Trump: Senate panel found no collusion

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump continued Wednesday to highlight statements by the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee that it has found no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign even as the panel’s top Democrat said that assessment is premature.

“The Senate Intelligence Committee: THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA!” Trump wrote in a predawn tweet.

He was referring to comments by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., the committee’s chairman, that to this point, its investigation has not found direct evidence of coordination between Trump’s campaign and Russia in the 2016 presidential race.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the panel’s vice chairman, said Tuesday that he “respectfully” disagrees with Burr.

“I’m not going to get into any conclusions I’ve reached because my basis of this has been that I’m not going to reach any conclusion until we finish the investigation,” Warner told CNN. “And we still have a number of the key witnesses to come back.”

The divergence is a rare split between Burr and Warner, who have sought to highlight the bipartisan nature of the committee’s ongoing, twoyear investigation into Russian election interference.

In an interview with CBS last week, Burr said that his assessment was “based on the evidence to date.”

“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,” Burr said.

On Tuesday, Burr reiterated to reporters that “we don’t have any” evidence of collusion.

Asked whether the committee’s investigation exonerated Trump, Burr said: “Just saying what factually we’ve found to date. We haven’t finished our investigation.”

Last week, Trump seized on Burr’s comments to CBS, writing on Twitter that the “mainstream media has refused to cover the fact that the head of the VERY important Senate Intelligence Committee, after two years of intensive study and access to Intelligence that only they could get, just stated that they have found NO COLLUSION between ‘Trump’ & Russia.”

He went on to call investigations into the matter, including that of special counsel Robert Muller, a “GIANT AND ILLEGAL HOAX.”

Separately, the man who led Trump’s inaugural committee has said America is in no moral position to criticize Saudi Arabia over the killing of Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

“Whatever happened in Saudi Arabia, the atrocities in America are equal, or worse,” Tom Barrack said Tuesday at the Milken Institute Middle East and North Africa Summit in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. His remarks were reported by Dubai’s daily English newspaper, Gulf News. The report said Barrack strongly defended Saudi Arabia, saying the kingdom is misunderstood by the West.

After a barrage of criticism on social media, Barrack apologized Wednesday, saying in a statement that he should have made clear that Khashoggi’s killing was “atrocious” and “reprehensible.”

“I feel strongly that the bad acts of a few should not be interpreted as the failure of an entire sovereign kingdom,” Barrack said. “I have always believed and continue to believe that the United States is the greatest country in the world but our history and our policies in the Middle East have been confusing at times. I believe that as a nation we do constantly work to lead by example, and I believe that we still do.”

Despite international anger, Trump decided not to impose harsher penalties on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the October death and dismemberment of the Washington Post columnist inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. The columnist, who lived in Virginia, had written articles critical of the kingdom, but Saudi Arabia insists the crown prince did not order the killing.