This article is my own work published with Disobedient Media
This afternoon, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence announced that its’ investigation into Russia active measures targeting the 2016 U.S. election has finally come to an end.
In concluding its investigation, the Committee has announced that it has “completed a draft report of 150+ pages, with 600+ citations.”
The investigation, which was publicly announced in March of 2017, sought to answer the following four questions:
The Committee draft report contains over forty initial finds, describing:
The Committee’s draft report includes over twenty-five proposed recommendations for Congress and the executive branch to improve:
The Committee, composed of 11 majority staff investigators and researchers, visited a total of 7 countries and spent a total of 426 days investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 Presidential election.
According to its own numbers, the Committee conducted a total of 73 witness interviews (including 55 transcribed interviews conducted by Members and staff in executive session), accumulated 230 hours of testimony, held 9 hearings and briefings (both open and closed) (6 witness hearings and 3 additional oversight hearings) and had 307,905 documents produced to the Committee.
The Committee also reviewed 7,292 pages of testimony, issued 20 subpoenas, engaged with social media companies 6 separate times to discuss productions, ad summary data, etc. and interviewed 7 witnesses who invoked their 5th Amendment protections from self-incrimination.
The Committee also spent over 1,200 hours reviewing source documents for the investigation into the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) and reviewed 2,000 classified source documents for the ICA.
Furthermore, regarding the upcoming midterm elections, the Committee stresses “The Need for Urgent Action on Election Security”, stating that “…there is a widespread consensus in Congress and in the executive branch that urgent action is needed to counter the threat of continued Russian meddling in U.S. elections.”
However, while the Committee has announced the closing of its investigation into Russia active measures targeting the 2016 U.S. election, the Committee’s draft report will not be made available to the public until it is first provided to the Minority members of the committee on March 13, for review and comment. After this review has been completed, the memo will be submitted for “declassification review, and a declassified version will be made public.”
The Committee also provides that its work has yet to be completely finished, as additional follow-on efforts arising from the investigation must also be completed, including: “…oversight of the unmasking of Americans’ names in intelligence reports, FISA abuse, and other matters.”
While the House Intelligence Committee has announced the conclusion of its investigation, the investigation conducted by the Senate, as well as Special Counsel Mueller, rages on.
Earlier today, independent journalist H.A. Goodman reported on the latest news, though it remains to be seen as to whether the legacy media will cover this story in a non-partisan light. Disobedient Media will continue to cover this issue as it develops.