Yes, Burr served himself on stocks, but on the Russia probe he served history

That a U.S. senator does his job – acts as a check on executive power while working across the aisle – is hardly a profile in courage. But these days, when almost all Republican senators cower in fear of President Trump, one who leads a revealing bipartisan probe into what the president dismisses as a hoax has done something remarkable.

North Carolina’s senior senator Richard Burr, pilloried in March for dumping hundred of thousands dollars’ worth of stocks before the public knew the full threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, merits the public’s gratitude for his handling of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s final report on ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

Burr stepped down in May as the committee’s chairman after the FBI opened an investigation into his stock trades. But for more than three years he worked closely with the committee’s vice chairman, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, to produce a report exposing questionable actions by the Trump campaign.

The nearly 1,000-page report goes beyond special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings to add important details about the contacts between the campaign and Russia. One of its most serious findings is that Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, regularly shared campaign information with Konstantin Kilimnik, a man the committee identified as “a Russian intelligence officer.”

The report provides a powerful, bipartisan account for history about what happened as Russian operatives tried to undermine Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and sway the election in Trump’s favor. It’s also an important warning for today that Russia already is trying to interfere again.

Intelligence Committee member Sen. Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said Burr and Warner worked to avoid partisan splits to deliver a powerful report with bipartisan backing.

“It could have all gone off the rails if we’d had different leadership,” King said in a CNN report. “There was a lot of give and take, a lot of times it was hard – they deserve the lion’s share of the credit.”

Burr, who was re-elected to a third term in 2016 but says he will not run again, did not comment, choosing to let the report speak for itself.

As chairman, he had his stumbles. He originally said in January 2017 that the committee would not explore contacts between Russia and Trump campaign as part of its investigation into Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee, saying it wasn’t the committee’s role to investigate campaigns. He relented when Democratic committee members objected. And he did the White House’s bidding in talking with reporters to knock down their reports on information pointing toward cooperation between the campaign and Russian operatives.

But in the end the points on which Burr stood firm were more important than those where he slipped. He fended off Trump’s requests that the committee’s work be wrapped up as early as 2017. He provoked the president’s ire by subpoenaing Donald Trump Jr. to testify. And he supported a committee report in April that agreed with U.S. intelligence conclusions that the Russians interfered to help Trump win the presidency.

In all, the panel produced five reports covering election security, Russian meddling and the Trump campaign’s interactions with the Russians.

Burr deserves the scorn he received for selling stocks in companies threatened by the pandemic even as he told the public that the U.S. was well prepared to contain COVID-19. He may face criminal charges for insider trading.

But his self-serving actions to protect his portfolio should not eclipse the genuine public service he rendered by seeking the truth about the 2016 campaign despite opposition from a president who has cowed almost all Republican senators.

This story was originally published August 25, 2020 at 11:55 AM.