NBC News: 'Senate Has Uncovered No Direct Evidence of Conspiracy Between Trump Campaign & Russia'

After two years and 200 interviews, the Senate Intelligence Committee is approaching the end of its investigation into the 2016 election, having uncovered no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to both Democrats and Republicans on the committee.

But investigators disagree along party lines when it comes to the implications of a pattern of contacts they have documented between Trump associates and Russians -- contacts that occurred before, during and after Russian intelligence operatives were seeking to help Donald Trump by leaking hacked Democratic emails and attacking his opponent, Hillary Clinton, on social media.

"If we write a report based upon the facts that we have, then we don't have anything that would suggest there was collusion by the Trump campaign and Russia," said Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said last week in an interview with CBS News.

Burr was careful to note that more facts may yet be uncovered, but he also made clear that the investigation was nearing an end.

"We know we're getting to the bottom of the barrel because there're not new questions that we're searching for answers to," Burr said.

Democratic Senate investigators who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity did not dispute Burr's characterizations, but said they lacked context.

"We were never going find a contract signed in blood saying, 'Hey Vlad, we're going to collude," one Democratic aide said.

The series of contacts between Trump's associates, his campaign officials, his children and various Russians suggest a campaign willing to accept help from a foreign adversary, the Democrats say.

By many counts, Trump and his associates had more than 100 contacts with Russians before the January 2017 presidential inauguration.

"Donald Trump Jr. made clear in his messages that he was willing to accept help from the Russians," one Democratic Senate investigator said. "Trump publicly urged the Russians to find Clinton's missing emails."

Those facts are beyond dispute. But they also have been known for some time -- and have not seemed to change Trump's political standing.

Democrats and other Trump opponents have long believed that special counsel Robert Mueller and Congressional investigators would unearth new and more explosive evidence of Trump campaign coordination with Russians. Mueller may yet do so, although Justice Department and Congressional sources say they believe that he, too, is close to wrapping up his investigation.

House Republicans announced last year they had found no evidence of collusion, but their report came under immediate criticism as a highly partisan product that excluded Democrats. Now in power, House Democrats recently announced an expanded probe that will go beyond the 2016 election to examine whether any foreign government has undue financial influence on Trump or his family. And New York prosecutors are pursuing their own criminal inquiry related to hush money payments to women. The investigations into Donald Trump, therefore, are far from over.

After it recently emerged that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort shared campaign polling data with a man the FBI says is linked to Russian intelligence, Warner called that the most persuasive evidence yet of coordination.

"This appears as the closest we've seen yet to real, live, actual collusion," he said on CNN.

No evidence has emerged, however, linking the transfer of polling data to Trump. Also unclear in court documents is Manafort's motive for sharing the information. Facing more than a decade in prison for bank and tax fraud, he has not been accused by Mueller of any crimes related to the 2016 election.

Senator Richard Burr, The Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, just announced that after almost two years, more than two hundred interviews, and thousands of documents, they have found NO COLLUSION BETWEEN TRUMP AND RUSSIA! Is anybody really surprised by this?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 10, 2019