Committee hearing. I would like to welcome our distinguished witnesses today. Dan coats. Mike pompeo. General robert ashley. Chris wray. Mike rogers. Robert cardella. We have a long day in front of us. I thank all of you for being here. I know how forward you looked to this one occasion on an annual basis. Since 1995, this committee has met in open forum to discuss the security threats facing the United States of america. This has never been, nor will it ever be, a comfortable conversation to have. The threats this country face are complex, involving, and without easy answers. Domains,t in multiple they are asymmetrical and unconventional, they can be launched from across the ocean or be planned in the heart of our homeland. This conversation serves a vital purpose and it is essential that it takes place in the Public Square with as much detail and can door as if possible. In my view, that is the true value and Public Service of this hearing. It provides the American People with insight that they do not normally get. Those insights are about the spectrum of threats we are up against as a nation. Importantly, those insights are also about the work that the Intelligence Community does to push back on those threats. This is work that both time and this is work that is both time and labor intensive. Thankless, but because of the tireless dedication and patriotism of mend and women who make up our Intelligence Community, it gets done on behalf of the American People every single day. I encourage all the witnesses this morning to not only address the threats to our nation but to talk about what their organizations are doing to help there this country and, to take from then, wisdom of the entire intelligence committee. I encourage everyone to familiarize themselves with its contents. It is a testament to the broad range of talents are witnesses bring to the table. It is a reminder why the country invests so much in the intelligence agencies. I am going to ask you again for your insights on the state of north Koreas Nuclear and Missile Program and what is going on politically with north koreas leadership. Perhaps you can help us differentiate between a genuine effort to reconcile with south an opportunistic attempt to drive a wedge between washington and soul. Last week we had u. S. Advisors come under fire in eastern syria. This prompted a retaliatory strike that killed dozens. In afghanistan 150 were dead last month. After 16 years of work, the incident she is nowhere near to folding. Nearsurgency is nowhere folding. Ciber is clearly the most challenging threat factor this country faces. It is one of the most concerning, given how many aspects of our daily lives in the United States can be disrupted by a wellplanned, well executed cyberattack. I would appreciate your assessment of how well we are doing when it comes to protecting the nations most , fromal Computer Networks the systems that at our military to the networks that ensure the Nations Energy supply. They are all essential to a functionality of a modern america. I fear that they are increasingly vulnerable to state and nonstate actors. Interested in hearing your assessment of the threat posed by the spread of Foreign Technology in the United States. This committee has worked diligently to sound the alarm bells when it comes to the counterintelligence and Information Security risks that come prepackaged with the goods and services of certain overseas vendors. The focus of my concern today is china. Specifically, Chinese Telecom that are widely understood to have extraordinary ties to the chinese government. Thoughtsu will trigger on this and i also ask you to provide your insights on how foreign acquisitions are jeopardizing the nations most sensitive technologies. I would like to spend a moment on the counterintelligence threat to our National Academic research and laboratory construct. What is the scale of the problem . What is the fbi doing to fight it . Finally, we have come to associate nga with modernization of the Intelligence Community. The adversaries of this country are investing and innovating faster with fewer constraints that we are. Than we are. Nga is playing an essential role in pushing the envelope with new ways of tackling problems, like having more data than you can feasibly analyzed. Analyze. E the computer learning and vision work at nga will be a bridge to help us get there. I look forward to your thoughts on what is next at nga and how the Intelligence Community as a whole can make better use of innovation and technologies to address and vance intelligence disciplines advance intelligence disciplines. I will close there because we have a lot to get to. I want to thank you, and more importantly i want to thank those who are not here with you, those who carry out the lions share of the work on behalf of the American People. The folks you represent are important to this committee. We cannot do our oversight without the work they perform before turning to the distinguished vicechairman. We will reconvene at 2 30 this afternoon in a closed session to hear from the same witnesses in a classified setting. I would ask members to reserve anything that remotely gets into a classified question for the afternoon session. Vicechairman. Thank you. Let me also welcome all of you here. Thank you all for your service. We hope that you will convey back to all the brave men and women who work for you that this committee will always have your back. This open hearing comes at an extraordinarily important time. Our nascent intelligence agencies stand at the forefront of our defense against continuing threats from terrorist groups, ideology, world regimes, nuclear proliferation, regional instability. , we have discussed this at length. We have seen the rise of nations who view themselves as competitors, if not as adversaries, of the United States. New have begun to utilize asymmetric weapons that undercut our democratic institutions, steel are most sensitive intellectual property. The me start with russia. Remain withtions your spec to the true extent of the russian interference in the 2016 elections. We will work through these in a bipartisan way on this committee. Broad, you will find a bipartisan consensus on this committee on a number of critical issues. Engaged in a coordinated attack to undermine her democracy. Undermine our democracy. The russian effort utilized our social media platforms to push and spread misinformation at an unprecedented scale. We have had more than a year to get our act together. Two of limited strategy to deter further attacks. Have ave we still do not comprehensive plan. Stated that he is every expectation that russia will try to influence our upcoming elections. State tillerson said that we are releasing russian efforts to metal in the 2018 elections. We are no better prepared than we were in 2016. Mistake, this threat did not believe in begin in 2016. We are seeing a continuous mistake, this threat did not believe in assault by rusd undermine our democratic institutions. Theyre going to keep coming at us. This but this, the president inconveniently continues to deny the threat posed by russia. He did not increase sanctions on russia when he had the chance to do so. A singlet even tweeted concern. This threat demands a whole of government response. That response needs to start with leadership at the top. Time, other threats to institutions come from right here at home. There have been some aided and abetted by Russian Internet bots and trolls who have attacked the basic integrity of the fbi. This is a dangerous trend. This campaign of innuendo and misinformation should alarm all of us, regardless of our partisan affiliation. In addition to this threat from russia, i am concerned that china has developed in all of an approach to gain access to our sensitive technologies and intellectual property. I am paying a great deal of attention to the rise of chinas tech factor. I want to ensure that the ic is tracking the direction that chinas tech giants are heading and especially to the extent that they are beholden to the chinese government. In recent years, we have seen Major Technology firms whose rise was attributed to the illicit access of u. S. Technology. Now represents some of the leading Market Players globally. Most americans have not heard of all of these companies. Western economic markets, we want to ensure they play by the rules. We need to make sure that this is not a new way for china to gain access to sensitive technology. There are a number of other concerns i hope to raise both in the hearing this morning and enclosed during this afternoon. Poised to ic post track foreign influence that relies on social media and misinformation . The chairman and i had a Group Meeting investigating this issue. Russian trolls and bots continue to push divisive content both within the United States and against all of our allies in europe. The u. K. , but france, germany, the netherlands. We saw recent indications of russian activity in mexico. The ic needs to say on top of this issue. I am worried that we do not have the clear line. Another issue. E i believe we need to do more to reform the clearance system, which gao recently placed on its list of high risk Government Programs in need of reform. Folks in serve our company are waiting on line. Theyre waiting way too long to get their security clearances. It is obviously hampering your recruitment and retention. It is costing us millions of dollars in inefficiency. Thank you to all of you to your service. Please convey our best wishes to the men and women who work with you. I look forward to our hearing. Thank you. I am going to recognize director coats. He is the only one who will give official testimony. All members of the panel are open for questions. Will recognize our members by order of seniority for up to five minutes. With that, director coats, the floor is yours. I want to start by apologizing for my raspy voice. I have been fighting through some of the sickness that is going around. I may have to clear my throat a few times. I apologize for that. It strikes me listening to your opening remarks and the vicechairmans opening remarks excuse me. We have continued to have a very interaction of interactive presence in this committee. The issues that you have raved rays are issues that we talk about continuously with you. We want to continue to work with sides ofully on both the aisle as we go forward looking at what the Intelligence Community can provide for this committee. Vicechairman warner, members of the committee, we thank you for the opportunity to be with you here. There have been some changes on the panel since we were here last year. This last visit before this committee. He deeply regrets not having to come before you in the future years. He has enjoyed this process very much. Considering his marriage of marital status. We have two new members. They have been looking forward to this day, i am sure, with great anticipation. I say all of that because what you are looking at here is a team. I. T. Networks together, in terms a team that works together in terms of how we look at policymakers with the intelligence that they need. It is an honor for us to be here. I think this team reflects the hard work the Intelligence Community, in the testimonies and answers the question today. Before i begin the sobering portion of my remarks, let me take a moment to a knowledge positive development for the Intelligence Community and express our thanks to members of the community for this port in the renewing of the authorities of the recent 702 authorization. This is our most important legislative issue because it is our most important collection issue against Foreign Terrorists and threats to america. We appreciate the work that the done, particularly this team, in reaching that goal. We face a complex, volatile, and challenging environment. Conflictof interstate is higher than any time to the end of the cold war. There is a growing use of weapons of masterstroke mass destruction. Are using ciber and other instruments of power to shape societies and markets. We have entered a. That could best be described as a race for technological superiority. We seek to sow division they seek to sow division and the United States. Nonstate actors, including terrorist and criminal groups, stateploding week capacity in africa, the middle causing instability and violence both within states and among states. Topic. Not cover every that will be a relief to the committee. We are submitting a written statement for the record with additional details. Let me turn to global threats. I would like to start with cyber threat. It is one of my top concerns. The United States is under attack. Under attack by entities that are using ciber cyber to penetrate every major action that takes place in the United States. From u. S. Businesses to the federal government to state and local governments, the United States is threatened by Cyber Attacks every day. Russia, china, and iran posed the greatest cyber threats. Other nationstates, terrorist organizations, criminal organizations, are ever more technically capable groups and individuals. They use Cyber Operations to their objectives. Some of these actors are likely to pursue even more aggressive Cyber Attacks with the intent of the grading our Democratic Values and weakening our alliances. Persistent and disruptive Cyber Operations will continue against using elections as opportunities to undermine democracy, so discard, and undermine our values. Chinese Cyber Espionage and attack capabilities will continue to support chinas National Security and economic priorities. Penetrate u. S. O and Ally Networks for espionage and lay the groundwork for future Cyber Attacks. Theh korea will continue use of Cyber Operations to raise funds, launch attacks, and gather intelligence against the United States. Terrorists will use the internet to raise funds and promote their maligned messages. Criminals will exploit cyber tools to finance their operations. Topic for you is weapons of mass destruction. Overall, state efforts to wmds, theor acquire itiverance and systems causes a major threat to the u. S. And its allies. In addition to its Ballistic Missile tests and growing number of nuclear warheads, north korea will continue its longstanding chemical and biological warfare programs also. Russia will remain the most capable wmd power and is expanding its Nuclear Weapon capabilities. China will continue to expand its weapons of mass destruction its nuclear arsenal. Implementation has extended the time it would take to develop a Nuclear Weapon. From several months to about a year. Provided that a rent continues to adhere to the deals major provisions. Pakistan is developing new types of Nuclear Weapons, including short range tactical weapons. State and nonstate actors, including the Syrian Regime and process andue to have used chemical weapons in syria and iraq. We continue to be concerned about some of these actors and their pursuit of biological weapons. Turning now to terrorism. Terrorism threat is pronounced and spans the spectrum from isis and al qaeda to Lebanese Hezbollah and other affiliated terrorist organizations, as well as the statesponsored activities of the rent. ,. S. Based violent extremists including its fires and self radical individuals, represent the primary and most difficult to detect terrorism threat in the United States. Isis claimed to having a functioning caliphate that governs populations is all but 40. Isis remains a threat and will akely focus on regrouping in rack and syria in ungoverned portions of those countries. It will enhance its global cause,e, championing its Planning International attack, and encouraging members and synthesizers to attack their home countries. To attack their home countries. Moving on, as if we do not have enough threats on years earth, we need to look to the heavens. The Global Expansion of the space industry will extend space enabled capabilities and Situational Awareness to nationstate and commercial space actors in the coming years. Continued china will to expand their space based reconnaissance, communications and navigation systems, in terms of numbers of satellites and applications for use. Both russia and chinese capweapons will mature over the next two years as east country pursues antisatellite weapons as a means to reduce u. S. And allied military effectiveness and perceptions of u. S. Military advantage in space. Topic is topical transnational organized crime. It poses a growing threat to u. S. And allied interests. These criminal groups will sup