WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russia used Republican political operative Paul Manafort, the WikiLeaks website and others to try to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help now-U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign, a Senate intelligence panel report said on Tuesday. WikiLeaks played a key role in Russia’s effort to assist Republican Trump against Democrat Hillary Clinton and likely knew it was helping Russian intelligence, said the report, which is likely to be the most definitive public account of the 2016 election controversy. The panel, formally called the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, also alleged Manafort collaborated with Russians, including oligarch Oleg Deripaska and an alleged Russian intelligence operative, Konstantin Kilimnik, before during and after the election. Mueller found no conclusive evidence of coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign in a report released last year. The committee could not establish the extent to which Trump campaign advisor Roger Stone had real inside access to WikiLeaks materials, the report said.

Source: Huffington Post August 18, 2020 15:01 UTC