Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr and Ranking Member Mark Warner answer questions after updating the press on the state of the Russia investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee on October 4, 2017. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Senate investigators: No conclusion about collusion with Russia in 2016

The Senate's top bipartisan Russia investigators said Wednesday they trust the intelligence community's assessment that Russia sought to interfere in the 2016 election, and they're still pursuing questions about whether any of President Donald Trump's associates colluded with Moscow.

"We have not come to any determination on collusion” in the 2016 race, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said. The intelligence community, in its own report on the Kremlin’s efforts, said Moscow aimed to aid Trump's candidacy and hurt Democrat Hillary Clinton, but it reached no conclusion on whether the Russians had American help in that operation.


Burr and committee vice chairman Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) revealed that they had conducted hundreds of hours of interviews and sought exhaustive reviews of various leads that might point toward the extent of Russian meddling and the prospect of collusion. But they made clear that they're still a long way from reaching firm conclusions on the probe's most vexing questions.

The two lawmakers said they could not put a timetable on when their investigation would be completed. Burr had previously said he wanted to finish by the end of 2017.

Warner and Burr also expressed concern regarding upcoming elections — including November's gubernatorial election in Virginia and other state and local races — and said that Russia’s campaign to interfere in elections did not end on Election Day 2016. They also said it's gone global, affecting several European countries in recent elections.

“What I will confirm is that the Russian intelligence service is determined, clever, and I recommend that every campaign and every election official take this very seriously as we move into this November's election and as we move into preparation for the 2018 election,” Burr said.

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Burr said the committee had completed more than 100 interviews over more than 250 hours and that there are 25 additional interviews scheduled for the remaining days of October. All relevant officials from the administration of former President Barack Obama have been interviewed, Burr said, and all Trump campaign officials who have been asked to meet with the committee have appeared.

Representatives from Google, Facebook and Twitter, social media and internet companies with which the Russian government allegedly placed political ads during the campaign, have been invited to testify early next month. Longtime Trump attorney and aide Michael Cohen is also slated to testify later this month in a public hearing.

Burr and Warner laid out a slew of inquiries that they're still pursuing, including Donald Trump Jr.'s June 2016 meeting in which he sought damaging information on Hillary Clinton from Russian sources, an April 2016 meeting of Trump campaign associates with Russian officials at the Mayflower Hotel, and details on the so-called Steele dossier, a collection of scandalous but unverified allegations about Trump's connections to Russia, collected throughout the campaign by a former British spy.

Burr said his committee has been unable to secure an interview with the dossier’s author, former British intelligence operative Christopher Steele, and that “the committee has hit a wall” on the issue.

