Senators aim to release Russia findings before 2018 mid-term elections

WASHINGTON: Key senators investigating Russia’s meddling in the US presidential race and possibile collusion between Donald Trump’s campaign and Moscow said Wednesday they hope to release the panel’s findings well before next year’s mid-term elections.

Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr, providing a progress report on his ninemonth investigation, also said the jury was still out on whether Trump or his aides and allies colluded with Russia, but stressed that Moscow had successfully sown ‘chaos at every level’ in the 2016 election.

Finding out what happened, including how Russia interfered, and alerting Americans and in particular local and state election officials in a timely fashion was critical, he said.

“We’ve got to make our facts as it relates to Russia’s involvement in our election public prior to the primaries getting started in 2018, which means sometime in the first half of the year,” Burr told reporters.

“It’s still my aspirational goal to fi nish the entire investigation this calendar year.”

The next mid-term elections, in which all 435 House seats and about one third of the Senate’s 100 seats are up for grabs in Congress, and when local races across the country are held, take place in November 2018.

Burr said his panel has spent 250 hours interviewing more than 100 figures connected in some way to Russia’s interference, combed through nearly 100,000 pages of documents, and scoured emails and highly classified intelligence fi ndings. — AFP

Burr (right) and committee vice-chair Mark Warner hold a news conference on the status of the committee’s inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. — AFP photo