Politics

Trump Seeking To Declassify Document Contesting Findings That Russia Sought To Help Him In 2016

(Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Anders Hagstrom White House Correspondent
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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)

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.”