The Los Angeles Post

Intel community returns final Russia report to Senate committee after declassification

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The intelligence community (IC) recently returned the last volume of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Russia interference report to the panel after conducting a declassification review, which means the highly-anticipated report could be publicly released in a matter of weeks, The Hill has learned.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) returned the fifth volume of the committee’s Russia report, which focuses on its counterintelligence findings, to the panel last week, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The panel and ODNI are expected to have a back-and-forth review process over the redactions that were made by the IC, which means it will likely be weeks before the declassified version of the report is released to the public.

Then-Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Vice Chairman Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) — the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee who spearheaded the bipartisan investigation — sent the report to ODNI in mid-May and asked Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to conduct an expeditious declassification review.

The release of the report will bring to a close the panel’s years-long, deep-diving probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The Senate panel launched its bipartisan probe in January 2017 and it quickly became one of the most high-profile congressional investigations in recent years. It sought to determine if members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia during the heated presidential race.

Unlike the House Intelligence Committee’s parallel Russia probe, the Senate panel has been able to work in a largely bipartisan manner and without acrimony. Still, the probe has cast a shadow over the White House and at times has faced attacks from President Trump and his allies.

This report will follow four earlier volumes the committee has already released, which focused on U.S. election security, Russia’s disinformation campaign on social media platforms, how the Obama administration responded to Russian interference, and most recently, the January 2017 intelligence community assessment.