Excellent article on Senate Intel Committee investigation of Trump/Russia. It's coming together!
This article is from last week, but I never saw it posted and it is excellent - explains a lot of things I had questions about; why it took so long to get started and how it's moving ahead now at a much faster pace.
The Senate Intelligence Committee thinks it could be America’s last hope to understand what really happened between Russia and Trump.
Ali Watkins
BuzzFeed News Reporter
snip
The early stages of the Intelligence Committee’s probe, first announced in early December, were hamstrung by standard, if wildly inefficient jockeying on the Hill over which of the Senate’s many committee’s had jurisdiction over the Trump-Russia issue. Both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on Russia’s efforts to manipulate the election, and some democrats have pushed for a wholly separate “select” committee to handle the issue. Majority leader Mitch McConnell said Democrats backed off that demand on Wednesday, at least for the immediate future.
The scope of the Intelligence Committee’s Russia probe has been debated through the weeks, but has now been settled and agreed upon by both Republican and Democrat leaders. Its timeline will include everything from the post-election transition period to the year leading up to the election, and both Sens. Richard Burr and Mark Warner have left open the possibility that Obama and Trump administration officials will be called to testify.
Burr, who chairs the Senate committee, and Warner, the committee’s top democrat, said Tuesday that the investigation would include the Russian effort to manipulate the election, connections between the Trump campaign and Russian officials and any Russian efforts to undermine the transition period, including former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s contacts with the Russian ambassador.
Though the inquiry is only in its nascent stages, conversations with staffers from both sides of the aisle suggest it’s the most cooperative, cordial and bipartisan the committee has been on a major, politically charged investigation in recent memory.
There was brief, if fiery, politicking over the committee’s investigation in January, when Burr — breaking from the initial announcement of the inquiry — told reporters that the panel wouldn’t probe connections between the Trump campaign and Russia, and would instead focus on the broader Russian intelligence effort to undermine the election. His comments caused a headache behind closed doors, as democrats and reporters furiously scrambled to find out what had changed.. The back-and-forth played out in press releases until both Burr and Warner said in a joint statement that yes, of course the investigation would include the campaign.
One official said in the days just after lawmakers had returned to the Hill in January, there was concern that committee Republicans would back off of the probe. But Warner, in a significant departure from his usually quiet demeanor, stepped up and unequivocally said the inquiry was of solemn import, and compared the situation to the Watergate and Church Committee eras of the 1970s. The official, who also requested anonymity to discuss the committee’s investigation, said it was a profoundly encouraging moment for the panel’s democrats. It was a clear indication, the official said, that Warner would be an advocate for the committee’s inquiry.
In recent days, Burr too has underscored the seriousness of the investigation, if not as publicly as his democratic colleagues. He’s closely monitored developments on Flynn’s ouster, and was noticeably troubled early this week that so little of the information had ever trickled up to the Hill.
(snip)
Burr has been slammed by colleagues in recent days, who fear he’s slow-rolling an investigation into a fast-moving story. But much of the inquiry’s slow start was due to bureaucratic wrangling — some intelligence agencies insisted products be viewed on site rather than sent to the Hill, and some of the intelligence was so tightly controlled that it was unclear if staffers could even view it.
Lots more:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/alimwatkins/the-senate-intelligence-committee-hates-being-in-the-spotlig?utm_term=.uiKoBvarzW#.afKj7Xo3QV
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