Members of Trump's 2016 campaign posed major counterintelligence risk to US, Senate intelligence report says

The report explains how Trump team took advantage of email hacks

Donald Trump's campaign embraced help from Russia in the 2016 presidential election and his administration obstructed an investigation into election interference, a Senate Intelligence Committee report said Tuesday.

The thousand-page report is the most detailed account yet of the connections between Donald Trump's campaign and Russia, and includes allusions to possible compromising material the Russians posses related to Mr Trump.

"Separate from Steele's memos, which the Committee did not use for support, the Committee became aware of three general sets of allegations," all of which involve women, with two mentioning the existence of a tape, according to NBC News.

The report claims that Mr Trump's campaign eagerly accepted the help from Russia, and that it considered the Democratic National Committee's hacked emails their "October surprise." Mr Trump's team is accused of using the information despite knowing it was obtained and disseminated by Russian intelligence agents,

"While the GRU and WikiLeaks were releasing hacked documents, the Trump Campaign sought to maximise the impact of those materials to aid Trump's electoral prospects," the report says. "To do so, the Trump campaign took actions to obtain advance notice about WikiLeaks releases of Clinton emails; took steps to obtain inside information about the content of releases once WikiLeaks began to publish stolen information; created messaging strategies to promote and share the materials in anticipation of and following their release; and encouraged further theft of information and continued leaks."

Paul Manafort, who is serving a seven-year prison term after being convicted of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to defraud the US relating to his ties Ukrainian politicians, was also implicated in the report. It claims to have evidence that Mr Manafort may have been connected to the Russian's efforts to steal the Democrats' emails, but that no connection was ever proven in court.

The report also claims that the Russians took advantage of Mr Trump's transition team, which was filled with individuals who were inexperienced and manipulated by the Russians.

"Russia and other countries took advantage of the Transition Team's inexperience, transparent opposition to Obama Administration policies, and Trump's desire to deepen ties with Russia, to pursue unofficial channels through which Russia could conduct diplomacy," the report says. "The lack of vetting of foreign interactions by Transition officials left the Transition open to influence and manipulation by foreign intelligence services, government leaders, and co-opted business executives."

The report concludes that "Russian officials, intelligence services, and others acting on the Kremlin's behalf were capable of exploiting the Transition's shortcomings for Russia's advantage. Based on available information it is possible -- and even likely -- that they did so."

The report was declassified at the request of outgoing Senate Intelligence Committee chair Senator Richard Burr.

Mr Burr agreed to step down as the chair while he's being investigated by the FBI over whether he sold stock based on insider information relating to the coronavirus.