Senate Democrats released an extensive report concluding that Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election fit into a nearly two-decade pattern of meddling with governments around the world, and charging that Mr. Trump himself had hindered the United States response to a serious national security threat.
"Never before in American history has so clear a threat to national security been so clearly ignored by a U.S. president," the report asserts.
Mr. Trump, in his remarks, repeated his often-stated assertion that he has essentially been cleared of colluding with Russia. "It has been determined that there's been no collusion — and by virtually everybody," he said. "When they have no collusion, and nobody's found any collusion at any level, it seems unlikely that you'd even have an interview."
In fact, the Senate Intelligence Committee and its House counterparts have not reached a conclusion on that question, which Mr. Mueller is also believed to be exploring, along with whether the president or his team obstructed justice in firing Mr. Comey.
The Democratic report on Russian interference looked at efforts of the government of President Vladimir V. Putin in 19 countries, and describes misinformation campaigns, the funding of far-right political causes and the manipulation of energy supplies long before 2016 in an attempt to glean lessons for American officials considering how to counteract similar efforts here.
In total, the report offers more than 30 recommendations to safeguard the country's electoral process and to work with allies, primarily in Europe, to establish new standards to address these types of threats. They include new sanctions to punish states that initiate cyberattacks on elections or critical infrastructure, an international summit meeting centered on such threats, an allied commitment of mutual defense against cyberattacks, as well as forcing social media companies to disclose the sources of funding for political ads.
The document begins by calling on Mr. Trump to "assert presidential leadership" to establish a governmentwide response to the Russian efforts, including setting up an interagency center modeled after the National Counterterrorism Center to coordinate the American response to threats and policy related to their deterrence. And it argues that merely investigating what the Russians did in 2016 will be insufficient in protecting against future attacks, given their persistence.
Over all, the report argues that Mr. Putin's rise and hold on power in Russia has depended on the use of force and the undermining of institutions at home and abroad. It points to successful actions taken by European nations, including Germany and Nordic countries, as models for counteracting Russian tools like disinformation and hacking.
Senator Benjamin Cardin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, who commissioned the report, said it was not the investigations into Russia's meddling but the president's own inaction in the face of Moscow's brazen attack that was harming the country.
"While President Trump stands practically idle, Mr. Putin continues to refine his asymmetric arsenal and look for future opportunities to disrupt governance and erode support for the democratic and international institutions," he said.
United States spy agencies have concluded that Mr. Putin directed a multifaceted campaign using hacking and propaganda to try to sway the 2016 presidential election against the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, and, eventually, in favor of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump's response to those findings has varied. After Congress overwhelmingly passed new sanctions in August retaliating against Russia over a range of issues including the election interference, Mr. Trump was forced to sign the measure into law in spite of his own objections. In November, after speaking with Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump said he believed that the Russian leader was sincere in his denials of interfering with the 2016 race.
But on Wednesday, Mr. Trump used Twitter and the news conference with Ms. Solberg to once again dismiss the Russia investigations as a politically motivated farce.
This is a section from a NY Times article on January 10, 2018
###
January 11, 2018
Post Script. Click on The Democratic report on Russian interference and read and share it
