Intelligence and Security Committee Russia report

Last updated

The redacted Russia report was publicly released on 21 July 2020 by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament. ISC Russia Report.pdf
The redacted Russia report was publicly released on 21 July 2020 by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.

"The Russia report" is the report of the British Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) into allegations of Russian interference in British politics, including alleged Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum and the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. [1] [2] The committee completed the report in March 2019 and it was published in July 2020, after claims were made that delays to its publication were due to government machinations. According to the report, there is substantial evidence that Russian interference in British politics is commonplace. [3] [4]

Contents

Inquiry

The inquiry began in November 2017, and a 50-page report was completed in March 2019. [5] The report thereafter went through a process of redaction by intelligence and security agencies and was sent to Prime Minister Boris Johnson on 17 October 2019. [5]

Expert witnesses

The committee used the following external expert witnesses. [6]

Publication delay

Johnson's government refused to release the report to the public before the general election in December 2019. [7] In November, Christopher Pincher, a junior minister at the Foreign Office, said "it is not unusual for a review of ISC reports to take some time" after Emily Thornberry, opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman, said the decision not to publish was unjustifiable. [8] A number of legal actions were begun to try to force the government to publish the report: one brought by the widow of the murdered Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, and another by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. [9] [10]

The Prime Minister approved its release on 13 December 2019, the day after the general election. [11] Johnson pledged in Prime Minister's Questions in February 2020 that the report would be released, but said it could not be released until the Intelligence and Security Committee (which disbanded following the dissolution of parliament ahead of the election) was reconstituted; a former chair of the committee, Dominic Grieve, said that this was an "entirely bogus" reason for delaying publication. [5] Grieve had earlier said that the time between approval of release and publication was typically 10 days. [12]

By June 2020, the report had still not been released, and the Intelligence and Security Committee had not been convened, the longest gap since the committee's creation in 1994. [13] This prompted a cross-party group of 30 MPs to urge the committee to be reconstituted and the report to be published, writing that serious issues of "transparency and integrity" of the democratic process were raised by the withholding of the report. [13]

Publication and content

The report was published on 21 July 2020 [14] and was not expected to name individuals and parts of the report were classified due to their sensitive intelligence material and subsequently censored. An uncensored report was available on an "eyes only" basis. [15]

Conclusions

According to the report, there is substantial evidence that Russian interference in British politics is commonplace. [3] [4] According to the Guardian, the main points of the report are: [2]

The report describes the United Kingdom as one of Russia's "top targets" and said it is "seen as central to the Western anti-Russian lobby". [16]

Since the government had not authorised any investigation into the matter, the committee found no evidence that Russian interference had affected the Brexit referendum. Any such attempt without specific authorisation was not within the purview of British intelligence services as any such actions by the security services themselves could be seen as interference, itself undermining democracy. [17]

However, the report did discover some evidence of co-ordinated interference in online narratives following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum in efforts to spread uncertainty over the result. [18] [19] [20]

Reactions

The content of the report was described by the Russian government as "fake-shaped Russophobia". [21] [22]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scottish independence</span> Independence movement in Europe

Scottish independence is the idea of Scotland regaining its independence and once again becoming a sovereign state, independent from the United Kingdom. The term Scottish independence refers to the political movement that is campaigning to bring it about.

The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) is a statutory joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, appointed to oversee the work of the UK intelligence community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Ricketts</span> British senior diplomat and life peer

Peter Forbes Ricketts, Baron Ricketts, is a retired British senior diplomat and a life peer. He has sat as a crossbencher in the House of Lords since 2016.

Cyberwarfare by Russia includes denial of service attacks, hacker attacks, dissemination of disinformation and propaganda, participation of state-sponsored teams in political blogs, internet surveillance using SORM technology, persecution of cyber-dissidents and other active measures. According to investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, some of these activities were coordinated by the Russian signals intelligence, which was part of the FSB and formerly a part of the 16th KGB department. An analysis by the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2017 outlines Russia's view of "Information Countermeasures" or IPb as "strategically decisive and critically important to control its domestic populace and influence adversary states", dividing 'Information Countermeasures' into two categories of "Informational-Technical" and "Informational-Psychological" groups. The former encompasses network operations relating to defense, attack, and exploitation and the latter to "attempts to change people's behavior or beliefs in favor of Russian governmental objectives."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2014 Scottish independence referendum</span>

A referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom was held in Scotland on 18 September 2014. The referendum question was, "Should Scotland be an independent country?", which voters answered with "Yes" or "No". The "No" side won with 2,001,926 (55.3%) voting against independence and 1,617,989 (44.7%) voting in favour. The turnout of 84.6% was the highest recorded for an election or referendum in the United Kingdom since the January 1910 general election, which was held before the introduction of universal suffrage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum</span> Referendum on leaving the European Union

On 23 June 2016, a referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, took place in the United Kingdom (UK) and Gibraltar to ask the electorate whether the country should remain a member of, or leave, the European Union (EU). The referendum resulted in 51.9% of the votes cast being in favour of leaving the EU, triggering calls to begin the process of the country's withdrawal from the EU commonly termed "Brexit".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brexit</span> UK withdrawal from the European Union (2020)

Brexit was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). Following a referendum on 23 June 2016, Brexit officially took place at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020. The UK is the only sovereign country to have left the EU. The UK had been a member state of the EU or its predecessor, the European Communities (EC), since 1 January 1973. Following Brexit, EU law and the Court of Justice of the European Union no longer have primacy over British laws. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 retains relevant EU law as domestic law, which the UK can amend or repeal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proposed second Scottish independence referendum</span> Possible future referendum

A second referendum on the independence of Scotland from the United Kingdom (UK) has been proposed by the Scottish Government. An independence referendum was first held on 18 September 2014, with 55% voting "No" to independence. The Scottish Government stated in its white paper for independence that voting Yes was a "once in a generation opportunity to follow a different path, and choose a new and better direction for our nation". Following the "No" vote, the cross party Smith Commission proposed areas that could be devolved to the Scottish Parliament; this led to the passing of the Scotland Act 2016, formalising new devolved policy areas in time for the 2016 Scottish Parliament election campaign.

After the British EU membership referendum held on 23 June 2016, in which a majority voted to leave the European Union, the United Kingdom experienced political and economic upsets, with spillover effects across the rest of the European Union and the wider world. Prime Minister David Cameron, who had campaigned for Remain, announced his resignation on 24 June, triggering a Conservative leadership election, won by Home Secretary Theresa May. Following Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn's loss of a motion of no confidence among the Parliamentary Labour Party, he also faced a leadership challenge, which he won. Nigel Farage stepped down from leadership of the pro-Leave party UKIP in July. After the elected party leader resigned, Farage then became the party's interim leader on 5 October until Paul Nuttall was elected leader on 28 November.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Premiership of Theresa May</span> Period of the Government of the United Kingdom from 2016 to 2019

Theresa May's tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom began on 13 July 2016 when she accepted an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II to form a government after the resignation of her predecessor David Cameron in the aftermath of the European Union (EU) membership referendum, and ended upon her resignation on 24 July 2019. As prime minister, May served simultaneously as First Lord of the Treasury and as Minister for the Civil Service. May's premiership was dominated by Brexit, terrorist attacks in Westminster, the Manchester Arena and London Bridge, the Grenfell Tower fire, and the Salisbury poisonings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections</span>

The Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections with the goals of sabotaging the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to the U.S. intelligence community, the operation—code named Project Lakhta—was ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The "hacking and disinformation campaign" to damage Clinton and help Trump became the "core of the scandal known as Russiagate". The 448-page Mueller Report, made public in April 2019, examined over 200 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mueller special counsel investigation</span> US investigation into Russian interference in US elections

The Robert Mueller special counsel investigation was an investigation into 45th U.S. president Donald Trump regarding Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and was conducted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller from May 2017 to March 2019. It was also called the Russia investigation, Mueller probe, and Mueller investigation. The investigation focused on three points:

  1. Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
  2. Trump associates and their connection to Russian officials and espionage
  3. Possible obstruction of justice by Trump and his associates

Russian interference in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum is a debated subject and remains unproven, though multiple sources argue evidence exists demonstrating that the Russian government attempted to influence British public opinion in favour of leaving the European Union. Investigations into this subject have been undertaken by the UK Electoral Commission, the UK Parliament's Culture Select Committee and Intelligence and Security Committee, and the United States Senate. "The Russia Report" published by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament in July 2020 did not specifically address the Brexit campaign, but it concluded that Russian interference in UK politics is commonplace. It also found substantial evidence that there had been interference in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.

Several allegations of unlawful campaigning in the 2016 EU referendum have been made. Some allegations were dismissed by the investigating bodies, but in other cases wrongdoing was established, leading to the imposition of penalties. Sanctions have included the levying of the maximum fine possible on Facebook for breaches of data privacy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crossfire Hurricane (FBI investigation)</span> 2016–2017 US counterintelligence investigation of Donald Trumps associates

Crossfire Hurricane was the code name for the counterintelligence investigation undertaken by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from July 31, 2016, to May 17, 2017, into links between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia and "whether individuals associated with [Trump's] presidential campaign were coordinating, wittingly or unwittingly, with the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election". Trump was not personally under investigation until May 2017, when his firing of FBI director James Comey raised suspicions of obstruction of justice, which triggered the Mueller investigation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections</span>

Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections was a matter of concern at the highest level of national security within the United States government, in addition to the computer and social media industries. In 2020, the RAND Corporation was one of the first to release research describing Russia's playbook for interfering in U.S. elections, developed machine-learning tools to detect the interference, and tested strategies to counter Russian interference. In February and August 2020, United States Intelligence Community (USIC) experts warned members of Congress that Russia was interfering in the 2020 presidential election in then-President Donald Trump's favor. USIC analysis released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in March 2021 found that proxies of Russian intelligence promoted and laundered misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about Joe Biden "to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration." The New York Times reported in May 2021 that federal investigators in Brooklyn began a criminal investigation late in the Trump administration into possible efforts by several current and former Ukrainian officials to spread unsubstantiated allegations about corruption by Joe Biden, including whether they had used Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani as a channel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal</span> Dispute about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections

Since 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and his allies have promoted several conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal. One such theory seeks to blame Ukraine, instead of Russia, for interference in the 2016 United States presidential election. Also among the conspiracy theories are accusations against Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, and several elements of the right-wing Russia investigation origins counter-narrative. American intelligence believes that Russia engaged in a years long campaign to frame Ukraine for the 2016 election interference, that the Kremlin is the prime mover behind promotion of the fictitious alternative narratives, and that these are harmful to the United States. FBI director Christopher A. Wray stated to ABC News that "We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election" and that "as far as the [2020] election itself goes, we think Russia represents the most significant threat."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russian interference in British politics</span> Political intervention in the United Kingdom by the Russian state

According to the Intelligence and Security Committee Russia report, released on 21 July 2020, there is substantial evidence that Russian interference in the British economy and politics is commonplace; further to this, evidence was uncovered detailing interference in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum aimed at promoting Scottish independence in an attempt to divide and conquer the UK. The report described the UK as one of Russia's "top targets" as it was "seen as central to the Western anti-Russian lobby".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election</span>

The Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the United States presidential election, officially titled Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence United States Senate on Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, is the official report in five volumes documenting the findings and conclusions of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee concerning the Russian attack efforts against election infrastructure, Russia's use of social media to affect the election, the U.S. government's response to Russian activities, review of the Intelligence Community Assessment, and counterintelligence threats and vulnerabilities. The redacted report is 1,313 pages long. It is divided into five volumes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of investigations into Donald Trump and Russia (July–December 2019)</span>

This is a timeline of major events in second half of 2019 related to the investigations into the myriad links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies that are suspected of being inappropriate, relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8, and the transition, the first and second halves of 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and the first half of 2019, but precedes that of 2020 and 2021.

References

  1. Harper, Caroline; Kerbaj, Richard; Wheeler, Tom (17 November 2019). "Revealed: the Russia report". The Sunday Times. ISSN   0956-1382 . Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  2. 1 2 "UK report on Russian interference: key points explained". the Guardian. 21 July 2020. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
  3. 1 2 Castle, Stephen; Landler, Mark (21 July 2020). "'No One' Protected British Democracy From Russia, U.K. Report Concludes". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 21 July 2020.
  4. 1 2 Neilan, Cat (21 July 2020). "Politics latest news: Russian attempts to influence UK politics are the 'new normal', report claims". The Telegraph. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 21 July 2020.
  5. 1 2 3 "Russia report: When can we expect it to be published?". BBC News. 7 February 2020.
  6. Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (21 July 2020). Report on 'Russia' (PDF). p. 44.
  7. "U.K. Delays Russian Interference Report Until After Election". Time. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  8. "UK accused of withholding report on Russian meddling to spare embarrassment". Reuters. 15 November 2019. Retrieved 19 August 2020.
  9. "Russian meddling report – dissident's widow goes to law". The Guardian . 15 November 2019. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  10. "Bureau of Investigative Journalism fundraises to take the UK Government to court over Russian Report". journalism.co.uk. Mousetrap Media. 14 November 2019. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  11. "Notice on 17 December 2019". Intelligence and Security Committee. Archived from the original on 17 July 2020. Retrieved 24 February 2019.
  12. Dearden, Lizzie (6 November 2019). "Boris Johnson 'blocked release of Russia report against advice of intelligence agencies'". The Independent. Retrieved 3 February 2021.
  13. 1 2 Mattha Busby (20 June 2020). "Russia report: UK MPs condemn 'utterly reprehensible' delay". The Guardian.
  14. "21 July 2020". Intelligence and Service Committee of Parliament. 21 July 2020. Archived from the original on 16 January 2021.
  15. Corera, Gordon (21 July 2020). "Long-awaited report to detail Russian threat to UK". BBC News. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
  16. "UK 'top target' for Russia, says report". BBC News. 21 July 2020. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
  17. "Russia report: UK took its 'eye off the ball' over interference threat, says ISC". Sky News. 21 July 2020.
  18. "Russia report: Call for inquiry after ISC finds 'credible' evidence of attempt to influence 2014 Scottish independence referendum". 21 July 2020. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
  19. "Russia Report Reveals Interference in Scottish Independence Referendum". 21 July 2020. Retrieved 19 August 2020.
  20. "Russia report LIVE: Downing Street rejects call to examine Brexit referendum claims". Sky News . Retrieved 21 July 2020.
  21. "UK 'actively avoided' investigating Russian threat". BBC News. 21 July 2020. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
  22. "Russian influence in the UK is the 'new normal,' widely anticipated report claims". ABC News. Retrieved 21 July 2020.