Part of the reason why the committee has not acted more swiftly is because of its current structure.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is typically an oversight panel, not an investigative one. It is set up more to review than to actively probe.
The biggest obstacle now for a serious investigation into Trump-Russia ties is dedicated resources for staffing, said a source with ties to the committee. Serious consideration is being given to getting outside resources, as is customary in many large Capitol Hill investigations. Serious work requires serious investigative skills and resources, which wouldnt naturally be resident in a committee like Senate Intel.
The committee previously announced that seven staffers had been assigned to review classified documents related to the Russia investigation. These are the majority and minority staff directors, joined by three Republican aides and two Democratic aides.
We have devoted seven professional staff positions to this investigation. These are staffers who already had the clearance, Burr said on March 29.
Of the seven staffers so far assigned to review classified documents related to the Russia investigation, none of them has prosecutorial or investigative experience, according to three sources with ties to the committee.
Most of them lack a background in Russia expertise. Not one of the seven is a lawyer.
I dont see how you can do this without trained investigators and prosecutors. I think you need to have expertise on the intel side and on the prosecution side. You would ideally need someone who knows how to do a counterintelligence operation, said Scott Horton, an attorney who has focused on anti-corruption investigations, with a specialization in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet states.
The investigation already faces a series of obstacles that have heavy requirements on time: the classification of documents, the location of documents at various agencies, and an incredible volume of material.
But of the seven staffers, none has been assigned full-time to the work of the Russia probe, according to four sources with ties to the committee. Every one of the seven staffers has other oversight responsibilities, and thus a dual-hatted role that prevents them from focusing singularly on the investigation.
Of the seven, two are the staff directors of the committeean enormously demanding job even in the calmest of circumstances, which limits their involvement. One of the seven even attends law school part-time.
To do a serious investigation would require not less than a dozen full-time staffers
[with] counterintelligence, prosecutorial skills to do it, and people who have a very good sense of the forensic accounting world of Russia and Europe. Without that sort of expertise, youre not going to get anywhere, Horton said. I dont think theyre deploying the resources that are necessary to do a real investigation.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...probe-has-no-full-time-staff-no-key-witnesses
