The Senate Intelligence Committee’s probe into Russian election interference has expanded since January, with hundreds of additional information requests, new leads, and questions about fresh Russia-related events, the leaders of the panel said Wednesday.
“When we started nine months ago, I saw three buckets, and today, I talked about five or six,” Chairman Richard Burr said during a status update on the probe. He added that he still hoped the investigation would be completed this calendar year.
“The overall theme of the Russian involvement in the U.S. elections was to create chaos at every level,” he said. “I would tell you the fact that we’re sitting here 9 months later investigating it, they’ve been pretty darn successful.”
The investigation has so far featured dozens of interviews and thousands of pages of transcripts, he said. The panel has sifted through emails, text messages, highly classified intelligence reporting, and more.
The committee is conducting a multi-pronged investigation into Russian election meddling that includes a review of the intelligence community’s January assessment on the matter (ICA). That report said Russia waged a cyber and disinformation campaign to discredit Hillary Clinton, help Donald Trump’s campaign, and undermine faith in the democratic process.
Burr said Wednesday that the panel is close to determining the assessment is accurate. But he stressed that the panel has not yet released concrete, sealed results of the probe.
“We have interviewed everybody who had a hand or a voice in the creation of the intelligence community assessment,” he said. “There is general consensus among members and staff that we trust the conclusions of the ICA, but we don’t close our consideration of it in the unlikelihood that we find additional information.”
The panel has also extensively interviewed every Obama administration official of interest in the investigation, Burr said. “They’ve been unbelievably cooperative.”
Aside from oversight of the intelligence assessment, the probe includes an ongoing look into any collusion by either campaign with the Kremlin during the 2016 election, as well as ongoing Russian active measures.
“The committee continues to look into all evidence to see if there was any hint of collusion,” Burr said. “If somebody has come in and not been truthful with us, we will catch them on that, and they will come back.”
Burr also commented Wednesday on reports from this summer that members of the Trump campaign worked to soften the Republican platform’s posture toward Russia, scaling back language related to giving Ukraine lethal defensive aid.
The panel has interviewed everyone that was involved in drafting the campaign platform, he said.
“Campaign staff was attempting to implement what they believed to be guidance to be a strong ally on Ukraine, but also leave the door open for better relations with Russia,” Burr said. “I’m giving you the feedback we got from the individuals who were in the room making the decisions.”
Burr added that investigators have “exhausted” every witness for pertinent information on the so-called “Comey memos,” or notes that FBI director James Comey kept to detail his interactions with the president.
“This topic has been hotly debated, and the committee is satisfied that our involvement with this issue has reached a logical end as it relates to the Russia investigation,” he said.
Burr also said that interviewers have “hit a wall” trying to verify the controversial Steele dossier, stating the committee’s attempts to contact and meet the document’s author, former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, had gone “unaccepted.”
“The committee cannot really decide the credibility of the dossier without understanding things like, who paid for it? Who were your sources?” Burr said.
The probe also includes investigating Russian active measures. Burr and Warner said the government must be proactive ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
“The Russian active measures efforts did not end on election day 2016,” Warner said. “There needs to be a more aggressive whole-of-government approach in terms of protecting our electoral system.”
Warner said the panel continues to focus also on the Kremlin’s manipulation of social media platforms.
Burr and Warner put on a united front during a press conference in March, contrasting themselves to the discord on the House Intelligence panel.
