GOP Intel chair Burr under fire over ties to Trump
The senator running the Russia probe was a vocal Trump campaign backer, once boasting he sicced the FBI on Hillary Clinton.
On the campaign trail last fall, GOP Sen. Richard Burr told North Carolina voters there was no "separation” between himself and Donald Trump. The Senate Intelligence Committee chairman also bragged about his role in getting the FBI to investigate Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Now, the third-term senator is under fire for running interference for the White House last week on a news report asserting repeated contacts between Trump’s campaign and Moscow. And some Democrats are wondering whether Burr, who also served as a national security adviser to Trump’s campaign, is too close to Trump to lead an impartial investigation.
These Democrats are weighing whether to be more vocal about their concerns in a bid to pressure GOP leaders to create a more independent select committee or outside commission to handle the investigation.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Monday that Burr had been put “on notice” by Democrats and that his decision to help the White House rebut negative news stories "certainly gives the appearance, if not the reality, of a lack of impartiality." Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said over the weekend he had “grave concerns” about Burr’s conduct.
Even two intelligence committee Republicans — Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Susan Collins of Maine — made statements over the weekend that the investigation must be seen as credible. Collins said members of the panel must “avoid any actions that might be perceived as compromising the integrity of our work.”
Burr’s allies, though, defend him as a man of integrity perfectly suited for the task ahead.
“I know him to be honest, and I know him to be thorough,” said John Bryant, a lawyer in Raleigh who’s been friends with Burr since they played football together at Wake Forest. “I don’t think it would be a political problem if coming down hard on [Trump] is the right thing to do.”
Paul Shumaker, a North Carolina political consultant who ran Burr’s successful campaign last year for a third term, said Burr does not plan to run for reelection again and has been freed from political considerations as he pursues the truth behind Russia’s involvement in the presidential election.
“He is independent of the shackles of a reelection campaign,” Shumaker said of the laid-back senator, famous on Capitol Hill for driving a beat-up 1974 Volkswagen Thing.
Shumaker added that Burr puts his job as intelligence chairman above anything else, including politics — a reference to the heat Burr took last year for doing little campaigning until the final month before Election Day, even though his race was expected to be close.
“He told me that there are going to be times when you are going to have to run this campaign without a candidate,” said Shumaker, who’s been Burr’s chief political strategist since he was first elected to the House in 1994 after a career at a lawn and garden equipment company. “I know this is a guy who was willing to sacrifice his own reelection if need be to do that job as chairman.”
Burr, 61, became intelligence chairman after Republicans retook control of the Senate in 2015, succeeding Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). He has been a staunch advocate for the intelligence community, defending its surveillance programs and the controversial interrogation methods used by the CIA under President George W. Bush. The senator, whose office declined an interview request, has also sought to prevent the full version of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s exhaustive report on CIA torture from ever being released. In 2014 he told reporters, "I personally don’t believe that anything that goes on in the Intelligence Committee should ever be discussed publicly."
“Sen. Burr has committed himself to the selfless oversight of the intelligence community since he served in the House of Representatives,” said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “He is a very capable leader on a vital committee who will conduct a professional responsible review of Russian interference into our elections.”
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