President Donald Trump hailed the Republican report as vindication of his claim that there was "no collusion" between him or his team and the Russian government. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images Trump hails House Intelligence Committee report on Russia The release caps a year of partisan acrimony on the panel.

The House Intelligence Committee has released a 253-page report on its investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The GOP report signals the committee found no evidence of collusion between Trump campaign associates and Russia but affirms evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Though its findings were previewed in a summary a month earlier, President Donald Trump hailed the Republican report as vindication of his claim that there was "no collusion" between him or his team and the Russian government.


"Just Out: House Intelligence Committee Report released. 'No evidence' that the Trump Campaign 'colluded, coordinated or conspired with Russia,'" Trump tweetd "Clinton Campaign paid for Opposition Research obtained from Russia — Wow! A total Witch Hunt! MUST END NOW!"

While the report stated the committee found an absence of evidence of a campaign-Russia connection, it did emphasize that other ongoing investigations — such as Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe — might be privy to facts the committee could not obtain. The Senate Intelligence Committee is also continuing to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election.

"We acknowledge that Investigations by other committees, the Special Counsel, the media, or interest groups will continue and may find facts that were not readily accessible to the Committee or outside the scope of our investigation," the panel concluded.

The document, endorsed only by Republican members of the panel, follows a year-long investigation that at times was marked by intense partisanship and acrimony. The report was based interviews with 73 witnesses, nine hearings and a review more than 300,000 documents. Democrats have rejected the conclusions, describing ample evidence that suggests the possibility of collusion and accused Republicans of short-circuiting the investigation and letting tight-lipped witnesses off the hook without subpoenas.

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“To determine whether this evidence of collusion reaches the level of proof beyond a reasonable doubt of criminal conspiracy, we must await the report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, since the Majority refused to interview the witnesses and obtain the documents necessary to find out," Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, said in a statement.

The report also includes what Republicans describe as shortcomings in the intelligence community's assessment that Russia came to favor Trump winning the 2016 election. That finding drew howls of protest from Democrats who said it's part of a campaign to discredit the investigators who launched and continue to pursue the ongoing Russia probe.

Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), who led the committee's Russia probe after Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) stepped aside last year, told POLITICO Thursday he was frustrated by the significant amount of redactions included in the report and that he intends to work with the intelligence agencies to remove many of them. Throughout the report, names of witnesses — many of which were already publicly known — were removed from key passages.

"When we started this investigation, we set out to give the American people the answers to the questions they’ve been asking and we promised to be as transparent as possible in our final report," Conaway said in a statement following the release of the report. “I don’t believe the information we’re releasing today meets that standard."

The report delves deeply into the use by intelligence officials of a dossier compiled by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, alleging illicit connections between Trump and the Kremlin. The dossier was commissioned by a research firm, Fusion GPS, that had been hired by the Clinton campaign to investigate Trump's business dealings. Republicans have argued that the dossier's Democratic provenance is part of a pattern of bias by senior intelligence officials, though Democrats have defended Steele, a former Russia expert for Britain's intelligence service.

The report shed little new light on a series of flashpoints that have generated buzz over the last year: a 2016 meeting in Trump Tower between senior Trump campaign officials and Kremlin-connected individuals, an interaction between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawmaker at an NRA event in 2016 and a series of contacts and meetings between Russia's U.S. ambassador and other prominent associates of President Vladimir Putin throughout the campaign. In most cases, committee Republicans described the meetings as innocuous if ill-advised.

The panel, though, did raise concerns about one Trump camapign aide, Carter Page, who members said provided an "incomplete" account of his July 2016 trip to Russia. While in Moscow, Page delivered an “executive summary“ to the campaign of an interaction with Russian deputy prime minister, Arkady Dvorkovich.

'In a private conversation, Dvorkovich expressed strong support for Mr. Trump and a desire to work together toward devising better solutions in response to the vast range of current international problems," Page wrote. "Based on feedback from a diverse array of other sources close to the Russian Presidential Administration, It was readily apparent that this sentiment is widely held at all levels of government."

But Page "minimized" that exchange in his testimony to the committee, the report concluded. The panel also emphasized it saw no evidence Page played a significant role in Trump's campaign.

Page has denied any improper contacts with top Russians, and he starred in a dramatic January push by Republicans to fault the intelligence community for its efforts to obtain a surveillance warrant to spy on Page in October 2016. House Republicans claimed top FBI officials misled a secret court — relying on the Steele dossier — to obtain the warrant, which was subsequently approved and renewed repeatedly based on additional evidence.

The report also described "inconsistent" testimony to the panel by former Obama national intelligence director James Clapper, a frequent target of Trump attacks who has become an outspoken critic of the president. The GOP report suggests Clapper issued varying responses about his discussions with journalists in early 2017, when BuzzFeed published the Steele dossier publicly. Democrats accused the GOP of a "smear" against Clapper who denied leaking intelligence to the press and said he only spoke with a reporter about the dossier after it was made public.

Conaway said in an interview that the committee had decided "at this time" not to make any criminal referrals connected to its investigation, including of Page or Clapper.

In a 98-page rebuttal, Democrats highlighted what they described as "gaps" in the GOP report and areas of investigation left unexplored.

For example, Democrats noted that when Donald Trump Jr. arranged the now-famous June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Kremlin-connected Russians and top Trump campaign brass, he placed a phone call to a blocked number in between two calls to a prominent Russian oligarch's son, Emin Agalarov. Schiff indicated that Republicans declined to press for the elder Trump's phone records to determine whether the blocked call was to him.

The Democratic report also laid out in detail former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe's testimony corroborating former FBI director James Comey's account of feeling pressured by Trump to back off the bureau's Russia investigation in early 2017. Schiff said issues of potential obstruction of justice generated little interest from Republicans.

The Democrats also fleshed out the relationship between Trump and the Agalarov family, with whom he grew close in 2013, when he brought the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow. The Democratic report indicates that a day after the Trump Tower meeting arranged between Trump Jr. and the younger Agalarov, the elder Trump received a painting as a gift from Aras Agalarov, Emin's father and a prominent ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Schiff said in an interview that the Democratic findings could present a roadmap for investigators in the future if the questions they raised were not resolved by the Senate or the special counsel investigation.

Other intelligence community allies who have bristled at the House GOP's claims of bias or misconduct said House Republicans wouldn't have the last word.

"A highly partisan, incomplete, and deeply flawed report by a broken House Committee means nothing," tweeted former Obama CIA director John Brennan, who testified before the panel last year. "The Special Counsel’s work is being carried out by professional investigators—not political staffers. SC’s findings will be comprehensive & authoritative. Stay tuned, Mr. Trump...."