Sen. Dorgan: Urgent priority investigate interference in 2016 election.

[Coyotl]

In my view, the most urgent priority is more evidence and less accusation and inference. Don't tell us what to believe, show us the evidence supporting the inferences. Nonetheless, we do need to get to the bottom of this criminality. My guess, the Republicans will resist because they know they will be implicated if the truth is revealed.

Byron Dorgan

If someone is keeping a list of urgent priorities facing the President-elect and a new Congress, the very top of that list should be an urgent and comprehensive investigation of the attempts by Russia to interfere with the 2016 Presidential election.

The response to this criminal behavior should be decisive and immediate. We need to create a bipartisan House/Senate Select Committee to Investigate Election Interference by Russians.

I am especially concerned by President-elect Donald Trump's response the Russian interference in our U.S. Presidential election. It is beyond bizarre!

Criminal behavior by a foreign government attempting to interfere with U.S. elections is a direct threat to our democracy. The right approach is to investigate and prosecute it, not excuse it or ignore it!

We don’t have to speculate about whether this happened. U.S. Intelligence Agencies have told the Congress and the President that this criminal behavior happened. According to reports, the evidence points to Russia engaging in computer hacking to steal private information and using it to help the candidate they prefer and damage the candidate they oppose. It is believed they created and distributed fake news for the same purpose…to influence the Presidential election. It should send a shiver down the spine of the American people.

No one knows whether the Russian activities affected the outcome of the Presidential election. But these brazen crimes committed by Russia to interfere in our elections are a serious threat to our democracy.

Last week Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain have said they are going to conduct an investigation into Russian interference in our election. Incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has also called for an investigation. Thanks for their leadership. They are serious, thoughtful legislators who get it!

President-elect Trump, on the other hand, continues to deny that this happened and has even criticized the intelligence agencies that have described what their current investigation has disclosed. The say that the Russians intervened in an attempt to help the Trump campaign.

This is one of those cases where we will expect a President to act in concert with the national interests. I expect President Obama to take action prior to his leaving office. And I expect that President-elect Trump will stop tweeting and start thinking clearly about what the Intelligence services are telling him and then understand the danger this poses for our democracy.

This matter calls for the creation of a Bipartisan Select Congressional Investigating Committee. Foreign interference in U.S. Presidential election is criminal behavior. We need to know who did it, how they did it and how to prevent it in the future.

In the past the U.S. Congress has demonstrated it can conduct important, bipartisan investigations on matters of national importance. This needs to be one of those rare occasions. And it should start immediately.

A Select House/Senate Committee with Bipartisan Co-Chairs and subpoena power should open a comprehensive investigation with a goal discovering the identity of those responsible and providing that information to the justice officials for prosecution.

The Select Committee should be staffed with our best investigators and top technology experts and work in close coordination with intelligence and justice department officials to track and trace the perpetrators.

When completed, the full results of the investigation should be made available to the American people.

And President-elect Trump should give us some confidence by stopping his thoughtless denial of the facts and begin to understand the gravity of attempts by a foreign government to rig our elections.

This isn't about republican or democrat politics as usual. This calls for American unity to make sure our elections are fair and free from foreign interference.

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