 200 students were absent Tuesday out of a population of 500.

“There’s still a high level of fear due to these unfounded threats and hoaxes that have marred our existence really for going on a week now,” said Robert Hill, chief executive office of the Springfield City School District, appearing at a news conference with DeWine.

Two highway patrol officers have been assigned to each school, a protocol that will be continued “as long as it is necessary,” DeWine said.

“We do not believe there is a real threat out there, but we are certainly not going to take any chances. And we want parents to be assured that their children can be kids and can go to school and can learn,” he said.

State police were visible at a middle school earlier Tuesday, with students dropped off as normal.

Thousands of Haitian immigrants have settled in recent years in the predominantly white, blue-collar city of about 60,000, about 45 miles (70 kilometers) from the state capital of Columbus, where they have found work in factories and warehouses that had been struggling to fill job openings.

The sudden influx has strained schools, health care facilities and city services and driven up the cost of housing — and became a major political issue after Trump amplified debunked internet rumors about pet-eating during last week’s presidential debate. Vance has repeated the false claims.

“We did not have threats seven days ago. We did not have these concerns seven days ago. We did not have these hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent in Springfield and from the state of Ohio in support seven days ago. We do today,” Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said Tuesday.

Rue did not mention Trump or Vance by name, but called on national leaders to “temper their words and speak truth.”

“That’s what Springfield is asking. We need peace. We need help, not hate,” he said.

Vice President Kamala Harris, answering questions at a forum for Black journalists in Philadelphia on Tuesday, said her heart breaks for Springfield. She said the inflammatory rhetoric about Haitian immigrants is “exhausting and it’s harmful and it’s hateful and and grounded in some age-old stuff that we should not have the tolerance for.”

Vance has not backed down, writing on the social media platform X that “citizens are telling us that there are problems” in Springfield and that he has repeatedly condemned the threats. He accused Harris of ignoring the residents’ legitimate concerns and trying to stifle debate.

DeWine’s spokesperson, Dan Tierney, said Tuesday that “the vast majority” of the bomb threats have come from foreign countries.” He said a criminal investigation by multiple law enforcement agencies yielded information on the origin of the threats.

Tierney was not more specific on how investigators determined they came from a foreign country, nor would he reveal the name of the country, saying that could encourage additional threats.

“These are largely foreign actors, not folks in the community or another part of the United States,” he said. “We think it’s useful in part because it shows that it’s, you know, false, that it’s safe to send your kids to school. And we’re providing extra patrol support to make sure people feel safe at school.”

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WASHINGTON, Dec 15 (Reuters) - A binder holding top-secret intelligence that contributed to a U.S. assessment that Russia tried to help throw the 2016 U.S. election to Donald Trump has been missing since the last days of his presidency, a source familiar with the issue said.

The Russia intelligence was included with other documents in a binder that Trump directed the CIA to send to the White House just before he left office so he could declassify materials related to the FBI probe of Russian interference in the 2016 vote, the source said.

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The Russia materials included highly classified raw intelligence gathered by the U.S. and NATO allies, fueling fears that the methods used to collect the information could be compromised, the source added.

Trump's presidential campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence in January 2017 released an assessment that found Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government conducted a campaign of disinformation and cyberattacks to “help … Trump’s election chances” by denigrating his Democratic foe, Hillary Clinton.

Russia denies interfering in the election.

The disappearance of the binder ignited such deep concerns that the government last year offered to brief the Senate Intelligence Committee, which accepted, the source said.

CNN first reported the missing binder.

In a federal court document filed in August by John Solomon, a conservative journalist, the binder was described as 10-inches thick. Trump appointed Solomon to be a representative authorized to access records from his presidency in the National Archives.

The court document said that Mark Meadows, who served as Trump’s last chief of staff, was involved in handling the missing binder and developing with Solomon a strategy to release the materials that Trump planned to declassify.

Meadows did not immediately respond to a request for comment made via the Conservative Partnership Institute, where he is a senior partner.

The source said the binder contained other information related to the FBI's "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation, including materials on the origins of the probe collected by Trump aides and botched FBI applications for wiretap warrants.

They also included anti-Trump text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, FBI officials who were involved in the probe, the source said.

Much of that material is not considered sensitive, said the source.

It was covered in a heavily redacted version of the binder that was declassified and posted in five parts on the FBI’s website in 2022.

Trump has repeatedly called the FBI investigation a hoax.

Solomon’s federal court filing said that just before Trump left office after his defeat by U.S. President Joe Biden, Solomon was told by Meadows that Trump intended to order the declassification of the Crossfire Hurricane materials in the binder.

Two days before his term ended, the document said, Trump and Meadows told Solomon that the binder had been declassified. On Jan. 19, Meadows invited Solomon to the White House to review several hundred declassified pages and discuss the materials’ public release, it said.

Copies were provided to Solomon. As he began preparing a story for his website, it continued, he received a call from the White House asking that copies be returned for additional redactions.

“Meadows promised Solomon that he would receive the revised binder,” said the document. “This never happened.”

There has been no trace of the classified version since then.

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