Chummy Senate Intelligence Leaders Show Contrast with House on Russia Probe

The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee vowed to thoroughly assess the intelligence community's conclusions on Russian election interference Wednesday, steering clear of the controversies plaguing their House intel counterparts.

The committee is examining Russian attempts to influence the 2016 elections, along with contacts U.S. campaign officials may have had with the Russian government, Chairman Richard Burr told reporters.

Their probe features a review of the intelligence community's January conclusion on election interference. The report assessed that Russia waged a cyber and disinformation campaign to discredit Hillary Clinton, help Donald Trump's campaign, and undermine faith in the democratic process.

Burr said seven staffers were reviewing thousands of documents to verify the process by which those conclusions were obtained, as well as the confidence ratings attached to those conclusions.

"When you see a movie, it's roughly two hours. When you see how much film went into a movie, it's probably 50 hours," Burr said. "We don't want to just look at what was in the report. We want to look at what was cut and thrown on the floor, either in analytic product or in intelligence, to figure out whether an analyst made the right determination with what we know today."