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Article snippet: The House Intelligence Committee on Friday released a GOP-authored, heavily redacted report that found no evidence of collusion between MORE’s campaign and Russia. The document also aims to rebut a series of claims about the campaign’s ties to Russia, devoting an entire chapter, roughly 20 pages, to challenge such points. The tome provides a defense for many of the incidents that have drawn scrutiny as evidence of potential collusion between Trump and Moscow, including the claim that attempts to set up a back channel between the campaign and Moscow “suggest the absence of collusion” because colluding with Russia would’ve rendered such a channel “unnecessary.” Committee Democrats have refused to endorse the document produced by the panel, which conducted a politically fraught investigation dominated by partisanship. The GOP report did find some fault with Trump’s campaign, but it also faulted Democrat MORE’s campaign as well as the GOP national security establishment. One finding blames “the Republican national security establishment's opposition to candidate Trump” for “creat[ing] opportunities for two less-experienced individuals with pro-Russia views to serve as campaign advisors.” The void allowed MORE and Carter Page to join the campaign as foreign policy advisers, the report said, since there were “more experienced national security specialists who were unwilling top advise candidate Trump.” Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is reporte... Link to the full article to read more