Dems want formal Intelligence report, Justice investigation of Russian hacking

Nine Democratic senators want a formal intelligence report on Russian tampering in the U.S. election before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

They are also demanding that Attorney General Loretta Lynch confirm that the Justice Department is conducting an investigation into Russian hacking — and if it’s not, to open one. 

They made their demands in a Tuesday letter that comes amid reports that the FBI and the CIA disagree on the strength of evidence backing up the report on Russian meddling and the motivation behind it.

“Direct and deliberate interference in our election is an unprecedented breach and threat to U.S. democracy and national security — it is absolutely critical that information about these matters be disclosed to the public and to Congress,” the senators wrote to Lynch and Director Of National Intelligence James Clapper.

{mosads}The lawmakers demanded what’s known as a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) — a formal, classified assessment from the director that provides the collective opinion of all 16 national intelligence agencies on a particular national security topic.

The request comes in the wake of a Friday Washington Post report that revealed the CIA held a closed-door session with key members of Congress last week in which agency officials told senators it was now “quite clear” that Russia’s goal was to elect Trump. 

But that assessment goes beyond the official statement made by intelligence leaders in October blaming Russia for electronic intrusions, but declining to ascribe a motive. 

It also contradicts FBI briefings to Congress, which reportedly have also been more circumspect in describing Russia’s intent. The FBI isn’t confident that the evidence Russia intended to help Trump is incontrovertible, according to U.S. officials who spoke to The Washington Post.

Trump’s team has seized on that uncertainty as the president-elect continues to deny Russia’s involvement in the hacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and other political organizations.

The Trump transition team has characterized reports of Russian hacking as an “excuse” for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s loss and has sought to cast doubt on the CIA’s findings.

“There are many people out there who still, 35 days later, are trying to deny the election results, and they were out in full force this weekend trying to conflate and draw a nexus between unsubstantiated reports, unsourced, unnamed, quotes in newspapers, and certainly what’s been a rift between FBI and CIA officials about the conclusions of this report,” Trump aide Kellyanne Conway told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Monday night.

But she said the president-elect “absolutely” wants to understand what happened and pledged he would not interfere with any investigation into the matter.

Signees to Tuesday’s letters were: Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.), Patrick Leahy (Vt.), Ben Cardin (Md.), Al Franken (Minn.), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Gary Peters (Mich.), Bob Casey (Pa.), Tom Udall (N.M.) and Ed Markey (Mass.).

The group also asks that the intelligence community provide an unclassified summary of its findings by Jan. 20.