The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee has slammed the Treasury Department for its weak response to that committee’s request for information related to the Trump team’s financial dealings with Russia.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) made the comments at a Banking Committee confirmation hearing on Tuesday for Sigal Mandelker, who was nominated by the Trump Administration to be Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence – the office responsible for much of the information requested.
Warner said he could not back Mandelker’s nomination until Treasury responded fully to a request he made with Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) for the financial information on Trump and Russia. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has placed a hold on Mandelker’s nomination, which could effectively block the appointment.
The Intelligence panel is looking into Russian interference in last year’s U.S. presidential election and whether Russia colluded with Trump’s campaign.
Warner and Burr had written to Treasury’s office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence April 26 asking for the information that Warner said will be “absolutely critical” to the Intelligence Committee Russia probe, but the only response so far from Treasury is that the department was “working on it.”
“Well, I’ve got to tell you, that’s not good enough for an investigation that is so critical that is dominating the news, that is dominating Americans’ attention,” he said.
“Clearly,” he said, “the follow-the-money route is one of the areas that is critically important,” he said.
Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Warner said he hoped the Administration would respond to the Intelligence Committee request, adding that if the committee gets the information and if Mandelker is confirmed, “I’m going to hold her to her commitment to provide further information as needed.”
He also expressed exasperation over the effort to get to the bottom of the Trump Administration-Russia saga.
“Boy oh boy, there’s not a day that goes by that we don’t get a lot more questions than answers,” he said.
“The White House may be the only group of folks around that still are questioning whether the Russians interfered in our election. I think you’d be hard pressed to find, candidly, any member of the Senate, Democrat or Republican, that wouldn’t pretty much fully acknowledge the unprecedented amount of intervention that took place,” he said.
Steve Hirsch is a senior national security editor at The Cipher Brief.
