Congress unites to probe possible Russian election hack

WASHINGTON—Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said today he’s open to a congressional review of growing rumors about Russian meddling on Election Day.

“Obviously any foreign breach of our cybersecurity measures is disturbing, and I strongly condemn any such efforts,” McConnell said at a Monday morning press conference. “It’s an important subject, and we intend to review it on a bipartisan basis.”

Last week, CIA officials claimed Russia interfered with the presidential election—in an attempt to ensure Donald Trump’s victory. President Barack Obama quickly directed the intelligence community to examine what happened. Trump called the claims a ridiculous, partisan attack from Democrats attempting to undermine his victory. But with McConnell lending support to the investigation, the incident isn’t likely to go away any time soon.

Over the weekend, four influential senators on the Armed Services Committee filed a joint statement calling for further investigation into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election process.

“Recent reports of Russian interference in our election should alarm every American,” wrote Senate Minority Leader-elect Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) “Democrats and Republicans must work together, and across the jurisdictional lines of the Congress, to examine these recent incidents thoroughly and devise comprehensive solutions to deter and defend against further cyberattacks.”

McCain and Graham were both Trump critics during the campaign, but their joint statement with Democrats marked their first public opposition to the president-elect since his victory.

Trump rejects the CIA’s claims and scoffed at the rumors in several pointed tweets this morning.

“Can you imagine if the election results were the opposite and we tried to play the Russia/CIA card. It would be called conspiracy theory,” he tweeted, adding: “Unless you catch ‘hacker’ in the act, it is very hard to determine who was doing the hacking. Why wasn’t this brought up before election?”

McConnell would not confirm what evidence the CIA has, but said he has the highest confidence in the intelligence community. Any investigation of an alleged hack should start with the assumption “the Russians are not our friends” and “do not wish us well,” he added.

McCain and Graham want to form a select committee, such as the one Republicans formed to champion the Benghazi investigation, but McConnell rejected that idea. He said any probe will follow regular order.

McConnell refused to answer questions about Trump’s response to the matter.

Rep. Elliot Engel, D-N.Y., the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on CNN this morning no Democrat realistically thinks an investigation will allow for a presidential election redo, but it’s important to find out what Russia did.

“Especially in light of new reports that Russia aimed to aid his campaign, it’s outrageous that the president-elect continues to impugn the credibility of our intelligence community by accusing them of political bias on this matter,” Engel said in a Saturday statement. “Rather than attacking our intelligence officials, he should be getting briefings from them every day, as has been standard in the past.”

The CIA says its agents have “high confidence” that Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems, as well as Democratic organization networks. But agency officials have not revealed how the Russians might have used the information to influence the presidential election.

During the Democratic National Convention, intelligence officers said hackers accessed documents within the Democratic Party’s systems and gave the stolen files to WikiLeaks. Investigators later concluded the Russians were responsible.