Transcripts For CSPAN Senior Intelligence Officials Testify On Russia Hacking Activities 20170114

Washington journal. We will be back tomorrow morning at 7 a. M. My day rather, he my big is , he a look at the national mall, and lastminute preparations. The event is organized and sponsored by reverend al sharpton and the action work, as well as the Naacp National urban league and black womens roundtable. The event will officially begin with a march from Washington Monument to dr. Martin luther king jr. Monument, where a rally takes place. Speakers will be focusing on voting rights, criminal justice, health care, and economic justice. The event goes on rain or shine. We do have a cold rain. That march and rally scheduled to kickoff at noon eastern time. You can see live here on cspan. To upholsterer the ideas of a clean democracy and republic. This democracy and republic was thatd in such a way allowed every human the opportunity to seek greater good. Coming up next the heads of u. S. Type u. S. Intelligence agencies testified on the russian election. Focusing onnd rally voting rights, criminal Justice Health care, and economic justice. The director of National Intelligence and the heads of the fbi, cia, and National Security agency testified for the Senate Intelligence community on their Investigation Findings on russian influence in the 20 16 president ial election. This is almost two hours. I would like to welcome our witnesses. Director of the central ofelligence agency, director the federal bureau of investigation and mike rogers, director of the National Security agency. Directors clapper and brendan, while i have said this to you before in closed session, this is likely your last appearance before the committee at least in your current roles and i want to thank each of you before you get out of here for your many years of dedicated service both in uniform and out of uniform, jim. John, in many different capacities you have served your country in an unbelievable way, both of you. And i want you to know how grateful we are to you and how grateful the nation is to you for your service. We convene today to discuss the russian activities into intentions in recent elections. While russia and the soviet union have used espionage as tools of statecraft, recent actions represent as you reported, a notable escalation and out of Public Disclosure of these activities surprised many and the nation that another state would at attempt to interfere in our elections is quite troubling. Russian active member russian active measures is not new to the members of this committee. To better understand the scale and scope of these efforts and the intentions behind them. Each of our businesses have appeared before a closed session to discuss this topic in a bipartisan basis. Committee and its Sister Committee that put forward unclassified and classified proposals to address these , some work has been done. But to address this challenge to government will require a whole of government approach. I look forward to the details on the Intelligence Community assessment. Intelligence can conclude the classified portions of this assessment give me no reason to doubt the findings contained within the product. We owe it to our colleagues and American People to do an independent and bipartisan review of the report and its conclusions. Therefore i have constructed i have instructed committee to carry out the enforcement. We will ask each of the witnesses to provide Committee Access to the intelligence that contributed to the assessment. I want to ensure my committee that we will follow the intelligence wherever it leaves. This has long been our practice. The committee will treat the protection of the sources with the level of security and professionalism required. I would like to cook we thank the men and women of the Intelligence Community for their work in completing this review, to each of our witnesses, please thank your reflective staffs. They will into many holiday plans. While this moment in our history settingcal, in an open it will, i hope, help the American People understand what russia attempted it is focused on our 2016 elections. Our democracy is not at risk. We can rest assured that the United States of america have faith in the electoral process. We must be alert to the challenges that face us and the to seek toed undermine western values. Active measures targeting our friends and our allies abroad. Are indeed under assault. The key differences between the effort of the past and the are thetoday, however, tools being used to carry this out. Thank you again for being here today. I look forward to your testimony to create opportunity questions to the rest. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and i want to go your comments. I want to knowledge new members of our community, both new members here i want took knowledge the great rule that senator feinstein has played on this committee. Into russian interference in our 2016 president ial election. Eventsthe most serious of my public life. Interference in american democracy and our electoral process by any outside power is unacceptable. Much of the press reporting and conversation had focused on the dnc. The russians are also associated with republicans. They chose not to release that material yet. There is nothing that prevents them from doing so at a time of their choosing. Secretary clinton, any of us, democrats or republicans. What the russians did is nothing on ouran an attack political system. The assessment is more detailed. But it is in line with previous assessments. Officials at the highest level, including president putin. It concludes that these actions of harming the candidacy of Hillary Clinton and boosting the candidacy of president elect donald trump. Not here to relitigate the results of the election. At the same time i am committed to ensuring there is a thorough bipartisan and expeditious congressional investigation into russias role. In my view our committee should thes on three rod areas, russian hacking and release of stolen information, russians use of state owned media and other means to empire real and fake news to further their goal, and contact between the russian government and its agents and associates of any campaign. Asking them to cooperate with us in this investigation and turn over as many documents and as much at much evidence as quickly as possible. It is equally as important that the Incoming Administration and the roless will take going forward. Additionally it is my hope that they will continue to declassify as much as possible. Deserved to people know that their elected representatives had taken a close look at the Intelligence Report that we are considering today. They deserve to know whether we concur not and that we are prepared to respond to the threats outlined in the assessment. The actions the president took recently in response to the russian activities are appropriate. Time i have questions about why the Obama Administration didnt act further. We look forward, preventing future attempts to undermine our democracy will require a sustained response. Americas strength and democracy will be measured in part on what actions we take on a robust cyber strategy. Part of that strategy must include tools and the capability to determine. One of the things ive always valued on this Intelligence Community is the tradition of leaving partisanship on the door. I look forward to completing this investigation as quickly as possible. Your agency, the work your agency is completed underscores the importance of the role the Intelligence Community plays and the men and women who quietly work everyday every day to keep our country safe. This report represents the best analysis of the men and women of the Intelligence Community. These are professionals who have taken and both of office and present the whole truth as they see it. As a member of this committee and all of us who have served for some time have seen firsthand the dedication of the men and women who work for you, i know one of the most primary missions is to render the best professional judgment, regardless of political consideration and always be willing to speak truth to power. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Four members, once dr. Clapper has been recognized and completes his testimony, it is the intention of the chair to recognize members aced on cn based on seniority. There is a vote scheduled to complete our questions and open session. And then it moves to a closed session after the 2 30 vote, if there is need to adjust that on the way. Reminderid that, a that we are in an open session and you should take that into account for the standpoint that there are unclassified and classified reports. Members of the committee, thank you for your gracious comments. Still 10 days left. More importantly the comments about the work of the dedication and patriotism of the Intelligence Community. Are here to present the assessment of russian activities and intentions during the u. S. President ial election. Aspectsndicated some involve very important senses and methods. Obviously asking for your support and understanding as we need to defer to a closed setting. Produced by the three agencies represented here. They have released publicly in a clean a buckley in a declassified version. The motivationrs and scope of moscows intentions regarding the u. S. Election. Cyber tools use of and media to influence u. S. Public opinion. I want to make clear that this the does not assess the impact of russian activities on the outcome of the 2016 election or draw any conclusions with that regard one way or another. Therole is to assess intentions, capabilities and actions of foreign actors, not to analyze political processes. We cannot say we see evidence of russian altering vote tallies. Can discuss the full range of classified information that supports our conclusions because of the extreme sensitivity of the sources. The key judgment of the public unclassified versions are the same. Report the some of which came to light after election day. When the ic says high confidence, we have multiple highquality sources that contribute to this assessment. Intelligence comes from a wide range of sources, technical collection, and open source information. The key judgments are based on corroborating sources based on understanding of our understanding of historical and current russian behavior. While he cannot publicly disclose some of the information that backs up these judgments we have reached a report and detail to president obama and his team, president elect trump, and congressional leadership. Both the classified and public versions of this report were written by seasons intelligence professionals, consistent with high standards of objectivity. To ensure we provide policymakers most accurate insights that we can. I also need to add this reflects the intelligence committees review, not that of the administration. Operations isyber difficult but not impossible. I see use this trail and they are constantly growing in maliciousbase of actors to trace operations back to their source and determine their connections to foreign governments. This is exactly what we did here. Findings,ct to the first addressing russias goals. Aimed at the u. S. President ial election. The goals from this campaign are to undermine public faith and andu. S. Democratic process denigrate secretary clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. Putin and the russian government russianvernment government over theapproach course of the Campaign Based on russias understanding of the Electoral Prospects and each of the candidates when it appeared secretary clinton was the campaign, began to focus more on undermining her future presidency. Moscows influence campaign blended Covert Intelligence operations with covert efforts by government agencies, thirdparty media, intermediaries and paid social media users. We are confident the Russian Intelligence Services conducted Cyber Operations against people and organizations associated 2016 president ial election, including both major u. S. Political parties. Russian military intelligence compromised the email accounts of Democratic Party officials and publicly released victim data. They also relayed material to wikileaks. They did not conduct a comparable disclosure campaign. Maintainedelligence access to multiple u. S. State or local electoral boards. The department of Homeland Security assesses these types were not involved. Russias state Propaganda Machine contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for criminal messaging using funded out that funded outlets. Moscow has longsought to undermine u. S. Led liberal democratic order. Ofsia has a history conducting covert influence campaigns focused on u. S. President ial elections. They influence agents and press placements to disparage candidates. Moscows behavior reflects russias most aggressive cyber posture in recent years. As well as, as we have seen now. Russias activities in 2016 demonstrated a significant escalation indirectness, level of activity, and we assess moscow will apply the Lessons Learned from the 2016 campaign aimed in the future to influence efforts worldwide, including u. S. Allies. I would like to wrap up by left in myve 10 days 53 years or so in my intel business. I have seen that i have seen icy get things right and get things wrong. I believe the level of tradecraft and cross agency needed to get this information, i believe weve got this right here. I am happy to take your questions. Thank you for that thorough and concise testimony. Director klapper, i have totructed a select group conduct an independent review of the reporting. Do i have your assurance that you will buy the access to the willting necessary you provide the access to the reporting necessary to make their reporting . Director clapper yes. Isator burr i know there tremendous value when the fbi is able to do surveillance on devices. I believe there is conflicting reporting on whether the fbi requested access to the dnc services and john podesta fro personal devices. Of four asks us to those devices to perform transits on them . Yes, we did. Would that senator burr senator burr would that have provided access . Director comey our forensics folks would always prefer the access to the original server involved. It is the best evidence. Senator burr were you given access . We were not. Y a highly respected private company eventually got access and shared. Senator burr is that typically the way the fbi would prefer to do the forensics, or would your fields ofunit rather view servers and to the forensics themselves . Director comey we would always prefer to have access if that is possible. Senator burr do you know why you were denied access to the service . Director comey i dont know for sure. I dont know for sure. Senator burr was there one wasest at multiple level among request or multiple requests . Director comey there were multiple requests. Senator burr there is been much debate about the information released by wikileaks and the intention behind those disclosures. You made itpper, perfectly clear in your testimony the Community Feels that vote tallies were not altered. Director clapper that is correct. Senator burr do you believe theres any evidence that the cc or john Podesta Emails were altered in any way. Director clapper we have no evidence of that. , dotor burr director comey you have any evidence any Republican Organization was successfully penetrated and there was data export traded was there any exfiltration . Director comey there were successful penetrations of some groups and campaigns particularly at the state level on the republican side of the aisle, and some limited penetration of all Republican National committee to mains. To many domains. Senator burr penetrations of those National Committee domains . Director comey right, that were no longer in use. Senator burr from the standpoint of republican candidates running for president , were any of those campaigns targeted under this same effort by the russians . Director comey the campaigns themselves, not to my knowledge. Senator burr vice chairman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Again, let me thank you, for yourclapper, report, and the point you continue to make that it was not effects to analyze the in terms of the Political Campaign i think i would add any of us appear who have been through a close election, any small item can cause harm. I want to follow on where the chairman was headed. Was some information taken by republican affiliated entities. There was a great deal of information taken from democrats. There was selective leaking, as the director has indicated, with a clear political intent in process. One of the things i am most flabbergasted is that somehow because this is in the rearview mirror, dont the russians have the capability of taking, even if it is old information about republicans or other information about democrats, and selectively leak that prospectively . Director comey sure. Could yourner describe to my mind, this is not only one of the most significant items i have seen in my political life, but this is an ongoing threat to all of us in our electoral process. We have to be on guard. Could you speak for any of the members of the panel, speak to the fact that you expect to see similar tactics used by russians in terms of the Upcoming Elections in germany, france, and the netherlands . Yes, we do. Ey our alliesner are taking what happened in america with significant enough importance . Are they putting up new defenses to guard against these activities . Director comey i cant say the havet to which they reacted to this, but they are certainly aware director extent i cant save you which they react this, but they are certainly aware. Been aware of russian attempts to manipulate electoral processes. They will continue with that, and certainly because of the controversy that has generated in our country, i think that will reinforce their desire to do that. Senator warner one of the things another member of the committee raised a certain russian activities not only retrospectively but prospectively i believe there was a russian dissident in agents inere russian effect planted false information in this individual fro personal file and then called law , look innt and said this person profile. Have you anticipated for some taking those actions against American Public officials . Russian clapper officials, i think, will have no compunction about using the full array of tools in their kitbag. I would not put it past them to that or any other tools to just paying people to participate in social media, for example. Senator warner this has been described, in effect, as the new normal, is that correct . Director clapper i believe, yes. Senator warner again, we have seen our system, your words a significant escalation. I would just like to go down the line. In any of your careers, have you ever seen this level of russian interference in our political process question mark i will start with rector comey and go down the line. Director comey no. Director clapper i have not. No. Senator warner i know we have a lot of members. Think you, mr. Chairman. Let me begin by saying i dont believe it is clear there was no hacking of Voting Machines or changes of tallies and i would argue this term hacking is thrown around and makes it so mike some sort of cyber specific situation. The cyber tools were used as a means to an end. What were talking about is active measures. The active measures taken by the government of Vladimir Putin to influence and potentially manipulate American Public opinion for the purpose of discrediting individual political figures, sewing chaos and division in our politics, sewing doubts about the legitimacy of our elections. So, if you look at the situation , here is the aftermath. We had an election where, after some intrusion into state databases, there was a leading one nominee for president warning about fraud in the election. Then after the election, we have some on the other side questioning the legitimacy of the president elect because of russian interference. And we have the president elect was tuning the credibility of the Intelligence Community because of its findings. This sounds like a pretty effective and successful effort to so chaos, undermine credibility of our leaders and our government institutions. In essence, it sounds like they achieved what they wanted, to overs to fight each other whether our elections were legitimate and divide us in the way that sows the sort of chaos they sought to achieve. My question is along the lines of what senator warren asked about a moment ago. We have seen these active measures employed in the baltic russianwith the speaking Media Outlets controlled by the kremlin and the brexit vote and the italian me lay out so let a hypothetical and you tell me if this is the kind of scenario we could face. They dont limit this to elections. They target individual policy makers throughout many countries in europe, particularly those in the former soviet spare. The former soviet spare. Hypothetically if there is a u. S. Congressman who adopted a policy position they kremlin does not agree with. Somehow they gain access to your personal computer network. Once they gain access to your personal computer network, they use it to fabricate and or actually conduct, to use the child pornography example, i would say it lets have Money Laundering activity. And then they took them off. They say congressman john soandso has been Money Laundering. They go into your home. Sure enough it is sitting on your network because someone got into it and did it. Now youre arrested and charged and removed from the political discourse. Is this not what we have seen, the tactics employed by russian intelligence on behalf of the government of Vladimir Putin in other countries around the world, is that not a tactic they have used to discredit individual political figures . Is that not true that could happen here in the United States . Director clapper it is certainly well within their technical competence and a potential intent to do things like that. In myst two years running havet presentations, i cited the next worrisome trend in the cyber business will be the compromised fidelity of information whether it is for criminal purpose or political purpose. Thehis is well within realm, i think, of possibility. Sen. Rubio in the context of their goals, in the end what they really wanted to see was americans fighting against each other, bickering over these things, having questions about process,imacy of the our leaders, etc. Was that not their goal, and if so, have they not largely achieved that . Thector clapper i think in first instance, that was their goal. As i said in my prepared remarks, it was to sow doubt about the efficacy of our system and to cast aspersions on our political system. Rubio to create doubt about the legitimacy of our leaders, etc. Yes. Tor clapper senator rubio last time i checked, Vladimir Putin was neither a rich a registered republican or democrat. So Neither Political Party should take this lightly. This should not be a partisan issue. This involves whether or not we are going to allow someone to actively interfere in our political discourse and divide us as a nation against each other . Against each other. Jen one, thank you. If i might, i will begin with you, mr. Comey. The Russian Foreign minister was quoted in various news reports saying the russians had contacts with People Associated with the Trump Campaign. That may not be true. Extensivehere is reporting on the russians and the individuals associated with both the Trump Campaign and the Incoming Administration. My question for you, director investigated fbi these reported agencies relationships and what are they finding. Thank you, sir. I would never comment on ongoing investigations and an open forum. Will you provide an unclassified response to these questions and release it to the American People prior to january 20 . Director comey im sorry, did you say will i . Will you provide an unclassified response to the question i have asked . As i said, it has been reported widely from reuters news service, widely reported will you provide an unclassified response to the question i asked and release it to the American People prior to january 20 . Director comey sir, i will answer any question you asked, but the answer will likely be the same. I cant talk about it. Senator wyden i think the American People have a right to know this, and if there is delay in declassifying this relating it to the American People, releasing it to the American People and it does not happen before january 20, im not sure its going to happen. That is why i am troubled. And i hope that you will make a declassified statement with respect to the question i have asked publicly. I want to ask one of the question, if i might. The report has a brief description a brief description of russian cyber intrusions in state and local electoral boards. Dhs says the type of systems with observed, russian actors targeting or compromising are not involved in vote tallying. My question to you and i would like to have you involved in this, too, director clapper what systems, in your view were compromised by the russians , and what was the nature and extent of those compromises . Director comey there were intrusions and attempted intrusions in state level Voter Registration databases. That is not containing the voting mechanism at who is registered to vote, the address, particulars of that sort. What the purpose of those intrusions was is not clear to us at this point and we saw no activity on election day that reflected than anyone had messed with those Voter Registration databases. But there is no doubt the russians attacked, intruded, entered data from some of the systems. C ator wyden director lapper. Director clapper i think that is the response. I dont have anything to add. Senator wyden i hope you will tell us, in the days ahead, director comey, more about the nature of the systems. It is very clear, given what you have found and reported in the declassified version, we are going to be dealing with these issues, and i think we need to including aecifics, classified session about the nature of the systems. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator burr senator collins. Thank you, mr. chairman. Let me start by thanking you for your many years of service to your country. I also appreciate the work done by the Intelligence Community to report and i accept his findings. I do think its important we understand more fully the extent of russian intrusion into the electoral process to try to shape Public Opinion. And it is important to underscore two points that have been brought out already. Evidencehere is no that voting totals were manipulated or changed or that emails were manipulated or changed. Is that correct, director clappe r . Director clapper correct. Collins the report does not go into detail about whether , stolen,ta were taken from systems, and Weather Information came from networks used by republican candidates, whether that included the Trump Campaign. Could you give us a fuller understanding of the hacking on the republican side . Was the Trump Campaign, for example, hacked by the russians . Comey is the Center Person for this. You,tor comey thank senator. I want to be thoughtful about what i say in an open setting. There is evidence there was hacking directed at state level organizations, statelevel but olds, and the rnc, domains of the rnc. That is emailed domains they were no longer using, and the information was harvested, but it was old stuff. None of that was released. Develop any evidence the Trump Campaign or the current rnc was successfully hacked. Senator collins does the that they wanted to help the Trump Campaign depend on an assessment of the russians overtly collected information from primarily democratic sources, but some republican choses as well, but only to release things derogatory information from democratic sources . Director clapper that is correct. Senator collins i noticed, having looked at many ic assessments, this one was produced by three agencies. And usually, im used to seeing assessments where the entire Intelligence Community is involved. For example, the state departments bureau, which was the bureau that was correct about the weapons of mass ,istraction mass destruction was not mentioned in the report. You only needed the cia, the fbi, and the nsa . Director clapper it had a lot to do with the sensitivity of the sources and who could actually contribute to putting the assessment together. We can discuss all of that in a closed session. Senator collins thank you. Finally, i just want to underscore your point that we have talked a lot about the russian attempt to mold public and as for our campaign, senator rubio so eloquently and thew the divisions seeds of doubt, that it has everyone questioning and charges and counter charges, which are really not healthy in our democracy when a new administration is taking over. Activere is also an Russian Campaign to infiltrate, as you have said, military systems, defense contractor systems, critical infrastructure, commercial interest. Dont we need to take a broad look at all of the efforts by , criticalaries influencetures, decisionmaking in those arenas as well . The point isper valid that this was a activity. Ed and it began with a rather broad gauged assault, if you will, to penetrate many entities across the board. Military,ercial commercial, governmental, party related. So, yes. They think of this holistically. And they use many tools, as they did in this case, and hacking was but one of them. Senator collins thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator burr center heimer senator heimer. Heimer thank you, mr. Chairman. We need to think through and understand what our exposures are. I want to thank all of our witnesses. Attribution, obviously, of responsibility in Cyber Attacks posingfirst step to him. Cost since we wrote to the president november asking that russian interference be declassified, the four of you and your respective agencies have done very important work in making as much of your findings public if possible. And i want to say i am very grateful. What isic needs to know at risk. For those who criticize these investigations as partisan, i would remind that russia did not do this to help the russian candidate. They did this to help russia and we can america. Election, the shoe could easily be on the other foot, and a foreign power could decide it once the democrat to win this time. Areink oath scenarios deeply offensive and foreign influence in our elections is intolerable, no matter which party benefits in any given elections. Impact threatens faith in democratic systems, which is precisely their goal, and i think its critical they pay a price for their actions. I want to return to the issue of the russians being able to obtain access to parts of our electoral infrastructure not the actual machines that count the votes, but the debt it basis the databases. We have had a couple questions. I want to ask first of all, do we know if they would be able to manipulate the kinds of data they had access to . For example, if you have a voter database in a local county that was penetrated. Would they be able to change the information within that database. Potentially. Y that was our concern at the time we discovered this. We saw no indication of that, but thats a definite possibility. Senator heinrich if that had happened and the fbi, or other elements of the Intelligence Community, were not looking for that, would the electoral boards of had indications that data had changed . Director comey potential he not. They would have the indication when chaos erected on election day. Someone shows up to vote and your addresses different or your middle initial is different or e particular is different that creates delay, controversy, confusion. Senator heinrich unfortunately, i think this tells us we are vulnerable to future attacks and manipulation in this case, and i think that obviously, you have laid out a scenario that would be very evident, that we could have very subtle impacts to the election. You could potentially have a scenario where someones voter history has changed and if they have not voted for a certain number of years, maybe they get purged from the rolls or you know, many of us have seen flyers of our colleagues who have been criticized for missing a particular election. Maybe they did not miss that election. I think it begs the question what can we do, in concert with local county and city and state entities, to make sure were protecting the data the way we should. Director clapper part of our charge in this report was carried out by jointly by and i will let director comey speak to this the department of Homeland Security and the fbi to come up with a set of best inculcatingr greater degrees of cyber security. Dhs reached out in the runup to the elections to the states and i think ultimately the states had to take advantage of the recommendations by dhs. It isor comey i think understanding they are a target and availing themselves of the expertise and the technology to protect themselves. And we on the intelligence side pushing to them indicators of the bad guys. Senator heinrich director i want to change gears. I asked to in the Armed Services Committee Hearing last week about the role of russian propaganda Media Outlets like rt. I saw a comment from general flynn last august that compared rt to cnn or msnbc. A fair and analogy . Is there a structural difference between the way that rt exists within the media infrastructure and, say, fox news or msnbc or cnn or cbs . Director clapper to me, the major difference is the bulk of funding for rt comes from the russian government and the russian government gives editorial direction on what rt is supposed to broadcast. I think thats a little bit different than cnn. Senator heinrich and that scene and they seem to exercise that discretion . Director clapper yes, they do. Senator burr senator blunt. Directorclapper, does rt have any of its broadcast into the United States . Director clapper yes, they do. I think they have an rt channel here. Would belunt that accessible to some number of people here . Director clapper yes. I dont know the audience size of artsy, but sen. Blunt one i doubt it is very large would be my guess. To defend artsy. I think is the propaganda arm of a government that is definitely not on our side and we need to be aware of that. We want to be aware that you they u set one point, i think at that point, human the russians think about this holistically and use many tools. We have other countries, the chinese, particularly, we also looklook cute holistically and use many tools. I am very concerned about cyber generally. Im also concerned about our failure to secure federal records. I think we could certainly give advice to states as to how to secure their records, since we have had in truth ands into our personnel systems, hacking into that aarance process, significant number of americans, including all of you and most of us have gone through, that are very detailed. Election state official, chief election official in missouri at one , whilend those records it could be confusing on election day, i dont believe theres any evidence of polling places where people have lines that were backed up because there were record changes that were out of the ordinary. No, i sent my voter transfer and when i may or in may not have. Evidence not have any of the disruption of the participation process because somebody got into local registration records. Is that correct . Director comey that is correct, senator. Senator blunt and theres nothing in those records that is not publicly available. You can go to the local registration office. You can often go directly into those records to access those records. Likely, we have lost a lot more secure records at the federal level than the relatively open Voter Registration records. That doesnt mean that we dont want to help state and local officials secure their records in every way, but those are neither the most confidential records, nor the hardest records to get into. And i guess, for the purposes of this discussion, most importantly, there is no indication that any effort to get into those records impacted election day, and i think you all have said repeatedly, absolutely no indication that intrusion into the i was ang process local election official when we first started counting ballots with computers, and one of my concerns always was the security for how you verify that system was only really protected by how many of the systems were going country. Er the the diversity of the system itself makes it fairly hard to manipulate. I dont know that we benefit by trying to standardize it either. We would benefit by providing guidance on how to secure those important records. Evidence i think you said, the russiansy were able to get into Trump Campaign email or other records or the current rnc records, is that right . Director comey that is correct. So, since we dont believe they got in, the effect they had nothing to release should not be a shock. Because they did not have the records. And we do believe they tried to get in . Director comey i cant say with respect to the Trump Campaign. With respect to the rnc, there hit aquestion that they domain. It could be they were trying the old domain. Senator blunt i heard the chairman say over the weekend they did a better job securing their records. The password to mr. Podestas assword1 with a couple variations of using capitals or something. So, hopefully lots to be learned here and thanks to all of you for your efforts to help us learn it. Mr. Chairman, for the senator and in the public report, it in terms of youtube views and subscribers, rt has a bigger presence in the United States than the bbc . Senator blunt and the bbc is also funded by the government, right . I will followup on that point. Has millions of views on youtube. 850 million. Bbc, about two thirds of that, cnn, significantly lower, same thing in youtube subscribers. A significant media presence, and i think the important points with regard to rt is, we are talking about hacking. That is how this discussion is characterized. This is a comprehensive strategy involving rt trolls, paid bloggers, hacking, the whole package, and in fact, general exactly what is the russians of done throughout Eastern Europe for some years. Isnt that correct . Director clapper that is correct. Progressed,y has the russians have taken advantage of it for this purpose. Comey, did your. Answer senator wydens question that there is an investigation under way as to connections between Political Campaigns and the russians . Director comey i did not say one way or another. Senator king you did not say . Director comey especially in public, we can not comment on a you asked if i had any pending investigations and were not going to talk about that. Senator king there were actually three report spirit highly classified one that only went to certain individuals, classified which this committee is in, and the public report. But the conclusions of those three reports are identical. Is that correct . Director clapper that is correct. Senator king and the only difference is sources and methods . Is that correct . Director clapper largely. Senator king and you cannot expose those because it would compromise fragile sources . Director clapper exactly. King it seems to me that trust is one of the issues, folks in maine tend to be skeptical. Prove it. Speak moment about the difficulty of proving what you have concluded pretty unequivocally without revealing sources . How do i convince my barber in brunswick that this is for real . Director clapper that is why we have intelligence oversight committees, to represent the American People with whom we cannot share as fully and completely as we might like the in which weproof are very confident. , given the dependent , onre of intelligence work you as overseers to look at that yourselves on behalf of the electorate. Senator king i think it is important to make the point to the public why sources and methods need to be protected. Director clapper we spend money that you, the congress, appropriates. We have spent literally billions of dollars gaining these accesses. Hich we jeopardize and this, of course, then impairs the support we can render to the oncoming administration and successive administrations. When we lose these accesses, it takes money and time to recover them. Not to mention putting potentially assets who work for us, lives at risk. Senator king was any political influence brought to bear on the three of you in the preparation of this report . Did the president tell you what he wanted to find. Was this a politicized investigation . Absolutelyapper not. The president asked us to compile all available heormation we had and when was briefed on it, he made the point, once again, that he was goingad not and was not to give us any direction. That is why this is an ic products, not of the current administration. Say thating would you as well . Director comey i hope i have demonstrated i am tone deaf when it comes to politics. Senator king director brennan . Director brennan yes. Senator king the october 7 statement was the ic, the community itself, implying the entire community, this was fbi, cia, and dni. Is there any difference . The report just released represent the entire 17agency community . Because clapper again the three exclusive contributors are represented here and the sensitivity of many of the a judgment tomade restricted to these three agencies. Senator king so, there was no elimination of other views . Director clapper no, there was none, but we felt because of the sensitivities of the sources, which we try to protect even within the intelligence to task the report as emanating from these three agencies. Senator king thank you. Think you, mr. Chairman. Senator burr senator langford. Senator langford thank you, thank you jenna month for your service to the community. I just want a quick review and want to build on things or just to clarify again does anyone know of any votes that were changed or an attempt to change votes . Director clapper as we stated in the report, we have no evidence of any manipulation of the vote tallies whatsoever. Senator langford voter rolls . No. Ctor clapper there was intrusion of certain voter rolls, but no manipulation. Senator langford give me a best guest. How many other countries has russia currently or within the last four years tried to influence in their elections . Director clapper i think one of the annexes the trees that. Russia has expended effort to try to influence political views or opinions 15, 20 question or give me a ballpark. Director clapper a couple dozen. Senator lankford maybe 20 or so . Kgb, they have a tradition of recruiting a Democratic Party volunteer he even had this on jimmy carters campaign in the 1970s moving forward. Tell me about the differences in aggressiveness and style. If the russians and back to even the soviets before have been involved in our elections since the 1970s and before, tell me the degree of difference in this one versus how they happening gauged and others. Director clapper the history of this goes back to the 60s, in which the russians attempted to fund certain candidates, parlay opinion ores of lines of you lines of view. And, of course, they had radio broadcasts. As the technology has increased, they have gotten more tools available to them. Have a spectrum of things they have done. What is unique and what is about thisthough election, 2016, is the aggressiveness and the variety of tools they use and their conveym in trying to information they stole in an effort to influence the outcome of the election. That is different than any previous case. Senator lankford so, additional tools, additional aggressiveness. This is just a higher level . Director clapper yes. Senator lankford you have talked about russian intrusion into democrat and republican political operations. Between lets just say the dnc and rnc. I understand there are multiple other entities connected there. Were they able to penetrate the same level to get the same quantity, quality, and type of materials, or was there a difference between what they were able to glean from the democratic dnc or the rnc . They got fary deeper and wider into the dnc than the rnc. Senator lankford they used similar methods with both . They were able to penetrate deeper or why . Director comey hard to say. A hard to say in this forum. Hard to say even in a closed form. Since they did not get into the rnc, it makes it harder to answer. Similar techniques. The spear fishing techniques used in both cases. They were morebt successful dnc rather than rnc. They did hit some republican affiliated organizations. Senator lankford they were not getting into current information, basically. Director comey not into the state level. Not rnc current. Senator lankford thank you. Of you also highlight some the ways they were involved in our nation as a whole question mark you mentioned are election in previous elections, but you get to practical examples of how the russians have been engaged. One is an antifracking campaign. Another would be the occupy wall Street Campaign the russians were engaged in as well. Additional details . It was interesting you highlighted those. Street,tell with a wall these social media pages that were created to give communication capabilities to the occupy protesters, how those were used and if they were used . Probably willer have to take that off the record, senator. I dont have that thought itkford i was interesting just by way of illustration in the report, an illustration to say they have been engaged in antifracking and occupy wall street movements as well. I yelled back. I yield back. You, mr. Chairman. Was there any disagreements on the involvement russia has had or their attempts to have in this process of our election by any of the Intelligence Community . Did any of you have different takes or have to collaborate to come to one conclusion . Director clapper there was one aspect that there was a difference in confidence levels held by nsa versus the rest of. S on one single aspect i would be more comfortable discussing that in closed session. Senator manchin any other countries that bring concerns you say no one has ever done this to this level in our political process, but when you look at espionage, sabotage, basically through military or industrial . Director clapper theres a lot of espionage. Trading information. A beasley, the chinese come to mind. But obviously, the chinese come to mind. Passively versus actively purloin information and then using it for a political end that the difference here. The questions are unique. Senator manchin i think all of us have been very much concerned about the outcome of the election, saying it has been altered. You have been very clear. It has not been altered. Nor would the outcome have been different. I have tolapper clarify one aspect of what you just said. We did not assess the impact on the electorate. We did not do Public Opinion polls. That is not our charter to do that. We cant say about whether the release of the hacked information, how that changed any voters opinion. We dont know. Knowingmanchin ok, that, what recommendations or sanctions would you have . What sanctions recommendation do you think would deter russia or any other country from continuing to hack us . Director clapper thats clearly a policy call. We got into that last thursday at the senate Armed Services committee. There are a range of tools we could use. I think admiral rodgers and my view is we should consider the whole range of tools, not do a cyber for cyber reaction. Senator manchin what im trying to get to is if hacking is so serious and with the technology we have today can alter our lives relatively very quickly shouldnt we have a broad policy in the United States that any hacking confirmed by the Intelligence Community, once you all basically authorize it has happened, as you agree right now this happened in our electoral process, that we should enforce the sanctions on any country that does this . Senator wyden director clapper if you are conducting espionage, if we are going to punish, the nationstates are going to conduct each other for conducting espionage, thats a pretty heavy policy call, which i dont think any of us want to make. Is an activist campaign, again, it is not our call to decide what to do in response. Our only comment, and i will repeat it, is to consider the whole range of potential tools, instruments of power to respond. The challenge you get into with cyber for cyber, of course, is you have to consider the counter retaliation to that. While we spend a lot of time agonizing over precision, being very surgical, the adversaries may not be quite as precise as we might be. So, again, bottom line, consider all tools. Senator manchin im just saying article v of the nato treaty says that all members will defend the integrity of all other members if they are attacked. Has nato intervened at all . Director clapper i cannot speak for each individual nato member what they may or may not have done to defend themselves or to retaliate against a perceived cyber attack. I dont as the manchin did we United States defend any of them when they have been attacked . Director clapper well, if the Nato Alliance and Member Nation in vaux article v, in vaux i believe is the revision. I am getting out of my lane here. I dont think that has ever been exercised in a cyber context. Senator manchin thank you, mr. Chairman. My time has expired. Senator burr senator cotton. I want to add my voice of gratitude. As president elect trump said on saturday, he has tremendous respect for those men and women and i share that. They have concluded that they hacked into the dnc, john podesta from email, and while the committee will conduct a thorough angry into that matter, i have no reason to doubt this conclusions. Third, i dont doubt it in part because Vladimir Putin is kgb. Always has been, always will be. Back in the cold war, russian intelligence used to refer to the United States as the main enemy and they still do today. Vladimir putin undermines the United States and our interest for the same reason that a scorpion stings a frog. It is in its nature and it has done worse over the last 18 years. Electionump won this fair and square. Vladimir putin did not hacked into Hillary Clinton felt calendar and delete rallies, did not delete speeches that laid out a compelling vision for the working class. It is time to look into the mirror and say that Hillary Clinton lost this election, not because of Latimer Putin or james comey or fake news, but because she ran a bad campaign. Me to a conclusion in the report about the clear ofalation, director clapper, the scope of activities. That russia has conducted these activities in recent years, that this was a clear as collation in scope and scale. Is that correct . Director clapper that is correct . Senator cotton why did they think they could get away with that escalation against u. S. Interests . Think thelapper i challenge, particularly in the cyber rome, is there is kind of an insidious progression of progressiveness. I have seen this over the last six years or so where other progressively more as they develop more capability, they also have an attendant willingness to try to use it. We are sing this particularly with the second tier, meaning north korea and iran, who dont capability, who do not have the level of the russians are of the of the russians or a be chinese, but they are progressing. That to me is what is bothersome about this whole business of cyber and when do you draw the line to say, you know, enough is enough . The reportton states that russia had a desire toundermine u. S. Democracy, sow discord and confusion over time. And if youd Hillary Clinton as the likely winner, to undermine her presidency, but over time, it developed a clear languagee is the way for donald trump your 10 you tell when russia viewed Hillary Clinton as the likely winner . Director clapper that was in the summer time timeframe, july or august. Can you telln when Vladimir Putin developed a clear preference for donald trump . Director clapper some time after that. Id know certainly not in this setting we can to get date when he shifted gears. Did he or the Intelligence Services ever believe that donald trump with a likely winner . Initiallylapper know. They thought he was a fringe candidate. Newspapertton a headline over the weekend said something a paraphrase russian cyber attack aims to in the white house. Would a better headline be russian cyber attack aims to undermine expected Clinton Presidency . Director clapper i dont think you will find a line like that in a report. Assessmentton your is based on the selective targeting of democratic and republican material. Is that correct . That more democratic material was leaked, even though director clapper clearly. It possibleon is that they just leaked the democratic material because they thought Hillary Clinton was going to win and they wanted to undermine her . Director clapper well, yes. I that would seem to be the logical observation. That they favored the president elect and they wished to denigrate as much as possible Hillary Clinton. Had she won, their plan was to try to undermine her presidency. One finaltton question about the leaks that happened in this case. First in december before this tot obama directed occur, and that there were none until last wednesday night when the Washington Post reported what may be sensitive signals to intelligence. Have youcomey, received a report from the Intelligence Community about these leaks . Director comey i dont think yet. Not yet. Chairman, ion mr. Asked we should include those leaks as part of our inquiry. The chair in the vice chair are working on that right now. Senator harris. Senator harris director thater, your report states putin will continue to develop tools to work against the United States judging from past president s and effort. You say that you assess that russian intelligence begin a spearfishing campaign targeting employees and individuals associated with think tanks, ngo, and agencies involved with Foreign Policy fields. This could provide material for future influence efforts and then you maintain the it election operation signals a new normal and russian influence operations. So, indeed this is troubling. My question is, is the Intelligence Community supporting efforts to ensure the Computer Networks and personal devices of the president elect and the Transition Team are protected from continued influence . Is myor clapper it understanding that they are very, very sensitive to this threat. To we have done what we can educate the Transition Team about the pitfalls of mobile devices i and secure and secure areas and the like. You believe your education has been successful. Director comey you will have to ask the director clapper you will have ask them. What about the consequences of infiltration . To closedy best left environments. Echo the points made. I understand why the fbi cannot comment on an ongoing investigation. However it seems that despite past precedent, the new standard that was created over the summer and fall regarding the investigation into secretary clintons email server was there was a unique Public Interest in the transparency of that issue. Given the findings of your report, a not sure i can think of an issue of more serious Public Interest than this one. This committee needs to understand what the fbi does and does not know about Campaign Communications with russia. And i hope we can follow up on this in the closed session to have more of an idea of what the fbi knows and what we may do to prevent any further harm. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and thanks to each of you for your service to the country and the people you represent who faithfully discharge their duties daily many times on heralded. All,ted to ask first of there seemed to be a disparity the rnc servers and d c servers in terms of vulnerability. Questionhis is a good for you. Practice in terms of securing information like that that was stolen in these hacks . Would your concerns about the vulnerability of the private server also extend to government officials using private emails in thevers and engaging exchange of classified information on those servers . Argue Everyone Needs an awareness of how they communicate, that is the nature of the world we find ourselves in. And to do so in compliance with the laws of federal government. When did russians begin to hack u. S. Networks . With respect to this particular issue . No, im just wondering how long this has been going on. Since the 1990s. While this has become more visible given the focus of the effort, this is a longstanding hack into our networks. We have seen longstanding efforts. This was perhaps unusual in that there was a coordination between the hacking and inpaganda efforts of russia order to undermine the legitimacy of the election process. Director clapper, do you agree with that statement . Dr. Clapper yes, orchestra by the Intelligence Services. Is this the first time you have seen that multilayered. Multifacetedered coordination . Director clapper it is a progression of capabilities as they use them. Certainly there are longstanding practices against european countries. What has the United States done, lester with the u. S. Government. What have we done to respond to the hacking said have been occurring since the 1990s in order to discourage or deter that sort of activity . We have tried up our game defensively. We have certainly responded, and certainly there was a response is ifs case but the issue nationstates are cussed are conducting espionage against one another, which we do as well as many other nationstates, that because of to punish the conduct of detected espionage. That is another policy call. About thecall publicity of the sony hack, there was a lot of discussion about how do you characterize this . Was this an act of four, criminal activity involving commercial enterprise, how do you think about that . Have we gotten better about characterizing the nature of the attack . I think the bureau does an excellent job. The hard part is what to do about it. About is itearlier against the cyber activity the counter site for activity or not. In the end that wasnt the case. There can be multiple options. It doesnt need to be cyber for cyber. We have a multitude of options. Was the point. I think admiral rogers and ive made to the senate Armed Services committee, we had the discussion there thursday. Perhaps this is heresys inside them a new member of the intelligence committee, let me give you my impression that we so fractured the jurisdiction of oversight that we need to figure out a better government approach. The Armed Services committee has some involvement in this. Wayeed to figure out some to deal with a whole government approach so we are working as efficiently and effectively as possible. I know president elect trump wants a study to come back to him within 90 days. We would welcome your insight and advice. Gentlemen, thank you for your dedicated service to the nation for many years. The nonclassified intelligence assessment available to the , hisc concludes that putin advisors, and the russian government developed a preference over trump. Workings experience with political leaders whose business interest me the more disposed to deal with russia, such as former italian prime and former german chancellor. Does the community have any intelligence to suggest president elect trump or those close to him may have more disinterest . The russians believed because the president elect is a businessman that he would be easier to make deals with and the democrats. At the officers Committee Hearing i asked you whether and difficulty of hiding all the different aspects of this comprehensive , did putin advise there was a significant chance of and second,ered, did he disregard that because he wanted to send a message as well is being disruptive of our process . And you deferred that response until after you briefed the president elect. Can you refer to that . Can you repeat the question . Multiple aspects of , thecampaign, the hacking , theng, the social media idea that this had been unnoticed and given the scale, was he in any way advised you are taking a risk here . And did he disregard that risk to signal to the world that he is prepared to engage in this type of operation and send us a signal . As we have seen, i think all of us felt he had deniability. Thats what the russian government and Russian Media are we are any culpability aboutat restricted showing our hand, and our deck, so to speak. He knows that, he is a professional intelligence officer. He probably understands our approach and then he can just deny and get away with it. Add, when we started the break in august, i had a conversation with the fsb, and tolde him clearly that russia was doing this, they were playing and they would be roundly condemned by the u. S. Government and American People. He said he would relay that to mr. Putin at the time. Denied any activity along these lines, but i made it clear we were on to him. Point, the record indicates there was an effort democratict the was more campaigns one aggressive than the other in terms of finding ways into the servers of not only the d and see but individual democratic operatives. Given what you posited as the which was to, discredit secretary clinton as much as possible, assuming she might be president or in some way disrupting her campaign. It seems logical they would going those resources to after democratic computers rather than resources of republicans. Is that for now by your analysis . Director clapper yes. Let me say that after sitting through this, the put it into perspective for the American People, those of us in top and those of us involved in doubtigence matters, i there was anyone who is shocked or even mildly surprised when these facts came out. This business is ubiquitous, and it has been since the internet the question is when did russia start this, i would say he was the day they hooked up to the internet. This goes on constantly. As we have been sitting here, there have been thousands of effort against u. S. And cities entities, government and nongovernment, and that is just in the u. S. This is going on all over the world. Those of us who engage in this and have watched these things, most of which have never become public, on a scale of 110, weve seen a number of tens. This doesnt come close to attend, because it is in the political spectrum, it has caught the fancy of the media and the American People. Russia is not in my judgment the most aggressive actor in this business. I think there are other actors that are much more aggressive, and i think much more dangerous. It isnt limited to state actors. There are state actors and nonstate actors and there are i combinations. They go after everything. The criminal element is particularly troubling to a lot of people. I just heard director clapper, i think it is the first time i have ever heard it a mission by an intelligent person that the u. S. Does espionage. You by that, i think hes inferring in the context beer in we are in, that the u. S. Does this. You are i will leave that to mr. Clapper. Directorith the entirely that you want to be careful when youre talking about how you want to respond to this, and if it is responded to with a similar type of hacking, that escalates very quickly. We have sat through and game doubt what would happen if we had a neck shall hacking and we you decided how we would respond will to it, and how the other side would respond to it. The good that has come out of all of this is that finally, i will think the American People are getting a picture of how big this is, how ubiquitous it is, the and how dangerous it is. And thats of the cast be done about it. Director clapper i think is correct that our response has been to up our game, and really that is where the focus needs to be. Again, one would hope we could find the Silver Bullet where we could stand up and say, it is there, this can never be penetrated, anything behind this wall is fine. I dont know if anybody will live to see that day, but in any event, it is good we have us on the table, it is good we are having this discussion and i am hoping that everyone will be patient with us and will be supportive as we do our best to up our game to defend on these things, particularly in the realm of most of the challenges that the government generally and the public generally does not hear about but the Intelligence Community does. Chairman the book has started. Senator horner would like a questioning clarification. To any other member seek anything in this open session . If not, i recognize the senator. Senator warner i think many of us felt the conclusions were accurate, in many ways it was the president elect and friday that was questioning these results. I go back to your comments in my line of questioning, when all four of you with hundreds of years of experience have said youve never said anything in your career that approaches this level of russian activities, and we can debate who is the most serious threat, that anyone who underestimates the seriousness of this russian threat i think does so at their own peril. I want to ask you director comey. If a thief came up to the dnc and broke in and install all of the most valuable information. And that same thief drove up to the rnc, and because they had a better lock in the door it was only able to get old information, with both of those crimes in both of those prosecuted . Director comey yes. Senator warner one thing i want to clarify, because i think there might have been some ambiguity. One of the conclusion you reached that the russian government at its highest levels was targeting clinton and favoring putin was not the result im sorry, favoring trump, was not the result simply of more leakage on the democratic side, but i believe based upon page one of your unclassified report, is that putin most likely wanted to discredit clinton since he blamed her for a series of activities. That conclusion of favoring trump and not favoring litton was not simply result of disproportionate leaking on the democratic side. Correct . Director clapper by virtue of the hacking . Senator warner i was left the with the conclusion that there was favoring of trump over clinton was because of the disproportionate releasing of information. I have seen in the nonclassified report lots of evidence that it was ongoing concerns with putin and clinton. Director clapper clearly one aspect of this, but we reviewed the totality of what they were doing, whether by this means or multifaceted Propaganda Campaign they use on social media, trolls, planting fake news. There was a campaign that clearly seemed to favor senator warner after including after the election . Director clapper i think that was an overall objective throughout, to a comp is that objective, and as things with don and progressed, there was a proclivity for the president elect and an attempt to denigrate secretary quit and peered clinton. There is more behind that but we cannot talk about it here. I think this is in the scope of an open session come a you can tell me if it is not. Is there any intelligence that russian leadership specifically leadership, specifically putin, directed the scr to penetrate these organizations are was the leadership involvement in this process triggered by what they were able to expert rate able t