Sen. Burr promises bipartisan review of Russian hacking

WASHINGTON — In the first open U.S. Senate intelligence hearing since federal officials released to the public a declassified account of Russian hacking prior to the 2016 presidential election, Sen. Richard Burr said Tuesday that American values are “under assault,” but he tried to send a reassuring message that “our democracy is not at risk.”

“I know that the public disclosure of these activities surprised many,” said Burr, a North Carolina Republican who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. “The notion that another state would attempt to interfere in our elections is troubling.”

Burr said he doesn’t doubt U.S. intelligence agencies’ findings of deliberate Russian interference to discredit Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and, more broadly, to attempt to undermine confidence in the U.S. government.

Burr promised the Senate Intelligence Committee will conduct an independent, bipartisan review of what the CIA, the FBI and the director of national intelligence call a multifaceted and aggressive “influence campaign,” directed by Russia’s highest-ranking government officials and President Vladimir Putin.

Separately, Burr wants to know who among federal intelligence employees had early access to the hacking report released last Friday, he told McClatchy in an interview after the hearing. Some details in the still-secret report were published last Friday by at least one national news outlet.

President-elect Donald Trump angrily tweeted on Friday that “classified and/or highly confidential” information had been leaked to NBC prior to intelligence officials briefing him on the report. Later, Trump tweeted that he would ask Burr and the head of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., to investigate “top secret intelligence shared with NBC prior to me seeing it.”

Burr said he plans to ask for a list of “the pool of individuals that knew the content of this report prior to the president being briefed, the ‘Gang of Eight’ being briefed and the president-elect being briefed.”

“So I have some idea as to how big the pool of individuals are that may have leaked a story to NBC, accurate or not accurate,” Burr said.

Burr didn’t say whether Trump had personally contacted him about it. U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Tuesday that he wanted the committee to look into the media leak.

“It would be the normal request that the committee would make regardless of whether we had had a referral from an individual, because the committee’s responsibility is the security of information and data. So if somebody has breached their authority ... they should be pursued,” Burr said.