2016 ELECTION/HOUSE OF REPS/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee found no evidence during a monthslong investigation that the Trump campaign aided Russia’s election meddling, the lawmakers concluded in a 250-page report released on Friday [4-27-18] that assails President Trump’s political rivals and criticizes the F.B.I. and the intelligence community for their responses to Moscow’s interference. In their own dissenting views, Democrats on the committee accused the Republicans of prematurely closing the investigation out of a desire to protect Mr. Trump and asserted that eagerness by Trump campaign associates to accept offers of Russian assistance suggest ‘a consciousness of wrongfulness, if not illegality.’ The strikingly divergent conclusions closed a chapter for a congressional committee that, while charged with oversight of American spy agencies, has fractured into warring factions that often seemed to see the advancement of political agendas as their primary mission.”
-Nicholas Fandos and Mark Mazzetti, “House Intelligence Committee Releases Findings on Russian Election Interference,” The New York Times online, April 27, 2018