Just Yes or No, Sen. Mark Warner, Did You See Any Collusion Proof?

After months of interviewing witnesses and reviewing documents, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has yet to produce any credible evidence that President Donald Trump or his associates conspired with Russian operatives to influence the 2016 election.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the committee’s chairman, refuses to go as far as his Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives in concluding that no such evidence exists. But he has acknowledged that he has not yet seen any evidence.

It is a point that Democrats presently cannot refute but have difficulty admitting.

Witness the interview Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the panel’s ranking Democrat, gave to CNN Wednesday.

Reporter Manu Raju asked Warner a simple question: “One of the things that Richard Burr told me this week is that he has seen no evidence yet of collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign. Do you agree with that?”

Warner gave a 35-second rambling response that never even got within sight of a straight answer:

“Listen, I have as many questions, if not more questions, today than I had six months ago, and what I’ve said throughout this whole investigation is, I’m going to reserve my final judgment until the end of the investigation,” he said.

Related: Nunes Concerned Special Counsel Is Ignoring Illegal Leaks

“We continue to interview witnesses regularly. We have more scheduled next month. We have a lot of individuals that at least I’m gonna want to have come back that were principals, because our interviews have all been done by staff.”

In other words — well, if not disagreeing indicates agreement, it seems reasonable to conclude that, yes, Warner agrees with Burr that the committee has not seen evidence of collusion.

PoliZette senior writer Brendan Kirby can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.

(photo credit, homepage and article images: Mark Warner [1], [2], CC BY 2.0, by Mark Warner)