SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2019 | MOTHER JONES 13TIM
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BURR AFTER READINGINVESTIGATE LESS, SMILE MORE
Sen. Richard Burr walks the line between probing the Trump-Russia scandal
and providing cover for the president.richard burr was contrite. It was
late February 2017, and the Washing-
ton Post had just exposed the North
Carolina Republican and chair of the
Senate Intelligence Committee for run-
ning damage control for the Trump
administration over its mounting
Russia scandal. Along with Rep. Devin
Nunes (R-Calif.), his counterpart on
the House Intelligence Committee,
Burr had spoken to reporters at the
behest of the White House to rebut
reports that the Trump campaign had
repeated contact with Russian intelli-
gence operatives.
The combative Nunes made no apol-
ogies for his efforts to shield the new
president from scrutiny. But Burr was
different. He immediately moved to
address the criticism. At a closed-door
meeting with intelligence committeemembers days after the story broke,
Burr acknowledged he had made a
mistake. He pledged to avoid future
missteps that could raise questions
about the independence of his com-
mittee’s probe into Russian interfer-
ence in the 2016 election.
That message quelled complaints
by Democrats and some Republicans
on the panel. Since then, Burr has kept
Democrats on board, in particular
the committee’s vice chair, Sen. Mark
Warner (D-Va.), making the intelligence
committee the lone congressional
panel conducting a bipartisan inves-
tigation into Trump’s Russia ties. That
is no small accomplishment, given the
opposing pressures Burr faces: Trump’s
aggressive opposition to any probe,
and Democratic demands for a more
intensive investigation. Burr has “han-dled it very well,” says Sen. Angus King
(I-Maine), a member of the committee.
Others differ. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-
Ore.), an intelligence committee member,
says the panel should hold more public
hearings—something Burr has declined
to do—and is moving too hastily to finish
up the probe. “There’s a lot of work to do
before the Senate Intelligence Commit-
tee proclaims mission accomplished on
its Russia report,” he notes. Burr has led
an investigation credible enough to
draw attacks from the right. But an ex-
amination of his time running it sug-
gests he hasn’t tried all that hard to
expose wrongdoing by Trump and his
minions. And as the committee’s probe
nears its conclusion—the panel could
issue its report on the Trump campaign’s
Russia contacts as soon as September—
it’s worth considering whether Burr is