Break. We will see you at 12 45. Senator holly will be next. [inaudible conversations] thank you. Appreciate the break. Mr. Comey, are you with us . Yes sir. Thank you very much. Was that a sufficient rate for you, are you okay . Yes, thank you. Senator holly. Thank you mr. Chairman. Weve heard a number of things this morning and we heard you say a number of times that the oig found problems in the fisa applications across the board, but of course it was only this fisa application, these involving carter page that you signed off on that drew an unprecedented review from the pfizer court, which im sure you remember. Let me quote from that fisa court order the frequency and seriousness of these errors in the case that in a sensitive nature had an unusually high level of review in both the doj and the federal bureau of investigation have called into question the reliability of the information proffered in other fbi applications. Do you remember that order from the court . It came after i left as i recall, but i remember reading about it, yes. Have you ever known the court to issue such an order . Yes. You have known the court to issue such orders in the past . Yes. Shortly before 9 11, there was a significant criticism by the fisa court and fisa applications. And the court said the frequency and seriousness of the errors led it to doubt the reliability of all fbi applications and all other cases . I dont member the exact words, but something similar as i recall. At least one agent from appearing for making fisa applications. That isnt what they did here. The fisa court said they have reason to doubt the reliability of fbi applications across cases because of the level of misleading information that you personally signed off on. Do you regret your role in this unprecedented misleading of a fisa court . I dont regret my role why not . Why dont you regret your role in the unprecedented misleading of a fisa court . I regret the fbi information that was inaccurate, incomplete. It should have been updated. Do you regret that you signed off on it . I regret that it happened. What the fbi director does in connection with fisa is actually narrow. Its important that it be accurate. I regret that very much. You said several times and i dont understand. The certification that the statute requires is a certification by the fbi director as to the contents of the application. You signed off on it, the fisa court said it was so misleading, that they now had reason to doubt the fbis truthfulness across the board. Are you responsible for these certifications or not . I dont believe you are accurately describing the statutory requirement. Are you responsible for the certifications were not, answer my question. I sign certifications on every fisa including these. Are you responsible for this misleading evidence given the fisa court, yes or no . Yes in the sense of command response ability, no in that i didnt have personal knowledge that would have led me to understand we were not to supply incomplete information. Lets talk about what personal knowledge you had. When you signed the application, you believedes mr. Steel believs working for the Democratic Party, didnt you . I knew that he was working for political opponents of President Trump. Let me remind you of your testimony under oath in 2018 before the House Oversight committee in which you said, quote, steele was retained by republicans during the primary season and then his work was underwritten after that i democrats opposed to mr. Trump during the general election season. Now, surely you recognize at the time that relying so heavily on a biased source would undermine Public Confidence and fbi activities, didnt you . Know i did not. You told the House Oversight committee december 7th, 2018, quote, when you are the leader of a justice agency, thats you, the appearance of bias is as important as the existence of actual bias. You also said a reasonable appearance could corrupt the American Peoples faith in your work as actual bias can. Do you stand by those remarks . Very much so. But you never allowed the Democratic Party to leverage the federal governments most invasive capabilities against President Trump, and you personally signed off on it. You also knew at the time that other officials in the department of justice have serious concerns. Do you know who stuart evans is . Hes a lawyer and the National Security division of the doj under president obama, wasnt he . I dont know for sure. I think he was a career official in the department of justice. In the division of the department of justice before the first carter page application mr. Evans raised serious concerns about the partisan nature of the information provided by mr. Steele, did he not . Hneeded if the Inspector General reports it on pages 136 and 137 of the report. And you. Knew of those concerns before you signed off on the application, didnt you . I dont think i knew before. I remember reading the footnote. The Inspector General found and i quote, october 12, 2016, evans concern was briefed to comey. And you signed off knowing the thearch was funded by Democratic Party, knowing senior officials in the department of justice had serious concerns you signed off nonetheless. Lets talk about what you did or didnt know when you certified that application did you know the allegations in the dossier came from some sources, not from their own knowledge . There was a network of sources and some sources. Did you ask who the primary so source was, did you ask the fbi to bring any steps to identify before submitting the application to the fisa court . What the Inspector General concluded is the application seemed factually and legally sufficient and he had no questions or concerns before he signed it. Surely you realize the sourcess identity and his motives the sub source we now know may well have been a russian agent that that would affect his credibility, correct . I thought it was important we were informing the court of any potential bias from any source andth i remember reading languae in that initial filing that addressed the potential bias the reporting. So your testimony now is that you informed thehe court of potential problems with the sub source of political motivations, connections to the Foreign Governments. I understood the question to be about whether we informed them about potential bias. I didnt know the identity or any information about the sub source. You personally authorized a surveillance on an individual associated with the president ial campaign during that campaigns ongoing time period in october of 2016. You signed off personally on the further applications based on information from the source that you believed worked for the Democratic Party and the source of information coming up for a suspected russian agent, yet you did nothing to try to verify any of this information. You brushed aside the concern of highlevel National Security lawyers at the department of justice. How are the American People to trust you or the fbi following abuses like this . I disagree with the predicate. The fbi is an organization that is independent and flawed. Im not necessarily worried about the fbi as a whole. Im worried about you and what you certified that led the court to conclude that it had been mislead it repeatedly and due to the nature it could no longer trust with th the federal bureaf investigation needed so what you said and subsequent cases those i suggest to you that is an incredible dereliction of duty andmi a betrayal of your responsibility as the director of the fbi. If i could, one last thing i want to follow up on. The letter to the chair man from john radcliffe, which i know you have seen as you mentioned earlier, he says on september 7, 2016, u. S. Intelligence officials forwarded and investigated referral to the fbi director james comey regarding the u. S. President ial candidate Hillary Clintons approval plan concerning donald trump and Russian Hackers as the means to distract the public from her use of a private mail server, did you open up an investigation . I dont know what that refers to. That doesnt ring a bell with me. You didnt receive any investigative referral of this nature . I dont remember it. I dont remember seeing anything described in that letter. I have to say i realize my time is expired. I find it extraordinary. They received no attention from the fbi. The director and others have plenty of time to go and seek surveillance warrants that are so flawed the court has said it can trust with the fbi says in future cases. This is an extraordinary abuse of power and its time we hold people responsible. Thank you, senator blumenthal. Thank you mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for your service to the nation and for your family as well. Your wife in particular. I think that this hearing is likely to attract as much attention and land with the same giant flood as the previous hearings. The American People are really focused on the direct and imminent threats to the nation. The pandemic continues to kill almost a thousand a day given to the neglect. People continue to lose jobs. Millions are unemployed and Small Businesses are struggling. Here we are relitigating a controversy that is 4yearsold an investigation into russian interference the russian interference is ongoing and at this very moment. The Security Director warned publicly russia continues to spread disinformation in the u. S. That is designed to undermine our democracy. And i can say the information we have received in briefings is chilling. We have received that information and confidential classified briefings that i wish could be made known to the American Public with of the same kind of alacrity documents have been declassified in the preceding and they need to know about the threat of White Supremacists. The current director of the fbi said again, publicly, racially motivated violent extremists are, quote, a National Threat priority. A National Threat priority. A security danger to this country. They are the same White Supremacists the United States last night said should stand by. That statement is one of the most important and horrifying in my lifetime. Mr. Comey, in your time as fbi director, did you see an uptick in white supremacist activities in the United States . And if so, with what kind of consequence . Yes, it is my recollection the potential acts of violence and intimidation and all the things that come with a criminal group and aim in the way that mr. Ray has articulated . He was assigned to the counterterrorism division. Do you think that more resources can be devoted to this threat . You can never the way that these groups do. With senator durbin, hirono, warner, kane, joe legrand and others, and there is a measure that would seek to address the growing imminent threat of White Supremacists impact and violence. I commend you and the current director for focusing on it. I want to turn to the statements that earlier you made in response to senator durbin about the 420 million in debt that has been disclosed as owing by the president. Youve done a number of National Security background checks. And in those background checks, my understanding is a question relates to debt owed by the individuals. Is that correct . Yes, thats correct. The reason for that question is to indicate and disclose whether or not that individual has concealed, correct . Correct. One aspect of exploring the financial situation is that. Why is it that those facts are important . Because deciding whether someone is trustworthy with National Security information involves understanding of they are vulnerable to exploitation by an adversary or criminal group. So somebody owes a lot of money and is trying to hide that, that allows thehe adversaries to gain leverage over the person and force them to do something they shouldnt do and to try to recruit the Foreign Government officials to become assets of the United States government, so the adversaries do the same to us. The president of the United States isnt subject to any background security investigations as most highranking officials are. But it is the concealment of that debt, not only its gargantuan size, but the hiding of it that potentially make them vulnerable or extortion or other proper influence, correct . Thats right. Even if it were fully transparent it would still be concerned about the vulnerability of the adversary would cut a secret deal to reduce the debt even if the public knows about it. So, any individual in the position of responsibility who is concealing the debt as well as the debt itself makes him or her more likely to be an asset in the influence or subject to extortion, correct . It creates a serious counterintelligence concern that you would want to address in deciding on the suitability. Thank you very much. Thank you. Senator, to follow up on senator blumenthals questions, would you be concerned about a counterintelligence threat or compromise of a candidates Family Member receiving millions of dollars from a corrupt in ukraine, that a candidates Family Member was receiving millions of dollars from the deputy mayor of moscow, that a candidates Family Member was getting 1. 5 Million Investment portfolio from the china bank . Would that concern you . If i were still in the fbi i would be concerned to exert leverage over a government anficial, potential Government Official or someone close to them in an effort to influence them. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, if i may just clarify, the question you just raised is a hypothetical related to a non Government Official. What we have here, and what the records reveal quite starkly the president of the United States, the commanderinchief is vulnerable to leverage and manipulation, even possible blackmail. I understand your point, and you have the right to make it. It wasnt a hypothetical. These things happen. Senator. Thank you mr. Chairman and mr. Comey for being here. I am not going to ask some questions that have already been asked by prosecutors and lawyers whose preambles and predicates you have rejected. So instead of this, i want to go more from the management perspective. We had general horowitz before the committee, Inspector General horowitz, and he identified as you are aware of the 17 errors and omissions. As i look at some of the errors and omissions, do you think we know one that was identified as a crime what do we do with the remainder . In the reports and findings do you think they were valid . I do, and i hope that it was followed by a root cause analysis to figure out exactly why this happened and how should dowe change to make sure it doesnt happen again. Lets say you came in as the new director of the fbi after the prior director and their Organization Study we found these errors and omissions. If it didnt rise to the level of a crime in your opinion, do you think that it at least should have prompted terminations and disciplinary action on the part of these are all highly trained, highly educated, highly experienced professionals in the fbi. By the way, the majority of them are great people, but its a big organization. What about the remainder . You are the director and got this report from the inspector cageneral. What do you do, what is your remediation plan . Youou say you would want to streamline the process. What would you be doing right now to address the 16 other errors and omissions that occurred under prior to your watch lacks. Id be doing two things. Looking wide and narrow. Wide to see with the systematic problems are and narrow to try to understand when these employees made these decisions, what were they thinking. So the misconduct turns on whether someone was intentionally engaged in wrongdoing and a range of misconduct short of that. You want to assess that with personal knowledge and make the judgments based on that. You were quoted and i want to read this so i dont get the words wrong,g, but saying that t was handled in a thoughtful responsible way by the doj and fbi. He went on to say that it was abused as nonsense. Do you still stand by that . I dont think that it was abuse but wrong in having confidence in the process and oversight. I was too confident in this extensive complicated system. What would have prompted you on the front end to think that it was okay . I think you already said in prior testimony there were things in the process that should have been improved. Why under your watch were we not already trying to do those kind of changes . My confidence was based on the fact that it was regular oversight in the department of justice, regular audits of the cases, and that i also understood the complexity of the process. Agents would complain to me everywhere i went. Its too hard to get if i said. Too many people to check off and too many people to review my work. Knowing the process that included regular audits gave me confidence as a business leader, government leader that we have a sound healthy process and that was wrong. Mr. Comey, one of the things that worry me since we are talking about an investigation of someone running for president of the United States, i, like senator sasse, resisted some of the changes that my colleague senator lee was putting forward, but i feel like i have confidence in the proces