Transcripts For CSPAN FBI Director Wray Testifies On Nationa

Our nation recently observed the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of september 11, 2001. Nearly two decades later we continue to mourn the nearly 3,000 lives lost that terrible day and keep their loved ones in our prayers. This committee and the department of Homeland Security were established in the wake of 9 11 to help prevent future attacks on our soil. Regardless of who was chairman weve held regular hearings examining worldwide threats with leaders from the department of Homeland Security, fbi, and National Counter Terrorism Center. And regardless of who has occupied the white house, whether democrat or republican, weve received cooperation in that effort. Today was supposed to be no different. Unfortunately as we see from the empty chair in front of us mr. Wolf is not here to represent the department of Homeland Security. Let me be clear about how we got here. The committee began engaging with the department over three months ago to secure participation alongside his colleagues from the fbi and National Counter terrorism sfr. Any assertion that the administration committed to having dhs, fbi and nctc testify before this committee at a worldwide threat hearing in july is false. Dhs teptively offered a couple of dates but then could not agree with its fbi and nctc counter parts. In fact it was the department of Homeland Security that conveyed to the committee that september 17th was the earliest mr. Wolf would be available to testify at this hearing. In the interest of receiving mr. Wolfs testimony the committee agreed to the offered date. It was not until last week that the department informed the committee that mr. Wolf would be reneging on the commitment to testify in anticipation of being nominated for secretary of Homeland Security. I would note that despite his refusal to testify today mr. Wolf has spoken to the media on multiple occasions since President Trump announced he intended to nominate mr. Wolf to be secretary of Homeland Security including no fewer than four appearances on fox news. Mr. Wolf had run indepartmethe of Homeland Security for the last 10 months and has been responsible for numerous decisions directly relevant to the subjects the committee intends to explore. With that in mind last week i wrote mr. Wolf to make clear theres no legal prohibition bearing, barring a nominees testimony and to urge him to honor his commitment. In response the department again declined to provide mr. Wolf to testify at this hearing. Faced with continued refusal, on friday i issued a subpoena for his appearance in accordance with house and Committee Rules. Regrettably he has chosen to defy the subpoena. That he would refuse to come before the committee after committing to do so should appall every member of this committee. Insisting mr. Wolf keep his commitment to testifying before congress isnt playing politics. Its doing our job. Congress has the authority and obligation to execute its constitutional oversight responsibilities regarding mr. Wolfs decision and the departments action during his tenure. As chairman its my responsibility to ensure the committee fulfills its constitutional responsibilities. 19 years after the attacks of 9 11 we continue to face grave threats to the homeland including the rise of domestic terrorism, ongoing foreign interference in the 2020 elections and a coronavirus pandemic that has claimed nearly 200,000 american lives. As a person running the department of Homeland Security mr. Wolf should be here to testify as secretaries of homeland securities have done before. Instead we have an empty chair, an appropriate metaphor for the trump administrations dereliction on so many of these critical Homeland Security issues. Mr. Wolf may attempt to evade oversight, and the department may try silly stunts to distract from this hearing, but we will not waiver. The stakes are just too high. Indeed former department officials, the administrations own political appointees are coming forward to sound the alarm that our nations security is being compromised in favor of the president s political interest. Americans who care about securing the homeland and upholding our most sacred values expect their representatives to hold the department of Homeland Security and this administration accountable. Be assured that under my chairmanship i will not waiver on my commitment to doing so today and in the future. To that end im pleased that director ray and director miller are here today. I look forward to their testimony and the members questions. The chair now recognizes the Ranking Member of the full committee, a gentleman from alabama, mr. Rogers, for an Opening Statement. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Before i get started i wanted to acknowledge that our newest member of the committee, mr. Garcia who i know is going to be a great addition in the future. We have made Great Strides to thwart global jihadist operations and to stop threats before they reach our shores. However, today global jihadists are joined by cyber hackers, rival nation states and transnational criminal organizations. Together they present incredible new risk to our economy, our safety and our way of life. Make no mistake the threats to our homeland have never been more real than they are today. Thats why its important that we as members of this committee understand those threats. It is our job to ensure that dhs, fbi and our Intelligence Community have the resources they need to continue to dismantle organizations and protect our homeland. I look forward to hearing more about the administration, how the administration is countering the threat from china and iran and others who seek to do us harm. Mr. Chairman, im also disappointed dhs is not here today. But i want the record to be very clear on why dhs is not represented. It is not the fault of the department or this administration. Acting secretary wolf offered to testify before this committee in both july and august. Unfortunately the majority refused to make either of those dates worked. Now due to his nomination mr. Wolf is prohibited from testifying under a policy thats been in place under both republican and democrat administrations for decades. Nevertheless, due to the significance of todays hearing the department offered to have mr. Cuccinelli testify. Hes the second highest ranking official at dhs and perfectly qualified and informed on todays subject matter. I ask unanimous consent to include his testimony for the record. Without objection. Thank you. He should be here today providing departments perspective on those threats we face and what dhs is doing to counter them. Instead of having a productive hearing with mr. Cuccinelli the chairman chose subpoena then empty chair mr. Wolf. This is a political stunt, a huge disservice to our committee and to the public. This is the single most important hearing we hold in this committee, but unfortunately as with most things of this congress the majority has chosen to play politics. As a result the public is being deprived of critical information from dhs. Perhaps thats the real reason why this majority didnt want mr. Cuccinelli here. Having the public hear about all the good things dhs is doing to protect them might undermine the radical lefts latest rallying cry, dismantle dhs. Unfortunately direct ray and im sorry, fortunately direct wray and miller are here to provide us with their valuable perspectives. I look forward to hearing from both of you about the threats we are facing, and with that i yield back. Thank you very much. The committee does not want to hear testimony from the department. Therefore after mr. Wolf declined our invitation we issued a subpoena to obtain his testimony. The socalled Standard Practice by which the Department Says mr. Wolf cannot testify is the administrations own selfimposed limitation. I also note that this is an administration whose respect of socalled precedents and even laws is highly situational. If the minority wanted to hear testimony from mr. Cuccinelli they had every right to invite him to appear as their witness at this hearing today. Im not aware of the minoritys requesting his testimony. Other members of the committee are reminded that under Committee Rules Opening Statements may be submitted for the record. Members are also reminded that the subcommittees will operate according to the guidelines laid out by myself and Ranking Members in our july 8th colloquy. I welcome our panel of witnesses. Our first witness is director of the federal bureau of investigations, christopher wray. Director wray began his Law Enforcement career in 1997 serving in numerous positions at the Justice Department before assuming his current role in 2017. Next we have the director of the National Counter Terrorism Center, christopher miller. Director miller served in the United States military from 1983 to 2014, and in numerous civilian National Security roles before assuming his current position. Without objection the witness full statement will be inserted in the record. I now ask each witness to summarize his statement in five minutes or the best you can do within that Time Beginning with director wray. Morning chairman thompson, Ranking Member rogers and members of the committee. Im honored to be here today on behalf of men and women of the fbi to discuss our nations top threats from the fbis perspective and what were doing to counter those threats. I know we all share a lot of the same concerns about topics ranging from international and domestic terrorism to Cyber Security to the violence in our streets and particularly this year to the threat of foreign influence in our elections, and thats just to name a few. And i look forward to updating you on these and other important topics this morning. But id like to begin by covering quickly a few items that have been particularly top of mind for us at the fbi over the past few weeks. First terrorism remains the fbis top priority although the nature of that threat has evolved significantly since 9 11. We are ever vigilant in our efforts to thwart attacks by International Terrorist groups like al qaeda and isis. Those groups pose a threat not just to americans overseas but also here at home most notably by those we call homegrown violent extremists, often lone actors inspired by foreign terrorist selfradicalized online and motivated to attack soft targets with readily available weapons. Were also working around the clock to prevent attacks by domestic terrorists who are inspired by one or more extremist ideologies to commit violent act. In recent years weve been laser focused on threats by racially or ethnically motivated violence extremists. They too are often radicalized online or mobilized quickly to carry out their plans. Just last year while he was planning to blow up a synagogue in colorado. Were focused on making arrests before a criminal connect. Weve successfully thwarted potential terrorist attacks in kansas city, fachla, cleveland, oklahoma city, boston, phoenix and other locations. Now in recent months weve witnessed protests in various places around the country, many members of congress have raised questions about those protests. Although the majority of protesters have been peaceful we have opened investigations on individuals involved in criminal activity at these protests, some of whom adhere to violent extremist agendas designed to sow discord and upheaval. Let me be clear, we do not investigate groups or individuals based on ideology or the exercise of First Amendment protected activity alone. But when the ideology leads someone to commit criminal acts and pursue violence the fbi will not hesitate to take appropriate action. Thats why weve been working closely with our federal, state and local partners to ensure the safety of all of our citizens including i should say the safety of those trying to exercise their First Amendment rights peacefully. We in Law Enforcement must keep our communities safe and secure while safeguarding our citizens Constitutional Rights and civil liberties. As ive said before one need not and must not come at the expense of the other. We also remain focused on other threats. In less than two months, of course, americans will exercise one of their most cherished rights to vote in a free and fair election. Americans must have confidence in our Voting System and our election infrastructure. Thats why the security of our elections is and will continue to be one of our highest priorities. We will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections, and were working closely with our federal, state and local partners as well as the private sector to share information, bolster security and identify and disrupt any threats. Just recently, for example, we shared threat indicators with both facebook and twitter that allowed them to take down fake accounts created as part of a russian disinformation campaign. Before those accounts could develop a broader following. Turning to the cyber arena were focused on an increasingly diverse array of threats from our cyber adversaries, from state sponsored seeber intrusions by nation states like china, russia, iran and north korea to sophisticated cyber criminals seeking to exploit technical vulnerabilities primarily for personal profit. Just yesterday i announced the fbis new Cyber Strategy leveraging our unique expertise and authorities to impose risk and consequences on our cyber adversaries. Were focusing on results, and that means were working to enable our partners operations as well as our own. To take one example the fbi and nsa recently joined to ecpose highly sophisticated Russian Military intelligence malware, providing the private sector and other government partners the indicators they need to disrupt that tool. We also face increasingly blended threat of state sponsored economic espionage facilitated by cyber intrusions. In july based on the fbis investigative work doj indicted two doj hackers working with the ministry of state security for carrying out a Global Computer Intrusion Campaign that targeted hundreds of victims including i should note Companies Developing covid19 vaccines, Testing Technology and treatment. With that kind of behavior china continues to undercut their own claims of being a trusted and effective partner of the international community. Just yesterday we unsealed charges against five chinese hackers who were targeting victims around the world from their safe haven in china. With our partners weve now arrested two of their coconspirators in malaysia and seized or took down hundreds of the hackers accounts, servers or domains. Now, ive touched on only a handful of the important threats we face, and quickly at that. Of course there are many significant others. As the threats evolve in scale, impact, complexity and agility were relying on our deep well of expertise, intelligence and partnerships. Im committed to ensuring that the bureau does great work while adhering to our core tenants of fidelity, bravery and integrity. In these challenging times i tell my folks that weve got to keep calm and tackle hard. Remaining faithful to our core values and best traditions while making sure were always doing the right thing in the right way. Thank you. Happy to take your questions. Thank you very much for your testimony. I now recognize director miller to summarize his statement for 5 minutes. Thank you, sir. Chairman thompson, Ranking Member rogers, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the global counter caretism environment and to highlight the tireless work of the professionals of your National Counter Terrorism Center. Im truly honored and humbled to lead such an Extraordinary Group of patriots. As my statement for the record reflects todays terrorism threat to the United States and our allies and less acute but more ideologically and geographicically diffuse emanating from more groups and places than it did in 2001. Isis and alqaeda operate in more than two dozen countries worldwide. Iran and its shia allies increasingly threaten overseas. And lone actors inspired by a range of ideologies impose a terrorism threat on u. S. Soil. Our focus remains on defeating alqaeda. Its affiliates and other terrorist actors while defending our shores from terrorist entry. We believe this threat picture will only grow more complex over the coming year as technological advances, changing geopolitical dynamics and instability resulting from Global Pandemic create more opportunities for terrorists to benefit. However, the u. S. And our ct partners worldwide can exploit some of these same dynamics to our advantages. The complex landscape requires thoughtful responses that evolve with our adversaries, and we apry the lessons weve learned over the last 19 years to adapt for the future. The National Counter Terrorism Center