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'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. 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. 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. 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.
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.