People are very mission focused. Theyre accustomed to the fact we do some of the hardest things there are to do for a living. And i like to think that our folks are pretty sturdy. I think of a woman i met just the other day, an agent in the miami office who had a bad accident. 12 stitch in her face and the next day, boom, right back at work. I think about the folks in the San Juan Office i visited recently. You want to talk about people going through a real storm. Right. They do it. Out in the community. I can tell you the Community Value what is they do on the island. Thank you. And oped by a number of former intelligence analysts called the nunes memo and the release, quote, one of the worst cases of politicization of intelligence in modern american history. End quote. You said you had concerns about that memo. I know you cant get into the gritty details of that but can you say in your view whether or not one of those concerns is that it may have selectively cherry picked information without presenting the entire fact pattern that led up to that fisa warrant application . Well, senator, i would just repeat what we said at the time which is that we had then and continue to have now grave searches about the accuracy of the memorandum because of omissions. We provided thousands of documents that were very sensitive and lots and lots of briefings and its very hard for anybody to distrial it down to three and a half pages. Director pompeo, have you seen russian activity in the leadup to the 2018 election cycle . Yes. Senator, i paused only im trying to make sure on the unclassified side. Yes, we have seen russian activities and intentions to have an impact. Director coats . Yes, we have. Anyone else . Admiral rogers . Yes. I think this would be a good topic for this afternoon in greater detail. Right. According to news reports, there are dozens of white house staff with only interim security clearances still. To include Jared Kushner until last week to include white house staff secretary rob porter who i would assume would have regularly reviewed classified documents as part of his job. Director coats, if someone is flagged by the fbi with areas of concern in their background investigations, into white house staff with interim clearances, should those staff continue to have access to classified materials . Let me first just speak in general relative to temporary classifications. Clearly with the new administration in particular were trying to fail lot of new slots. And the classification process and security clearance process has been mentioned. Yeah. Im only speaking with regard to folks of issues raised opposed to just being in the matter of course of going through a long process. Well, im not in a position and we can talk about this in the classified session but im not in the position to discuss what individual situations are for specified individuals. I might just say that i think sometimes it is necessary to have some type of preliminary clearance in order to fill a slot. But i have publicly stated if that is the case the access has to be limited in terms of the kind of information they can be in a position to receive or not receive. So i think thats something that we have to do as a part of our security clearance review. The process is broken as it needs to be reformed. It doesnt as senator warner has previously said, its not evolution. Its revolution. We have 700,000 backups so we have situations where we need people in places but they dont yet have that. Your specific question i think id like to take up in the classified session. Chairman, im over my time. Thank you, director coats. Senator blount. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Director coats, director pompeo, admiral rogers, i think you all talked about evidence that the russians would intend to do things to be active in our elections. I really seems to me two divisions of that activity. One is information thats put on the record that misleading, false, trying to develop that level. The other even more sinister might be the level of dealing with the election system itself. The voting day system. The registration system. And of those two clearly the voting day system, the one we need to have the most concerns about that Critical Infrastructure. This committee has been working toward both of those goals of trying to shore up Critical Infrastructure on election day as well as alert people to and decide what might be done about misinformation on the other side of the ledger. Voting begins in march. Thats next month. If were going to have any impact on securing that Voting System itself, it would seem to me we need to be acting quickly. I think a great part of the strength of the system is the diversity of the system. Different not only from state to state but from election jurisdictions within those states. Thats a strength, not a weakness, in my view but what are some of the things we can do to be more helpful to local Election Officials in encouraging them to share information when they think their systems are being attacked, getting more information to them than we have . There is a lot of criticism in the last cycle that we knew that some election systems were being attacked and didnt tell them they were being attacked. And so, the three of you in any order, lets just do the order i started with, director coats, director pompeo, admiral rogers, any thoughts you have on what we can do to protect the Critical Infrastructure of the election system and how quickly we need to act if we intend to do that this year. The Intelligence Community all elements of it are aware and we want to provide a collect and provide as much information as we can so that we can give those warnings an enalerts. So that we can share information back and forth with local and state and election processes with the federal government. Department of homeland security, department of fbi, obviously were involved given domestic issues but we do look to every piece of intelligence we can gather so that we can provide these warnings. It is an effort that i think the government needs to put together at the state and local level and work with those individuals who are engaged in the election process in terms of the security of their machines, cyber plays a major role here so i think its clearly an area where the federal government, foreign collection, potential threats of interference, warnings and then processes in terms of how to put in place security and secure that to ensure the American People that their vote is sanctioned and well and not manipulated in any way whatsoever. Director pompeo . Senator blunt, i was referring to the former, the first part of your question, not truly to the latter. The things we have seen russia do to date are the things senator warner was speaking of directly earlier. With respect to the cia role, i think admiral ronlg eargers wil his, too, we have to make those here to do the things, fbi or dhs. We are working diligently to do that. And then the second thing, and we can talk more about this afternoon, we have some capabilities offensively to raise the cost for those who would dare the United States elections. After admiral rogers, i may want to come to you, director wray, any impediments to sharing that information with local officials or any reason we wouldnt want to do that. Admiral rogers. Senator only other thing i would say where i defend networks is one thing we generally find in that role many network and system operators not truly understand their systems and structures and one of the things i think is part of this is how do we help those local, federal, state entities truly understand their network structure, what its potential vulnerabilities and harness the information that the intelligence structure and other elements providing them . Its part of working through the process. Director wray. Senator, i think this is one of the areas thats been a lot of discussion of doing better and this is one of the aerl yea areas i think we are doing. We recently scheduled meetings with various state Election Officials and normally the barrier is classification concerns, whether somebody had clearances. We were able to put together briefings appropriately tailored and with nondisclosure agreements with the officials so there are ways if people are a little bit creative and forward leaning to educate the state Election Officials which is, of course, you know, where elections are run in this country. Well, hopefully well be creative and forward leaning and well want to keep track of what were doing there. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator kaine . Thank you, mr. Chairman. First statement i want to make is more in sorrow than in anger. Ill get to the anger part in a minute. The sorrow part is that, director coats, in response to a question of senator collins, you gave an eloquent, factual statement of the activities of the russians and the fact that theyre continuing around the world and that theyre a continuing threat to this country. All of you have agreed to that. If only the president would say that. I understand the president s sensitivity about whether his campaign was in connection with the russians and thats a separate question. But there is no question weve got before us the entire Intelligence Community that the russians interfered in the election in 2016. Theyre continuing to do it and theyre a real, imminent threat to our elections in a matter of eight or nine months. My problem is i talked to people in maine who say, the whole thing is a witch hunt and its a hoax because the president told me. I just wish you all could persuade the president as a matter of National Security to separate these two issues. The collusion issue is over here. Unresolved. Well get to the bottom of that. But theres no doubt as you all have testified today and we cannot confront this threat which is a serious one with a whole of government response when the leader of the government continues to deny that it exists. Now, let me get to the anger part. The anger part involves Cyber Attacks. You have all testified that were subject to repeated Cyber Attacks. Cyber attacks are occurring right now in our infrastructure all over this country. I am sick an tired of going to these hearings which ive been going to for five years where everybody talks about Cyber Attacks and our country still does not have a policy or doctrine or a strategy for dealing with them. And this is not a criticism of the current administration. The prior. Im an equal opportunity critic here. The Prior Administration didnt do it either. Admiral rogers, until we have some deterrent capacity we are going to continue to be attacked. Isnt that true . Yes, sir. We have to change this current dynamic as we are on the wrong end on the cost equation. We are trying to fight a global battle with our hands tied behind our back. Director coats, you have a stunning statement in your report. They will work to use Cyber Operations to achieve strategic objectives unless they face clear repercussions for their Cyber Operations. Right now there are none is that not the case. There are no repercussions we have no we have no doctrine of deterrence. How are we ever going to get them to stop doing this if all we do is patch our software and try to defend ourselves . Those are very relevant questions. And i think everyone not only at this table but in every agency of government understands the threat that we have here. And the impact already being made through these cyber threats. Our role as the Intelligence Community to provide all the information we possibly can as to what is happening so our policymakers can take that including the congress and shape policy as to how we are going to respond to this and deal with this in a whole of government way. It just never seems to happen. Director pompeo, you understand this issue, do you not . We are not going to be able to defend ourselves from Cyber Attacks by being defense. We have to have a doctrine of deterrence. They will be struck back in some way. May not be cyber. I would agree and argue that while i cant say much in this setting, i would argue that your statement that we have done nothing is not reflect the responses that frankly some of us at this table engaged and the United States government engaged in both before and after excuse me, both during and before this administration. But deterrence doesnt work until the other side knows it. The doomsday machine in dr. Strangelove didnt work because the russians didnt tell us about it. Its important the adversary know it but not a whole world knows it. The adversary does know it . Id rather save it for another forum. I believe this country needs a clear doctrine, what is the cyber attack . What is an act of war . What will be the response . What will be the consequences and right now i havent senator, i agree. I havent seen it. We collect it. It is it is a complicated nature. I include us, too. I do, too. I take responsibility for not having been part of solving that. We do need a u. S. Government strategy and clear authorities to go achieve that strategy. I appreciate it. I just dont want to go home to maine when theres serious cyber attack saying we never got to it. We knew it was a problem and had four different committees of jurisdiction and couldnt work it out. Thats not going to fly. Yes, sir. Thank you for your service. Senator, i might just add we dont want to learn this lesson the hard way. 9 11 took 9 11 took place because we were not koord natding our efforts. We are now coordinating our efforts but we didnt have the right defenses in place because the right information was not there. Our job is to get that right information to the policymakers and get on with it. Because its just common sense. If someone is attacking you and theres no retribution or response it is just going to incentivize more contacts. Right now a lot of blank checks. A lot of things we need to do. Director coats, thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator langford. Thank you. Director coats, you and i talked about this issue as senator king was bringing up and a point person on who that would be and a defined person to give options to the president and the congress if a response is needed and warranted, this is the person, this is the entity that would make those recommendations and allow the president to make decisions on the proper response. Has that been completed . Is there a point person to give a response to the president . That has not yet been completed. Of course, youre understanding of this standup of Cyber Command and the new director that will be replacing admiral rogers, tdecision relative of separation of the functions that are currently now nsa and cyber is yet to be made. General mattis will is contemplating what the next best step is and theres they have involved the Intelligence Community in terms of making decisions and n that role. But we at this particular point cannot point to one sort of cyber czar but various agencies throughout the federal government are taking this very, very seriously and there are individuals that we continue to meet on a regular basis. The odni has sea tick, a coordination effort for all the cyber that comes in so that we dont stovepipe like what we did before 9 11. So things are under way. But in terms of putting a finalized, this is how we do it, together is still in process. Senator lankford, with respect to responses to that, these are title x dod activities unless theyre granted to some other authority, a title l authority and secretary mattis has that responsibility to advise the president on the appropriateness of responses in all theaters of conflict with adversaries. Okay. Thank you. I want to bring up the issue of the rising threat of whens happening just south of our border in mexico. Mexico homicide rate up 27 last year. We had 64,000 americans that died from overdose of drugs, preponderance of those through or from mexico. We have a very rapidly rising threat it appears to me. What id be interested from you all on a National Security level and seeing and what are we facing . What is changing in mexico versus ten years ago mexico and our relationship and the threats that are coming from there . I would defer to you, director wray, relative to what his agency is doing. Clearly, we have a continuing problem and the Mexican Government has a continuing problem relative to the gangs and the organizations. There have been some high profile arrests lately. We have taken down some labs. Mexico is cooperating but they themselves will admit that its almost overwhelming for their armys participating. Almost overwhelming for them to control the situation south of the border. We have our own issues then on the border, protection and as well as consumption here in the United States. Director wray. In many ways what we are seeing is more of the same but one of the things thats changed, because i think that was at the heart of your question, i think we are seeing one of the things we are watching in particular is more black market fentanyl being shipped to transnational crime organizations in mexico and taking advantage of the pricing advantages and thats being then delivered in large quantities to our streets. Certainly, the mexico relationship is from a Law Enforcement perspective and from a domestic security perspective one of our most important. I think the fbi legat office in mexico is our largest in the world. Im pretty sure about that or close to it if not 246789. Thats a reflection of the activity. Lets ask a specific oklahoma question and a national question. Theres an individual named alfalog picked up in oklahoma a couple of weeks ago by the fbi. His fingerprints were identified from a terror Training Camp in afghanistan. He was in the country for multiple years. And what im trying to be able to determine is the coordination of information local Law Enforcement and from data thats gathered from some of the work thats happening overseas in afghanistan and such, how are those two married together to identify individuals that are a threat to our nation based on their participation in a terror Training Camp overseas now coming the american shores . Well, certainly, weve become better at looking at bio metric information from overseas and marrying it up with potential threat subjects here in the u. S. As well as in some of our allies. The individual in question, of course, turned out to have his fingerprints on information from the alfarouq camp and a reminder to us a lot of people went through the camps and while the civilized world, Intelligence Community, Law Enforcement, military, our allies around the world, made a major dent on those people. Were kidding ourselves if we think a lot of them arent still out there and its just a reminder we need to stay on the balls of our feet. Great. Thank you. Senator lankford, if i could, one additional point. You asked whats changed in mexico. What is also transpired in the last couple of years is five principle cartels. We alued to a number of captures. Over 100. They have devolved into 20 and part of the outgrowth is increase in level of violence. Senator manchin. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you all of you. On behalf of the people of West Virginia i thank you for the job you do in keeping our safe. Professionalism and the utmost confidence in what you are doing and hope to be able to support further but thank you. The people really do appreciate an we appreciate the service youre giving. Director coats, i think you and i both in the senate when mike mullen then admiral mullen said that the greatest threat we face, i was just on armed services. You were on intelligence at that time and we were trying to find out what the greatest threat to the United States faces and i was thinking of another country. Whether it be russia, china, or whatever. He didnt his taesitate saying greatest threat is the debt of our nation. You just reiterated that in the opening remarks. I was a little the worldwide threat assessment. You didnt mention the debt in here. It wasnt in the report as a threat to the nation. I didnt know if there was a thought process behind that because you made a tremendous effort to put that in your opening statement. I appreciate that. Tell me what your thought process there was. My thought process was getting out of my lane in terms of what im supposed to do. But i felt that i mean you think its a threat. Yeah. Its something that Congress Needs to deal with. I didnt want to preach at you. I got you. But i thought at the very end, in fact, just yesterday, look, i think i have a responsibility to raise this issue because it does affect the military significantly. Affects the Intelligence Community. Which is tied to the military. In terms of intelligence. Its going to have a serious affect on us. You sit on both sides of the aisle. Only thing bipartisan here is spending money. Both sides seem to agree on spending more money without accountability. So im glad to hear your remarks on that. If i could to all the witnesses, i share what senator lankford said about concerns about whens killing more concerns than any of the threats discussed that we have today. And its with drugs. My state of West Virginia is hit harder than any state. I got more deaths per capita than any state and ravaging the communities, homes, schools and the families. Just unbelievable what were going through. I think in a nutshell what i would be asking, all after you all are responsible to do everything you can to keep us safe. And youve done a tremendous job from a foreign attack and things of that sort and, director wray, i appreciate what the fbi does an they have a strong presence in West Virginia. And were very, very appreciative of that. What type of efforts from each one of your agencies have you spent as far as is drugs and fighting the drug infestation highest on the priority list, a great danger or part of the overall scheme of things . And just speaking for the Intelligence Community, it is a high priority for us. We mentioned it in our threat assessment here. And so we are the collectors of foreign sources at transnational organizations, et cetera. What its coming from overseas, whether its coming from afghanistan, colombia, what it is, how its going and then, of course, it is a whole of government because once it penetrates the United States we then use our domestic agencies to director wray, as far as the fbi, you are on the front line. You are here on the homeland and whens what do you think . What can we do to help . Well, i think on the good news side in a country thats often very divided this is one issue as far as i can tell where everybody agrees about what a major, major threat it is. It covers communities from north to south, red to blue, rich to poor, rural to urban. And i think it has thats the good news. Bad news is its grown to a point where theres no one agency or one approach thats going to solve the problem. So we are doing our part. Some of the things that we are able to do, were focusing particularly on gatekeepers because a lot of this is coming through medical professionals and pharmacies. And so, were using Intelligence Driven operations there. Various initiatives. We have a Prescription Drug initiative focused on that part of it. We are partnering with the foreign counterparts. Working with dea, state and local Law Enforcement, et cetera. We are trying to do things to raise awareness. We did a video with dea called chasing the dragon which is, you know, kind of shown in schools around the country. But this is a multidisciplinary problem. If i can just ask this question. Whoever wants to answer this one, based on what we know and the way we distribute money to our for foreign aid to different countries, knowing that a lot of countries we distribute aid to is basically allowing, permitting this type of scourge coming to our country as far as form of drugs, have you all thought and considered and make recommendation that s e hold them liable for the money from the United States for the best of intentions and best of intention is fight against drugs coming to our country when we know its coming from china, afghanistan, iraq, wherever it might be coming from, mexico and all the south american countries. We should hold that. Ive never seen well lose a whole generation in West Virginia. Im i have 10,000 jobs they cant fill. United states has 3 million jobs we cant fill. Most of it is around drugs. So this is what were asking for. This is all hands on deck. I dont know if anybody wants to do you all have that as a high priority . Anyone believe we should withhold foreign aid to countries of elicit drugs coming to our country . I think the United States should use every tool, foreign aid or other tools. Money talks. Thats exactly. To get the nations this is coming from to put a priority for their country to some dont have the capacity to fix it. It is a problem thats bigger than their nation. We ought to we should be unafraid to use the leverage that comes with our generosity of the american taxpayer to ensure that these countries are doing everything they can prevent drug comesing from their country to ours. Thank you. We do provide efforts within countries to help them eradicate. Its not totally successful. But that is one way in which we use some of that aid if its directly contributed to the e rad if i case of drugs. Thank you all. Thank you, gentlemen, for your appearance. Thanks to all of the men and women who you represent and the work they do for our country. Mr. Wray, are you aware of a gentleman by the name of oleg daraposka . I have heard the name. Fair to call him a putinlinked Russian Oligarch . Well, ill leave that characterization to others. And certainly not in this setting. Chuck grassley, the chairman of the judiciary committee, last week sent a letter to a londonbased lawyer who is a represents mr. Dare pos ka and asked if Christopher Steele was employed either directly or indirect indirectly by daraposka at time of writing dossier. Do you know if he worked for him . Thats not something i can answer. Could we discuss it in the classified setting . There might be more we could say there. Thank you. Maybe well hear back from the lawyer in london, as well, to give us a straight answer. Jim comey testified before this committee in an opening setting last summer and he referred to the dossier as salacious. Does that remain the fbis position . I think maybe theres more we can talk about this afternoon on that. Okay. Thank you. Id like to turn my attention to the pose threated by china and Chinese Telecom companies. The threat of con fushs and that companies pose to our country. Thats why ive introduced legislation to say the u. S. Government cant use their services and that u. S. The u. S. Government cant use companies that use them. Im glad some Companies Like verizon, at t among others have taken the risk seriously. Can you explain the threat of zte and wawai in the United States, especially here in this public setting, the risk of companies, state governments, local governments might face using the products and services . I think probably the simplest way to put it in this setting is were deeply concerned of the risks of allowing any company or entity beholden to foreign governments that dont share our values to gain positions of power inside our telecommunications networks. That provides the capacity to exert pressure or control over our telecommunications infrastructure. It provides the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information and provides the capacity to conduct undetected espionage so at 100,000foot level at least in this setting those are the kinds of thing that is worry us. Ill say like you, senator, we have been clat gratified to dat the large u. S. Telecommunications providers to our trying to raise awareness on this issue but i also recognize that the Competitive Pressures are building. And so its something that i think we have to be vigilant about and raise awareness about. Admiral rogers, would you care to add anything . I would agree with direct wrays characterization here. This is a challenge only to increase. Not lessen over time for us. So you would suggest to mayors, county judges, University President s, late legislatures to look worrily if theyre baring gifts to them . Look long and hard at Companies Like this. All the witnesses, i would like to address this question to you. Will your raise your hand if you would use products or services from wawai orr zte . None of you would. Thats something of a biassed question. Raise your hand if you recommend them to the American People. None of you raising your hand. Thank you for that. Finally, id like to turn to a question director pompeo, in the news in the last few hours. There are reports that over 200 russian mercenaries were killed in eastern syria. Can you confirm or deny those reports . Senator, ill leave to the department of defense to talk about what transpired there. I can say this, we have seen in multiple instances Foreign Forces using mercenaries in battles that will begin to approach the United States. General ashley, since you represent the defense of defense, would you like to confirm or deny . If we could take that to a closed session, i think we can lay out an interesting layer of what transpired we can address that in an afternoon. To come back as a general matter, can i ask is massing and maneuvering forces against a location where u. S. Personnel are present in syria a good way to get yourself killed . I think ill defer that to the department of defense, as well. General ashley, would you like to answer that question . That makes you more susceptible. You are at greater risk to amass in that situation. No good idea to have a long and fruitful life. Thank you. Senator harris. Thank you. I want to echo the comments of my colleagues and thanking the men and women who serve in your agencies. I am searched that the political attacks against the men and women of your agencies may have had an affect on your ability to recruit, pain tan an the morale of your agencies so i would like to emphasize the point that we all i think share in making which is we thank the men and women of your agencies for their selfless work. They do it on behalf of the American People without any expectation of award or reward. And we cannot thank them enough for keeping us safe. Director wray, chairman nunes memo included sensitive fisa information of a person who worked on the president s campaign. According to the white house statement the president was the one who authorized the memos declassification. Do you believe there is an actual or at least the appearance of a conflict of interest when the president is put in charge of declassifying information that could complicate an Ongoing Investigation into his own campaign . Well, senator, as weve been very clear what our view was about the disclosure and accuracy of the memo in question, but i do think its the president s role as commander in chief under the rule that was invoked to object or not to the declassification so i think that, you know, that is the president s responsibility. Regardless of whether there is an appearance or actual conflict of interest . Well, i leave it to others to characterize whether theres an appearance or conflict of interest but i think the president was fulfilling his responsibility in that situation. If the president asked you tomorrow to hand over to him additional sensitive fbi information on the investigations into his campaign would you give it to him . Im not going to discuss the investigation in question with the president. Much less provide information from that investigation to him. And if he wanted, if he received that information and then wanted to declassify it, would he have the ability to do that from your perspective . Information from the however he received it, perhaps from members of the United States congress. I think legally he would have that ability. And do you believe the president should recuse himself from reviewing and declassifying sensitive fbi material related to this information . I think recusal questions are something i would encourage the president to talk to the white House Counsel about. Has the fbi done any kind of legal analysis on these questions . Well, happily, im no longer in the business of legal analysis. I now get to be a client. And blame lawyers for things instead of being the lawyer who gets blamed. So we have not have you blamed any lawyers for their analysis of this issue . I have not yet, in. Okay. Is the fbi getting the cooperation it needs from social Media Companies to counter foreign adversaries influence on our elections . I think the cooperation has been improving. I think were continuing to work with the social Media Companies to try to see how we can raise their awareness so that they can share information with us and vice versa. So i think that things are moving in the right direction. But i think theres a lot of progress to be made. What more do you need from social Media Companies to improve the partnership that youd like to have with them to counter these attacks . Well, i mean, i think we always like to have more information shared more quickly from their end and from their perspective, it is a dialogue. Theyre looking to get information from us about what it is we see so that they can give responsive information. We are working through the issues. Do you believe that the social Media Companies have enough employees that have the appropriate security clearance to make these partnerships real . Thats not an issue ive evaluated but id be happy to take a look at it. Please do and follow up with the committee. Director coats, one of the things that makes guarding social media threats complex is the threat originates overseas within the direction toft cia and nsa. And then it comes to our shores and then it passes on to the fbi and also the social Media Companies themselves. Im not aware of any written ic strategy on how we would confront the threat to the social media. Does such a strategy exist . In writing. I would have to get back with you on that. Id be happy to look into it. From my perspective right now, a written strategy specific strategy is not in place but i want to check on this. Okay. Please do follow up. Also, last year, Congress Passed a bipartisan russia sanctions bill. However, the administration has not imposed those sanctions. From an intelligence perspective, what is your assessment of how russia interprets the administrations inaction . I dont have information relative to what the russian thinking is in terms of that particular specific reaction. There are other sanctions as you know imposed on Russian Oligarchs and others. Through the United Nations and through other things that have been done. In reference to the jipoa and specifically on your question i dont have an answer for this. Knorr harris . Yes. Just a comment. I think its i think we ought to look at that in a broader context. The actions of the administration and not just a particular set of sanctions or the absence thereof. So, as we have watched russians respond to this administrations decision to provide defensive weapons in ukraine, to push back against russian efforts in syria, sanctions placed on venezuela were directly in conflict with russian interests. The list of place it is russians are feeling the pain from this administrations actions are long. Director pompeo, im sure you would agree to understand the full scope of effect it is also important that we analyze each discrete component, including what is the interpretation of this administrations failure to enact the sanctions as has been passed and directed by the United States congress in a bipartisan manner. Have you done that assessment . Ill tell you what we know and dont know about that discrete issue in closed session. Right. Yes, i do agree with you. I think what we most often see in terms of russian response its to the cumulative activities in response to russian activities and United States responds to those in a cumulative way. Thank you. I look forward to our conversation. Yes, maam. Thank you. Senator warner. Director coats, you alluded to the activities of Transnational Criminal Organizations and im thinking particularly as regards our neighbors down south of our border. Recently i heard somebody refer to the cartels, these Transnational Criminal Organization as commodity agnostic. Theyll traffic in people. Theyll traffic in drugs and other contraband all in pursuit of money. Whatever brings in the most dollars. Senator manchin i know and others alluded to the concern about and certainly we all share the concern about the deaths and overdoses caused by drugs in america. Much of which comes across our southern borders through our ports of entry. This week were going to be considering Border Security measures as part of a larger package that the president has proposed while addressing the socalled daca recipients. But do you believe that modernizing our ports of enhanced technology and other means to surveil and follow and identify Illegal Drugs coming across our ports of entry would be a good thing for us to do . I do. I do think that a layered approach is necessary to its clear that just one specific defense nut place is not going to solve the problem. It needs to be a layered interest of not only physical facilities but also border patrol, also how those who arrive and perhaps dissipate in waiting for the court appearance, tracking them, just a whole range of things i think are going to be needed in order to stop that flow from coming in. I know its been alluded to but let me just emphasize my concerns that with the demand side. Maybe we have given up. I hope in addressing the demand side which of course provides the money and incentive for these cartels to operate and something i think deserves a full attention and focus of the United States government. Ive heard general kelly in his previous jobs at dhs and talk about that and i hope we will return to that focus as part of this layered approach, the demand side, because its something i think that is maybe the hardest thing to deal with but perhaps might have the greatest impact. Yeah. The supply depends on the demand and the demand drive it is supply and provides the capital in which to take extraordinarily methods that bypass our defenses in order to get those drugs into the United States. And on the demand side, this is a whole of the American People process. Its ptas. Its, you think, growing up got these vid yeos of, you know, driving and drivers training and the horrendous look of crashes and so forth and so on. We need to let every student let. We need to let what the ko consequences of drugs are to their lives and future. We need to get parents involved, Parent Teacher associations involved so whether they pick up the values from church or from the neighborhood or whatever, this is a National Crisis and all of us here represented are from states which are staggering through the process here of watching young people and others die from drugs that are more potent than they have ever been. Let me just lay down a couple of markers here and my comments and then focus end on ciphus. The committee of investment in the United States. Ill join senator rubio and others concerned about the failure of the u. S. Government again to have an all of Government Strategy to deal with this cyber threat. I have no doubt in my mind that we have superior capabilities. And but with the stovepiped and i dont think we are the policymake earls are doing a good enough job and i think its incumbent upon us to try to provide some policy guidance so that you and others in the Intelligence Community and the National Security apparatus can address this threat in a way that needs to be addressed. Our adversaries dont suffer from a lack all of government policy. Theyre all over that. And china i agree with senator rubio about their strategy and some of you have responded to that. But one of the strategies that china and other countries have adopted is to avoid some of the review measures in the committee on Foreign Investment in the United States when it comes to direct investment, buying those duel use technologies, Startup Companies and the like and using that to gain strategic advantage against the United States. I wonder if maybe, director wray, could you aggress that . And then anybody else in the time permitted id be glad to hear what you had to say about that. Well, senator, i think youre exactly right that ci phus reform is pertinent to the china threat and theres a stand of susceptible to the round pegs only going in round holes kind of thing and not hard to come up with other shaped pegs to get around that process. You know, the obvious example of joint ventures and other ways, as well. So thats one of the significant problems. Another problem is the amount of time built into the process to do a thorough review which is too short. Another problem is the inability to share information since other countries are allies are going through the same thing, to be able to share information so when they go through their own versions of process they have the benefit of what was attempted in our country and vice versa. And i think in general we need to take a more strategic effort of acquisitions and other types of business ventures. As opposed to just tactical looking within the four corners of one particular transaction. So if i could, because the director laid out the bigger issue at the strategic level and for us we eke taking on the tactical and about ready to penetrate the line. We actually run the threat analysis cent they analysis cen. So we bring the Services Together and look at supply chain Risk Management for ci issues associated with whomever may get a contract and ties it back to china and other nations. But you elude to other cases that come back with us, we get about three days with it, we could use more time to use a more thorough scrub. Thank you. Thank you. Senator reid. Senator, i apologize for us being late. We had a simultaneous committee. All morning, gentlemen, we have heard the story of rush that influencing our campaigns and indeed in the Current Campaign for the midterms. So let me say, has the president directed you and your agency to take specific actions to confront and blunt russian influence activities that are ongoing . Were taking a lot of specific efforts to blunt as corrected by the president . Not specifically directed by the president. Director pompeo, have you received a specific president ial direction to take steps to disrupt these activities . Sorry. Im not sure how specific the president has made it very clear we have some from the foreign intelligence perspective to make sure theres a deep and thorough understanding of the threats including from russia. But has he singled out the russian threat, which appears to be critical to this election coming up . I know there are threats from many different devectors, but have you received a specific threat . I. E. , it is very important to get this done correctly . I think the president has been very clear to ask our agency to cooperate with each of the investigations ongoing and do everything we can to ensure that we thoroughly understand this potential threat. Director coates, have you understood first and then disrupted the russian activities disrupting our election in 2017 . I would reiterate what director pompeo just said. We worked together through this agency. It is full understanding to provide any intelligence relevant and make sure that is passed on to our policymakers, including the president. On relevant intelligence is not actively disrupting the operations of a opponent, do you agree . No. We pass it on and they make the decisions of how to implement it. As director of intelligence, have you are you aware of or leading an Intergovernmental Working Group tasked with countering russian activities, not only reporting on it, but tasks with countering those activities . Are you ware of any any type of Interagency Group or intergovernment group or state elections or state electors are critical . Essentially, we rely on the investigations that are underway. Both with the ipse committee and the special counsel. Youre not taking any special steps to disrupt russian activities that are occurring at this moment . We take all kinds of steps to disrupt russian activities in terms of what theyre trying to do. I think ill turn it over to director pompeo let me finish the rest with the gentleman. Are you finished, mr. Coates . Yes. Thank you, sir. We have a significant effort to talk to you about in the cia, and it is not just our effort but certainly all of our efforts to push back against this threat. And it is not just the russian threat, it is the iranians and chinese. Its a big broad effort. I understand, mr. Director. We have mutual threats, but one threat has been central to our and you have testified this publicly, the last election there was a russian influence. This election, did they seem to be more prepared . They have learned their lessons, the simple question i pose is, did the president direct the Intelligence Community in a coordinated effort, not merely to report, but to actively stop this activity . And the answer seems to be, that im hearing, the reporting is going on as were reporting about every threat coming into the United States. Thats let me get back to, quickly, any of the other panelists have anything to add on this point . For us, i cant say that ive been explicitly directed to, quote, blunt or actively stop. On the other hand, its very clear, generating knowledge and insight help us understand to generate better policy. Clearly, that direction has been very explicit in fairness. Right. But i think, again, how you may agree or disagree, collecting intelligence edand acting on it are two different things. Yes, and i would argue our perspectives in all of this. We talked about china and their involvement in trying to buy companies in the United States. I think what has to be pointed out, too, is they are undertaking a Significant National investment in Artificial Intelligence and quantum computing. That is dwarfing anything that the administration is proposing or suggesting. If Artificial Intelligence has even half of the intebenefits t promote its claim is going to be sort of disruptive. Quantum computing has the capacity to undercut chiptology as we know it. And the experts can correct me if im wrong. Some of the mechanisms that quantum computing can generate based on infinite measurements of gravity detect devices underground and under the water, which for anybody who is a submariner, you have to be one ranked. So where is our National Manhattan program for a. I. And quantum computing that will match the chinese . You seem to be anxious to answer that and ill let you do that. There are things we talk about in a classified setting here. Were treading very narrow line here relative to discussing this in an open meeting. I dont want to tread that line. But we do have to recognize that, again, the chinese activity to appropriate our intellectual property is obviously. They are generating their own intellectual property at a rate that could be disruptive. And we are not matching them. Again, this manhattan analogy might be a little bit out of date, but when we saw our potential effects of a Scientific Development back in the 40s, we spared no expense so that we would get it first before our opponents. The chinese seem to be making that type of commitment very publicly. Hundreds, billions of dollars that they have said publicly, they have a plan and are working a plan. And we provide the information to the extent that we can collect that information. But just like the manhattan project, we dont openly share what steps that were taking to address it. I respect that. Thank you, mr. Chair. Thank you, sir. Thank you, senator reid. I do hope youll come back to the closed session if you can this afternoon. I think youll get some fidelity in that closed session. I want to turn we are about to wrap up. Everybody can look up. There are no more questions. So you dont have to lose eye contact with us hoping youre not the guy theyre going to ask to answer. You can tell who the newbies are. They have stayed focused on the members the entire time and the ones that have been here before have been like this. I want to turn to the vice chairman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. We look forward to seeing you all this afternoon. Roberter, we hope to get some overhead questions to you this afternoon. Echoing what we have all said, i appreciate your service. But i think were hearing a lot of commonality as we think about cyber disinformation, misinformation, it really is asemiet asemimet asemimetrycal. In terms of the elections, the dutch elections, where they handcounted all the ballots. The french investigations where facebook acknowledged taking down 30,000 sites, you add them together, it is less than the cost of one f30 airplane. Pretty good bang for the buck. I remember a year or so ago langley looking at some refiner technology, and the colonel showing him around demoaning the fact that the chinese have stolen intellectual property that underlies that technology. In echoing what senator reid said, and again, i think this is where we all need to put our heads together, we just made a massive additional investment in d. O. D. Were roughly exercising our spending versus adversaries like china and russia. From the criticism standpoint and where we aught to be thinking about going forward, we may be buying the best 20th century military that money can buy when we see our peer adversaries making these investments in areas like a. I. Machine learning and quantum computing. And we need to think through this from a general strategic standpoint. I worry we have certain lowhanging fruit as we think about Chinese Tech Companies and how we set cfius right. One of the things we have discussed in the past is you look simply at the iotconnected devices, were going to double them about 10 billion to 20