Richard Burr on the Senate Intelligence Committee's Russia investigation, 2 years on Olivia Gazis CBS NEWS
New insight into the Senate's Russia investigation
For almost as long, the inquiry, led by Republican Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina and Vice Chairman Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, has been held up as the last bastion of bipartisanship in Washington.
After a parallel investigation divided the House Intelligence Committee last year, the Senate's probe has been under intense pressure to offer a single set of findings.
Burr, who is known in Senate hallways for his preference to go sockless and the two-fingered hook that often bears his jacket, has spoken little about the probe he leads. But he thinks deeply about how its conclusions should be presented. And he acknowledges now that the investigation is broader, and perhaps more consequential, than it has long been thought to be.
"I'm not going to tell you that what we set out to do — which was to understand what happened in '16 — is what's extended the life of the investigation," Burr said in a rare interview with CBS News. "I think it's a better understanding of what happened and how coordinated and organized the effort was."
He spoke in his second-floor chambers in the Russell Senate Office Building, where multiple deer mounts circle the ceiling and a non-working fireplace is stacked with real wood. Burr, 63, had angled himself in a worn leather chair, legs extended, and tented his fingers around the edges of a coffee cup. He spoke quietly, with occasional long pauses as he considered his responses.
"We'll be judged at the end of this on the product that we produce," he said solemnly. "We'll also be judged on the process that we chose ... None of us ever anticipated that this would be two years."
For now, Burr appears to have arrived at his answer. "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," he said.
1 comment:
Translation:. We don't have ANY evidence of collusion.....YET. So we're going to keep looking till we find or CREATE the evidence we want.
Post a Comment