WASHINGTON — Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election fits into a nearly two-decade pattern of meddling with governments around the world, and the US response to its brazen attack is being hindered by President Trump, a new report prepared by Senate Democrats concludes.
The report, which was released Wednesday, is one of the most extensive to date on foreign interference by Russia and President Vladimir Putin. It tracks Russian efforts in 19 countries, chronicling 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 US 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.
But the report begins by calling on Trump to “assert presidential leadership’’ to establish a government-wide response to the Russian efforts, including setting up an interagency center modeled after the National Counterterrorism Center to coordinate the US response to threats and policy related to their deterrence.
“Never before in American history has so clear a threat to national security been so clearly ignored by a US president,’’ the report asserts.
Senator Benjamin Cardin of Maryland, who is the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee and commissioned the report, was no less stark in his assessment.
“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.
US spy agencies have concluded that Putin directed a multifaceted campaign using hacking and propaganda to try to sway the 2016 presidential election against Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, and, eventually, in favor of his campaign.
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, Trump was forced to sign the measure into law despite his own objections. In November, after speaking with Putin, Trump said he believed that the Russian leader was sincere in his denials of interfering with the 2016 race.
On Wednesday, he insisted that there was “no collusion’’ between his campaign and the Russians and described investigations studying the issue as “the single greatest Witch Hunt in American history’’ invented by the Democrats. “Russia & the world is laughing at the stupidity they are witnessing,’’ he wrote on Twitter.
Later, he said it ‘‘seems unlikely’’ that he’d give an interview in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Trump said ‘‘we’ll see what happens’’ when asked if he’d provide an interview to Mueller’s team.
‘‘When they have no collusion and nobody’s found any collusion at any level, it seems unlikely that you’d even have an interview,’’ Trump said during a joint news conference with the prime minister of Norway.
The special counsel’s team of investigators has expressed interest in speaking with Trump, but no details have been worked out. Trump’s lawyers have previously stated their determination to cooperate with requests in the probe, which has already resulted in charges against four of Trump’s campaign advisers.
In a separate tweet Wednesday morning, Trump accused Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of being ‘‘underhanded and a disgrace’’ for disclosing details of a dossier of allegations about his ties to Russia during the presidential campaign.
A day earlier, Feinstein, who faces a primary challenge in her reelection this year, released the transcript of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s closed-door August interview with an official from the political opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which commissioned the dossier. She released the transcript of Glenn Simpson’s interview over the objections of the committee’s Republican chairman, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley. She is the top Democrat on the panel.
‘‘The fact that Sneaky Dianne Feinstein, who has on numerous occasions stated that collusion between Trump/Russia has not been found, would release testimony in such an underhanded and possibly illegal way, totally without authorization, is a disgrace,’’ Trump tweeted. ‘‘Must have tough Primary!’’
The material wasn’t classified, and Feinstein said Wednesday that she didn’t do anything illegal. And as the top Democrat on the committee, she didn’t need authorization from Grassley to release it. Her staff helped conduct the interview with Simpson, who had also asked for the interview to be released.
Overall, the Cardin report argues that 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.
Democrats on Capitol Hill have redoubled their efforts to draw attention to broad issues of election security and what they characterize as dangerous inaction by Republicans, who control all levels of government in Washington before this year’s midterms.
Six senior House Democrats from key committees wrote to House Speaker Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, on Tuesday to accuse Republicans of putting Trump “ahead of our national interests’’ and to urge them to double down on the issue.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
