No Full-Time Staff, No Key Witnesses For Senate Trump-Russia Investigation: Report
The report that Senate’s Russia investigation is understaffed raises serious concerns.
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation has been characterized as the grown up, credible and bipartisan alternative to the House Intel circus.
However, a new report raises serious questions about the seriousness with which the committee is taking the investigation and the amount of progress the Senate investigation has made. The report by The Daily Beast found that the Senate investigation has no full times staff working on the investigation and has not interviewed any key witnesses yet.
“More than three months after the committee announced that it had agreed on the scope of the investigation, the panel has not begun substantially investigating possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia,” the report found.
Not only does the Senate investigation not have even one full-time staffer assigned to the investigation but “those staff members working on it part-time do not have significant investigative experience.”
“No interviews have been conducted with key individuals suspected of being in the Trump-Russia orbit: not Michael Flynn, not Roger Stone, not Carter Page, not Paul Manafort, and not Jared Kushner, according to two sources familiar with the committee’s procedures,” The Daily Beast reported.
The Senate investigation also appears to be moving at a slower pace than other committee investigations, the report noted.
FBI Director James Comey announced in March during testimony at a House Intel hearing that the FBI is currently investigating collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian agents to interfered with the election.
