Transcripts For CSPAN3 Russias Influence On American Democracy 20180216

The center for American Progress action fund this afternoon. Senator whitehouse has been delayed doing the nations business at a Senate Hearing. We will begin with our fantastic panel and we will be joined by the senator later in the program. We are at a critical moment for our democracy, which faces grave threats. A lot of attention has rightly been focused on russias involvement in Election Hacking and in disinformation campaigns in the United States and elsewhere. C. A. P. P. Has addressed these issues and we released a report called war by other means. Just on monday, c. A. P. P. Had an event for the release of our report, Election Security in all 50 states, which graded each of the 50 states and the district of colombia on their Election Security preparedness. Todays conversation will focus on yet another element of the kremlins influence that we are deeply concerned about and has been subject to much less public discussion. The extent to which the russian government uses corruption and Financial Leverage as instruments of influence abroad and now potentially in the United States. This is not an academic subject. This is one which has already had real consequences for russias european neighbors and poses a threat to democratic governments wherever russian influence extends. More and more, we see the issues of corruption Transcend National boundaries and are undermining democratic societies abroad and here at home. The United States is vulnerable to the corrupting potential of russian money. One major risk factor is the lack of disclosure in our politics, both in our Campaign Finance system, which increasingly allows people to use large amounts of money to support or oppose candidates without revealing the source of funds. It is illegal for foreign actors to spend money to influence elections in the United States. Without effective transparency, they are wide open to exploitation by foreign adversaries seeking to impact the course of american affairs. Indeed, recent reportings show that the fbi is investigating whether the nra served a role in funneling russian money to influence the u. S. Election in 2016. The corruption arising from the lack of donor disclosure and politics is exacerbated by limited corporate transparency we will be discussing today. Lets get to our panel. We are honored to welcome our guests today who each bring a depth of experience and expertise on these issues. If you would like to join us on the stage, that would be wonderful. Heather connolly is senior vicepresident for europe, eurasia and the arctic and director of the Europe Program at csis. She is the author of the kremlin playbook, a report that analyzes russian influence in central and eastern europe. From 2001 to 2005, she served as Deputy Assistant secretary of state with responsibilities for u. S. Bilateral relations with the countries of northern and Central Europe. From 1994 to 2001, she was senior associate with an International Consulting firm led by former u. S. Deputy secretary of state. She began her career in the bureau of Political Military Affairs at the u. S. Department of state. She has received her degrees from West Virginia wesleyan and her masters in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of advanced studies. We are happy to welcome franklin forr, the National Correspondent for the atlantic where he covers politics, technology, economics and sports, all interrelated in different ways. His most recent piece the plot against america provides an indepth analysis of the life and career of Paul Manafort and has been featured on the cover of the atlantics issue and shined a light on these relationships. We are looking forward to discussing these with him and diana pilapenko is the associate director of anticorruption and elicits finance. Prior to joining american progre progress in june of 2017. She managed at deloitte specializing in export control compliance. She led numerous investigations and assessments on behalf of commercial, federal and nonprofit organizations. Please join me in welcoming our panel. As we discussed, in 2016, you cotho coauthored a report called the kremlin playbook. I understand you are working on updating that. I am sure there is a lot to say about how russia influences its neighbors and erodes democratic practices through finance leverage and corruption. Could you summarize for the audience what is russias playbook for extending its influence. Thank you so much. It is great to be with you. Congratulations on the work that he have done. Im so delighted that the kremlin playbook is our most popular report. We are almost 55 years old. So you can tell the work of think tanks in this space is so important. We began because of an assumption, an assumption and a warning, an assumption that when Central Europe joined nato and the european union, they would be safe and secure enter those two multilateral straight jackets, yet they began to stray. Those institutions would help them. We were so proud of ourselves and of their success in 2004. Five years later, a group of the most proamerican central and Eastern European leaders wrote an open letter to president o obama. There was no need, because they were very good friends. There was one phrase when i read the letter that it struck me. I am going to read it to you in their words. They told us, russia uses overt and quo vert means of Economic Warfare ranging from energy blo blockades and bribery and media manipulation to advance its interest and to challenge the transatlantic orientation of central and eastern europe. I just thought, is that true . Could economic interests change the transatlantic orientation of these countries . What we did, we partnered with a wonderful think tank in bulgaria, the center for the study of democracy, that has been toiling and looking at how russian economic influence affects us. Bulgaria is the epicenter where russian economic influence can dramatically alter their political trajectory, a member of nato and the european union. We tried to be very we have to be very rigorous in the methodology. We can wrote anecdotally about how things work. We wanted to crunch the numbers as best we can. Russian economic interest is designed to be opaque and highly complex. You cant see it. They dont want to you see it. We did crunch the numbers over a decade from 2004 to 2014. What we saw in bulgarias case, 22 of their gdp was russian investment. When it is 22 of your economy, you are going to Pay Attention to it when it is unhappy or starts changing. We were trying to see if the economic footprint matched the deterioration in the rule of law in these countries, in media freedoms and judicial reform and anticorruption efforts. We did not find a direct correlation. What we found and detected was a pattern, the kremlin playbook. It was a pattern of what we called an unvirtuous circle of corruption. Here is how it works. Russia, using its networks and its influence, particularly in the Energy Sector and also in the financial sector, real estate, certainly media, the first economic investments seemed fairly innocuous. They had sfro they had strong relations and networks. Those economic relationships began to grow political influence where particular Political Parties, members of Political Parties that were very proactively supportive of the kremlins interest. Suddenly, they were getting supported. Their Political Parties were getting supported. Ngos were being created to support their interest. The politics began to protect and grow the greater economic influence. They went into other sectors. The economics grew the politics until we had very pro kremlin politicians as minister of interiors, as head of the Anticorruption Bureau which basically stopped that democracy from being able to fight the russian influence. So we detected this in 5k study countries. We crunched those numbers and saw how it worked. Sometimes it goes through political influence first and then that grows the economics. All of these economic interests across our 5k study countries was back to the kremlins inner circle. Thank goodness they came out about six months before we published and that shed a lot of light on the ties we were seen. Papers showed us how it worked financially. Investigative journalism is key to this story. The work that you do and others to shed a light on this. So that was the story we told. We told it a month before our u. S. President ial elections. We are talking about europe here. I am not an american analyst. Everybody went, oops. We saw the pattern that we detected. It has been a powerful story. We are doing a kremlin playbook 2. We are looking at six more European Countries and now we are focusing on enabling countries, countries that seem to be not directly affected by the russian influence. Through their incorporation and financial system, we call them enablers to allow russian influence to grow. Some of that enabling behavior is here in the United States. More to come in our research. I think that is really what you and others have been telling that story. It is not commonly recognized as of yet. I think that bringing those continued links to light. Are there other particular examples about how russia goes about cultivating these foreign ties to foreign politicians and how significant that is as part of the kremlins overall strategy in europe . We took a particular lens through economic influence. I think a challenge with the whole russian influence spectru spectrum what approach do you want to look at . It is a holistic strategy. We were looking at the cyber and theinformati disinformation. The pattern we detected, russia invests in these relationships. They go back two decades and existed during the cold war for central and eastern europe, the economic linkages and the intelligence networks. They already existed. They had that network to work with. As i said, this was part of encouraging a policy. We wanted russia to integrate with europe and the west. That was the big, bold 25year plan. So it was encouraged. E. U. Funds were going to support this. What began as a positive became a negative. Those politicians in particular and they can be on the far right of the political spectrum. They can certainly be on the far left. The commonality they have is that they are against europe, the e. U. They are against globalization, immigrants, everything. They are very supportive of the kremlin. It is really not a political distinction. If far left actors support that, they will get support, and far actors will as well. Sometimes they just get lucky that a politician that they had invested in comes and suddenly it is their moment, the politicses begpolitics begin to fracture and they rise and we are shocked to see what positions they are in. Thank you so much. Diana, your report out today hones in on the financial aspect of russian influence and how it can play out in the United States, particularly on the reasons why president trump, an unconventional businessman, when he was a private citizen, may have been a target for the kremlin. Can you tell us a little bit about why that is . What is it about trumps history and business practice that is could have made him a target and susceptible to such influence . Yes, thank you. Heathers report was incredibly meticulously done and researched. It also provides a broader framework through which to analyze some of the issues that we see here. I think a critical component of that is that russia, the kremlin, exploits system vulnerabilities that are already present. So i think of your study as more of a macro study. To take the 2016 election and donald trump specifically, it is more of a micro analysis that we are doing. It is a particular individual. Some of the vulnerabilities are present there. There is significant financial distress thats been documented. There have been multiple bankruptcies going back to the 90s, 2000s. This is someone who is in need of financing and in need of propping up, in some ways similar to some of these fledgling democracies. We have that. We also have another element of this. It is not surprising to find lots of russian money in real estate in new york, miami, florida. To take another piece of this is a pattern of conduct that i think becomes really critical with donald trump and the trump organization. There is sort of cultivation of opacity that has taken place. It is a private organization. It doesnt have Share Holders that it is responsible to. There is no board of directors. Much of the things that go on, there is lack of transparency as to what is happening. Another component of this is kind of a wellestablished pattern of troubling partnerships, lack of Due Diligence that we have had. Taking these pieces together. The vulnerability and lack of finance and certain conduct and marrying those together and bringing in the component of what we have seen with how russia operates in some of these countries and cultivating some weaknesses and creating networks with patronage, we can see how all these things can come together in somebody who has become the president ial candidate. If there was an influence in the campaign and we know donald trump was a preferred candidate for the kremlin. I think the Intelligence Community says there is a consensus. Taking those pieces together, if Kremlin Russia wanted to prop up this favorite candidate, how would they do it . I think financing is one element of this. We have heard quite a bit about this disinformation campaign, social media, hacking. It is sort of a critical thing that enables a lot of these activities is finance and economic leverage. Again, i think it was really helpful for me to kind of pair your report in the larger frame of it with some of my previous work that i have done in the private sector in terms of investigating corruption on a smaller scale and putting these elements together in assessing what transpired. So i think that would be it. To that point, can you explain how a lack of corporate transparency and Money Laundering and corruption can play into political influence campaigns . Again, i think that in the past, we have really thought about private corruption as very separate from the public sphere. One thing that we are seeing here is really the private economics, corruption of these private economic relationships have been spilling over into exercising political power and shaping the direction of political power. What exams can you help draw to help illustrate this and why it is relevant to future campaigns and generally our National Security. Certainly. A couple of things. To start with, corruption, i think of it as sort of a binary, it provides reward and punishment. Financial leverage and investments in europe, russians say only con glomglomerates can money and create projects. That creates a financial incentive. Depending on how that is structured, it can provide negative leverage in the sense that a favor has been taken, perhaps an elicit favor. They have that information oefsh you. Wh when we are assessing patterns of conduct and corporate behavior, that can come into play when we think about how that can play out here with our specific case study or elsewhere. Also, in terms of Money Laundering, corporate transparency, i think thats a really critical component. In my report, i discuss Money Laundering, not only as something. Typically, it is Money Laundering. You are cleaning proceeds of a crime and you are introducing it into the legitimate economy. In this sort of context, i also think of Money Laundering as a means of obscuring sources of funds and obscuring the destination of funds and what that could be used for. That becomes a really critical component to influence campaigns. You mentioned the nra and the money injected there and what was the ultimate destin flagati. That is something that is key to understand in terms of how a foreign actor can penetrate the system and wield influence within it. Lack of corporate transparency is what supports this behavior. In certain jurisdiction in the u. S. , we have an issue with lack of disclosure in terms of Beneficial Ownership of these corporations and taking a specific example, an individual that has come up in the context of meddling probes who came to the june 9th meeting at the trump tower, he had this goes back a while. There was a Government Accounting Office investigation in which they were looking into why he had set up 2000 corporations in delaware to move 1. 4 billion through u. S. Banks. Why had he . I dont think we know to this day. At least perhaps the government has access to another report. They are legitimate reasons for privacy in terms of the corporate sense. There is also some of this other activity we need to understand. I think senator whitehouse may touch on corporate transparency and why that is important. Let me ask you this question. When you describe this kind of corruption, are you oftentimes concerning relationships that is more like quid pro quo or more about access and influence and building leverage . I think it could be a combination of all of these things in terms of quid pro quo, right now sanctions are on top of some of the larger issues. In terms of that, it can be both. I think engaging in some activity, frank, you can talk a little bit about manafort. When you are kind of partaking in some of these relationships, that then creates a leverage. You not only are indebted to a certain financial transaction relationship but the person that you are engaging with knows you are partake ing in it and that n play out on a political stage and be important. One more specific question for you. Following along, these developments developed over time. Now, trump is in a very different place obviously than president when he was a businessman and private citizen. To what extent has his vulnerability to influence continued . Is this specific to trump or potentially bigger . In terms of vulnerability, in some sense, i think it is higher now because of the high office that he occupies. The scrutiny that has brought about i think, you know, in that sense, it is, you know, perhaps elevated. In terms of is it specific to trump or somebody else . I sdwlooirks he think he is an unique president and candidate for president for whom so many things come together. He is a very unconventional businessmen. These troubling past business relationships that we have. So in some ways, it is unique but it also opens up the system to the establishment of precedent and patterns and that can replicate. It is fine now so it will be continued in the future. Thank you. And, frank, you recently wrote this extensive article on Paul Manafort titled in a calm tone the plot against america. Could you tell us more about manafort and how he might fit into the russianinfluenced campaign . Just to step back, i think that so much of russias existence in the Global Economy and in our global power system depends on the normal zatiizati corruption. It depends on creating legitimacy for the laundering of money. We see the kgb exporting massive resources to the state abroad. All the great fortunes in russia are built on privatization that emerging from crony capitalism. There is this much longer project that russia has been engaged in. How do we take this behavior, which was previously deemed outside the bounds of acceptable in the west and how do we make it seem perfectly normal . That process has been something that has had an enormous number of enablers in the west. So even in our fair city of washington, d. C. , in a lot of very respectable institutions you have people who have been complicit in this project, whether it is big law firms that work with a lot of very, very well think russians. Some of the work of big law is not just about purchasing real estate in london and new york and even washington, d. C. Some of it involves suing journalists who ask difficult questions, suing think tanks, not this one, please. We know the great book about putins cleptocracy. They gave her a lot of frutroub when she wanted to publish the book. They sued the Associated Press when they published a piece about his relationship with Paul Manafort. Big law is complicit. There is an enormous amount of money spent on lobbying and public relations. Paul manafort fits in as well. He is a representative figure who reflects a good chunk of what happens in many of these big firms which were hired by o olegarchs. And many are woven into the country. This is another point about russias political corruption. The interests of the state are not quite inseparable from the interests of business. They are french braided together in which it becomes very difficult to disentangle the two. Sounds like potentially intentionally. It is the cost of doing business if you are a rich person in russia. Occasionally, you will be asked to be part of this soft power apparatus. You may be asked to do certain favors that extend beyond that. So Paul Manafort existed as a figure who kind of got sucked into this initially by a russian olegarch. He was very close to vladmir putin. And from ukraine, like so many of the others that began as a gangster, somebody who came up in a rough and tumble you way and sttried to be more legitima. They hired him to do work where they had political interests. Manafort and his firm did work in georgia where they tried to bring back a guy who was pretty terrible, accused of trying to assassinate the president in moscow and they worked in ukraine trying to deal with some of the revolutions. They tried to deal with some of the dem yacocratic murmurings t would have threatened russias interests around the world and they worked in montenegro. You get the story. The point is that donald trump in some ways is the logical, inevitable conclusion of this. What are the consequences . What is the real cost from the normalization of russian corruption . It is that our own standards start to slip. Our own defenses against a figure like donald trump who embodies so much of the kind of oligarchical mindset, unable to separate his personal interests from that of the state. Somebody like Paul Manafort is representative of this really pernicious trend in our history, which is that we have taken the things that should be morally, economically, politically unacceptable and gradually rendered them the run of play. I am so glad you brought up morally. I do think that that is a point that often doesnt get surfaced, kind of the fact that we need to continue to articulate the moral imperative for Representative Democracy if we are going to have a government that promotes human freedom and dignity. How are we structuring the rules of american democracy to facilitate and ensure fair representation and have we been doing that adequately in the past several years. That is my field of study. Thats why i asked the question about corruption, because, of course, the Supreme Court in the Citizens United decision actually said, no, no, no, the last 20 years and the last 100 years that we have banned direct corporate spending in political elections it is because that would be corrupting. So we are going to ban that. Actually, this is independent. It is not corrupting and, quote, access and influence are not corruption. Only quid pro quo is going to be considered a standard for corruption that will allow you to imposespeech. Lets not derail the whole conversation. In the book corruption in america she says that when Benjamin Franklin and founders were sweating the problem of corruption which they viewed as a mortal threat to the republic the form of corruption that gave them the most was foreign corruption. And do you recall how they addressed that in our countrys founding documents . The clause in the constitution and that, of course, taking moderators privilege here to share thoughts, unfortunately we have not seen the enforcement of the foreign clause thus far. There are several cases that are moving forward including a case brought by 200 members of congress who really ought to be in a position of being able to overcome any standing challenge to say it is our job to say whether you are allowed to receive things of value from a foreign state. There are clear rules. I think that is one of the questions of corruption is we have these rules but have the rules been adequate and have they been adequately enforced . Have we articulated the moral under pinnings, the functionality of the rules. If people think it is the run of play, everyone does it. 75 of americans in a gallop poll think corruption is widespread in the american government. That is shocking to me because it probably isnt or what do we mean by corruption . Lets get back to you guys. I want to pull back for a second. Such a complicated story. I want to pull back on the russia part. Part of what russia is doing is part of military doctrine. Corruption economic influence is a part of it. It is called new generation war fare. They are trying to break the internal coherence. What we know from soviet practices and russian practices, they exploit the weaknesses that are present. So whether that is youre not following your transparency rules, youre not following the Foreign Agent registration act, it is perfectly fine to be a lobbiest and to register as a Foreign Agent. This is a criminal act. It is not being legally represented. The problem is we are not being vigorous in how we implement our rules and our laws and our cooperation as much as we love to talk about mr. Putin all day long this is on us. Its our system. We protect it. We enhance our insecurity or we are susceptible. Today it is russia. Tomorrow another adversary. They get our weaknesses, our societal divisions whether black lives matter or state and federal divide or political divide. This is not about a particular party, i guarantee you. Because the next election they will find a democratic candidate. This is not about the parties. It is about weakening the United States so they can proceed with their interests. Dont lose ourselves in the politics of this. Keep our eye on the bigger prize about what is going on externally and focussing on what we need to do. And so what would if we were trying to describe to everyone, how would we describe how this kind of corruption is such a danger to democratic societies and kind of how it impacts peoples lives . I think americans have had such a disconnect throw all of them out but how can we communicate the importance of fighting this corruption and how it impacts peoples lives . For me democracy works based on faith, trust and credibility. What all of these things are doing, the social media campaigns and the economic influence you have belief in faith in nothing. Then you dont care if you have a democracy. The polling that im most worried about is people dont think democracy is that big a deal. Why do we need this . Why is this important to us . A young generation thinks it doesnt matter. We have lost our way in why this system is so important to us as far as National Security and health and well being. We are eroding this ourselves and then they are amplifying that faith in erosion in leaders, institutions. Thats why i think our own health is in peril. He is helping this along. I think for me i find conflicts of issue as a huge issue and the erosion of the line and that warps the ince incentives and kind of what drives politicians and im from ukraine. There is complete example between blending. The current president is a formform er oligarch. That kind of really under mines. I think again foreign and domestic corruption i think as we discussed is part of the same fabric. I think we need to be aware of that and not just point a finger but also to kind of understand what is happening internally. Again, there are multiple issues that we talk about on the domestic front that we need to address as part of the solution. One thing i think that should be known my sense is that with the patriot act and with where you had sustained focus on stamping out Money Laundering we were pretty successful in closing a lot of the most obvious doors through which foreign money is laundered into the United States. Real estate being one of the big exemptions in the law which is part of the reason some of the people like units in trump tower. I think that i agree with heather. So much of this is about strengthening our institutions, strengthening our own moral fiber when it comes to issues of corruption. So when you have massive its connected to tax evasion here. The Panama Papers reflect badly on a lot of people here, when you have major corporations who have been using luxenburg and ireland to avoid paying taxes. We have basically deteriorated our system such that the weaknesses do become obvious to outsiders. I think one thing that we talk about the weaponization of information in the same sort of way that the weaponization of information plays on the weaknesses in u. S. News media in the ways of which social media has eroded authority. Corruption has been weaponized in the same sort of way. The dynamic that exists really does track the same one that exists in information. And it seems like its no longer like this corruption is just about being wealthier and cabining that to the private sphere but that is coming over so that is now coming into exercising power and being able to exercise public power corruptly which is to an even greater danger. We will take a few audience questions before we are then able to hear from senator. But just quickly i wanted to get your thoughts on solutions. I think that is always a really important place to be to get out of sometimes the nihilism. So if our politics and National Security are vulnerable to this influence what is there that we can do to address it by closing financial regulatory loopholes . Insuring that this influence is covered and thwarted . Are we able to identify and stop the enablers on this influence . So one big idea and then a couple of smaller ideas from testimony yesterday and yesterday was an extraordinary day. The fact that we had our intelligence agencies in complete unity we as a government arent doing anything to prevent the most important thing, the credibility and the faithfulness of our election process, if this if we see this as an attack on our country which it is we would have had a 9 11 commission and mass reorganization talk about terrorism financing, Money Laundering would be equal to terrorism financing. I continue to encourage that we have a 9 11like commission that looks at again its influence, economics, the whole thing and start changing laws. Secondly, look, i think in some ways mr. Manaforts indictment to me is a road map to where we have to go. I would love Vice President biden to lead a task force to focus on delaware and corporation and how we can improve ourselves. It starts with us. We have to clean ourselves up or we will continue to be vulnerable to the russians today, chinese tomorrow, iranians. Any adversary has the play book. We have to bring urgency and focus to this. Its a National Security imperative. And i would be brief to echo your comments. I think fostering Greater Corporation transparency will help us greatly. I think a lot enables some of these things that we have discussed, Money Laundering through real estate, corruption. I think getting at the root of this is the completely anonymous corporations that we dont know who is behind them and with what intent they were set up and what they are doing. I think that would be a critical component and to Campaign Finance disclosure. I think that drives we have this gap in what our laws say. When it comes to Something Like Foreign Agents registration act it would be great if it was enforced. I think it is important to restore not just sense of accountability but the sense of shame that causes people to anticipate being held accountable. I think it is incredibly important that we make an example of people like manafort and all of his all the people in his firmament because we have already seen this to some extent where his indictment has caused a lot of people to retroactively rush to register for the Foreign Agents registration act. I think Eleanor Roosevelt said after coming back from the ussr that democracy is really about not just words but about actions and we have to show people that we will take action to defend the heart and practice of our liberal democracy. Thank you so much for all of your time today. And now im thrilled to welcome nira. Thanks to the panel. I want to thank liz and the incredible panel for the discussion of the really important issues. Obviously not an exaggeration to say that our country now confronts a truly profound challenge to the very integrity of our democracy which is reinforced yesterday in hearings with our entire intelligence apparatus. We appreciate the incredible work that each of our panelists have done and to really entangle the complicated web that exists between the white house and the kremlin today as we see it. And this is really vital work that the center is proud to do that it is my privilege now to introduce our key note speaker, senator Sheldon Whitehouse of rhode island. During his 30year career in Public Service he has made it his mission to expand opportunity on behalf of working families. And he understands how the decisions we make in washington and who funds people in washington can really determine whether our policies are helping very small select few or helping all americans. Through that lens he has been a defender of the Affordable Care act and taken Decisive Action to safe guard the environment for the residents of the ocean state. He is one of the most profound champions on the environment and he has truly worked tirelessly, incredible voice in the caucus around, around increasing corporate accountability to defend american elections from foreign attacks and to ensure that our american elections are really free of direct influence from companies, from sources that really wish our democracy ill. Earlier this year he introduced the bipartisan title act and closing the tax loopholes that allow the crimes to happen. As a member of the Judiciary Committee he has spear headed an effort to cover russias attempts to disrupt our elections. He has been a vital voice looking at this very powerful connection between foreign adversaries, large scale money loopholes and the integrity of our election system. We are thrilled that he is here to join us. [ applause ] thank you. Its great to be with you all particularly with my friend from rhode island who i see in the audience. I want to open with a shoutout to liz kennedy who is a terrific witness in the dpcc shadow hearing that we did on disclosure when we couldnt get a proper bipartisan regular order Senate Hearing on disclosure. A shout out to Heather Connelly whose terrific work has got some focus in the white house subcommittee on crime and terror. And it really is excellent work. We are in a situation where in the same way that every Trump Administration, Law Enforcement and National Security witness has opined that the Mueller Investigation is not a witch hunt. Similarly, every single Trump Administration National Security and Law Enforcement witness has warned that we can and must expect further russian efforts to interfere in the 2018 election. It is unanimous. It is powerful. It is consistent and were doing virtually nothing about it which is extraordinary frustrating. We know not only that they are coming at us because our National Security Community Tells us unanimously that they are, we know how they are coming at us because of good work like the kremlin play book and like the Atlantic Councils trojan horse report and testimony of other witness whose have come before us. And we know that two of the vectors through which the russians interfere in other countrys politics and elections are Campaign Finance, nontransparency directly going at the politics of the country they want to compromise and more generally corruption nontransparency because as one of the reports said corruption is the lubricant for their effort to interfere with other democracies. Whether directly going in with funding to the political system or indirectly corrupting people and using that leverage to interfere with the political system, it all is spawned in darkness. And we are told that over and over and over again. We also know what the two vectors are of this that are the most significant ones. One is dark money in Campaign Finance. We ought to do something about that. There is a bill called the disclose act that would let us do something about that. Not long ago republicans were for that. But now its really challenging to get any republican support for Campaign Finance transparency. The second is shell corporations. The countries over in europe and the uk ware realizing part of their defense has to be to clean up their Corporation Transparency and they are. And that is leaving the United States of america as the country that is now the probably biggest sanctuary for international criminals. Not a great look for us. Not a great look for the United States of america. So we urgently need to address the problem of nontransparency in a corporation and nontransparency in Campaign Finance. Here is the rub. The rub is that the exact same transparency in corporation that would reveal that putin or other russiano oligarchs are behind schemes to run money through shell corporations and the exact transparency that would reveal that putin and oligarchs are running money to influence our election would also have to reveal who else is. You cant have partial transparency. You cant have transparency for putin and the oligarchs but keep the Koch Brothers and exon mobile and everyone else sheltered. The problem is they are now as dependent on dark money as a deep sea diver is on his hose to the surface. And it terrifies them to think that they will lose that dark money supply hose. So we have a real quandary on our hands. We also have a real opportunity because in my view whether or not the republicans are getting advantage of dark money it is a rot on our democracy. And i think there are republicans who see it the same way. I wont name names but republican colleague was sitting next to me on the senate floor. I said we have to clean up this dark money mess. This is a disgrace. It will be rotten before long. It will ruin our countrys reputati reputation. He said you idiots start raising serious dark money . You have to get to work. Raise your own dark money. I dont think that is the best path to a solution but that shows you what the calculation is in washington. Let me close with one observation. I grew up as a Foreign Service kid. I am the son, grand son, nephew and cousin of career Foreign Service officers. We were not on the champagne circuits. We were in countries torn by violence, poverty, corruption. I took really early life lessons from that. One is that america is special and is different and is seen as special and different around the world. My dad used to say that people like to tweak the eagles beak because we were so big and powerful it gave kind of a little thrill to tweak the eagles beak. When the chips were down the world counts on america in the way they count on no other country. And to parafrphrase we are sittg on a hill. Thats the way we cast ourselves. And our example as a city on the hill is an advantage of ours as well as a responsibility of ours. Bill clinton used to take bunker hill speech and twechange it toy the power never mattered more than the power of our example. Our example as a city on a hill of what democracy can be and should be is being compromised every minute by our own satisfaction with allowing dark money to rule our politics. And the people who will choose to put political advantage acquired through dark money ahead of the reputation and standing of our democracy deserve considerable. And we as a country cannot yield the high ground of being who we are. If were going to lecture other countries on transparency we have to live transparency. If we are going to say that democracy should rule and the people should decide and not the big special interests and folks who pull the strings, we have to live that truth. So this fight is not just a fight about how corporations are disclosed. Its not just a fight about trying to bring more balance and transparency into our Campaign Finance system. It is also a fight to reclaim our status as the shining city on the hill that the rest of the world can and should look to as an example and i say that selfishly because that is not a burden that we bear. It is an asset that we enjoy when we live our truth. So thank you very much for focussing on this. We have a lot of work to do. It is important work and happy to take a few questions. I have ten minutes. [ applause ] i want to thank you again for those comments but really also thank you for your leadership on broad issue of transparency as it relates to our elections, also foreign adversaries. Questions, if you can identify yourself it would be great. Real questions. Im wondering whether the the pendulum has swung too far at this point and whether speaking of the view that Foreign Countries have of us based on words and actions should be in the present tense or now in the past tense . No. I think the world still looks to america. I think their dismay at the Trump Administration in many ways a reflection of their discomfort that we are not living our truth any longer and that we are behaving in the way that dictators and strong men behave in using really vial and inappropriate language. I think the fact that that is a shock to the world is a very good sign. Its not a shock to the world when putin behaves the way putin behaves. The fact that it is a shock to the world we have an opportunity to correct it and we should undertake that. The danger that i see is that through dark money and through other vectors a small group of special interests can acquire enormous power in government. And that they then use that power in government to torque democracy to bake in their power in government whether its fixing the gerrymandered districts of swing states so that you can lose an election but win the delegation or whether it is trying to pretend that speech is money and money is speech as if they were indistinguishable or whether it is declaring corporations are people and can have an unlimited role in our democratic process. Those are all steps that were taking at the behest of folks and what they have each done is locked in more and more the power of those folks. That is the danger is that we get the pendulum swings to the point where it would swing back but it cant swing back because manipulation done by the forces that gain so much power prevents the swing back. If you cant have an orderly swing back you end up with a lot of revolutionary spirit and huge frustrations and things like that. Thats not what we want to disassemble the baked in special interest advantages in an orderly way would be a lot better than having a melt down of some kind. Im tom frank with buzz feed news. This morning congressman adam shif said House Intelligence Committee is getting blocked into doing investigation into Money Laundering. How much progress are either two Senate Committees making on that end . As far as i can tell, zero. We dont have gavels. So subpoenas we the democrats dont have gavels and subpoenas are scarce. The effort that we see right now from our republican friends is less to contribute to an investigation of the trump russia connections, interference yt election and potential Money Laundering and supports for russian connection and instead to either deprecate the people who are participating in the investigation like the fbi or to create a parallel conversation about the Hillary Clinton that makes it look like two parallel things. So there is very, very little that is going on investigatively in the senate. And by the way the most important question that we need to answer right now in washington, d. C. In my view is what role if any the Trump Administration or trumps lawyers had in either commissioning or encouraging or cooperating with or colluding with the Republican House intelligence staff, since it doesnt appear anyone has read much or the republican legislative staff in the senate. Are we really doing independent legislative oversight or are we being manipulated and maneuvered by the subjects of our oversight . Thats a question that we need to answer. I dont have an answer to it but it is a question that the American People have an answer to. We have a little more time for questions. You referenced can you just say your name and who you are with. You referenced the possible impacts on the 2018 election. But i feel that i read in Mainstream Media in the last few weeks that there was russian pushing related to the memo and the republican position. Releasethememo. Is it an ongoing aspect that we need to deal with . Yes. It isnt just suddenly turn up the dial and go from 0 to 60, 60 days before the november election. They are out all day long every day trying to work the system and figure out what they can do, what messages work, how they can game the facebook or google algorithms. This is a constantly ongoing operation that the russians are running. Its going to ramp up i think as we get closer to the election and to a very significant degree they dont very much mind getting caught that just adds and raises questions about everything and allows people to say the russians are probably doing stuff for the democrats, too. Its not as easy as spot lighting and having them go away which is why it is important that the president put the sanctions through. The way to get to putin is by punishing his oligarchs by punishing access. Thats where you hurt them. Thats why they got so furious about the act. That is the connection right there and the fact that trump is sitting there behind his desk in the oval office sheltering putin and the oligarchs from a measure passed 100 to 1 in congress ought to be an alarm signal. We have one question here. I will just add on the memo funded great work showing that about 70 of the social media traffic was by russian bots. The memo was an attack on the fbi so just to be clear about what is happening, russia is amplifying social media attacks and the fbi that is investigating russias collusion in the campaign. So that is the full circle of events and obviously the House Republican leadership and the House Senate House intelligence leadership are going along with all of that. That is an ongoing and im sure future attempts. Just to clarify that. I think this is our last question. Retired army physician. Watching as an outsider those two important hearings yesterday, the threat and the election, i had the feeling that might be sort of a fulcrum. From your point of view is there anything new that will come out of those . I think you have dedicated National Security professionals who have made it absolutely clear to their political appointee leaders that there is no question about this. So the political leaders are in no position to deny about what they are being told. It is slam dunk clear and they cant go back to cia, fbi and have credibility with their own team if they have denied what is so obviously true. So you have actually a pretty good factual predicate coming out. Where the break down is moving from that over into the political side where you would either do real hearings to look into what is going on with trump russia collusion and Money Laundering with real subpoenas or do something legislatively to start to protect our next election whether it is jamming him on the sanctions which he has gotten away with doing nothing about or passing the inCorporation Transparency bill so at least that vector of russian abuse is cut off or for once and for all taking up the disclose act and bringing the light of day on to our election funding. Those would be easy measures. There are others that you can do. At this point there is no markup scheduled. There is no plan. I think they are happy to just kind of ooze through the 18 elections never doing anything legislatively about it no matter how serious the warnings. Thats the frustration. Thank you so much. Thank you for putting your attention on this. I appreciate it very, very much. Thank you. Cspan where history unfolds daily. In 1979 cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies. Today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court and Public Policy events in washington, d. C. And around the country. Cspan is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. Next a hearing on how the Opioid Epidemic is impacting children and families. The senate health, education, labor and Pensions Committee heard from a mother who lost two teenage sons to overdose. This is an hour 45 minutes