President Donald Trump is seeking to declassify a document contesting the intelligence community’s finding in 2017 that Russia’s goal in intervening in the 2016 election was to assist Trump’s campaign, Reuters reported Thursday.
Trump and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe are reportedly seeking to declassify the document by Thursday evening at the request of California Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, according to Reuters. The intelligence community long ago concluded that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election broke in favor of Trump, regardless of the later finding that Trump’s campaign had not colluded with nation. (RELATED: Vladimir Putin Suggests Russia, US Stop Meddling In Each Other’s Elections)
BREAKING President Donald Trump and his intelligence chief have pushed for quick declassification – over IC objections – of a document disputing the 2017 intelligence community finding that Russia acted to help Trump get elected in 2016, say three U.S. government officials.
— Jonathan Landay (@JonathanLanday) October 22, 2020
“I have requested that the document undergo a formal declassification review in response to a request” from Nunes, Ratcliffe wrote, noting that Republicans on the committee first requested that it be declassified in December 2018 when they controlled the House.
— Jonathan Landay (@JonathanLanday) October 22, 2020
The report comes less than a day after Ratcliffe and FBI Director Christopher Wray announced that both Russia and Iran had separately obtained some U.S. voter registration information and were using it to meddle in the 2020 election.
Wray and Ratcliffe say Russia and Iran were behind recent spoof emails reportedly from the Proud Boys group that sought to threaten voters into voting for Trump.
“We assess that Russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia ‘establishment,’” William Evanina, Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, wrote at the time. “This is consistent with Moscow’s public criticism of him when he was Vice President for his role in the Obama Administration’s policies on Ukraine and its support for the anti-Putin opposition inside Russia.”