Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr doesn’t expect to wrap up the committee’s probe into Russian election meddling soon.
Burr told the Associated Press during an interview Friday that it is important for the probe’s work to remain bipartisan. He added that the probe has been “frustrating as hell.”
“Nothing in this town stays classified or secret forever,” the North Carolina Republican told the Associated Press. “And at some point somebody’s going to go back and do a review. And I’d love not to be the one that chaired the committee when somebody says, ‘well, boy, you missed this.’ So we’ve tried to be pretty thorough in how we’ve done it.”
[Related: 52% want Russia probe ended, one-third Democrats agree]
Burr reiterated prior comments that he has found no “factual evidence” of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia for the 2016 elections.
The probe is the last congressional investigation into the 2016 election and Russia meddling.
The House Intelligence Committee released its own report that found there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. But the committee’s Democrats pilloried the report and voted against it.
Burr said that Democrats could disagree with the Senate’s final report if it doesn’t find any evidence of collusion.
“I am sure there will be people at the end of this who feel that we came to a conclusion that they vehemently disagree with,” according to the interview. “I know that from a committee’s integrity standpoint we’ve got to prove what we find. And if you can’t prove it then we can’t make the claim.”
The committee is planning to put out two reports by the end of September on the Obama administration’s response to election meddling and another on the role of social media in Russian meddling, AP said.
