Friends —

Today, the Senate Intelligence Committee released our fifth and final report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Many of my constituents have asked me about this particular report, so I wanted to take some time to break down our findings and provide context.

I will be frank about what we found. There were a stunning number of contacts between members of the Trump campaign and Russian government operatives.

This report is the result of three years of bi-partisan work, hundreds of interviews with witnesses, and millions of documents. I’m proud to be a leader on the committee that produced it.

The document we just released is nearly 1,000 pages. It is the most comprehensive look into the ties between the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and Russia that has been done to date, and it details a grave counterintelligence threat to our elections.

I believe the report speaks for itself. That is why I encourage everyone to take a careful look at Volume 5 — at the documented evidence of extensive and absolutely unprecedented interference in our electoral system by Russians and their operatives on behalf of then-candidate Donald Trump — and to draw their own independent conclusions.

This cannot happen again. Our elections should be fair and free of foreign interference.

Unfortunately, that was not the case in 2016. I will continue to fight for strong electoral protections in the Senate. The lessons learned from this report should serve as a blueprint for how to protect our democracy, and our executive branch, Congress, and the American people should heed the warnings in this document.

— Mark Warner