During today’s briefings with the Director of National Intelligence, and the head of the National Security Agency, Senate Democrats Mark Warner and Kamala Harris started to wear a little thin on the non-answers. Republican McCain got in a zinger too.
Via NPR:
Warner, along with several other senators, kept pressing and ultimately expressed frustration with the intelligence chiefs.
There are “reports, that nobody has laid to rest here, that the president of the United States has intervened directly in an ongoing FBI investigation and we’ve got no answers from any of you,” Warner said.
The hearing was often contentious, particularly when Democratic senators questioned the intelligence officials.
Committee Chairman Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, intervened at one point during a sharp exchange between California Democrat Kamala Harris and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
“The chair is going to exercise its right to allow the witnesses to answer the question, and committee is on notice to provide witnesses the courtesy, which has not been extended all the way across,” Burr said.
Republican John McCain of Arizona took a softer approach, drawing chuckles when he asked Coats, “Do you want to tell us any more about the Russian involvement in our election that we don’t already know from reading The Washington Post?”
Coats did not offer any details, but said, “Just because it’s in The Washington Post doesn’t mean it’s declassified.”
The Senate Intelligence Committee is holding two days of closely watched hearings that might — or might not — shed new light on the state of the Russia investigation.
The president has repeatedly called for an end to inquiries into Russian election meddling in his public remarks. But Democratic senators, in particular, want to know what he’s told intelligence officials in private discussions.