>
Article snippet: WASHINGTON — Senator Richard Burr, the initially reluctant but now determined leader of the Senate Intelligence Committee inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election, said the investigation had expanded beyond its original scope based on new evidence, but he hoped to complete it this year to allow Congress to take steps to prevent future efforts at tampering by Moscow. ”What continues this investigation are the names of individuals that we didn’t know at the time, the documents that we weren’t aware of, the communications, the cables, the emails, the phone logs of individuals that we wouldn’t have thought then that we needed to interview or to look at their records,” said Mr. Burr, the North Carolina Republican who is chairman of the intelligence panel. Mr. Burr said he remained “hopeful that we can bring finality to this by the end of the year, but I also can’t anticipate anything new that might come up that we don’t know today that would extend it by a month or two months. So I am conscious of the fact that I need to do this expeditiously, but I need to do it thoroughly and I won’t do anything to cut it short.” The timeline, offered by Mr. Burr in his first extended interview in eight months, for The New York Times podcast “The New Washington,” was the most definitive to date and indicated the Senate report could deliver the first substantive congressional accounting of Russia’s efforts to covertly influence last year’s election. [How to listen: If y... Link to the full article to read more