Senator Mark Warner, the Democrat ranking member, and chairman of the*Senate Intelligence Committee*Republican Senator Richard Burr, appeared together at a press conference to give an update on the investigation ahead of the first witnesses appearing today.
Mr Warner said: “We know about the hacking, and selective leaks, but what really concerns me as a former tech guy is at least some reports – and we’ve got to get to the bottom of this – that there were upwards of a thousand internet trolls working out of a facility in Russia, in effect taking over a series of computers which are then called botnets, that can then generate news down to specific areas.
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Russian hackers penetrated Republican groups, says FBI chief
“It’s been reported to me, and we’ve got to find this out, whether they were able to affect specific areas in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, where you would not have been receiving off of whoever your vendor might have been, Trump versus Clinton, during the waning days of the election, but instead, ‘Clinton is sick’, or ‘Clinton is taking money from whoever for some source’ … fake news.
“An outside foreign adversary effectively sought to hi-jack the most critical democratic process, the election of a President, and in that process, decided to favour one candidate over another.”
The key states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania which Mr Warner named all fell narrowly - and unexpectedly - to Donald*Trump.
