Transcripts For CSPAN3 FBI Director Wray Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary McAleenan Others... 20240713

Were going to convene a committee on Homeland Security. Were going to ask the members of the press to please part the center aisle so members can have access to the witnesses. The committees meeting today to receive testimony on global terrorism threats to the homeland part two. Good morning, the committee, as i indicated, is meeting to hear from four expert witnesses on where we are as of this date with threats to the homeland. This committee was created in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of september 11th, 2001. Since the establishment of the department of Homeland Security, the committee has focused on insuring the department is fulfilling its mission to secure the homeland. I take this responsibility seriously, as has every chairman of this committee. This is why its been the committees practice to hold a hearing to assess Global Threats to the homeland and evaluate the federal governments efforts to confront them. Congress and the American People deserve to hear about the threats we face directly from the official charge with our nations security. Today im deeply concerned about the state of the department of Homeland Security. Its been 203 days since the department has had a confirmed secretary and the acting secretary recently announced hes leaving after just six months on the job. His replacement will be the fifth person to lead dhs in fewer than three years. Even though acting secretary mcaleenan is leaving tomorrow, the president has yet to announce who his replacement will be. What is the delay . Overnight, we learned that the white house may be trying to find a legal loophole to install the president s pick, who is not the departments order of succession as acting secretary. This is completely unacceptable and such a decision would raise serious constitutional questions. Also unacceptable is the fact that the transportation security administrations administrator has been dual heading for the last six months. The tsa administrator is not a part time job. They each require someones full attention. Beyond the secretary, 11 components and offices within dhs are operating with acting leaders. In all but two cases, the president has yet to nominate anyone to fill these vacancies. This is an unprecedented situation with real consequences for the department and the more than 240,000 men and women of dhs working to secure the homeland. Indeed, at no time during my tenure on this committee have i been more concerned about dhs ability to carry out the mission. The chaos is not limited to the department. The president is also on his sixth National Security advisor. Fifth secretary of defense. Third fbi director and third director of national intelligence, including acting officials. He has no longer he also has no longer a Homeland Security advisor or a white house cyber coordinator. The president needs to fill positions critical to u. S. National security. At the same time, terrorism threats to the homeland are both international and domestic are unrelenting. Just over two weeks ago, President Trump pulled american troops out of syria. This abrupt exit put an end to u. S. Counterterrorism missions with the kurds and complicated pentagons raid on isis leader al baghdadi. Fortunately, their mission was successful, thanks to the bravery and skill of our military members and intelligence professionals and we honor them for their Heroic Service to our country. While al baghdadi is dead, the isis detainees who escaped kurdish prisons pose a renewed threat to the u. S. And conditions on the ground are ripe for isis to reconstitute. We abandoned our kurdish allies, prompting them to make a deal with the russian backed syrian government. I want to hear from our witness today how these developments affect the global threat picture and what the implications are for the homeland. Here at home, domestic terrorism is on the rise. One year ago, 11 members of the tree of life synagogue in pittsburgh were gunned down by a perpetrator motivated by antisemitism and White Supremacy. This year a synagogue in california and shoppers at a walmart in el paso, texas, were killed by a White Supremacists. These attacks are increasingly linked to groups and individuals abroad and many are exploiting social media to proliferate violent extremist content and incite others around the world. The National Counterterrorism center has begun to look at domestic terrorism and last month dhs released its first strategic framework for countering terrorism and targeted violence. I hope we can hear about their efforts today. For too long this issue was not given the attention it deserved, and much more remains to be done. Finally id like to note that the 2020 elections are just a year away. Despite the alarm about foreign interference, the president has refused to accept the conclusion that russia interfered in the 2016 elections. His refusal to insure the integrity of our elections by leaning on this issue from the white house sends the wrong message to adversaries. It also calls into question whether the many agencies working to defend our elections are getting the resources they need. I hope we can speak to that issue as well. As i said, this committee must take its responsibility to oversee the department of Homeland Security seriously. The security of the homeland is at stake. And our constituents expect no less. I look forward to the witnesses important testimony. The chair recognizes the Ranking Member of the full committee, the gentleman from alabama, mr. Rogers for an opening statement. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank you all the witnesses. I want to point out acting secretary mcaleenan. Im pleased youd came today. Our committee deserves to hear from you as the head of the department of Homeland Security. As tomorrow is your last day at the department, i want to thank you for your service. Your patriotism cannot be questioned. I wish you godspeed in your next adventures. Director wray, acting director travers, thank you all for taking the time. I know it takes time to prepare for these and its inconvenient but it helps us do our jobs better. Mr. Chairman, todays hearing is important. The threats to our homeland is real. Every day terrorists plot to destroy our way of life. Its important we understand those threats. What we do in this committee on a bipartisan basis is vital to protect the homeland. The killing of Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi was an important victory in the fight against isis. Isis is responsible for the public execution of two u. S. Journalists. They were doing their jobs and isis killed them both. American aid worker kaila mueller was kidnapped, tortured and killed by isis. At least seven terrorist attacks have been carried out in isis name in the west. Who knows how many more attacks baghdadi was planning. His death does not end the isis threat to our homeland. Isis is not the only threat that we face. I look forward to hearing more about how we are countering the threat from isis, al qaeda and others who seek to harm us. Mr. Chairman, i do need to address the subpoena issue before i yield back. Im very frustrated at how the events of last week unfolded. Im frustrated youd were put in the position where you thought issuing subpoenas was necessary. If someone gives you their word, they should keep it. I would like the same respect. We have a Committee Rule that needs to be followed. You gave me your word in a colloquy we would Work Together on subpoenas. None of that happened this time around. Just two months ago, we jointly issued a subpoena for jim watkins. Ive been willing to engage with you in the subpoena process. Ive been with you every step of the way to defend this committees mission and oversight responsibilities. The rules exist to protect the minority in this body. Rule 12 in our agreement that requires us to speak beforehand, we set in these same chairs for a markup last week about 24 hours before you issued the subpoenas. You didnt say a word. I asked to discuss this issue on monday this week and i havent heard back from you since. You have accused me of providing the acting secretary with quote, faulty information, in a letter this weekend. I find that implication outrageous. A quick conversation with me, an email or phone call would have prevented this. To be clear, i probably would have voted for the subpoenas. You would have seen that if you kept your promise to our members and marked them up. Our relationship to each other is the only way anything gets done around here. We have to set the tone. Going forward, i hope that we can conduct the committees business openly and in accordance with the rules. I yield back. Thank you, very much. Let me just say, that we have information share with you and your staff. We provided notification of what we were about to do. And that is absolutely false. Well, okay. I dont want to get into the i do. Well, thats fine. Youre not chairman, so you dont have to. Bide your time. Apart from that well go forward. I am comfortable with the fact that we followed the rules of the committee. You did not follow the rules of the committee and ive got them here. This is black letter rules. This is not arbitrary, this is not mr. Ranking member, im going to try to be deferential to you. If you want to speak, ask to be recognized and ill recognize you. But im not going to allow you just to blurt out. So apart from that, i responded to it accordingly, and the rules have changed by republicans in this committee. At one point, the chair and Ranking Member jointly had to agree on issuing subpoenas. The rules have changed. And i dont have to get your approval to sign a subpoena. And thats the rules we operate on. We can provide information to you, but at the end of the day, its the chairs call. May i be recognized . Youre recognized. Would you put the rules up on the board for people to see . Id like to offer this for the record. Let me read to you what we say in the rules. A, authorization. The power to authorize and issue subpoenas is delegated to the chairman of the full committee as provided under rule 2 h 3 ai of rule 11. Of the rules of the house of representatives. The chairman shall notify the Ranking Member prior to issuing any subpoena under such authority. To the extent practicable the chairman shall consult the Ranking Member in 24 hours in advance of a subpoena being issued excluding saturdays, sundays, and holidays. Thats language you demanded be put under the rules. I was sitting in a chair with you the day before. All you had to do was tell me, i think we need to send some subpoenas out. Id have said, lets do it. You never said a word to me. And this is your rule. 24 hours notice was not followed. I am not making this stuff up. Weve had a great relationship. Weve been on this committee together for 15 years. If you were the Ranking Member, youd be upset about this. I yield back. Other members of the committee are reminded that under Committee Rules, Opening Statements may be submitted for the record. However, my panel of witnesses, our first witness is acting secretary of Homeland Security Kevin Mcaleenan who has served in that role since april 2019. Next we have director of the federal bureau of investigation, christopher wray. Director wray has served in his role since 2017. Next we have acting director of National Counterterrorism center russell travers, who has served in the role since august of 2019. Last, we have David Galloway who has served as the undersecretary for intelligence and analysis at the department of Homeland Security since 2017. Without objection, the witnesses full statement will be inserted into the record. I ask each witness to summarize his or her statement for five minutes, beginning with acting secretary mcaleenan. Good morning, chairman thompson, members of the committee. I appear before you today to testify about the department of Homeland Securitys Vital Mission and our efforts to confront todays emerging world wide threats. The men and women of dhs are dedicated professionals who work to safeguard the American People. They represent some of the best of the country and i appreciate the continued support this committee shows for them and the work they do each day. The department of Homeland Security was created in the wake of the 9 11 attacks and was charged with coordinating and unifying the nations Homeland Security enterprise. Our mission is multidimensional, built on the five pillars of prevention, mitigation, response and recovery. Id like to focus on five significant trends we see in the landscape and the efforts dhs is executing. Specifically the threats we face from foreign terrorist organizes, domestic terrorism and targeted violence, Transnational Criminal Organizations, and from malicious cyberactivities and actors. Dhs was formed first and foremost to counter the threat of International Terrorism, and has achieved successes in mitigating that. Weve utilized a range of tools, particularly our programs and capabilities to identify and detect foreign terrorist actors and prevent them from entering the country. In cooperation with the fbi, the intelligence communities and other we prevent thousands of potential terrorists entering the u. S. Each year. We have enhanced our security greatly, the threat of Foreign Terrorist Organizations remains a significant concern. Whether through direction or inspiration, these groups seek to spur disaffected individuals to violence, encouraging them to attack the unity of our diverse society. Isis, hezbollah represent consistent threats to the United States. We must work to insure aggressively across government and with our International Partners were doing everything we can to pressure and disrupt these organizations in efforts to target the United States homeland. One of the most significant emerging threats has been domestic actors adoption of terrorist techniques to inspire and direct individuals often via the internet to carry out violence. Of specific concern has been an increase in racially and ethnically motivated violence, particularly the threat posted by violent White Supremacists. Last month, dhs introduced a framework for countering terrorism, which explains how well adapt to the tools and expertise we have used to protect the country from foreign organizations to address the challenges of today. The trend of americans driven by personal grievances to commit acts of violence creates a unique challenge. This framework recognizes the changing Threat Landscape and calls for whole of Community Efforts to enhance prevention and resilience, identify individuals who are on a pathway to violence. Importantly, the framework calls out the need to focus on and protect our most vulnerable populations, particularly our youth. Its forward looking and understanding of technologys role as a factor that can exacerbate threats. The next major threat category is presented by powerful and violent Transnational Criminal Organizations. These tcos have diversified their multichannel businesses, profiting from drug and human smuggling in the movement of weapons and money. They organize and incentivize mass migration and engage in human trafficking. Their criminal activity, including competition for territory created security risks at our border and throughout the hemisphere. Dhs works with government partners in the private sector to enhance our nations posture against malicious cyber activity. In august 2019, dhs cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency published its strategic intent, defend today, secure tomorrow. In this document, it laid out its directors operational priorities, calling out the threat from china and highlighting our need to focus on supply chain security, 5g technology, Election Security, federal Cyber Security and industrial control systems. As acknowledged within the document, china presents the most longterm threat to the u. S. The foreign intelligence threat faced by dhs in todays Global Environment has quickly evolved into one of the most significant threats to our country. The leading state intelligence threats to the u. S. Interest will likely continue to be china, russia, iran and north korea based on their capabilities and intent. In conclusion, every day the 240,000 men and women of the department of Homeland Security work to insure the safety and security of all americans and are dedicated to building a brighter and more secure nation. They deserve our support and our thanks. I continue to appreciate their efforts on behalf of the American People. Its been an honor to serve as their acting secretary and commissioner of cdp. The symmetry in this hearing, my first hearing was in front of Sheila Jackson lee, and chairman thompson and Ranking Member king attended. Its fitting i close this stage of my government control in front of this committee again. I want to thank you, chairman, thompson, Ranking Member rogers, distinguished members of the committee. The support you and your staff have shown the department of Homeland Security and our men and women and providing the tools we need. I look forward to your questions. Thank you for your testimony. I now recognize director wray to summarize his statement for five minutes. Good morning, chairman thompson, Ranking Member rogers. Members of the committee. Im honored to be here today representing the roughly 37,000 men and women of the fbi. Its now been just over two years since i became fbi director, in which time ive visited all 56 of our field offices. Meeting with state and local partners from every state represented on this committee. Ive met with every headquarters division, scores of our Law Enforcement partners, business and Community Leaders and crime victims and their families. And those interactions have given me a much better sense of what were up against. Quite frankly, the threats out there arent the same from a decade ago. Theyre evolving in scale, impact, complexity and agility. And the fbi is moving forward to meet those threats head on. In fact, over just the past six or seven months, the fbi has thwarted or disrupted terrorism related plots, both domestic terrorism and International Terrorism. Our joint Terrorism Task forces have made arrests just since april. And thats not including all of our hate crime arrests and all the other kinds of important work that we do. So preventing terrorist attacks continues to be the fbis top priority. Even as we recognize our countrys important recent achievements with the death of al baghdadi and our fight against isis in the middle east. We know that we have to stay vigilant against the threat both overseas and here at home. Were also laser focused on preventing attacks by those already in the United States, people inspired by foreign terrorists. What we call the home grown violent extremists. Often lone actors, these are folks inspired by foreign idealogies but selfradicalized online. Were keenly focused in todays world on the threat of domestic terrorism. Attacks carried out by people inspired by a variety of violent extremist idealogies. Im talking about everything from anarchist groups to racially motivated extremist groups. Terrorism today moves at the speed of social media. To confront these threats were working closely with our federal and state local Law Enforcement partners and reaching out to the communities we serve. These cases present unique challenges because in this country we dont investigate a person just because of his or her beliefs. And these people like the homegrown violent extremists can also move very quickly with little warning from espousing radical views to attack. And i can tell you after having personally walked through the crime scene at the tree of life synagogue and having visited the teams from the Mass Shootings both in el paso and in dayton, that this threat is never far from our minds and is a focus across the fbi. The major threats well focus on today are too numerous to mention in my opening, but i look forward to answering questions about a number of them as i respond to your questions. In particular on the cyber front, we see a wider than ever range of actors, attack methods, and targets. Including things like sophisticated Ransomware Attacks on municipalities. Its a threat that were meeting by partnering with the victims, with state and local authorities particularly with our federal partners, especially dhs and other agencies. On the counterintelligence front, were especially focused on china. Theyre using an expanding set of nontraditional methods blending both lawful and unlawful techniques. On the one hand to come after the United States, youve got corporate acquisitions, funding of research, but woven into those you have cyber intrusions, stealing trade secrets and a whole variety of supply chain threats. Even as i sit here today testifying before the committee, the fbi has over 1,000 investigations involving attempted theft of u. S. Based technology that lead back to china. Involving nearly all 56 of our field offices and almost every industry and sector. This is not just a big city problem. Its the heartland. The men and women of the fbi dedicate themselves every day to keeping the American People safe. I want to thank this committee for your support for our fbi workforce. I can tell you it makes all the difference in the world to our hardworking agents, analysts and professional staff, both all over this country, but also around the world. So thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today. Thank you for your testimony. I now recognize actor director travers to summarize his statement for five minutes. Chairman thompson, Ranking Member rogers, members of the committee its a privilege to be here to represent the men and women of the National Counterterrorism center. In the years since 9 11, the u. S. Counterterrorism community and its many partners have achieved significant successes against terrorist groups around the globe. Perhaps most importantly Coalition Operations against isis in iraq and syria deprived the group of its socalled caliphate. Ct efforts across africa, middle east and south asia continue to diminish the ranks of isis. Interagency efforts at home to enhance our defenses here have resulted in continued progress in safeguarding the homeland from terrorist attacks. There is indeed a lot of good news. But we need to be cautious because challenges remain. Im going to focus on just three. First, military operations have bought us time and space as we address the terrorist global threat. With the diverse, defuse and expanding nature of that threat remains a significant concern. After 9 11, we were primarily focused on the threat emanating from the afghan border. 18 years later we have a very diffuse threat. Now we have a homegrown violent extremist threat. We have 20 isis networks ranging from hundreds to thousands of individuals. We have al qaeda and its affiliates and branches. We have foreign fighters that flock to iraq and syria from over 100 countries. We have iran and its proxies and there is a growing terrorist threat from racially and ethnically motivated extremists around the globe. By any calculation there are far more radicalized individuals now than there were at the time of 9 11. This highlights the important of prevention. Some aspects of the threat can be dealt with through kinetic operations, the residents of the idealogy will not be dealt with by military operations alone. The world has a lot of work to do to deal with radicalization and underlying causes. The second challenge stems from the terrorists ability to exploit technology and the attributes of globalization. We have seen the use of encrypted communications for operational planning and the use of social media to superintend propaganda and transfer knowledge between and amongst individuals and networks. Weve seen the use of drones and uass for swarm attacks and even assassination attempts. High quality fraudulent travel documents will increasingly undermine the screening system and threaten Border Security. Well see greater use of crypto currencies to fund operations. And the potential use of chemical and biological weapons has moved to something we consider to be much more likely. In many cases, terrorists exploitation of technology has outpaced the legal and policy framework needed to deal with the threat. Looking out five years, were particularly concerned with the growing adverse impact encryption will have on our counterterrorism efforts. The third challenge id highlight relates to a concern about complacency. Our whole of government approach to counterterrorism over the past 18 years has kept the country pretty safe. In our view, the near term potential, large scale externally directed attacks against the homeland has temporarily declined. As noted earlier, the threat itself continues to metastasize and will require close attention in the years ahead. In a crowded National Security environment, its completely understandable that terrorism may no longer be viewed as the number one threat to the country. That begs a host of questions. What does the national equation look like as the country confronts a complex interNational Security environment . How do we optimize our resources in the best interest of the country . If were going to reduce efforts against terrorism, how do we do so in a manner that doesnt inadvertently reverse the gains of the past 18 years . These are complicated questions that will require discussion. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for your testimony. I now recognize undersecretary galloway. Its my only to testify on behalf of the department of Homeland Security to address todays emerging worldwide terrorist threats. Let me touch on my role. I currently serve as the chief Intelligence Officer and undersecretary at the department of Homeland Security. Im responsible for insuring the secretary, our 22 dhs components and offices and our Homeland Security partners have access to intelligence they need to keep the country safe. My focus is to insure the unique tactical intelligence from the dhs intelligence enterprise to share with operators and Decision Makers across all levels of government so they can identify and mitigate threats to the homeland. My office as well as the rest of the u. S. Intelligence community and our Law Enforcement partners generate intelligence that is unbiassed based on sound judgments. Ill speak about the major shifts in the Threat Landscape. Id like to speak about the threats we face from foreign organizations. Underpinning these threats is adversarial engagement from nation states such as china, russia and iran. Regarding domestic terrorism, i want to address one of the most pervasive threats we face in the homeland, the threat from targeted violence and mass attacks. Whether its considered domestic terrorism or a hate crime, theres no moral ambiguity. The extremists are motivated by perceived grievances, often targeting, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender and gender identity. Were focussed on identifying the behaviors that are indicative of an individual at risk of carrying out mass attacks so we can appropriately identify and mitigate any violent act before it occurs. My past experience as 24 years as a Police Officer and special agent and part of the First Responder metropolitan Police Department through the columbine attack has made me uniquely postured to be a witness today. Its shaped my approach to dealing with this violence. We continue to make substantial progress in our ability to detect the threats these groups pose. Isis, al qaeda, and returning foreign fighters represent longterm security threats. Cyberthreats remain a significant risk for the United States, threatening our National Security, Economic Prosperity and safety. Nation states and cyber criminals are increasing the frequency and sophistication of their attacks and other malicious cyber activity. Foreign influence threat has evolved into one of our most significant threats. U. S. Adversaries, including russia, china, iran and north korea and other strategic competitors will use influence operations to try to weaken democratic institutions, undermine u. S. Alliances, threaten our economic security, and shape our policy outcome. Regarding transnational organized crime. Criminal organizations have a destabilizing effect on the western hemisphere by corrupting governments, government officials, eroding institutions and perpetuating violence. Human smuggling and trafficking, narcotics extortion and kidnapping. They have little regard for human life. They continually adjust operations and supply chain to avoid detection and interdiction by Law Enforcement. And like legitimate businesses are quick to take advantage of cheaper transportation and better distribution methods. In many ways theyre operating like sophisticated intelligence operations. I want to thank you for the opportunity and also on behalf of the men and women of the department of Homeland Security, be honored to testify before you today. Thank you. I thank all the witnesses for their testimony. I remind each member that he or she will have five minutes to question the panel. I now recognize myself for questions. Mr. Secretary, during your tenure here, were you provided all the resources you needed to do your job . I think the department of Homeland Security has received strong support from congress in a bipartisan fashion. Across multiple budget years and multiple administrations. Weve used that funding and resources to increase our security effectively across programs from the i. T. Side, the intelligence side, operational side, and both our Border Security and our International Partnerships. Are there more resources we could use . Certainly. There always are. I dont think youll ever meet a Law Enforcement leader who say they have all the resources they need. Weve been able to communicate our requirements and received broad bipartisan support over my career. If you had what resources you dont have, that could give us a greater grasp on the terrorist threat to the homeland . On the counterterrorism side, one of the things weve requested in this budget cycle and actually called you, mr. Chairman, and other leaders on the appropriation side back in may to look at a resubmission of our grant capability so we could focus on supporting efforts against domestic terrorism and targeted violence and readiness around the country so we could identify opportunities to move people off a pathway to violence and address their concerns and their disaffection early in that process. Thats 17. 5 million we requested is in the senate marked for appropriations. Weve asked for investment at the dhs. Were looking for the office to help coordinate and galvanize efforts across multiple components to support prevention and the whole of Community Effort were looking for. Thats one specific investment, mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. One of the issues that in light of what you have talked about, is this whole issue of domestic terrorism. Director wray, can you share with the committee the challenges you have with your agency in addressing domestic terrorism . Theres some definitional issues from what i understand continue to be a challenge . Mr. Chairman, i think what youre referring to is there is not currently a domestic terrorism offense as such. In the say way there is for the International Terrorism side a Material Support to a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Having said that, we tackle the domestic terrorism threat through a wide variety of tools, explosive charges, gun charges, state and local charges, hate crimes charges. We use a lot of different tools to go after it and our folks have been resourceful with our partners in making sure we dont let anybody get away with it. We had i think 107 domestic terrorism arrests in fiscal year 2019 which is about the same number as our International Terrorism arrests. So of your issues youre addressing here, have you put a percentage on the cases you investigate, how many of them are strictly addressing domestic terrorism . Do you see it on the rise . We see well, we see a couple things. We see domestic terrorism as a persistent evolving threat. Weve had typically had about a thousand and it fluctuates from time to time. But it tends to be about 1,000, sometimes closer to 900, sometimes a little over on the domestic terrorism side. The number hasnt dramatically changed, but its troublingly consistent. Certainly the most lethality in terms of terrorist attacks over recent years here in the homeland has been on the domestic terrorism side. Were trying to tackle one of the things weve started doing recently is i created a domestic terrorism and hate crimes fusion cell, which brings together both our efforts targeting a lot of the same conduct through our counterterrorism resources, you know, our join Terrorism Task forces but also on the hate crime side, were able to pick that up there. Were starting to have less of a lefthand, righthand issue and i think that will make us more effective as we go forward. The chair recognizes the Ranking Member for five minutes. Id like to ask any of the panel that want to take a swing at this. Look at the deaths of al baghdadi, what does that mean for the rest of the Senior Leadership . Do you see anybody in particular emerging to fill that void of the number one and number two isis leaders . How big of a Leadership Organization is below that tier of leadership . Theres no question that the losses over the weekend were significant to isis. At the same time, its a deep bench. He was one of the individuals that could have ascended to the top, abdullah is another one. We need to remember that the United States and the Coalition Overall has had tremendous success in eliminating leadership over the years of al qaeda and isis. Yet, the bench tends to rise to the top. My guess is well will if history is any judge over the next couple of days and a couple of weeks, well see a new leader announced. There will be eulogies, even from al qaeda. We will see calls for attacks against western interests. Typically that doesnt amount to a great deal in the near term. Then well see requests for the branches and the affiliates to swear allegiance to the new leader. Thats what well be watching carefully to see how this individual consolidates control moving forward. During this period of time before that happens, how effective do you think isis will be at carrying out attacks . Or do you think theyll be in a pause period . I dont think it will have much impact. If there were significant attacks that were in the planning, that planning will continue. It wont have that much effect. Can you give the committee about how large a number of fighters comprise isis and how many of those are in prisons . As i mentioned, there are 20 odd isis branches and affiliates around the globe. They may be as few as hundreds, they maybe have as many of thousands. We believe that within syria and iraq there are at least 14,000 isis fighters. Thats an important number. Because five, six years ago when isis was at its low point they were down under a thousand. This tells us the insurgency has a lot of options. Within the prisons, the sdf had roughly 10,000 isis prisoners in 15, 20 prisons in syria. Roughly 2,000 of those were foreign fighters. There was some faulty reporting recently about isis fighters being released from prisons. And are escaped. Can you tell us whats true and whats not true . We know of no instance of where isis fighters were released from prisons. There have been some prison breaks. Not so much the last few days. I think we were something over 100 individuals broke out of prisons. Theres a lot of fog of war as individuals are being relocated. We think the sdf has been professional about this, trying to relocate prisoners and theyre trying to keep control of the prisons. Its going to be very interesting to watch over the coming weeks with the turkish russian accord and the syrian move into east of the river. How those prisoners how those prisons are being managed going forward. Outside of al qaeda and isis, what affiliate organizations are you most concerned about . Im sorry . Outside of isis and al qaeda, what affiliate organizations are you most concerned about . Well, the entire shia side of the house. Certainly iranian backed shia militia groups and hezbollah and so forth. As i mentioned, as my colleagues have mentioned, the homeland violent extremist individual threat is amongst the greatest we worry about. Ill use my closing seconds to welcome our newest member to the committee. Represent bishop, who won election next week to represent north carolinas ninth district. I know hes going to be a fine addition to the committee membership. I yield back. The chair recognizes the gentle lady from texas, ms. Jackson lee for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman to you and the Ranking Member this is a crucial hearing. I appreciate the time given, although the time is short. Mr. Secretary, let me thank you very much for both your dedication and commitment to this nation as your fellow witnesses are likewise public servants. We thank them for their service. Let me start with you and my time is short. So i note in your testimony on page four of your testimony you stated perhaps one of the most significant evolutions over the past few years has been domestic actors adoption of techniques to inspire individuals via the internet to carry out acts of terrorism. Can you explain that and what Homeland Security is doing there briefly . Very briefly, if you go back a few years to look at what al qaedas affiliates were doing in yemen, for instance, really using the internet to appeal to disaffected youth and to try to radicalize from afar. That was the homegrown violent extremists phenomenal. Were seeing that with other idealogy and the ability to communicate with like minded individuals what is Homeland Security doing about that . The strategic framework outlines the whole of communities efforts to build awareness, to identify opportunities to see risks being presented by individuals on a pathway to violence. In terms of monitoring that internet space, especially on the dark web, thats one of the serious challenges we face. We want to work with private sector entities to insure they have good policies, to monitor content and to address thank you. If its inciting thank you were trying to look at individuals who are on pathway to violence. Thank you. This chart represents i think a dangerous phenomenon. The red indicates these are vacant, theyre acting persons. Do you find it difficult to secure the nation when you have most of the positions held by temporary persons . Is that something that should be corrected . Its very good to have confirmed leadership. It helps with our interaction with congress. It insures alignment with administration policy. Thank you. Our career leaders, our Senior Executives throughout the organization are tremendous. I appreciate that, mr. Secretary. I need to go into my other question. Its been reported that there are close to 3,000 children that were separated from their parents. I appreciate your extensive answer, i just have a very short period of time. On the burden that it put on your men and women at the border, do you now view that as a failed policy that did not hold the deterrents that it should have. Children as young as 9 months i held roger in my arms. He was 9 months old, separated from his family. Ive spoken publicly in media and press on this issue. It was an effort to prosecute people violating the law. We lost the public trust with that effort and the president was right to end it. Let me quickly, i was at a meeting last evening dealing with biologic threats. Can you tell me whats been done on this act of terrorism that might impact the American People . A question dealing with two individuals who are being sought for the assault of an unarmed black man in charplottesville. Would you please answer those questions, please . Just taking your second question first, im not sitting here right now familiar with the specifics of that matter, but im happy to take the information. Ill give it to you. Thank you. On the first question related to the biological weapons, that is something that were increasingly concerned about. Were trying to go about it through a number of different hen lenses working with our partners. Were working with the Intelligence Community to try to gain more information about the capabilities, plans and intentions of different add ver te adversaries. Second were working more and more close by with what you might consider nontraditional partners, whether its labs, people in the medical industry to better understand what the capabilities are. A lot of that work happens through our weapons of mass destruction division. And we have our joint Terrorism Task forces which have investigated a number of attackingattack. Theyre always on the lookout for information there where we see an indication that a particular subject is looking into that kind of weapon. We do think its something thats going to become increasingly hard to chase, just because the internet, again, makes the recipes for these things more and more widely available to less and less sophisticated actors. The gentle ladys time as expired. The chair recognizes the gentleman from new york well, gentleman from louisiana. Im sorry. How could you forget . Thank you, mr. Chairman. I appreciate that. Secretary mcaleenan thank you for your service. Its been truly out standing in some very difficult times. Also my direct dealings with you, ive always found you to be totally straightforward. I want to express my appreciation. Director wray, from a parochial point of view from the close relationship between the fbi and nypd and local police, it wasnt always that way in new york but its functioning very well right now and the level of cooperation has never been better. I want to thank you for that. Mr. Travers, you mentioned about the fog of war. Were not certain exactly how many isis prisoners may have escaped. Juan once that fog of war clears, what are the chances of them going to europe and coming to the United States part of, if t caught part of any coordinated effort against the United States, and you know, what, again, and how soon do you think that we will know how many escapes and where they are, and are we working with the foreign partners and the European Partners to track them going back into europe. So, we spend a great deal of time trying to work the sdaf by metrically enrolling individuals as the secretary mcaleenan indicated is that the vetting process is such that those individuals cannot come to the United States. I am feeling pretty confident on the foreign fighter issue, because that has been working very hard and over the last couple of years, a concern about the trying to get the European Countries to repatriate, and we have not had success, and we have been fatalistic that we would be seeing the individuals long before the turkish incursi incursion, and as a result, the ability to catalog who they are and getting them into the appropriate databases is a good thing. The europeans may have somewhat greater difficulty. They dont screen in the same way we do, and the eu processes, and while they have improved dramatically since paris and brussels and still trying to deal with 28 countries, and the shangin system is fair to say that some of them are the poorest than ours, and for us, we are in good shape, and at least on the foreign fighter problem, and the europeans will have some challenges. And i would tie those 100 or so escapees in the foreign fighter category, and how is that going to shape that change the picture . Well, our expectation is that the vast majority of the individuals that escape more likely than not were syrian and iraqi, and they will be looking to stay in the region, and they will be incorporated into the isis insurgency in all likelihood, and serve as suicide bombers and so forth, and it is fair to say that where we had the sdf locking down the prisons for couple of years, the expectation is that we will probably see more releases and three or four weeks ago we had Abu Bakr Baghdadi indicate in the radio that he wanted to attack both prisons and idf camps to get people out. I assume we will see that, because those prisons are vulnerable. Secretary mcaleenan and fbi director wray, do you a comment . We have been looking at the biometric enrollments and that is part of the defense and i agree with mr. Travers on, that and we are concerned that some of the folks may exploit Visa Waiver Program ultimately, and may not be an immediate term threat to us, but overtime, they could find their way in ways that we would have to be vigilant about, and also, we know that isis has started to take advantage of using women in operational planning and trying to recruit youth more and more and some of them in the displacement camps that were in syr syria, and so it is hard to gauge, and some of the European Partners are worried about this part of the plan by isis to launch a multi generational conflict, and that is going to present all kinds of challenges for us and our partners. Secretary mcaleenan . I agree with both director wray and acting director travers. Two notes. We are working this on the Multi Lateral level with the eu and interpol and providing our capabilities and reachback to identify the threat, and i agree with acting director travers of the ongoing help to prevent those from the battlefield of access the homeland in the future. We have also extended our capabilities and Automated Systems global and the neeks toch was and individuals and those who are risky travel partner and give them to the southeastern partners and others in the western hemisphere so if they are trying to travel towards us, we have International Partner capability to help to identify and stop that movement. Thank you all. Again, secretary, thank you for the service. I yield back. The gentlemans time has expired. I recognize the gentleman from california for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank the guest speakers for being here today. And you know, american lives and american lives whether it is in america or outside of the u. S. , soldier, an american soldier is an american, and whether it is the front line or a Police Officer, it is an american. So we talk a lot about foreign try terrorists and domestic terrorists and my concern is if we are separating these into silos and treating them independently . I am hearing stories that we may have domestic terrorists going overseas to the ukraine, and getting trained on the isis tactics, and coming back to the u. S. To prepare to do god knows what. Are we having enough coordination between the domestic terrorists operations, and the International Terrorists operations in terms of your defensive capabilities to make sure that we are not missing anything . Mr. Wray . I think that you are on to a trend that we are watching very carefully. I know that we have had conversations with ntct on this topic, and we are starting to see the racially motivated violent extremists connected with the likeminded individuals overseas online certainly, and in some instances we have seen some folks travel overseas to train. Where . It varies and different parts of eastern europe. Okay. We have seen some connections between u. S. Based neonazis and the overseas analogs and certainly a more prevalent phenomenon that we are seeing right now is racially motivated violent extremists here who are inspired by what they see overseas. So, for example, the christchurch attack in new zealand, and we have had, you know, the folks that we have arrested here who were motivated by what they saw happening over there, and so they are not working together, but they are just fueled by each other. And we are just to be clear on the silos point that you made, on the fbi end, our joint Terrorism Task forces which brings together 40 federal agencies and 50 local and state groups together on the joint task force which is ensuring less risk of that silo issue that you are talking about. So if i call the local Orange County sheriff and ask him if the Fusion Center is coordinating with your Fusion Centers, the answer from him would be yes. The answer from him would also be yes if i asked him is there a twoway line of communication or is there only information on the needtoknow basis that he gets from your agency . Well, i dont want to speak for the Orange County sheriff, but i will tell you as i said in the opening i have traveled out to california to every field office, and met with partners including Orange County, and lapd, and et cetera, and the feedback they get from the partners is that the chemistry and the information flow between the fbi and our state and local partners is better than it has ever been, and in fact, i just a few days ago, i brought together which is not happening before all of the major city chiefs with rascs and in charge of all of the field officers in one room for an afternoon and classified briefings and working together. There is a lot going on in that front. I would hope you get that feedback. And it is very delicate when you are talking about the americans or privacy and when you start to begin to talk about domestic and International Terrorism, and you may run into the legal constraints in terms of what you do without a warrant when it comes through american citizens. Do you have any thoughts of how to address that issue . You have talked about somebody overseas, and then you talk about an american citizen, and how do you gather the proper intelligence to address those issues . Do you the Legal Framework there to protect the privacy and at the same time to let you do your job, and is there anything that we can do to help you do your job better . Well, we are very sensitive to the privacy concerns especially when it is coming to u. S. Persons, and we say all of the time and everyday throughout the fbi that our job is to protect the American People and uphold the u. S. Constitution. I will say that in terms of things that we are concerned about, and you have heard it referenced by every member of the panel, the encryption issue is a real problem. A lot of people dont fully understand the impact that it is having on the joint efforts and our more importantly, what is going to be another year or two years from now, and more and more or the errorists and domestic terrorists and international or tterrorists ar putting their information on encrypted platforms. Thank you, i dont have much time, but wanted to emphasize to you and my district and other districts is that the el paso shooting brought us to a new level of conscientious of the safety locally, and so domestic terrorism on my list is number one now. Thank you very much. Gentleman yields back. Recognizing the gentleman from louisiana for five minutes. Mr. Higgins. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and secretary mcaleenan, and thank you for the service and the tenure, and you shall be miss and you testified many, many time, and you will be missed by this committee, and none of us shall miss the attempt to pronounce your last name. Especially the gent flanl louisiana. Yes. So thank you for the service, sir. I think that you are reflecting the highest standards of the commitment to service to we, the people, in the Law Enforcement community and myself included and certainly recognizing the professionalism in difficult times. Now, regarding the board of security and the humanitarian crisis at the border and to follow up on what my esteemed colleagues stated earlier, in my opinion, and the opinion of many americans, the responsibility of failure for primarily lies with congress. Not with the boots on the ground and not with the executive. On june 27th after many months of delay, the emergency board of supplemental to addressing the humanitarian crisis at the border was finally passed be i this congress, and Important Missions like providing the health and Human Services funds to carry out programs for unaccompanied alien children. Many other worthwhile investments, and those funds are specifically meant to ensure unaccompanied alien children that minors received adequate care and services to address the humanitarian crisis at the border. I have witnessed this firsthand as have my colleagues and so i ask you, sir, since the funding was passed have you seen improved conditions at the border with regard to the humanitarian aid . We have seen dramatic improvements. We have increased bed space, and that resulted in a dramatic drop of peak of 2,700 unaccompanied children in the border stations down to now the average day, it is between 85 and 150. And those children are moving quickly to a better setting for their care. Usually in less than 24 hours. Would you concur that this is of course a priority not just for the department of Homeland Security, but for us as a nation, and compassionate and loving nation . There is no question. The opportunity to provide a better situation for families arriving with the new facilities with the 6,000 additional temporary beds that have been provided in Border Patrol and not police stations if you will. I bring it up, because this committee has a responsibility to move forward the peoples business in a bipartisan manner, and i asked you, mr. Secretary, do you believe that regardless of what Party Controls congress, and who is in a majority or the mi for ti and who is sitting in the white house that focus and funding from congress on the continuing issues on the southern border and security and humanitarian, would you concur that regardless of the politics in this bizarre realm of washington, d. C. , that we should as a nation improve the condition of the southern border . I would agree. Thank you, sir. May i ask you in my remaining time regarding the cartel activity, there is increased cartel to cartel violence, and how is that impacting the customs patrol at the border and what level of cooperation is dhs receiving from mexican Law Enforcement, and has that crossborder cooperation impacted greatly on the conflict of the mexican criminal cartels. In my remaining minute, if you will regard the cartel activity. Yes, the cartels, and the tcos are mounting and control of the the border and the valuable routes to conduct drug smuggling activities or human struggling activities is very intense including the most northern border state. And that is creating challenges in the security front, and also for the counterparts. They have stepped up to identify 25,000 troops if you will you say they, and to clarify, you mean the mexican Law Enforcement . The Mexican Government have taken elements of the military, and elements of the navy and the federal police and combined them into the National Guard that is now helping to patrol both their southern border between chapas and guatemala for all types of smuggling including human, and the states and the transit routes from the northern border. Where we still want to collaborate further and gain control is working on the joint patrols on the shared border to prevent the access to the routes for any type of smuggling to these violent organizations, and that is an area that we need to continue to partner and develop. Secretary, again, thank you for the answer, and the service, and mr. Chairman, my time has expired. I yield. The gentleman yields back, and recognizes the gentle lady from new mexico. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here, and particularly secretary mcaleenan, for your presence here on the eve of the departure, and you years of service to the department of Homeland Security and the country. On the eve of the departure, we are looking now at the fifth secretary of Homeland Security and i would like to hear how you think that continuity and leadership might impact the ability for the departments to fulfill its mission of impacting National Security. One of the things that has been very gratifying for me is the last 6 1 2 months as acting secretary is getting exposed to the parts of the department that i knew about but i had not had the chance to work directly w. And in the areas that we have partnered on the counter narcotics or say a response to the Natural Disaster like with the coast guard, but now it is seeming to be embedding with them, and i spent tonight on the coast guard kirt two weeks ago off of the coast of coast guard cutter off of the coast of el salvador and understanding their capabilities, and looking at how they are looking at the cyber landscape and working with the private sector and the state and local and these 80 jurisdictions managing elections and thinking of the similarities of how the customs can work with the supply chain side and state and local governments and i am confident with the quality and the quantity of the leadership, they have seen how dedicated they are. Your leadership is key, and i will not disagree with you there, but i am not worried about the continuity of the addressing threats. And we can agree that good folks are working and leadership is key, but one of the areas that you hit that i share is when it comes to the cyber assets and protecting the election infrastructure, and combatting the transcontinental organization, and that requires all of our partnerships with the foreign partners and the public sect sector, and requires careful coordination and leadership is key in that. Do you see how the lack of leadership when you have identified the need to bring the government sek to,ctor and the federal and state and county coordination could impact our ability to do that . I have focused on the election crisis, and the security crisis for cyber and one thing that i am clear about i understand that, but in terms of the cyber assets. Do you see the change in leadership again could impact our ability to maintain those central partnerships. The main point on the cyber and the connection of the director sissa is in place, and he has tremendous relationships in action across the areas. I dont think that a different secretary or the acting secretary is going to affect that progress. So when it is coming to Election Security, the main reason, or the main focuses is making sure that you are working with foreign partners and local Election Officials and state officials and given that on the eve of secretary neilsens departure she continued to warn the president about russian involvement, and do you see the change of leadership impacting the protechional of Election Security . I dont. With director wray and the dni and with chris from sissa and the general from nsa we briefed the house and the senate as joint earth s efforts for the e security from the towns to townships and we have clear efforts to work in lanes of concert with. And i dont want to downplay the work that you have done, but i am having a fear that some of it is going to be lost with the continuing efforts to protect the election infrastructure and that is my concern, because you have expressed a need for this to continue into the 2020 election cycle, and do you see that now impacting with the change of the leadership and the large steep learning curf that the next person will have . No, because of the strength of director krebbs and the partners across the cyber and Election Security efforts. Lastly, with Transnational Criminal Organizations and the need to coordinate with federal partners as well as foreign partners, to alleviate some of the pushback factors in the northern triangle, and do you see that the change in leadership, and the lack of continuity is going to impact those relationships to help stem the push factors . That is the entire focus of my tenure. Really, we have over a dozen agreements with mexico and guatemala and honduras respectively, and actively working with those agreements and high confidence in the International Affairs team, and the operators the maintain the momentum. It is a main focus for you as a secretary to do that work and now you are leaving and somebody else has to face that learning curve. Well, the agreements are in place and executing and operating against the agreements so we dont have to do the front line diplomatic effort again, and so we have momentum in place and the layers that we need to continue to make progress. Thank you, secretary. I yield my time. And the gentle lady has yielded. And now the chairman recognizes mr. Taylor from texas for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and appreciate that and this hearing, because i think that this is important. I just wanted to shift toward s the Homeland Security and appreciate your leadership there, and in some ways in my short time here in washington, it is an agency embattled and watching different groups and advocating for different things, and one things that i am most surprised by is the advocacy for disbanning the department of Homeland Security, and it is certainly almost goes without saying that it is bad for morale when the members of congress are advocating to get rid of the entire department of Homeland Security. And mr. Secretary, how would you respond to someone who says that we do not need a department of Homeland Security . I guess fundamentally i would say that they dont understand how the department has mature and evolved to work in a cohesive manner to address the threats that we face, and it is an essential part of the Homeland Security fabric and enterprise. The synergy that we have developed across operating components with the intelligence analysis, andyri directorat toes have the armed forces and coast guard and all of that under our umbrella to guard against threats as i outlined in the opening statement. And you have fema, and coast guard now dealing with threats and responds to Natural Disasters and i will say that i have not heard a member of this committee who seemed to have more expertise and understanding of what it is that goes into what you do and an appreciation for while we may disagree on how you are doing or the complexity of how you do it, but we can agree that certain things need to be done, and whether it is a Disaster Response or immigration at the border or system that is orderly, and i wanted you to know that i dont believe we should be getting rid of the department of Homeland Security and taken aback from some of the suggestions from the colleagues that it is an idea. Again, i have not heard it on this committee. Just i note that in the questioning you were cut off a couple of times, and is there something that you wanted to add or express at this point, mr. Secretary . Nothing to add right now, thank you. Director wray, just shifting over to your job, it seems like you are able to police into people who are inspired by the International Organizations and easier to do, because there is some web of ideology that you are able to integrate into, and home grown violence seems to be a little bit more difficult to police, and can you talk about if that is a correct perception . That is what is my perception of sitting on the committee and i wanted to hear from somebody who is doing it on the ground. I think that you are correct, congressman, and in particular on the International Terrorism side because of the nexus of the foreign persons and threats of foreign persons and organizations that we will have the ability to use intelligence tools, Counter Intelligence tools and Counter Terrorism tools and fisa in particular that is indispensable to the effective of protection of the country and we dont have that in the purely domestic terrorism context, and that is one particular way in which we are not as, and we have less transparency sometimes. But i will say that in most times the general terrorism threat is in some ways mr. Travers used the term diffuse. So i think that is why this issue of the complacency becomes so important. The post 9 11 era of the sleeper cells and the well structured and very discipline and the large massive attacks are still out there, but we have moved into the world where you have terrorists, including the domestic terrorists who are not very well organized and i used this term lone actors, but they are communicating informally online or some other way inspiring each other, and the lack of the structure makes it more challenging for us to get human sources or other persons inserted, because if there is not a organization to get inserted into, that is a part of the challenge and a different part of the threat. Yes, in the closing efforts i wanted to thank the men and women of the fbi for what they do for the country and particularly grateful for counter corruption efforts in what you is done to keep this country on the level in terms of government, and it has been depressing to me to watch how the states are so unable to police themselves in terms of the corruption, and among, and it is i am grateful to the people of the fbi who provide that level of the policing, and they are really just a missioncriticalocracy and i am the men and women that you serve and i yield back. Ladies and gentlemen, the time has expired, and for everybody concerned, we are trying to get the temperature adjusted a little bit. I am looking at everybody, and they are drawn up. The chair recognizes the gentleman from new york for five minutes. Mr. Chairman, thank you, Ranking Member, and gentleman on the dais, and thank you for the extraordinary service, and i wanted to first put out a few questions regarding the current efforts of the jihadist threat, and make sure that we are on the same page, and my understanding is that today, we have the correct levels of the authority and the resources at hand to track foreign jihadist fighters and moving into isis or al qaeda and the affiliates and the efforts to come to the United States that is correct . Okay. Currently, we have the correct resources and the authority at hand to track and use the tools of Law Enforcement to prevent or punish the american citizens who send the resources to isis, al qaeda or the affiliates. Is that correct . And lastly, currently, we have the correct resources hold on a minute. Say, yes or no at that, because it will help everybody. Director . I am answering the last question, and my answer to the last question is yes. Thank you. And currently, we have the authorities and the resources at hand should someone use the tools of social media to translate isis texts, and al qaeda texts and disseminate the information and recruit whether at home or abroad and the tools of resources are available to us to punish the individuals, and is that correct . And what i am specifically referring to is the resource of a terrorist organization. Yes, the Material Support is valuable for the types of things that you are talking about, and talking about the technological things that are increasing is the encryption which is a real phenomenon that is a bigger issue. Sir, if we can identify what we are doing, there are charges associated with that, and now you all described each in your own separate way, this domestic terrorism threat, and the international and White Supremacy threats, and mirroring many of the tools of the ideological threats, and that the jihadist has used for 30 years or moshgs and soy just wanted to ask the same exact questions as it is pertaining to some of the global White Nationalist, and white supremist and neonazi organizations that we are seeing today, and the ukraine 40,000 fighters have been treeming to, and the nordic resistance in sweden and all of the entities that the federal government has identified as hostile in nature. And do we currently have the authority and the resources in place to track who has gone to the entities to train and work with them, and to make sure they are tracked when they come to the United States, and bringing that to you, mr. Secretary . That is one of the things that we emphasize in the strategic network, and the operational effectiveness, and the authorities apply to the border, and cross border goods and money. It is a simple question, and again, with respect to the service, someone goes and trains with the izzad group, are they on the same cycle . Yes, we have had multiple efforts and the hammer skins where we have used the International Cross border Collaboration Movement to make arrests and give visas, and help with that. Mr. Deck or the . Mr. Director . I think that we use much of the same tools as mr. Mcaleenan said, but we use different defenses and help the foreign partners with it. And mr. Travers . I track around Southeast Asia and on this particular problem, everybody is grappling with the same thing and there are experiments in terms of naming the organizations, and in this many cases, the european colleagues find that the organizations are very close to political parties, and this is confronting the free speech issue, and so this is something that we are all grappling with as this question of the designations is happening. So is hamas and hezbollah and that has not stopped us. My larger question here is do we need to consider designating the entities as a Foreign Terrorist Organization or the current policy of the United States of america that we only designate muslim organizations as ftos. If a White Nationalist organization fits the criteria of an fto as i believe these do, should we consider them as such and designate them as you have the authority to fight al qaeda and hezbollah and its affiliates . Designation is not an Intelligence Community function. It belongs to the state department. That is the whole answer there, that it is the state departments purview. Designations is the purview of the state department. I understand and my time is running out, but my question is would this assist you . If we took away the fto des ig in addition for other terrorist organizations you would protest, you would object to that. We would find that very operationally problematic, yes. I will say that as secretary mcaleenan said in response to the previous question, we can always use more tools and you wont find a Law Enforcement professional who would not want more tools. I can imagine the situations where what you are describing would be helpful as a tool. I will also say that more and more and i referenced it in the opening statement, more and more the biggest threat that we face here in the u. S. Is these, whether it is domestic terrorism like White Supremacists or the International Terrorisms and people inspired by the jihadist movements we have selfradicalized actors here, and so the whole concept of going after organizations which is a construct that was created about things like al qaeda, hezbollah, et cetera, it is still valid, but the threat that we are facing right now is not so much about the organizations. That is why the approach thatar but it is not going to hit the biggest threats that we are facing. As mr. Travers was stating. And so your time has expire and i recognize the gentleman from new york. Thank you, and from the outset, i wanted to thank you for your career in Public Service and all he has done to keep the country safe, and we very much appreciate what you have done and you have done an extraordinarily great job. I wish i had two hours with each of you, because so many questions, but director wray something you said, on the cyber front we have a wider range of threats now than ever before. I could not agree with you more. And as the Ranking Member on the cybersecurity, i am constantly amazed at the complexity of the threats and the permutations of the threats so i wanted to talk about that a little bit if i can. You mentioned ransomware, and trade secret and china, and what else as a committee can we do to give you the tools to address this situation . And i will ask the others the same thing. Certainly, we need to work more closely with the private sector and things that help to facilitate that are always useful. In the country, Something Like 90 of the Critical Infrastructure is in the hands of the public sector, and so with Cyber Threats in the United States unlike say a very centralized country like china where over half of the country is companies with stateowned enterprises. So this is a place for me we need to see more and more of the resources quite frankly devoted, because we are going to have to engage more and more with the private sector on that issue. I will also say that Data Analytics are an increasingly big problem and it is not a sexy topic, but it is incredibly significant in the cyber arena in particular. In any one case if you stop to think about it for a moment, the volumes and volumes of the coming up with new kinds of bytes and you know, put your own prefix in front of it to capture the sheer volume of every case, and the ability to exploit it fast enough is a real challenge. So, helping dhs and fbi and others to have the tools to exploit that information is going to be a real significant step forward. I do want to talk about that a little bit. And you are right, it is a different dynamic, and it was a federal prosecutor for 20 years of the organized crime and you have different agencies and work with them to go after the bad guys and you are protecting the public, but here, we have to swoshg clo work so closely with the private sector and we dont do a good enough job on the resource standpoint. Can you expound on the resource standpoint of what you would need to get this done . Well, we need more agents, computer scientists, and data analysts and tools, technological tools to engage in more and more cases, and we find that one of the biggest frustrations that we hear from the private sector is how quickly we can engage on a lot of the things, and part of that is because of the point that you made, and just the sheer volume, and the attack surface is so broad now, and so we are trying to use our cyber task forces that we have all over the country that have a whole lot of different agencies on them as well, and we are trying to look for ways that are partnering with the private sector, but again, a lot of it is coming down to the people and tools, and specific kinds of people and tools. I want to follow up with you offline to get a better handle of what we need to maybe fulfill the requests. Mr. Mcaleenan and i know that you want the add to this, but the centerpiece of the Cybersecurity Mission for the homeland is assistance and it has been stood up for a year, and how is that going, and what can we do better . It is going well, and i wanted to echo the directors points about the people and the tools, and we need more, and the attack surface is broad, and the private sector is one of the core responsibilities, but i would like to add that the state and the local government levels, we really do need to think about the right resourcing to support our states. We are going to have an election in 2020 with a well over 90 of the voters casting the ballots with the good and audible paper backups and not every state is where we need them. That is a resource issue. When we engage the counties and talking about updating the windows and the software, and to eliminate the vulnerabilities over the years, and this is usually a funding problem, and not necessarily a will problem. So that engagement is critical and the Public Utilities side of this, and the Industrial Systems from pipelines to power as i mentioned in the open, this is a critical area where we need the quasi governmental and private sector entities to take the cybersecurity efforts they need to be successful, and that what cissa is doing across the board. Anything that you would like if follow up . Just to follow up, our engagement with the private sector is critical. Since i took over in 1970, a real heavy emphasis on the Security Awareness that i chair in the critical sector of how to protect the brands and the clients and the customers is critical. We wont win the fight on the foreign adversary on the homeland without a hand and glove relationship and how do we make that critical to have the hand and the glove information sharing on what is the biggest risk. It is not about a competitive advantage, but te quall advantage of the foreign adversaries attacking the country through economics. Mr. Chairman, i yield back, but i wanted to respectfully suggest that this is an area that we need to have the subject of a hearing and try to figure out the manpower requirements and try to formulate something to assist, because it is a critically important area. The chair agrees with you, and we have had some discussions along that line. Chair recognizes the gentleman from missouri, mr. Cleaver, for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and i would like to thank you for your appearance before the committee, and the fact that you are as far as i know a straight shooter with us. So, thank you very much. Are any of you concerned about what could happen and maybe already happening as a result of the cryptocurrency issue . The thing that is frightening to me in looking at this is that the software is available to just about anybody, including the people who would like to do some harm to us. And you can do a transaction, and you know, just like that. Unless we have some really low iq bad guys, in the future, we are going to have to deal with people moving arguably millions of dollars and millions of invisible dollars going here and there. Is there a division and i know that fencein is working under the treasury, but is there a division anywhere else that is focusing on the problem that is only going to grow. Director wray . Congressman, you have put your finger on a very, very vexing issue for everyone in Law Enforcement, and National Security more broadly. At the fbi, we have an office of Technology Division that is keenly focused on the cryptocurrency and we have a number of tools that we use with different forms of cryptocurrency to breakfa past get around the anonymousization that occurs there, and every time we get a handle on it, there is another tool behind it. It is not just the low iq bad boy, but one of the phenomenon is increasingly in effect, the crime is a service, and so in other words, there are sophisticated forms of cryptocurrency, and on the dark web, there are organizations that are now marketing it to the low iq bad guys and now it is available to those people, too, and it is a phenomenon going forward. And can i add quickly, that i agree with you 100 , of the traceability of the availability to merge into the cryptocurrencies for dhs and the secret service has the unique capability of the cyber and this is the nexus of both of the Homeland Security obligations, and i am not sure if you would like to add anything from the intel side mr. Glawe. Just to echo what the secretary said the vulnerabilities of how to identify the illicit activities and to have the infrastructure to track the global abilities. And i wish that we could have a whole hearing on this issue, because i have spent some time dealing with it. And fence in, and we probably need somebody from treasury to talk to us about fence in. But there is also this proposal being kind of floated around now by treasury that the secret service should be transferred out of dhs into treasury, and i guess that i am not sure if they wanted to connect it with fencein or what, but any of you have a position on it, especially you, mr. Mcaleenan . I have talked about why and i certainly understand why treasury would want to be associated with one of the finest Law Enforcement organizations in the world, the secret service, and they have a nexus of the financial responsibilities of treasury, and also well ensconced in the dhs on the threats and we can look at that with the administration and the congress in the months ahead. Okay. So since you are leaving, do you think that it should remain with Homeland Security . I think that there are strong arguments on the placement for secret service in both departments, and i support the dialogue that the administration is having with congress at this time time. You are a good man, mr. Chairman. The chair recognizes the gentleman from tennessee. Thank you. I recognize you for five minutes. And also, i agree, it is chilly in here. Mr. Secretary mcaleenan, i understand from your story that you were watching the towers fall on 9 11 and ran to the sound of the guns. So i appreciate that and for those of us in service at the time, those towers fell, and we look at that degree of the patriotism with great admiration, thank you. So all of the witnesses here today, thank you for your service to our great country and we appreciate your being here today and for your candor. My question is really to all of you or whomever you think is best to answer it. I would like to dig into the cooperation of isis and iq and what you believe that the capacities are and how they combine and how that impacts the homeland. Ill start. There are places around the globe where eye sisis and aq coordinate and africa is one of the places where Isis West Africa and jlm certainly coordinate on the ground. The general view is that we are very unlikely to see a Strategic Alliance between the two. There are issues associated that al qaeda thought that caliphate was a mistake, and the very issue of Abu Bakr Baghdadi being a caliphate graded at aq to be sure. I am sure. So my guess is that we are going to continue to see much like we do today, the isis and aq battle in places, yemen, and in east africa, and whereas in the homeland and director wray can talk to this, but we are seeing an idiosyncratic adoption of the individuals citing isis and aq ideology that we have seen in europe, but in general, i dont believe we will see a Strategic Alliance. Switching the gears a little bit to cyber. What are the thoughts on blockchain, and the impact of cybersecurity, and increased vulnerability with blockchain or decreased . Is that protective in any way . I believe it has potential to decrease the vulnerability by distributing a ledger to verify the transactions across multiple entities. Interesting entities explored and supply blockchain being one, and i am speaking of the customs and Border Protections background, but being able to identify the shipment from the stuffing of a manufacturers facility, and all of the way to the unloading it at a walmart in the u. S. Is very promising type of capability. So i think that ultimately blockchain is going to be a help as it is applied in various sectors. How well do you think that government as a whole is accepting that . I mean, i agree with you. Are we moving towards the blockchain across the infrastructure . So, i think that the private sector is going to drive it as it usually does in the adoption of the new technology and what we try to do is to play a productive role to partner with the private sector and movement of supply chains in the cybersecurity applications as well to basically provide a platform and support standard setting for block chain applications in different areas. There is a lot of work to be done, and frankly, a dialogue that needs to happen with congress as well. Agreed. Fwagain, changing the subjec and this is for undersecretary glawe, and can you elaborate on the vetting center and the memoranda that was recently issued and give us an update on that . Sure. Myself and the secretary in our prior capacity have been working on this and im happy to they National Vetting centsecenter it where wasnt to be and that is taking the u. S. Intelligence community, and the Law Enforcement data and the customs and Border Protection efforts, and looking at organized crime and foreign operatives, and this is a model that the secretary led in prior capacity in developing a Business Model of identifying bad things coming into the United States. It will be expanded to the cargo and it is a model that is important for the department of Homeland Security, and we are the last line of defense before bad things coming into the country. I defer to the secretary, because because he was the architect of this before he left. Yes, he summarized it very well. It is part of the agency that has expanded and done from the beginning with the inclusion of the privacy from across the interagency to ensure that we are doing it right with the data set and every comparison and we have the right safeguards in place, and already identifying individuals that could pose a threat to the u. S. That we wouldnt have seen before this capability was brought online. So it is absolutely headed in the right direction and building off of the national targeting framework. I wanted to thank you for that work. Thank you, both. The gentleman from mississippi and tennessee yields back. The chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. Green for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chair, and thank the witnesses for appearing. And id like to juxtapose if i may to children. We have seen the photographs of the babies coming from south of the border, but i have also seen of late a photograph of a child 3 years of age born in ukraine, and came to this country with his father after his mother died. Grew up in brooklyn. Masters degree from harvard. Serves in the military. Purple heart recipient. There was no way to prognosticate at the time that the child sought to enter the United States that he would become the person that he is today. No way. One can only imagine the number of children that we have turned away who may have been of great benefit to our country. Immigrants have made america great. Not by themselves. But they have been a part of the greatness of the country. When i see the photograph of the baby being separated from a parent, crying. It is just no way to know what we have done, when a person is seeking lawful asylum. In my research, i dont find any place where the kerncolonel who have Great Respect for is not being treated fairly, but i have not found in any of my research that he is waiting in a third world country before he could enter this country. My research doesnt indicate at that time that the persons coming from europe or ukraine in case that any of them had to wait in cages. I just have to ask myself why are we treating persons coming from south of the border so differently, where in the third country and working out agreements such that if they continue do certain things in other countries, they are going to be denied the opportunity to traverse to this country. Why are we treating them so differently, if you would, mr. Honorable mr. Mcaleenan. Congressman, under the u. S. Refugee programs, people do apply and wait in third countries while they go through the process with first of all the u. N. , the International Organization of migration and the population and migration, and the dhs immigration and service, and so it is a multi Agency Process that happens abroad. It is your indication to me that is what occurred with the colonel . I dont know the colonels case. I dont know it in totality, but i know enough about it to suggest that it appears to me that we are not being evenhanded in terms of the approach at the turn of the century. And we have many people to come to the country and not into the 21st century, but the 20th century from europe. They came here on boats. They went through ellis island and we didnt have the requirements that we have for the people coming from south of the border. And a lot of the changes that are changes that are made on your watch. This happened on your watch. You have some responsibility of what is happening. This is not to disrespect you, dear friend. But it is to say that some of this could have been abated. You did comment and indicate that it was terminated of the way it was impacting people. I hope i said that correctly, because i am not trying to demean you or the president. But it shouldnt have started. It shouldnt have started. Why . What made us decide that these people should be treated the way they were treated . Sir, i dont think that we have the time today to have a fulsome conversation on this, but let me try to answer your question. The laws have changed dramatically since the turn of the century, and the prior arrival of mass migration, and we are trying to apply the laws, and also trying to ensure that individuals who need protections, protections for asyl asylum, and these are political, racial, religious, and membership of a social group, and they are to receive the protections as close to home as possible without entering a dangerous smuggling cycle. We cant have a immigration system based on the darwinian principle that anyone who is going to arrive must be allowed to enter. We have to have more discretion. And we need to meet them where they are. Yes, sir. Let me say this, nowhere in the law do we have language such as what you just used. That was done the inflame. If you were in court and being questioned, you would be taken to task for trying to use that type of inflammatory language, darwinian. There is nothing in the law that says darwinian, and you know this. That was done intentionally to inflame. I am not inflaming anything, congressman. That is what that language does. But you are using the inflammatory language and i was very careful to try as best as i could to be fair to you and the president , but the truth is this, they are people of color, and with people of color, we have a different standard. If these were babies coming from the north, we would not have treated them the way that way. I disagree, because we apply the law equally from all places and regardless of the color. And that is what we see. I will yield back. The gentleman yields back and the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas for five minutes. I would like to thank secretary mcaleenan for the virs to the nation and to the protection of the American People in difficult times. When i was chairman of the committee, i saw the rise and fall of isis in the socalled caliphate. We just had recently the killing, the death of Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, and i would like the know just from the secretary, and the two directors the fbi and the ntcc and what impact that is on the morale of isis and how much of a threat they are today . I believe, and just starting quickly and passing to my colleagues. I do believe they continue to present a threat, and as russ travers noted the ideology does persist. One thing that we have done with the dhs and the fbi is that even though it has not happened in the past of a Senior Leaders death, the potential for someone to be inspired to commit an attack in the immediate aftermath, and we do believe it is going to affect the ability to organize, and to diffuse the isis affiliates to mount threats worldwide. Yes, i agree with the secretary mcaleenan and it is a important blow and successful blow for which we are all grateful, but it is clearly also the case that they have anticipated at some point that they would need to have success source and to a large extent what we are most worried about here in the homeland is the what i would call the virtual caliphate which is people who are are inspired online, which is a lot easier to do a. And i would just add the caliphate for a couple of years the need to prepare and i mentioned in my comments theyve lost a lot of leaders. This is a bureaucracy thats good at doing secession planning. It will be a morale hit. Can you largely attribute many of the decline in attacks in europe over the last couple of years to the demise of the caliphate. But, nevertheless, the ideology continues. The resonance continues and that is a strategic concern. Thats all accurate. I do think the threat level has gone down a little bit. 20152016 is like one external operation per month it seemed like. Domestic terrorism seems to be on the rise. Director wray, in terms of just numbers and arrests, how many domestic terrorism arrests were affectuated in 2019 . In 2019 we had 107 domestic terrorism arrests, and we had, i think, 121, give or take, International Terrorism arrests. And so, in terms of International Terrorism there were more International Terrorism arrests than domestic terrorism . Yes. Theyre pretty close in number. Pretty close. Yes. How does that compare to the Previous Year . The Previous Year was both hovering around 100 arrests, both in the prior year as well. I will say on the International Terrorism side as far as the number of investigations we have ongoing we have both the home grown violent extremists, which are the people here inspired by various parts of the jihadist movement, we have about 1,000, give or take, investigations of that sort. But then thats not counting the Foreign Terrorist Organization directed structured International Terrorism organizations which, you know, probably have about another 1,000 of those. So while domestic terrorism is absolutely something that is very much top of mind and we at the fbi recently elevated to be a National Threat priority along with hves and isis, International Terrorism is very much alive and well and something we need to stay focused on, too. I think thats correct. We talk a lot about domestic terrorism being on the rise. I dont think we let our eyes off the ball of Foreign Terrorist Organizations and International Terrorism. I introduced a bill with some colleagues you have a domestic terrorism definition that was created after 9 11. Congress passed laws pertaining to terrorism in both international and domestic terrorism. International terrorism had charges with it. Domestic terrorism did not. The fbi opens cases of domestic terrorism and International Terrorism. However, the u. S. Attorneys, and i was one of them, cannot charge a domestic terrorism case. Theres no specific charge related to that. I introduced the bill working with the fbi and it was endorsed by the fbi association. Do you have any comments on that bill and what value that would give to the fbi and the u. S. Attorneys . Well, i think i mentioned in response to a different question certainly we can always use more tools as you say and experienced firsthand we dont have domestic terrorism crime as such. What you probably saw and practiced while in the u. S. Attorneys office is our folks at the fbi dont give up, and so they find workarounds. And weve been very good at using Everything Else in title 18 including Creative Things like most recently the federal rioting statute to go after some of the terrorism that occurred in connection with charlottesville, for example, and the rise above Movement People there. And we also work with our state and local authorities and especially in places like texas. Weve had very successful work with state and local Law Enforcement. You can get some pretty good hits with state and local charges. I think, mr. Chairman, in closing whether it was austin bombers to el paso to odessa, i think this is something we should take a look at. I yield back. Thank you very much. The chair recognizes the gentle lady from new jersey, miss watson coleman. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for coming today. And good luck to you, mr. Mcaleenan. Good luck to you in whatever it is you do next. I have a number of questions. I could be here forever. I want to start with what was said there are 15,000 isis members in syria and other places and iraq versus 1,000. Who said that . I did, maam. Okay. So what is the time frame youre talking about from when to when . This is five years ago before the buildup of isis and the caliphate was formed. Isis was down to about 1,000 people. Even after the demise of the caliphate the low end of the estimate is 14,000 isis members in syria and iraq, mostly in iraq, which, for us, suggests that there is a great Fertile Ground for a longterm insurgency. Do you think that given the recent betrayal of our kurdish allies and the uproar and chaos thats taking place over there now becomes Fertile Ground . I didnt get the question. Well, the president of the United States pulled away the troops supporting the kurds, fighting with the kurds against isis. Now we have had turkey has infiltrated there has been alliances with russia, our other really trusted friend. Isis is some of their prisoners are escaping. There seems to be chaos and fear and elimination happening over there. Im wondering does that make it a more fertile territory for isis to grow as well . Just yes or no. Its a very fluid situation, sure. We dont know exactly what the Syrian Military will do east of the river. I believe both the president and the secretary of defense have indicated we remain committed to a counter isis campaign. Really . I thought we were just going to protect the oil. Do we have any idea how many members of al qaeda exist . Numbers are difficult to come by. Again, were looking at command and control structure that exists, and then there are a half dozen or so affiliates, and they have thousands of individuals each. So are we talking about another 15,00020,000 . Im trying to figure out how safe i feel. Im trying to say numbers are not a particularly good indicator of capability. This is what i heard, and you can tell me if im wrong. Im hearing that were doing pretty good at keeping bad people, really bad people, out of the United States of america. Even in Cyber Security, were doing a decent job of trying to protect our infrastructure and those things that are important to us whether its china for monetary reasons or russia for disruption of our infrastructure. Im hearing that, right . Thats basically what im hearing . Anybody, just tell me. I can speak to terrorism, but we are doing a good job pushing borders out. I kind of want to go into for a minute real fast this whole issue of domestic terrorism, and i want to direct my questions to mr. Wray. Mr. Wray, first of all, im sorry, honorable mr. Wray, you have collapsed youve taken away this horrible category of black extremists, whatever it was called, in a report that went with it. You have now collapsed what is White Supremacism into a racially motivated category of terrorism. Do you then distinct make a distinction as to who commits what infractions . And do you have any indication are we having a greater percentage of those incidences happening with White Supremacists, white replacementists or black extremists . And, if so, can you tell me your breakdown . I cant give you exact numbers sitting here right now but what i can tell you is the reorganization of our categories was placed on a lot of very helpful dialogue that i had with congressional black caucus, with noble, lots of other people, and was part of a much broader reorganization of the way we were within the racially motivated violent extremist category. I think it is fair to say, from what we see internally, that a huge chunk the majority of the racially motivated violent extremist domestic terrorism, the majority of that, is at the hands of what i would call White Supremacists. And are we aware of the linkages that may take place internationally, the inspiration that comes from things we saw in christchurch and things of that nature . We are actively looking at that, spending time to discern trends and leads on that front. And if we identified those connections, would we then be able to identify the groups as terrorist groups . Where there are groups as such, i think weve been pretty effective at identifying them, but i will say, as i think i may have mentioned to one of your colleagues, more and more on the domestic terrorism side including this white supremacist category its not about groups in the same way we used to think of groups with al qaeda and hezbollah. Its more unstructured and undisciplined. So i think you have a really huge task, all of you have a huge task to keep us safe, and i thank you for the work that you do. Im concerned about the fbi having its resources taken away from doing some of this important stuff and put into a position to have to investigate itself as to whether or not there was a treasonous investigation done as it related to the 2016 involvement of russia in our election and i pray that your resources arent taken away so that you can continue to focus on that which is really a threat to us and the safety and security and congress can concentrate on the other. Thank you. I yield back. The gentleladys time has expired. The chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. Crenshaw, for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here. A lot of great discussion today. Ill try to hit some different topics. This one this question regarding hezbollah and the recent decision of the lebanese president to step down. Ill direct this to you, mr. Travers, how do you think that affects the iranian threat, the hezbollah threat globally and then maybe you can expand upon what the next nexus is between hezbollah and groups south of the border and mexican drug cartels, if any. Well, the unrest in lebanon largely a local issue having to do with a an attack. Hezbollah was a fan and would like him to stay put. Well have to see how that plays out. Hezbollah itself, youre quite right, is an extraordinary organization and it does have global connections. Its a very mature organization. It is very careful in its Decision Making process. Were watching very carefully its activities in the middle east right now, how if it would respond to iran. In our view it has no interest in going to war with israel, for instance. It has a high bar for any attacks against the United States. Hes a pro and has been doing this for a long time. What is its capability . And have you seen any nexus between them and groups south of the border . There was long thought of to be a relationship between them and the triborder areas in south america. What about closer to our border . In this session, sir, i dont think we can get into that. I would need to go into closed session. Fair enough. Lets talk directly about the mexican drug cartels we do see south of the border. Maybe ill direct this to you, mr. Secretary. One thing that stands out to me especially from a tactical perspective is how capable the mexican drug cartels are, with their weaponry, brutality and endless amount of funding. They are probably one of the most capable groups and right now have no interest in conducting attacks again the United States. Theyre more business related. How can we do better working with the Mexican Government to quell this threat and what should we be worried about in the future . Its a really challenging one i outlined it in my opening as one of the major threat vectors we see affecting the homeland and not necessarily a direct act of violence as you alluded to. They focused on each other and unfortunately on the government of mexico and other allies. Really their ability to smuggle hard narcotics, the fentanyl, methamphetamine is the main concern. If you talk to our state and local Law Enforcement partners right now. There are four or five very violent, very capable organizations that impact the safety of mexican citizens in a number of states. Is there something we can be doing with the Mexican Government, a better relationship that could be had . Is that at a good place right now . I think both the department of Homeland Security and department of justice and other ic partners are really supporting the government of mexico Law Enforcement. We need to continue to work on the weapons flowing south, on the money flowing south. That is helping support cartels and has to be a concerted effort across the usg. Director wray, this last one to you. You mentioned before thwarting various attacks over the last few years, you didnt give any numbers. Maybe those are classified. Thats fine. I dont need the numbers right now. I want to know if weve been more successful than 20 or 30 years ago and if why . Stove piping, are those working better . Do we have better tools . Is our presence overseas helpful . Is it hurting . Are the eyes and ears on the ground, the intelligence collection, is our view of the networks helping us out there . Are we keeping them busy so theyre not planning attacks here . What is it . Im out of time after that question so ill let you take it. Thank you. In the interest of time what i would say most of the reasons for the success boils down to one word which is partnerships. Between federal agencies and local Law Enforcement, within the Intelligence Community, partnerships with our foreign partners. All of those things have led to greater connecting of the dots, to get ahead of the threat. Theres no one disruption strategy. Theres a lot of different ways you can disrupt a terrorist attack t. Could be a criminal Law Enforcement action. It could be some visa action, some Foreign Government taking action. Theres a lot of different ways, different tools in the toolbox if everybody is talking to each other. I will say having been in the fbi building on 9 11 and been intimately involved in the war on terror during those years and then coming back into this role now, the difference between how closely everybody is working together, i know this sounds pollyannaish, its night and day and couldnt come a moment too soon. The gentlemans time has expired. The chair recognizes the gentlelady from california for five minutes. Thank you. Mr. Secretary, under your tenure we have seen an expansion of human rights abuses under this administration named migrant protection protocols or the remain in mexico policy. The name almost assumes that this program will actually protect migrants when it does the complete opposite. Instead of allowing Asylum Seekers to remain safely in the u. S. As they wait for their cases to be heard as has been done by law under the u. S. Refugee act you have forced nearly 50,000 Asylum Seekers including vulnerable individuals like those with serious medical conditions, pregnant women, lgbtq people to wait in areas plagued by violence like the state of in mexico which is a level four threat, countries like afghanistan, iraq, syria, and north korea have. Im going to say this again. We are sending people, pregnant women, back to dangerous places in mexico that have a level four threat. Thats the equivalent of afghanistan, iraq, syria and north korea. Before you decided to return families with children and other Asylum Seekers to wait in these very dangerous places in mexico, did you conduct any type of an analysis, any type, to assess the potential harms that these Asylum Seekers might suffer . So the my grant protection protocol im asking if you have any kind of assessment on the potential harm where theyre being sent . Did we do that . It was a months long dialogue with the government of mexico its a yes or no. Did you assess the threat level before you sent them there . The homeland of security and of state assessments were done on mexicos ability to manage the program jointly with the United States. So you did assess this and you thought it was perfectly fine. Do you know that there are public reports of kidnappings, assaults, and other attacks on families and other Asylum Seekers that are returned to mexico . Are you reading these reports . Are you hearing about them . Certainly we carefully monitor reports in the northern border states for lots of reasons. So have you heard about people being kidnapped . Yes or no . Yes. About people being assaulted please let me answer. I dont have a lot of time. My colleagues are talking about how were a compassionate and loving nation, but sending a child back into a level four area is not compassionate to me. Sending pregnant women back to these areas to be raped, killed, and abused is not a compassionate nation. And so im trying to assess whether you smugglers put themselves on a dangerous journey is not compassionate either. Lets talk just a minute. Mr. Secretary, she is still talking. Let her finish and youll get your chance to respond. So, mr. Secretary, lets talk about those cartels. In a press conference yesterday acting commissioner mark morgan remarked the mexican cartels could really teach a Business Class at harvard. These are the same cartels that dominate several areas of the border where your agency is currently sending tens of thousands of vulnerable Asylum Seekers to wait for weeks and maybe months under this socalled protection program. In august Cartel Members came to a shelter, a city where your agency returned 10,000 Asylum Seekers, they demanded that the minister in charge of the shelter hand over cubans sheltered there for ransom. When he refused, the cartels kidnapped him. That pastor has not been seen or heard of since then. Have you heard of this incident with the pastor . I have not heard of that incident. Okay. Well, in september it was reported how many numerous people are subjected and delivered to the hands of these very dangerous cartels, we at least can agree they are very dangerous, just miles away from their forcibly returned by officers. One migrant described how the mexican immigration officers transporting them turned them directly over to the cartels. Are you aware that mexican officials are turning these people directly over to these very dangerous cartels . Are you aware of this . Im not aware of any verified incident where that occurred. Well, its clear to me the mpp program is creating a Business Opportunity for cartels who now have tens of thousands of Vulnerable People and desperate people who are being exploited. Its unbelievable to me that we believe this is okay, that because its not happening on u. S. Soil that it is just okay. But as my colleague says, its on us. And one day we will have to go to heaven and go face those who judge us, and we will have to live with the decision on what we did and whether we stood up for human rights or whether we let them happen under our watch. And i have to tell you, it is heartbreaking that this country is closing the door on people who are fleeing violence and sending them back to dangerous place that is have a level four threat where even u. S. Citizens are told not to go. And with that i yield back. The gentlelady yields back. The gentlelady from new york, ms. Rice, for five minutes. Mr. Mcaleenan, i too, want to wish you luck on your future endeavors. There have been several reports President Trump is considering appointing acting Ken Cuccinelli or mark morgan though the justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel determined they are uneligible under the vacancies reform act. Are you aware of that . Im not going to discuss any predecision on personnel efforts, but i will note that the administration will follow the law in naming a successor for the department of Homeland Security. Glad to hear that. In your final hours as acting secretary do you have any plans to change the current line of succession at dhs . Again, im not going to discuss any predecision on personnel actions. Im just asking if you are planning on doing that . I mean, theres only 24 hours left. I have no present plans to do that. Have you discussed nominating someone to be the assistant secretary of the countering waems of Mass Destruction Office with the president . I have not. Have you spoken to anyone in the administration about that . Again, im not going to discuss predecision on personnel matters. You just said i was just asking you you said you havent discussed it with the president. Im not going to discussion predecision on personnel matters. Facebook announced it removed accounts that posed as local citizens to attack former president joe biden. Multiple reports including the 2017 Intelligence Community assessment, special counsel Robert Muellers investigation and a report from the Senate Intelligence committee have all confirmed russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 election and will do so again in 2020. Do you accept that conclusion, mr. Mcaleenan . Yes. Our entities are lead that go effort along with our intelligence and analysis director and others are focused on threats including from russia. Mr. Wray, do you agree with those conclusions . We believe that russia we assessed russia continues to have designs on interference and influencing our electoral system. And have either of you spoken with President Trump or anyone in the administration about russia and what theyre planning on doing in the 2020 election . Well, ive had, along with others, numerous meetings with folks in the white house including the president on Election Security and on the threats they face. And do they do you conclude that they appreciate russias interference in 2016 and the likelihood theyre doing it now to affect the 2020 election . Just yes or no. You dont have to tell me who you spoke to. Do you have confidence that theres someone in the administration that appreciates that . Let me say, it is Crystal Clear, i think, to all of us involved in protecting our elections, fbi and i dont want to speak for the other agencies, from all my interaction with partners, its been the same, Crystal Clear this is a top priority we intend to take very seriously and throw every tool in the toolbox against. Thank you. I just want to make reference to an article that literally just posted on the New York Times, and i understand some peoples feelings about the New York Times but lets just accept for a fact that what im going to talk about is actually fact. Russia has been testing new disinformation tactics in a Facebook Campaign in africa as part of an evolution of manipulation techniques ahead of the 2020 president ial election. The campaign underlined how russia is continues to aggressively try different disinformation techniques even as it has come under scrutiny for its online interference methods by spreading the use of tactics to a region less closely monitored than the United States and europe. It said that it was highly likely russian groups were already using the same model of working what they did in africa is work with local people so that it wasnt immediately detectable that these were russianbacked accounts. So the russian groups have already started using that model of working with locals right here in the United States to post inflammatory messages on facebook and by employing those locals the russians didnt need to set up a fake account as in the past or create accounts that originated in russia which is making it easier to sidestep being noticed. I mean, this is just an enormous, enormous problem. Director wray, were you aware of this using local people, not just in africa, it was disinformation about being critical of various american and french policies. But theyre doing that now in anticipation of the 2020 election. Can you tell me are you able to address this . Are you finding facebook and other social media platforms helpful . If you could just expound on that. I havent read the article that you mentioned, and i have to be a little bit careful about what i can say that i know through other sources, but im generally aware of the phenomenon or the tactic, if you will, that youre describing. I would say that we are expecting the russians will and already have continued to up their game from what they did in 2016. Of course weve upped our game, too, and in particular you mentioned facebook. We worked very closely with a lot of the social Media Companies. Thats one of the big steps forward that happened in the midterms and that has continued right on up to this day. A lot of engagement with those companies to underscore to them that they bear that they bear a significant responsibility in this area and there are a lot of things they can do under their terms of use, terms of service. It would be hard for anybody in the government to do in a country like ours and so weve made a lot of progress. Theres a lot more sharing of information back and forth putting and getting synergies from working together. Theres still progress to be made. And were going to need to keep the pressure on because i think i said the bar will keep going up. You pointed to a good example of that. I would like to continue this conversation with you off line if that would be possible. I want to thank you all for being here and i hope we can agree this issue of Election Security is not a political issue. We are talking about saving democracy as we know it. I know all of you gentlemen, i think i can speak for you, in saying that i know and im grateful that you appreciate that fact, too. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. The gentlelady yields back. The chair recognizes the gentleman from mississippi for five minutes. I want to thank you and your staff for visiting mississippi. In august i had a chance to visit with you as you all were conducting some field hearings, meeting with members of the community about working together. The private sector, public sector, to say we are making and creating a great place to live and worship and raise a family and want to thank you for that visit and, more importantly, thank you for that service to our country. Earlier this month President Trump signed into law a House Resolution 1590, a bill that was authored by my office, the travel act. This law would require your successor to develop an exercise that evaluates the effectiveness of our ability to identify and deter travel deter terrorists before they travel through our state and into our nations. And my question is do you believe that bills such as 1590, bills that create exercises are helpful for the department of Homeland Security so that we are able to identify, close gaps so congress is better able to determine the necessary weaknesses within our system . Certainly i think its the kind of activity we undertake really every day to make sure there are no vulnerabilities or gaps in our information sharing between agencies, between foreign partners and were applying that at every opportunity to identify a potential threat trying to enter the United States or head towards us through our foreign partner nations borders. I do think being focused on it and highlighting the effort to exercise it and test those capabilities is a valuable approach. And youve testified several times before this committee and before the committees in congress, weve talked a great deal about southwest border apprehensions. I believe that in physical year 19 its reached nearly 1 million apprehensions. Do you believe that Illegal Immigrants are encouraged by loopholes in our immigration laws to make the dangerous journey and to try to cross the border illegally . I dont think theres any question about that. We had 977,000 crossings. Were in our fifth month now here in october of a 15 to 20 reduction month over month because weve been able through International Partnerships to address some of the vulnerabilities presented by those loopholes. Number one being if you bring a child with you, you could be released into the u. S. Thats why we had the crisis in the spring. We asked congress to address that in november of 17, january of 18 and throughout my tenure as acting secretary. Congress has not acted on those vulnerabilities. Weve partnered in using existing legal frame works including 235bc to cry to create the ability to get immigration results elsewhere in the system since we cant do it here in the u. S. Mr. Secretary, what do we need to do as congress to close these loopholes . Weve asked for three very specific legislative changes that would have addressed the drivers of this crisis before it occurred. One is the ability to keep Families Together in an appropriate setting through an immigration proceeding. Thats what the Prior Administration was able to do at the end of 2014 crisis. A District Court in the ninth circuit took that away from us in 2015, and we havent had that authority. Weve asked for congress to reestablish it. Were trying to pursue it by regulation also held up in the courts. Secondly, weve asked for the ability to treat unaccompanied children coming from noncontiguous countries the same way we do with canada and mexico and provide them access to protections from their home countries so they dont make this dangerous journey. If they do have the ability to repatriate them so theyre not incentivized to try. Third, weve asked congress to address the vulnerabilities in our asylum system and the huge gap in the rulings by Immigration Judges where only 10 to 20 are getting an asylum and at the incredible fear stage at the border 80 plus have been allowed to proceed with their cases that could take five to seven years while released in the u. S. Those are the three changes weve asked for consistently for over two years. If congress were to act and implement the request youve made, what impact do you believe it would have upon what were seeing as far as the humanitarian crisis along our southwest boreder . The ability to have integrity in the system here in the United States and not rely solely on foreign partnerships to address the loopholes in our law that caused the crisis over the last year. And, mr. Mcaleenan, this may be your last time to address this committee in this setting. Is there anything that you would like to leave with us that you see moving forward we need to address on prioritize as members of congress that would be able to keep the American Public safe . I think weve seen a lot of evidence of nonpartis nonpartisan bipartisan discussion of threats. Youve heard all four panelists outside the top concerns were facing. Weve had really important dialogue, i think, on some of the emerging aspects that will be challenging in the future. Things like foreign influence, cryptocurren cryptocurrency. Those are conversations we need to have with congress on a bipartisan basis and come up with solutions. This committee has properly placed to support those dialogues. Acting secretary, thank you for your service. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. The chair recognizes the gentlelady from illinois, ms. Underwood, for five minutes. I want to begin by thanking the department and agencies represented here today and our entire Intelligence Community. In addition to protecting us from unseen threat, your continued work contributed to the Successful Operation this weekend that killed isis leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi. Im grateful for your diligence, your commitment to the mission and service to our country. Thank you. Director wray, you said that when it comes to foreign interference in american elections 2018 midterm elections were a dress rehearsal for 2020. The 2019 worldwide threat assessment report we expect our adversaries and strategic competitors to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each others experiences suggesting the Threat Landscape looked very different in 2020 and in future elections. So, sir, as much as you can share in this public setting, can you detail what the new tactics might be and sophisticated capabilities our adversaries are developing . Well, i think you anticipated part of what im going to say which is most of what i would say in response to the question cant be done in an open setting. I will say that as ive mentioned in response to congresswoman rice some of the things the russians have tried in other countries we expect them to try to do here as well. Its pretty common to test it out in other jurisdictions. Thankfully we dont have elections every year, so that gives us a little bit of time to plan ahead. Certainly technical tools keep evolving so their ability to come up with different kinds of false personas, the trolls, the bots, all those things are more vexing and more challenging which puts the premium on the point i was making before about our working with on the foreign influence side, with social Media Companies in particular to really get them to keep upping their game as part of the defense. Okay. The 2019 worldwide threat assessment also reports russia, china, north korea and iran currently have the ability to carry out a sophisticated cyber attack on our elections. We know they have the capability. In addition to that would you say these countries have the motivation or the intent to attack our elections . Again, i want to be careful what i can say in this setting. I dont think we have seen an intention by those other three countries to attack election infrastructure. It doesnt mean theyre not looking carefully at what the russians attempted to do in trying to learn lessons from that, but all of those countries in different ways are clearly interested in engaging foreign influence. And they all have different ways of going about it. Theyre all kind of taking pages out of each others playbook. As we project forward its something we have to be vigilant about. Are you worried about copycats from nonstate actors . Absolutely. Cyber actors and where that becomes particularly challenging one of the phenomena we see in the cyber crime is the blended threat where nation state actors essentially hire cyber mercenaries. So you used to be able to separate into the cyber criminals and the nation states. Now if you see what might be a cyber criminal actor, he could be acting on his own for financial benefit or for his own for hire. Or he could be hired by some nation state. Thank you. Mr. Mcaleenan, earlier this month there was a field hearing on Election Security in my district in northern illinois. And during the hearing state and local Election Officials spoke so highly of their work with senior Cyber Security adviser masterson. These officials coordinate with mr. Masterson and his team to prem and respond to emerging threats to our infrastructure and they testify this coordination was incredibly helpful and valuable. So what can congress do to support and expand the resources in this area as we prepare for growing threats this 2020 and beyond . Thank you, congresswoman, for that feedback. Mr. Masterson is a tremendous professional and well regarded in the field. I had the opportunity to speak with state and local Law Enforcement officials while i was in chicago and i had that same sense of the partnership. What can we do to expand it . We do want to increase our presence, our protective presence conveying the capabilities to support counties, townships that are running elections nationwide. Wed like to be out and present in more places because its that direct interaction when you have a partner you know that has the expertise that can change your readiness. Looking for additional rechl ad resources. Im about out of time. I wanted to talk about domestic terrorism. Well send over some questions. I know its your last day but i hope the department will respond. We are continuing to explore how we can protect our country from the emerging threats of the violent extremists and appreciate your ongoing work in the area. Thank you so much. I yield back. Thank you very much. Would the gentlelady want to mention a report you are trying to find . Thank you so much, sir. So we had the opportunity to get a briefing from an fbi briefer over the last couple weeks. He came in last week on wednesday in the classified setting came in this week. And in response they mentioned that on cap net there would be weekly reports about social media findings taken from the ic and distributed to state and local partners and that it would be available to us each week. We attempted to log in and access the report to track what the russians are doing in real time. Its my understanding that report is being developed somewhere between your agencies, but we do not have access to that currently. Im a little bit concerned, sir, to be honest, mr. Wray, because if that report is developed, we would like to see it. And if its not, worried that perhaps the briefer was not completely truthful in his update. I think we were promised access to what we thought was a report that had been generally produced on a regular basis, and well get to you in writing what that is. The vice chairwoman went down to look for it and it wasnt there. Yes, sir, thank you. If i can get the information from your staff, ill be happy to have my staff drill into it and figure out whats going on there. The chair recognizes the gentleman from louisiana for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I will start with mr. Mcaleenan. Let me ask you about the parole directive. Is it still in force . The Public Benefit parole directive . The one with i. C. E. Detainees about parole or holding them, specifically the i. C. E. Field office that has released, i think last year, not one person. This year they still keep about 98 of the people. So im asking you is that parole directive still in force . Im not aware of any policy changes for i. C. E. Making determination on parole, a variety of different categories whether people arrive at a particular entry, between points of entry wlshgs its a mandatory detention context under congressional lets just go to a specific part where they determine whether the persons a flight risk, whether they have substantial connection to the community, whether they have family that are u. S. Citizens. Its just amazing to me that no one in a particular field office in a whole year had any substantial ties to the community that they were not determined to be not a risk factor and released pending their hearing. Does that stand out to you 100 or 98 of people being held . Id have to follow up with i. C. E. And the acting director on that question. Im not aware of a different approach by field office because it is a National Policy and you listed the factors in a casebycase manner. Then let me make this as a formal request and you can pass it off to whoever you deem necessary that i would like an analysis of the new orleans field office. How many people were granted parole over the last three years and the different categories of why they were not granted. Also, do you remember the case of lil in new orleans, he was very sick, he was housed in louisiana and mississippi and we were discussing his medical treatment and we realized that there is a language barrier many times for the people that we are holding in our custody and care, and that he refused treatment but he didnt understand what he was doing. So that was a big question for us then we asked to have a specific conversation with you, the chairman and i, and in the meantime you all deported him. And my question would be, one, did you know about it . Two, if you did, why would you all deport him when the chairman and i were requesting a specific meeting about his status and whereabouts . Im personally not aware of the details of this case or a decision to remove him while the chairman was asking about the case. Ill be happy to go back over the time line and get you any information we can about that Decision Making and process. Would you please do that. And then on a different note, and i would really appreciate just a candid answer, if you could. Our tsa officers play an incredible part in securing our country and our airports and especially in new orleans where they stopped a guy trying to board a plane. One officer was shot. One was stabbed, i believe. Do you think its time for us to do you think were paying them what theyre worth . I do think the pay structure for our tsos has to be looked at. They are incredible professionals. We want to maintain that expertise. They do a tremendous job. I had a chance to meet some of the team in new orleans involved in the incident and were extremely proud of the work they do. Do you have a suggestion on what the what it should look like . I do have a referral because our acting defensementy secretary of the tsa is working intimately on this issue and we can get you the exact details on a recommended path forward for tso pay. If you could get that to the chairman and i, i know the chairman has a bill, but if you could get us that, that would be very helpful. With the last remaining seconds director wray, you and i talked several times about the term black identity extremist. Over the last couple of weeks e we to target individuals classified as black identity extremists. Well, im not familiar with the name that you just used, so i cant engage specifically on that question. I will say as i think we discussed before we have moved away from that cat gorizatiegoi and this is very important to me personally, we do not open investigations into anyone on the domestic terrorism side unless we have, one, credible evidence of a federal crime, two, federal evidence of a threat of violence, and, three, in furtherance of ideology. We dont have those three things theres no investigation. We dont investigate ideology, rhetoric, peaceful protests, anything like that. Well, let me just ask unanimous consent to enter into the record on october 6, 2017, article from Foreign Policy entitled the fbis new u. S. Terrorist threat black identity extremist and a letter from the cbc to director wray asking for a briefing and august 8, 2019 article by the young terps entitled leaked fbi documents revealed euros priorities under President Trump. But i will just conclude by asking your commitment to meet with us again to give us an update of where we are, what it looks like, if, in fact, there have been arrests, surveillance, investigations on anybody under the old black identity extremists and now what its consumed in. I would ask that you commit to briefing us again on that particular issue. Wed be happy to keep the dialogue going. Thank you. With that, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you. And without objection entering that into the record. Mr. Mcaleenan, let me join the chorus of people who thank you for your service to this department for quite a long time. Youve been a consummate professional. I personally thank you for that. Going forward the question is if nobodys appointed by tomorrow, are you prepared to stay on until somebody is appointed . Its an important question. In my letter of resignation i did offer to the president to ensure a smooth transition and i want to make sure that happens for the department. So you are if asked to stay on, prepared to do it until someone is nominated for your position . At the hope the successor is imminent but if necessary i will ensure a smooth transition. Thank you very much. I thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony and the members for their questions. The members of the committee may have additional questions for the witnesses, and we ask that you respond expeditiously in writing to those questions. Hearing no further business, the committee stands adjourned. This week on cspan3 watch samples of our history coverage featured every weekend on American History tv. Tonight a look at past impeachment proceedings for president s andrew johnson, Richard Nixon and bill clinton. And friday the american revolution, American History tv features all week at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan3. Sunday night on book tv at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on after words, former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich with his latest book trump versus china. I dont think the chinese have any great planning certainly in the next 20 or 25 years to try to take us on militarily in a traditional sense. But i do think theyre trying to build the kind of cyber capabilities, and i think this is part of where huwei is an Extraordinary National asset for them and i think theyre trying to build a capability in space both of which have global implications. And then at 10 00 eastern New York University journalism professor Pamela Newkirk talks about diversity inc. Im not optimistic about white americas ability to see past the fiction of africanamericans, of latin people, the centuries old demeaning images of people and how that has as much to do with the lack of diversity. Watch book tv every weekend on cspan2. Defense and Veterans Affairs officials mark veterans day with a ceremony at Arlington National cemetery. Watch live coverage monday morning at 11 00 eastern on cspan. Online at cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio app. Watch the cspan Networks Live next week as the house Intelligence Committee holds the first public impeachment hearings, they will hear from three officials. Top u. S. Diplomat of ukraine William Taylor and depp terutt a a ant. Marie yovanovitch will afear before the committee. Follow live on the cspan networks, online at cspan. Org or listen live with the free radio app. At cspan. Org were making it easier for you to watch cspans coverage of the impeachment inquiry and the administrations response. If you miss any of our live coverage go to our impeachment inquiry page at cspan. Org impeachment for video on demand. And weve added a tally from the Associated Press showing where each House Democrat stands on the impeachment inquiry against President Trump. Follow the impeachment inquiry on our webpage. Its your fast and easy which to watch cspans unfiltered coverage anytime. Up next the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee examines the pros and cons of a growing america innovation now legislation also known as the gain act. Fewer regulatory barriers for manufacturing plants seeking to upgrade or retrofit their facilities. The committees chair, senator john barrasso. From yesterday this is just over 90 minutes. I call this hearing to order. Today were hear to