The administration “was not well postured” to combat the meddling and was constrained in responding by a heavily politicized environment in a volatile election year and other factors that inadvertently aided Moscow, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report. The findings are significant in that minority Democrats joined majority Republicans in criticizing the Obama administration’s handling of what the panel and U.S. intelligence agencies concluded was a Russian operation to sway the presidential vote to then-Republican candidate Donald Trump over his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
