Neera Tanden, president and CEO of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress and a former Clinton adviser, said Sunday morning that Democrats are "literally just asking" for an investigation into Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election because congressional committees have not debated the matter publicly.
Host Chris Wallace asked a panel on Fox News Sunday about Russia's cyber and disinformation campaign to influence the 2016 election.
"My question is, because we have known that for months now, the question, the continuing mystery is did the Trump campaign collude with the Russians?" he asked. "We don't have any evidence of that."
After one panelist said there is so far no evidence to show collusion between the Russian government and President Donald Trump's campaign, Tanden jumped into the discussion.
"But, see, this is what I think is an odd mystery, right?" Tanden said. "We have the intelligence community has issued a report saying that Russians tried to influence the election and did influence the election."
She added that congressional Democrats are looking for a public investigation because the issue has not been debated in the open.
"This is the issue," Tanden said. "Democrats are literally just asking for public investigations of this issue to air because there hasn't been public discussion of this amongst any committee that you can do it."
"That's the reason I find it so weird," she said.
Lawmakers have discussed extensively the issue of alleged collusion between Trump associates and Russian officials in public forums, including in the press.