The panel confirmed that Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort sought to give internal campaign data to Russian intelligence officer Konstantin Kilimnik, saying Manafort posed a "grave counterintelligence threat" to the United States.

"The Committee found that Manafort's presence on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign," the report stated. "Taken as a whole, Manafort's high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik and associates of Oleg Deripaska, represented a grave counterintelligence threat."

The report also contradicted Republican politicians' dubious claims that Ukraine, not Russia, may have been responsible for meddling in the election.

"[D]uring the course of the investigation, the Committee identified no reliable evidence that the Ukrainian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. election," the report stated. Additionally, Kilimnik was identified as having "almost certainly helped arrange some of the first public messaging that Ukraine had interfered in the U.S. election."

Referring to the web of contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign, Washington, D.C.-based national security attorney Mark Zaid (who represented the Ukraine whistleblower) wrote, "This is called a shoe dropping. Hard."

The panel was surprisingly personal in its assessment of President Trump, asserting that he lied to former special counsel Robert Mueller regarding Roger Stone and WikiLeaks. During Mueller's probe, the president told investigators he had "no recollection" of any conversations between him and Stone about Wikileaks. Despite that, the panel concluded that "Trump did, in fact, speak with Stone about WikiLeaks and with members of his Campaign about Stone's access to WikiLeaks on multiple occasions."

National security attorney Bradley P. Moss referred to the finding as "the coup de grace," writing that "even Senate Republicans believe Trump lied to Mueller."