Less than two weeks after Donald Trump chided Republican lawmakers for fearing the National Rifle Association and not being ambitious enough in their work to curb gun violence, the President seems to have backed down too.

The pipe dream of passing sweeping gun legislation met its end Sunday with the White House release of a plan that walks back Trump’s support for raising the age to buy some weapons, from 18 to 21, and shelves calls for comprehensive background checks. “Not much political support (to put it mildly)” Trump tweeted Monday.

The climbdown was striking. Just 11 days ago, Trump scolded Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, for not including the age hike in a gun bill. “You know why? Because you’re afraid of the NRA,” Trump scolded Toomey, who braved political peril by introducing background-check legislation, as the press looked on.

But it’s no surprise that Trump’s rhetoric gave way to the tricky realities of gun politics. As the Feb. 14 mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., faded from headlines, the White House realized the president perhaps overstepped on what he was willing to do — and whom he was willing to anger.

While public polls show overwhelming support for action on guns, private polls conducted for Republicans show Trump’s strongest supporters have little interest in that. Trump, who runs the government as if it were a proxy for only his most fervent fans, seemed to go wobbly on the issue. A White House official said Trump still wanted stronger background checks but recognized the risks of alienating his supporters.

A Republican who speaks with senior White House officials regularly says this is what many aides were looking to avoid. The problem, this Republican says, is that Trump rushed into the debate with gut instincts but little grasp of gun policy. This was, after all, a man who wrote in a pre-campaign book that he favored a ban on assault weapons—and then won the White House with record support from the NRA.

The NRA and like-minded gun-rights groups were willing to let the gun debate play out, knowing inertia was on their side. The groups have long opposed any efforts to restrict Second Amendment rights, and in the past they have threatened lawmakers who stepped out of line. But this time, gun-rights groups took a different approach.

NRA leaders put up a fight. But as TIME has reported, behind the scenes the NRA signaled to allies that a conversation about guns would not be seen as a betrayal. The reality is, it could be helpful. Fear of gun restrictions is good for business, and struggling firearm makers could use a jolt in sales. At the same time, the NRA told its members that they were under threat from liberals, the media and those who make it harder to buy guns — a common victimhood tactic following these types of headlines. It was good for membership sign-ups.

Trump seemed to be playing his part. In the days after the mass shooting that killed 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the President demanded ambitious plans to tackle gun violence. Over the objection of some of his advisers, Trump said he wanted stronger background checks before anyone could buy guns and told Attorney General Jeff Sessions to start work on banning bump stocks, which allow semi-automatic weapons to function like automatic ones.

That wasn’t all. Trump said he’d rather confiscate weapons from someone suspected of mental illness first and deal with due process later. He pushed the authors of previous gun legislation to go further than before and promised students who visited the White House that he would campaign for meaningful changes.

Then Trump began to backpedal. He hosted NRA executives for a weekend luncheon at the White House and an Oval Office meeting. After that meeting, the NRA’s chief lobbyist announced Trump had abandoned his most aggressive plans on guns.

By Monday, the talk was about studying the issue, not taking action. “Everything is on the table,” Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told NBC News’ Today Show on Monday. In other words, nothing was sacrosanct.

Democrats were, of course, frustrated. “President Trump has completely caved to the gun lobby,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California. “To no one’s surprise, the President’s words of support for stronger gun safety laws proved to be hollow.”

The White House said the shift merely reflected political realities. “He can’t make them happen with a broad stroke of the pen,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters on Monday. She blamed Barack Obama’s administration for not dealing with guns when it controlled the House, the Senate and the White House from 2009 to 2011—a dynamic the GOP now enjoys. (The gun debate didn’t peak until after the Newtown, Conn., school shooting in December 2012.)

“You just can’t decide you want laws to pass and it happens,” Sanders said.</s>Many signs suggest Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will lose the election. He has fallen further and further behind in political polls as the number of women accusing him of sexual assault has continued to rise.

So after November 8th — assuming he has not staged an unprecedented comeback — Trump may very well have to turn his attention back to his many businesses.

A growing refrain is that the same forces that might lose Trump the election may have already damaged his brand irreparably. Billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, says he thinks it's already too late for Trump to turn things around, comparing him to Bernie Madoff, who is serving a 150-year prison sentence for crimes associated with an elaborate Ponzi scheme.

Of course, there is some evidence to the contrary.

On Monday morning, for example, we got our first clue as to what Trump's post-election ventures might include: Trump's son-in-law and campaign adviser Jared Kushner is reportedly exploring the possibility of a Trump-branded TV network launch, according to the Financial Times.

Now, let's set aside the fact that launching a network in the age of cord-cutting might be — as one industry executive described it to Vanity Fair — a "fool's errand," given the huge costs of launching a cable network, coupled with declining advertising rates.

The simple idea that Trump might become a new face of conservative media is not so far-fetched, and there is big cash to be had: Just look at Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. As USA Today puts it, Trump will likely emerge from the election with about 30 million "fans," and "at the very least, this is a vast tchotchke market: hats, T-shirts, baubles."

But — while they might buy hats and end up as loyal Trump network viewers — what these new fans won't likely do is prop up Trump's existing mainstream luxury businesses, which run on expensive golf club fees, costly hotel rooms, and pricey apartments. Among educated, wealthy consumers and prominent partners, Trump's brand has been tainted.

Many of the major brands with which he once partnered, including Macy's and the Professional Golf Association, have distanced themselves from the real estate mogul.

And public perception of the Trump name's value on TV and in entertainment has fallen 13 percentage points just since the summer, while perception of his brand's value lost 8 percentage points within real estate and 6 percentage points for country clubs and golf clubs, according to the results of a Brand Keys study reported by the Wall Street Journal.

That's not all: Here are five more signs of just how bad things have gotten for Donald Trump, the brand.

In late September, Trump Hotels announced the launch of a new lifestyle brand, "Scion," which would "nod to the Trump family and to the tremendous success it has had with its businesses... while allowing for a clear distinction between our luxury and lifestyle brands," Trump Hotels CEO Eric Danziger said in a press release.

The word "scion" means "a person born into a rich, famous, or important family."

Omitting his name marks a big change from Trump's previous modus operandi. For decades, Politico reports, virtually all of the products used by the Trump Organization and in his hotels bore his name, from water bottles to sheets.

It is not unusual for a company facing criticism or scandal to change or obscure its name.

For example, cigarette-making conglomerate Philip Morris Companies renamed itself the anodyne "Altria Group" in the early aughts, "thus insulating both the corporation and its other operating companies — notably, Kraft General Foods — from the taint of tobacco," as two University of California, San Francisco, researchers wrote in a 2003 paper in the American Journal of Public Health.

2. People are reportedly "embarrassed" to live in Trump apartment buildings.

On Friday, BuzzFeed published a new report quoting residents of luxury Trump Towers buildings in Manhattan who say they are "embarrassed" to have the candidate's name on their building — a sentiment that at least one of them said was new.

"There was a cachet to it," the resident, who requested anonymity, told BuzzFeed. "But I think that's gone."

One the major business developments that has taken place for Trump over the course of the campaign is the opening of a new luxury hotel in Washington, D.C., called Trump International Hotel.

On Thursday, New York Magazine reported that no one wants to stay there.

Despite the fact that delegates from both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were in town last weekend for their annual meeting — meaning that virtually every five-star hotel in town was sold out — rooms at the Trump International Hotel could be had for nearly half off, the magazine reported.

4. Trump's net worth has plummeted, according to

According to Forbes, Trump's net worth has declined in the last year by about $800 million. According to the magazine, that puts his total net worth at $3.7 billion.

An impressive sum, for sure, but that's a lot less than the $10 billion figure he's tossed out on the campaign trail.

The decline matters, because Trump has built his business at least in part around his larger-than-life persona. According to Mother Jones, Trump has allegedly inflated his net worth in press interviews since the 1970s.

5. Trump University and the Trump Foundation are being investigated.

Let's not forget Trump University and the Trump Foundation.

Back in early September, New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman announced he would be opening an inquiry into the Trump Foundation, following accusations that the group mishandled funds.

Then on Sept. 30, Schneiderman sent the foundation a notice of violation, ordering the group to "immediately cease soliciting contributions or engaging in any other fundraising activities in New York."

And that's not the only legal issue that could follow Trump once he leaves the campaign trail.

Right after the election, Trump will have to testify in court on November 28th, as he faces a class action lawsuit brought by former students of Trump University.

Now, whether Trump's brand survives the maelstrom of scandal before him may seem like a matter of little importance, given the gravity of allegations about his behavior.

But Trump himself has said his fame and fortune enable him to "do anything" he wants.

Thus one could argue that Trump, the brand, has everything to do with Trump — the man.</s>House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor on February 24, 2018 in Maryland.

Joshua Roberts / Reuters file</s>On Wednesday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released FBI Director James Comey's prewritten intro to his testimony on President Donald Trump, who has faced accusations — that he more or less personally confirmed — he fired Comey for investigating ties between the president’s team and Russia.

The Republican Party was quick to brag about the lack of "substance" in Comey's written comments.

In actuality, Comey's statement is loaded with details on just how hard — and how incompetently — the president tried to recruit Comey into quashing the FBI investigation into the alleged ties between his campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election. Trump, Comey wrote, tried to enlist him into "some sort of patronage" relationship and hounded him for weeks before terminating him May 9.

Here are the three biggest things to emerge from Comey's testimony.

1. Trump's pressure on Comey was repeated and obvious.

On at least four occasions, the president pressured the FBI director to do as he bid, leaving little ambiguity as to his intentions.

On Jan. 27, Comey wrote, Trump summoned him to a dinner that "turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small over table in the center of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks ... My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship."

At the same dinner, Trump told the FBI director "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty," and later returned to the same subject at the end of the meal. He also told Comey he considered asking him to disprove January's salacious intel report that claimed he was filmed at a "golden showers" party in Moscow.

On Feb. 14, Trump ordered other administration officials out of the Oval Office before making a "long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information." He turned to the subject of Mike Flynn, the former national security adviser fired for lying to other administration officials about a phone call with the Russian ambassador, who has since been revealed to have taken undisclosed payments from foreign governments.

On March 30, Trump called Comey on the phone, angry about a hearing in which Comey confirmed the FBI's investigation into Trump. During the call, Trump stressed the "cloud" building over his presidency that threatened to interfere with, in Comey's words, "his ability to make deals for the country ... [Trump said] he hoped I could find a way to get out that he wasn't being investigated." Trump appeared to suggest Comey owed the president, reminding Comey he allowed Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe to stay on despite McCabe's close relationship with the Clintons.

On April 11, Trump again phoned Comey, demanding to know why he was not cleared in the investigation.

"I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know," Trump said. Comey said he did not know what the president was referring to.

2. Other senior administration officials let it happen.

Also during the Feb. 14 meeting, Comey noted the presence of a number of top officials including the vice president, deputy director of the CIA, director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center, secretary of Homeland Security and the attorney general. Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner was also in attendance, among others.

Several officials including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Kushner, apparently tried to gently dissuade the president from having everyone leave but Comey, suggesting they were aware he was about to do something ill-advised. But all of them ultimately deferred to Trump's authority.

White House chief of staff Reince Priebus "leaned in through the door" when the meeting dragged on but was promptly waved off.

Comey said that after Trump used the closed-door meeting to pressure him on Flynn, Comey told Sessions he expected the Department of Justice to shield him from such pressure from Trump. Comey wrote he "took the opportunity to implore the attorney general to prevent any future direct communication between the president and me. I told the AG that what had just happened — him being asked to leave while the FBI Director, who reports to the AG, remained behind — was inappropriate and should never happen. He did not reply."

After the March 30 phone call, Comey wrote that he called Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente to "report the substance of the call from the president" but never received a reply.

3. Comey described bizarre and troubling behavior by the president.

The president's demeanor and temperament has long been the subject of public concern, but Comey's testimony seemed to describe a man whose actions could, at the very least, be considered concerning. Trump wasn't just preoccupied with the allegations against him — he acted in ways that suggest he doesn't entirely realize the limitations of his office or the way others might interpret his behavior.

That Comey immediately concluded the Jan. 27 dinner was an attempt to establish a patronage relationship only underscores the obvious intent behind the one-on-one meeting and the idea the president was not aware that his movements and meetings are noted at all times.

Comey wrote he told Trump he could not promise loyalty, only honesty, and Trump responded "That's what I want, honest loyalty." Comey was confused as to what exactly the president meant by the or what he expected Comey to do, calling the interaction "very awkward."

Trump also seemed to think it wasn't a bad idea to have the FBI investigate the "golden showers" allegation, forcing Comey to explain "it was very difficult to prove a negative."

Comey noted how the president went back and forth between various topics during the Feb. 14 meeting in the Oval Office before eventually returning to the "problem of leaks" — after which Comey "got up and left out the door." He didn't specifically mention being excused, indicating Trump had gone on for so long that he didn't see a point in his continued presence.

On March 30, Trump apparently used the word "hookers" while discussing the "golden showers" tape. "He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia," Comey wrote.

Later, when Trump brought up his theorized McCabe-Clinton link, he did not appear to understand the allegation was immaterial, leaving Comey confused as to "why the president was bringing this up."

June 7, 2017, 5:24 p.m. Eastern: This article has been updated.</s>The timing of Rex Tillerson's firing has come under scrutiny among critics who say Trump is protective of Russia.

“Trump is ours!” a Russian state journalist declared after Donald Trump’s controversial decision to fire Secretary of State Rex Tillerson just hours after Tillerson publicly criticized Russia for allegedly attacking an ex-spy in the U.K. using a military-grade nerve agent.

Tillerson was fired on Tuesday morning, just hours after he came out strongly against Russia for what has been termed a brazen attack on foreign soil. British Prime Minister Theresa May condemned Russia as well and said the nation had until the end of the day on Tuesday to answer for the attack or else the U.K. would deem the act an “unlawful use of force” by Moscow, the BBC reported.

Tillerson’s statement was seen as an important show of solidarity with Britain and a forceful rebuke of Russia, which has been accused of meddling in the 2016 presidential election in order to help elect Donald Trump. Tillerson’s abrupt firing — he learned of his firing when Donald Trump announced it on Twitter — drew controversy given Trump’s reluctance to speak out against Russia and his decision not to enforce sanctions that had been passed with almost unanimous support in Congress.

Russian journalist Olga Skabeeva was more blunt in her assessment. Speaking on Russian state television on Tuesday, she implied that Donald Trump remains under the control of Moscow.

“Yesterday Tillerson supporter Theresa May in her ‘highly likely’ Russia accusation. And Trump immediately fired him. Trump is ours!” she declared.

The statement was relayed on CNN and quickly went viral online, feeding fuel to the speculation that Russia is blackmailing Donald Trump, a central claim of the dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele. Skabeeva was not the only one speculating that Trump was under Russian control, with many of the president’s critics openly questioning whether there was an ulterior motive behind Tillerson’s firing.

This is not the first time that Olga Skabeeva has gleefully bragged that Donald Trump is under the control of Russia. As Raw Story noted, she made a similar boast earlier this year after Trump decided not to enact sanctions against Russia that had been passed with overwhelming support from both Democrats and Republicans, again saying, “Trump is ours!”</s>President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia did not collude during the 2016 presidential election, the House Intelligence Committee's Republicans said Monday in a draft assessment of Russia's alleged efforts to steer the poll.

Republicans on the committee found "a pattern of Russian attacks" on the U.S. and Europe that included Moscow's cyberattacks on American political institutions from 2015-2016 as well as Russia's "use of social media to sow discord".

In an apparent bid to fault former President Barack Obama, the one-page document noted "a lackluster pre-election response to Russian active measures" while breaking with American intelligence agencies who determined Russia's influence campaign was aimed at bolstering Trump's chances of emerging victorious.

"We found no evidence of collusion," Representative Mike Conaway, who was leading the probe, told reporters at the Capitol. "We disagree with the narrative that they were trying to help Trump."

The Republican's findings fit perfectly with Trump's oft-repeated narrative of the events.

"THE HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE HAS, AFTER A 14 MONTH LONG IN-DEPTH INVESTIGATION, FOUND NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION OR COORDINATION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA TO INFLUENCE THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION," he said.

The full report will not be made publicly available until the panel's Democratic members are given the opportunity to review the findings and the intelligence community clears them for public release. The committee's Democrats will receive the report Tuesday for review.

The ranking Democrat on the committee, Adam Schiff, slammed the Republicans for ending the investigation, calling the decision "a tragic milestone for this Congress".

"By ending its oversight role in the only authorized investigation in the House, the majority has placed the interests of protecting the President over protecting the country," he said in a statement. "History will judge its actions harshly."

The Republican's preliminary findings come as Special Counsel Robert Mueller continues to head a separate investigation into Russia and possible collusion with the Trump campaign that has shown signs of increasing intensity over the past few weeks.

Conaway was adamant that even though the Mueller probe is ongoing, the House committee had "the information necessary to support the conclusions we've come to".

A separate investigation being taken up in the Senate is also continuing its inquiry, and shortly before the House panel released its findings, Senator Chris Coons said the Senate Intelligence Committee "continues to make solid progress" while ripping its House counterpart.

"It is truly disappointing that the House Intelligence Committee is just hanging up its cleats, having not really run the race," he told CNN.

Conaway defended the House committee's decision to end their probe, telling Fox News that Coons' assessment is "uninformed at best".</s>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Intelligence Committee Republicans said on Monday the panel had finished investigating Russia and the 2016 U.S. election, and found no collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Moscow’s efforts to influence the vote.

The committee Republicans said they agreed that Russia sought to influence the election by spreading propaganda and false news reports via social media. However, they disputed the findings of the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation that Moscow sought to aid Trump, who won a surprise victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

“We’re through with interview phase. We’re now in the report drafting phase,” Republican Representative Mike Conaway, who has led the panel’s investigation for the past year, told Reuters.

Representative Adam Schiff, the top committee Democrat, strongly disagreed, and blasted the announcement as a premature shutdown.

The House investigation, one of three main congressional probes of Russia and the 2016 investigation, and possible collusion or obstruction of justice by Trump or his aides, has been marred for months by partisan wrangling, including the release of rival Republican and Democratic memos related to the probe.

The House Intelligence Committee’s chairman, Republican Representative Devin Nunes, recused himself from the investigation last year amid reports he had a secret meeting at the White House. Nunes denied wrongdoing.

The House Republicans made their announcement even as Robert Mueller, the U.S. special counsel for the Russia probe, seems to be stepping up his investigation. Last week, former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg spent six hours before a grand jury called by Mueller, and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort pleaded not guilty to criminal charges.

“While the Majority members of our committee have indicated for some time that they have been under great pressure to end the investigation, it is nonetheless another tragic milestone for this Congress, and represents yet another capitulation to the executive branch,” Schiff said in a statement.

Trump took to Twitter to note the announcement, typing in all capital letters, that the House committee had found no evidence of collusion or coordination after a 14-month-long“in-depth investigation.”

Republican members of the House of Representatives committee had been saying for weeks they were near the end of the interview phase of the probe, saying they needed to release their findings to prepare for the next general election in November.

Democrats have accused committee Republicans of shirking the investigation in order to protect the Republican president and his associates, some of whom have pleaded guilty to charges including lying to investigators and conspiring against the United States.

Trump has repeatedly denied collusion between his campaign and Russia. Russia denies meddling in the 2016 U.S. campaign.

Schiff said evidence was“clear and overwhelming” that U.S. intelligence agencies’ assessment was correct that Russia sought to boost Trump, hurt his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and sow discord.

“On a whole host of investigative threads, our work is fundamentally incomplete, some issues partially investigated, others, like that involving credible allegations of Russian money laundering, remain barely touched,” Schiff said.

Conaway accused Democrats of seeking to prolong the probe ahead of the mid-term elections. The Republicans’ current control of both houses of Congress is up for grabs in the November vote, and early polls show they face a difficult fight in particular to retain a majority in the House.

“There’s opportunity for this investigation to go on forever if in fact you don’t want to come to any conclusions... if you want to make hay in the run up to the election,” Conaway said in a telephone interview.

The House Republicans’ announcement shifts attention across the Capitol to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has been conducting its own investigation. Republicans and Democrats have both described that probe as far less partisan than the House’s.

The House Republicans said they had already completed a draft version of what they said would eventually be the committee’s final report on the investigation.

Conaway said he hoped to work with Schiff on the probe but Democrats are expected to release their own report.</s>Over the summer, President Donald Trump contacted Senate Republicans multiple times, urging them to end the Senate’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, according to The New York Times.

A half-dozen lawmakers and aides told the Times that the president had asked several senators to quickly end the investigation ― including Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who is leading the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Intelligence Committee member Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).

Burr recalled his conversation with Trump in an interview with the Times: “It was something along the lines of, ‘I hope you can conclude this as quickly as possible.’”

Burr said he replied, “when we have exhausted everybody we need to talk to, we will finish.”

Burr told the Times that he did not feel pressured by the president’s request, dismissing the behavior as coming from someone who has “never been in government.” He also acknowledged that other members of the Intelligence Committee had similar interactions with Trump.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), however, deemed these conversations “inappropriate” and a breach of the separation of powers, according to the Times.

“It is pressure that should never be brought to bear by an official when the legislative branch is in the process of an investigation,” Feinstein told the Times.

Trump’s reported requests to lawmakers came around the same time special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s potential ties to Russia was beginning to heat up.

The Justice Department appointed Mueller as special counsel in May, after Trump decided to fire FBI Director James Comey as the bureau conducted its own Russia investigation.

Testifying in front of the Senate Intelligence Community in June, Comey said that Trump had asked him to drop any investigation into his former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn, who was ousted from his post in February, was under investigation by the FBI over his potential ties to Russia.

Comey also told the Senate that Trump had asked him for his loyalty as FBI director and complained that the Russia investigation “cloud” was impairing his ability to perform as president.

There are currently several investigations into potential ties between Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian government, including one led by the special counsel, one led by Burr and the Senate Intelligence Committee, and one led by the House Intelligence Committee.

Raj Shah, a White House spokesman, denied that the president had used his influence to convince committee members to end the Russia investigation. Shah told the Times that Trump believes “there is no evidence of collusion and these investigations must come to a fair and appropriate completion.’’</s>(CNN) Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee reached an opposite conclusion Monday from the intelligence community they oversee, announcing that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not trying to help Donald Trump win the 2016 election.

The Republicans also said they found no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia and that they are shutting down their yearlong investigation.

Their viewpoint -- which perfectly aligns with Trump's view on election meddling -- will be met with sharp disagreement by Democrats and is bound to inflame partisan tensions on a committee that's been beleaguered by partisanship throughout its Russia probe.

The Republican decision to end the House Russia investigation comes as special counsel Robert Mueller's probe appears to be accelerating.

Rep. Mike Conaway, the Texas Republican leading the Russia investigation, said Monday that the committee had concluded its interviews for the Russia investigation, and the Republican staff had prepared a 150-page draft report that they would give to Democrats to review on Tuesday morning.

"We found no evidence of collusion, and so we found perhaps some bad judgment, inappropriate meetings," Conaway said. "We found no evidence of any collusion of anything people were actually doing other than taking a meeting they shouldn't have taken or just inadvertently being in the same building."

Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, slammed the Republican decision to end the investigation.

"While the majority members of our committee have indicated for some time that they have been under great pressure to end the investigation, it is nonetheless another tragic milestone for this Congress, and represents yet another capitulation to the executive branch," Schiff said in a statement. "By ending its oversight role in the only authorized investigation in the House, the Majority has placed the interests of protecting the President over protecting the country, and history will judge its actions harshly."

The Senate Intelligence Committee is forging ahead with its investigation into Russian election meddling. But Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr told CNN on Monday that he had not yet seen any evidence of collusion or to substantiate the intelligence community's assessment that Putin was trying to help Trump win, though he said the committee was still investigating and had not reached conclusions on either matter.

"I've read a lot about it, but I haven't seen any" evidence of collusion, Burr said.

Asked about repeated efforts by Russians to coordinate with the Trump campaign, Burr said: "It's collusion on part of the Russians, I guess, but not the Trump campaign."

Burr would not say if he agreed with the Intelligence Community's assessment that Putin tried to help Trump, calling it simply "a 30-day snapshot."

In the House, Democrats say there are still scores of witnesses the committee should call, and argue that Republicans have failed to use subpoenas to obtain documents and require witnesses to answer questions that are central to the investigation.

Conaway told reporters that he feels the committee has investigated all avenues it needed to probe, and he argued that the panel would not have been able to obtain the information Democrats were seeking had they gone the route of subpoenaing witnesses or trying to hold them in contempt.

Conaway, for instance, said the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between senior campaign officials and a Russian lawyer where dirt on Clinton was promised was "ill-advised." But he said that the committee did not turn up any evidence of collusion, arguing the promoter who organized the meeting had exaggerated what the Russians would provide.

The committee's report will conclude that they agree with 98% of the intelligence community's January 2017 assessment that Russia meddled in the 2016 election, according to a committee aide.

But the panel's Republicans take issue with the key finding that Putin was trying get Trump elected. Conaway said it was clear the Russians were trying to sow discord in the 2016 US election, but Republicans did not establish the same conclusions as the CIA that they specifically were trying to help Trump.

James Clapper, who was Director of National Intelligence in the Obama administration when the assessment was released, said he disagreed, noting that US intelligence found Putin had deep animus toward Clinton and saw Trump as more friendly toward Russia.

"I obviously disagree. The four intelligence chiefs all agreed with the assessment, which was based on highly classified intelligence," Clapper told CNN. "This is a case of people living in their own reality bubbles when we can't agree on basic facts."

The committee's Russia investigation included interviews with 73 witnesses and a review of roughly 300,000 pages of documents, Conaway said. They included key figures like Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon, but Democrats have argued that those witnesses failed to fully provide documents or answer important questions.

But Conaway said that Republicans would not hold Bannon in contempt of Congress for failing to answer questions beyond what was authorized by the White House, despite threats to do so just several days ago. Conaway said such efforts -- and issuing subpoenas to other witnesses as Democrats demanded -- would be a fruitless endeavor.

"You use subpoenas when you think you can actually get something from them," Conaway said. "We're not too confident that the subpoena process would get us any more information than we have."

Conaway said he hopes that Democrats can work with Republicans on the draft report, and he wants to take their feedback as they shape the final report. He declined to put a timeline on when the report would be made public, as the committee intends to submit it to the intelligence community for declassification beforehand.

Conaway said Democrats will agree with some elements of the report, such as the social media interference, but he acknowledged they'd take issue with others.

It's widely expected Democrats will draft their own report that argues a case for collusion, as well as spells out all the avenues the committee did not investigate.

In addition to subpoenas and witnesses, Democrats have long raised issues about looking into Trump's finances, something the committee had not probed. Conaway said he saw no "link" between Trump's finances and the committee's investigation, and he did not want to go on a fishing expedition.

The Republican report will also say how "anti-Trump research" made its way from Russian sources to the Clinton campaign through the opposition research dossier on Trump and Russia. Conaway, however, stopped short of saying there was "collusion" between Clinton's campaign and the Russians, something the President has alleged.

The end of the Russia interviews is only the latest battleground on the House Intelligence Committee, which has been consumed by partisan fights for the better part of a year, from Chairman Devin Nunes' role in the investigation and more recently over competing memos about alleged surveillance abuses at the FBI during the Obama administration.

Several Republicans on the panel have been signaling for several weeks now that they're ready for the Russia investigation to wrap up, arguing that Democrats are trying to extend the probe into the campaign season.

"To me, I don't see anything else that's out there that hasn't been explored," Rep. Pete King, a New York Republican, told CNN last week.

But Democrats say the committee has raced through its final interviews, while allowing witnesses to pick and choose which questions they answer.

The committee issued a subpoena to former White House chief strategist Bannon in January, but in his return testimony he still did not answer questions about his time in the White House.

Democrats also sought subpoenas for the committee's last two witnesses, outgoing White House communications director Hope Hicks and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, but Republicans did not issue them.

"There are a number of steps that I think any credible investigator would say, 'These need to be done,' and we still hope that they will be," Schiff said following Lewandowski's interview last week.

Conaway downplayed the partisan tensions on the committee, saying he and Schiff have "powered through" the issues. He noted that since he took over the Russia probe for Nunes in April 2017, he has not visited the White House or spoken to the President.

In the Senate, the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees are still investigating Russia's alleged 2016 election meddling.

There are still two committees in the Senate that are investigating Russia's 2016 election meddling: the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees.

Still, only the Senate Intelligence Committee appears to be pushing forward at full speed on its probe, as Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley is preparing to release transcripts of the committee's interviews with participants of the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting -- a potential sign the committee is done investigating that matter.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is preparing to put out recommendations and hold a hearing on election security this month. Burr has said he's separating out the election security issues for the 2018 primary season while the committee continues to investigate questions about collusion and the 2016 election.</s>The House Republicans probing into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 United States presidential election has ‘found no evidence’ in this regard.

The House Intelligence Committee announced on Tuesday that its year-long investigation found no evidence of collusion by Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

However, they conceded that Moscow did interfere in the election, but rejected the conclusion of US intelligence agencies that it had aimed to help Trump win the election.

They also blamed former President Barack Obama’s government for not stopping the meddling.

‘We have found no evidence of collusion, coordination or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians,’ the committee's majority Republicans said in a summary report on their investigation.

They said they concurred with the judgement of US spy chiefs from January 2017 on the Russian interference, except with respect to President Vladimir Putin's alleged preference for Trump’s candidature.

Soon after the announcement, Trump said in an all upper-case tweet, ‘THE HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE HAS, AFTER A 14 MONTH LONG IN-DEPTH INVESTIGATION, FOUND NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION OR COORDINATION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA TO INFLUENCE THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION (sic).’

The announcement outraged Democrats on the committee, who had continued to fight to interview more witnesses and pursue more of the well-established links that Trump and his advisors have to Russia.
Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee announce the end of their Russia investigation, against the objections of Democratic members. According to the investigation's preliminary findings, the 2016 Trump campaign did not collude with the Russian government, and, contrary to the U.S. intelligence community's previous conclusions, Russia did not have a preference for Donald Trump as a presidential candidate.