After over two years of partisan bickering, over 50 documents related to the House of Representatives’ investigation into Russia will be released. The investigation details the alleged involvement Russian foreign assets had in the 2016 presidential election. By releasing the documents to the public, the House could reignite long-dormant furor over the election.
In 2016, Donald Trump won the Electoral College by a narrow margin. Trump also lost the popular vote by around three million votes, a statistic pointed to by his critics regularly. Following the election, speculation was rife that Russian foreign agents may have interfered with the contest.
Early reports suggested that Russian assets engaged in an online misinformation campaign aimed at bolstering Trump. The US intelligence community eventually concluded that a 2016 leak of DNC emails came from Russian hackers. The breach of cloud services security was a major blow to democrats in the run up to the election.
Throughout the first year of his presidency, the specter of “Russian interference” haunted Trump. That probe, eventually headed by Robert Mueller, dragged on for months and led to several high-profile arrests. Officials arrested Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos and Rick Gates, all Trump associates, over evidence in the Mueller Report.
They also indicted thirteen Russian nationals due to Mueller’s findings. These individuals, as well as three Russian companies, engaged in online propaganda efforts. Their company, the “Internet Research Agency,” used online handles and social media to spread misinformation and sow distrust.
The documents in question now are not related to the Mueller Report. Instead, they are from a series of investigations by the House Intelligence Committee.
The reports were compiled before November 2018, meaning they were headed by Republican Devin Nunes. Following the 2018 elections, however, democrats retook control of the House. Democrat Adam Schiff then became chairman of the intelligence committee.
Ric Grenell, the acting director of national intelligence, informed Congress this week that the intelligence committee’s findings can go public. The findings were complete over two years ago. The reason they had not been made public was that the White House was holding them up. The Trump administration wanted to review the documents first.
However, Grenell informed Congress, the White House has since dropped this demand. As such, having been cleared by the intelligence community, the documents can now be released. However, it is unclear how much time will pass between this announcement and the release of the documents.
