‘We need to get to the bottom of this’: Senator John McCain leads bipartisan call for probe into election hack
Trump’s camp has again dismissed reports that the intelligence community had concluded that Russia was the culprit
Republican John McCain and three other senators called for a congressional inquiry into allegations of Russian interference in the US presidential election, but a top adviser to president-elect Donald Trump said there’s no public consensus among intelligence agencies over Moscow’s role.
McCain told CNN on Sunday that Democratic President Barack Obama has no strategy for dealing with Russian cyberattacks.
“We need a select committee. We need to get to the bottom of this, and we need to find out exactly what was done and what the implications of the attacks were, especially if they had an effect on our election,” McCain said.
We need to get to the bottom of this, and we need to find out exactly what was done and what the implications of the attacks were
While US intelligence officials have reportedly determined that Russian president Vladimir Putin directed the hack in an effort to buoy the Republican Trump’s candidacy, the president-elect has played this down by arguing that no one knows who was behind the leak of emails from senior staffers on Democrat Hillary Clinton’s election campaign and from the Democratic National Committee.
Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, called on Sunday for a special Senate investigation into the hack. Schumer and McCain were among four senior senators who issued a bipartisan statement a week ago warning that “our democratic institutions have been targeted.”
In a letter on Sunday to majority leader Mitch McConnell, the senators – Schumer and McCain, along with Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican, and Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island – called for a panel that will look specifically at hacking of elections and other areas by Russia and other governments, including China and Iran.
“We share your respect for, and deference to, the regular order of the Senate, and we recognise that this is an extraordinary request,” the foursome wrote. “However, we believe it is justified by the extraordinary scope and scale of the cyber problem.”