Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham speak to the media at the NATO-Georgia Joint Training and Evaluation Centre in Krtsanisi, just outside Tbilisi, Georgia, Monday, Jan. 2. | AP Photo Senate push for new Russia hacking probe fizzles

John McCain and Lindsey Graham are backing off of their push for a select committee on cybersecurity after Russian interference in the election, bowing to the political reality that the Senate Republican Conference largely does not back their idea.

The Arizona and South Carolina Republican senators, along with Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, have been pushing the Senate for weeks to create a new panel to investigate broader cyber threats as well as Russian activity in the 2016 presidential race. They favor creating a new panel over the current piecemeal investigatory structure. McCain's Armed Services Committee as well as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Intelligence Committee are all pursuing probes into the Russian hacking.


For now, Graham said, that will have to do.

"We're just going to move with the individual committees and see how that works. If it doesn't work, we'll regroup," Graham said in an interview.

McCain said he'd spoken to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) about the matter. McConnell prefers to use the Intelligence Committee to spearhead the cyber investigation, and McCain said their discussions had done little to move the GOP leader.

"He said he doesn't think we need it," McCain said.

The top Democrats and Republicans on the Foreign Relations, Armed Services and the Intelligence committees were scheduled to meet on Tuesday to discuss "what each committee is doing," said Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). Their goal is to coordinate the various investigations so that they don't trip over each other.

But that doesn't mean the discussion over the select committee is over. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), who has backed the idea since 2015, is still expected later this year to introduce a bill establishing a select committee later. And McCain will hold the Congress's first hearing on the hackings on Thursday.