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As for the recommendations (pp 931-938) I can only say, "Oh, isn't that cute!" The recommendations seem extraordinarily naive today and would be repudiated as "weaponization of government" by Republicans everywhere including (I assume) the Committee members who made them.
The Committee recommends stronger enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), require registered foreign agents (lobbyists and other advocates) to disclose their status when engaged in political activity, foreign media outlets operating in the US to proclaim their affiliation, and US media outlets publishing information from FARA outlets to label them as such. To which I can only say, ROTFLMAO. Can you imagine how Republicans today would react to any such requirements? They would see any such requirements of disclosure as an outrage against First Amendment rights and heroically stand up for the right of Republicans to accept all the foreign assistance they can get.
They also recommend the FBI giving campaigns briefing on how to recognize attempts at foreign influence and how to defend against it, and give recommendations for how political campaigns can protect themselves against attempts at foreign influence and report it. To which my reaction is somewhere between a snort and an eye roll. Can anyone imagine a Republican campaign treating such advice with anything other than laughter and derision?*
They also encouraged the FBI to be more aggressive when the victim of a foreign cyber attack is unwilling to cooperate, and urged legislation to mandate cyber security vendors to report indicators of nation state compromise to the FBI. Given Republicans' current view of the FBI, and any sort of communications between government and tech companies, one can easily imagine how they would react to such a measure today.
Finally, the Committee favored giving Congress more power to enforce its subpoenas and overcome claims of executive privilege. Somehow I think Republicans' support for such a measure would depend on which party controlled which branch of government.
Then there are the additional comments by the parties. The Committee congratulated itself on its bipartisanship (pp. 5-7) and commented, "Following the interviews, witnesses were unable to identify which staff worked for the majority and which worked for the minority," (p. 7). And for the actual report, that appears to be true. The Committee made its report fearlessly and without hesitation to discuss the most alarming circumstances.
So it is downright jarring to find an epilogue by the Republican members of the Committee (pp. 941-942) declare, "[T]he Committee found no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government in its efforts to meddle in the election. . . . After more than three years of investigation by this Committee, we can now say with no doubt, there was no collusion." Um, guys, didn't you read your own report? "No collusion" is not exactly what I would take away from it.
By contrast, the Democrats on the Committee apparently have read the report, because they follow it up with a section of their own (pp. 943-948) pointing out all the collision the Committee uncovered. They point out that Paul Manafort while he was serving as Chairman of the Trump Campaign, regularly fed campaign polling data and discussed campaign strategy with a Russian intelligence agent. George Papadopoulos appears to have received advance notice of the hack and leak operation (although he may not have realized the significance of what he was told). And while there is no evidence that he passed the information on to the campaign, it seems decidedly odd that he would discuss it with foreign diplomats but not his own supervisors. Trump sought advance information through Roger Stone of what to expect from Wikileaks, knowing that Wikileaks was publishing the fruits of a Russian hack. And Donald Trump, Jr. eagerly met with Russian agents to learn of derogatory information about Hillary Clinton. Furthermore, Trump was campaigning on a pro-Russia platform while secretly pursuing a lucrative business deal in Russia. None of this is exactly criminal but it is, as the main body of the report commented, "a grave counterintelligence threat."
There is a second Democratic epilogue, by Senator Ron Wyden alone (pp. 949-952) saying that too much information was redacted, especially about Manafort and Kilimnik. He also criticizes the Committee for not adequately investigating Donald Trump's financial ties to Russia.
Finally, the Democrats also make the point that none of the redacted material is in any way exculpatory. Instead, "[T]he redacted information makes the already alarming public findings even more granular, explicit, and concerning." But (presumably) still not as juicy as whatever you are imagining.
*I suppose some old-fashioned national security Republicans might, but old-style national security Republicans are unlikely to be targets of foreign influence anyhow
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