Senate Intel Committee: Russia Meddled In Election; Probe On Collusion Continues

WASHINGTON, DC —The Senate Intelligence Committee announced decisively that Russia ran an extensive campaign to influence the 2016 election, as the U.S. intelligence agencies have previously reported. Sens. Richard Burr and Mark Warner, the chairman and ranking member of the committee, delivered a press conference for the public Wednesday afternoon to discuss the ongoing investigation into Russia's effort to influence American politics.

The senators said that Russia's efforts to disrupt the U.S. electoral system are continuing.

"You can't walk away from this and believe that Russia is not actively trying to cause chaos in our election process," Burr, a Republican, said. (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

However, the committee said it has not come to any conclusions about potential collusion between the presidential campaigns and the Russians. The investigation into potential collusion is ongoing.

“This is taking a long time," said Warner, a Democrat. "But getting all the facts is what we owe the American people."

The committee is one of several that are investigating Russian interference in the election and potential collusion between Russia and associates of the Trump campaign.

Burr noted that, unlike the leaders of the country's intelligence agencies, the committee has not concluded that the Russians had a preference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign. The report from the intelligence community found that the Kremlin was specifically attempting to help Trump win office.

"Russian interference was to create chaos at every level," Burr said. "Given we're standing here nine months later it seems they were pretty successful."

Burr also noted that the committee has found no evidence that vote tallies were tampered with. However, as had been previously reported, the committee believes the Russians did attempt to access election systems of 21 states through cyber means.

Watch a video of the event below.

Write a letter to the editor of the White House Patch.

Like us on Facebook:

Follow us on Twitter.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images