I read the below review for Moscow embassy from the Embassy Info page here at VJ:

"
The interview went very well, not to mention quickly. I had contacted my congressman's office well in advance, and they sent a letter in my behalf to the embassy. I cannot stress enough how much this helps!!! Anyone else who wants to be over the top, do this! 3 questions, what is name of spouse, how me met, and where we will live. Less than 5 minutes and approved. After months of worry and stress making sure everything was ready, it was almost anti-climactic. Good luck to the rest of you.
"

I think I have also read sometime back someelse getting their congressman or senator's office getting involved.

I am not clear under what circumstances would someone want to have congressman or senator's office write
to Moscow (or any) embassy and what exactly is communicated in such correspondence? Any one?

It was this reviewer's belief that somehow the letter assisted them in there interview, but there does not appear to be any overt demonstrated evidence it had any effect. A single occurence of a situation is not demonstratable evidence of a pattern for assistance.

My SO had her interview with zero, nada zilch questions and we had no such senatorial letter in our file at the embassy. Based on my experience one could conclude that it is in your best interest not to have such a letter. But I certanly cannot make such a claim.

I don't see what all the fuss is about. If you've done what you're supposed to do, you'll be fine. Follow the VJ guides, take advice from those that have been through it, and comply with all requirements. That's it. It's a simple process and quite frankly, way too many people stress about it.

Myself included! But, now that I'm done, I can tell you there's nothing to stress about.

You don't need a letter from a congressman or senator. Will it help? Maybe. Does it really matter if all your other stuff is in order? Absolutely not.

I agree, the whole process, while agonizingly slow, is pretty straight forward.

A mathematician, physicist, chemist, biologist, and engineer are confronted with the proposition: all odd numbers are prime.

The mathematician, says, "1, 3, 5, 7 are all prime, but 9 is not prime. Therefore not all odd numbers are prime."
The physicist says, "1,3,5,7 are prime, 9 is not prime, but that might be experimental error, 11 and 13 are prime, so yeah, all odd numbers appear to be prime."
The chemist says, "1,3,5, and 7 are prime. All odd numbers seem prime."
The biologist says, "1 is prime. All odd numbers are prime."
The engineer says, "1,3,5,7,9,11 are prime. Yup. All odd numbers are prime."

Maybe our congressional interventionist quoted above was a biologist.

A letter from a congressman's office can't hurt, but it's completely unnecessary.