Senate majority leader sets Republicans up for a clash with Trump, but review on offer seems to fall short of the aggressive investigation Democrats want

The Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell opened the door to congressional investigation of Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 election on Monday but left the scope of such an inquiry vague and unlikely to satisfy those who want a thorough exploration of an intelligence finding that has shaken Washington.

In an indication of the political difficulties confronting congressional Republicans traditionally opposed to Russia but disinclined to criticizing a GOP president, McConnell told reporters he “strongly condemns” foreign hacking and dismissed criticism that the party was now soft on Russia.

“The Russians are not our friends,” McConnell said, although he did not say whether he agreed that Russia had sought to help Trump win the White House.

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The scope of congressional inquiry on offer appeared to fall short of the aggressive investigation Democrats favor. McConnell said the Senate intelligence committee was “more than capable of conducting a complete review” of the issue, but the chairperson of that committee, Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina and vocal supporter of Trump, did not commit to an actual investigation.

“The Senate select committee on intelligence has been, and remains, concerned about Russia’s actions,” he said, vowing instead to “continue to conduct vigorous oversight over activities and agencies within our jurisdiction in an appropriate and responsible way”.

The CIA recently concluded with “high confidence” that Moscow sought to interfere in the election to Trump’s benefit. Hackers leaked thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign via WikiLeaks during the election campaign.

The president-elect has repeatedly rubbished the notion that Russia was helping him. On Monday he tweeted: “Can you imagine if the election results were the opposite and WE tried to play the Russia/CIA card. It would be called conspiracy theory!”

Trump has previously expressed admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin. His leading candidate for secretary of state, ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson, has close ties with the country.

McConnell put some daylight between himself and Trump on Monday. “Any foreign breach of our cybersecurity measures is disturbing and I strongly condemn any such efforts,” he said. “This simply cannot be a partisan issue.”

But he studiously refused to address Trump’s attack on the CIA and failed to offer explicit details of what a bipartisan inquiry would entail, raising fears that it could yet be sidetracked.

Experienced intelligence analysts and former Senate intelligence committee staffers said Burr’s lack of commitment to a full inquiry was significant.

“I’m surprised there has not been a definitive statement that an investigation has been launched. This is the exact type of matter that the Senate intelligence committee is uniquely positioned to assess,” said Daniel Jones, the chief investigator for the Senate intelligence panel’s inquiry into post-9/11 CIA torture.

“The US public relies on the members of the committee to do this type of examination in a thorough and nonpartisan manner. Not launching an investigation, in my view, would be an abdication of its responsibilities.”

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Steven Aftergood, an intelligence policy expert at the Federation of American Scientists, added: “Senator Burr is explicitly disavowing any new initiative in this area. Instead, he says that SSCI [the Senate intelligence committee] will simply ‘continue’ to do what it has been doing all along. In particular, there is no indication that SSCI will undertake any new investigation of its own. Instead, Burr is only committing to ‘oversight’ of the work of others.”

Trump’s vehemence poses an early dilemma for Republicans who are deeply suspicious of Putin but are anxious to avoid picking a fight with Trump even before his inauguration. Whereas Democrats were quick to accept the CIA’s conclusions, some Republicans have been more cautious.

Senator David Perdue of Georgia told the Washington Post last Friday: “I’d be very concerned if a foreign government were doing that – we don’t have any evidence of that yet, and I haven’t seen the CIA report, so I’ll reserve judgment.”

Senate majority whip John Cornyn of Texas tweeted on Saturday: “All this ‘news’ of Russian hacking: it has been going on for years. Serious, but hardly news.”

But two senior Senate Republicans, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have joined with two Democrats in seeking a bipartisan investigation into the Kremlin’s activities during the election.

The Senate armed services committee, which McCain chairs, intends to set up a subcommittee to hold hearings on alleged election hacking and how the US would respond to cyber-attack. “It’s all part of the larger issue of the cyber threat we face from Russia, China and other countries,” he said on CBS’s This Morning. “It’s another form of warfare. And the entire issue is going to be examined by the armed services committee because it’s a threat to our national security.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trump’s team has said concerns over Russian hacking are ‘an attempt to delegitimize President-elect Trump’s win’. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP

Barack Obama has ordered US intelligence to review evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, as well as the 2008 and 2012 votes.

Democrat Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the House permanent select committee on intelligence, called for a bipartisan congressional investigation. “The House and Senate intelligence committees should conduct a joint inquiry, along with public hearings similar to what was done after 9/11, to determine the length and breadth of Russian interference in our elections,” he said.

“This investigation would serve the purpose of informing the public, developing a concerted response, deterring the Russians from further malign[ant] cyber action and inoculating the public against such manipulation in the future.”

Schiff’s GOP colleague, chairman Devin Nunes of California, has yet to commit to such an inquiry. A spokesperson for Nunes did not reply to the Guardian’s request for clarification by press time.

In a conference call with reporters on Monday morning, Trump spokesman Jason Miller expressed his scorn at those expressing concerns about Russian hacking. “I really think this is an attempt to delegitimize President-elect Trump’s win. That really seems to be what’s going on here.”

The White House dropped its generally cordial approach to Trump and urged Congress, especially Republicans who backed him, to examine the evidence. “You didn’t need a security clearance to figure out who benefited from malicious Russian cyber activity,” press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters. “The president-elect didn’t call it into a question. He called on Russians to hack his opponent, to hack Secretary Clinton, so he certainly had a good sense of whose side this particular activity was coming down on.”

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Russian hackers targeted the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign chairperson John Podesta, Earnest said, not the Republican National Committee and Trump strategist Steve Bannon.

The spokesperson argued it was Trump who said he thinks Putin is a “strong leader”, indicated he would withdraw the US from Nato, refused to disclose his business ties to Russia, hired a campaign chairperson with lucrative financial links to Russia and had a staff member who has been a paid contributor to the pro-Putin Russia Today.

“This is information that all of you have reported on, throughly investigated and discussed on television ... So all of that is information that was not obtained through intelligence channels. It was not information disclosed for the first time at the White House ... And it’s all information that, as far as I can tell, is undisputed.

“One conclusion that it leads me to is the special responsibility that members of Congress have to take a look at this, particularly those members of Congress who endorsed Mr Trump in the election. They were aware of all this information too ... In some cases we’ve seen some pretty heated rhetoric from Republicans wringing their hands ... They should spare us the handwringing and fulfill their basic responsibility.”

Earnest added: “This was all known to Republican members of Congress who endorsed the president-elect. How they reconcile their political strategy and their patriotism is something they’re going to have to explain.”

Earnest said the intelligence community did not detect any increase in malicious Russian cyber-activity on election day that interfered with the ability of people to cast ballots and have them counted accurately.

But he added: “The results of the hack-and-leak operation carried out on the orders of Russia were extensively discussed before election day ... There was a daily leaking of John Podesta’s emails ... But you weren’t waiting for leaks from the RNC and Steven Bannon. That’s illustrative. People can draw their own judgments.”