Transcripts For CSPAN3 FBI Director Wray On Domestic Threats 20240713

Good afternoon. This hearing will come to order. I want to thank our witnesses for your service to our country. 13 people lost their lives, 30 people were injured. It underscores what we are dealing with here in terms of a threat environment. This is my ninth annual threat hearing that i have either chaired or participated in. I often say im not the most uplifting character. Those i could say that in nine years, i have seen tremendous progress being made and we have reduced these threats and all is well. Unfortunately, we face the same threats. If anything, the threats are growing. Nine years ago, we were talking about the blind use of drive drones or the use of social media. We face the same threats. They are evolving. Terrorist groups are metastasizing. They are spreading around the world. , it has happened is grown more complex and difficult. You have tremendous responsibilities on your shoulders. Really, i will turn it over to my Ranking Member and we will get to witness testimony. Thank you. Thank you for your service and thank you for being here today. As we all know, the department of Homeland Security was created to defend the United States from any and all threats to the safety of our nation. The department and its leaders are critical to our National Security efforts and we rely on them to effectively coordinate with both the National Counterterrorism center and the fbi to provide a unified effort to defend the homeland. When dhs was first created in the aftermath of 9 11, the agencys mission was very clear. Combat the scorch of International Terrorism and ensure that we can say with confidence, never again. Over time, the narrow focus has expanded. As the threats to our homeland have grown and become more dynamic, new terrorist groups devoted to striking america and our allies. Adversaries and cyber criminals seek to infiltrate and disrupt the nations cyber networks, posing an asymmetric threat that could cripple or economy with the click of a button. Foreign interference in our Domestic Affairs has presented a complicated new challenge that we are still scrambling to adequately address. Terrorism,omestic acts of violence carried out by white supremacist have targeted minority communities all across our country. Every year, we hold hearings to examine these and other threats facing our country. And to hear from the heads of the agencies responsible for keeping america safe. Is builty of america on partnership. Partnership between our security agencies here today, between Agency Leadership and their staff, and partnership between congress and the administration. As we convene this hearing without a secretary of Homeland Security, acting or otherwise, im deeply concerned that these partnerships are starting to unravel. Absence of steady leadership at the department of Homeland Security is a driving force for the institutional breakdowns that risk making us less safe. And thertment needs stablen people deserve leadership that will empower the brave men and women at dhs to protect the homeland, respond to detra disasters, and allow our nation to grow and prosper. The committee will continue to exercise to make sure communities are protected from these threats, but that requires cooperation from your agencies and constitutionally mandated requests. Im extremely disappointed in your Agency Failures to provide a sufficient, or in the case of the fbi, any, any response to bipartisan requests from this committee about the growing threat of domestic terrorism and white supremacist violence. One should live in pure of being attacked in their neighborhoods or houses of worship. Addressa threat we must to protect the very core of what makes us a very diverse people. Im grateful that your departments have taken the important step of presenting a framework for addressing this threat. We cannot stop with a simple acknowledgment or strategy put onto paper. This threat is not theoretical and neither should our response be. I insist you require outstanding requests. This committee and your agency must Work Together to keep americans safe and make sure they are successful. I think each of you for being here today. What youre departments are doing to address these threats and how the committee and agencies Work Together to protect our National Security. Thank you for being here. I look forward to your testimony. It is a tradition to swear in witnesses. Stand and raise your right hand. Do you swear that the testimony you give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth . Please be seated. In light of the secretarys announced retirement, david glad away galway is the undersecretary. He was confirmed by the senate on august 3, 2017. He has over 26 years of Intelligence Community and lawenforcement experience. Including serving in senior positions within the office of the director of National Intelligence and the fbi. Chairman johnson, distinguished members of the committee, it is my honor to testify on behalf of the department of Homeland Security to address todays emerging worldwide threats. Let me briefly touch upon my role. I currently serve as the chief Intelligence Officer and undersecretary at the department of Homeland Security. Im responsible for ensuring our Homeland Security partners have access to intelligence they need to keep the country safe. My focus is to share that our intelligence is shared with operators across all levels of government to mitigate threats. My office generates intelligence that is unbiased, is based on sound and analytic judgment. I would like to speak about threats we face from Foreign Terrorist Organizations, domestic terrorism, cyber and transnational organized crime. Iserpinning these threats increasing adversarial engagement from nationstates. Domestic terrorism and targeted violence. I want to address the most pervasive threats we face on the homeland which is a targeted attack, whether it is domestic terrorism or a hate crime. There is no moral ambiguity. Oftenextremists are targeting race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity. Loan attackers perpetrate these attacks and advocates hate and violence. They have adopted an increasingly transactional outlook the last two years. Largely driven by technological advances and the use of social media. We are focused on identifying the behaviors indicative of an individual at risk of carrying out targeted violence. As a former Police Officer and part of the 1999 denver response to an attack at columbine high school, i have firsthand experience for this type of violence. At the federal bureau of investigation, we leave the investigation to prosecute these crimes. Dhs informs, equips and drains partners to enhance prevention. Foreign terrorist organizations remain a core priority of the counterterrorism position. We continue to make substantial progress to mitigate threats that these groups pose, however Foreign Terrorist Organizations remain intent on striking the country by radicalizing the most honorable americans. They seek to inspire violence, encourage individuals to attack our society. Isis and al qaeda represent significant National Security threats. Cyber threats remain a Strategic Risk for the United States. Threatening our National Security, economic prosperity, and safety. Nationstates cyber criminals are increasing the sophistication of their attacks. China, russia, iran and north korea are using advanced Cyber Capabilities in order to try to steal trade secrets and threaten democratic institutions. The foreign intelligence threat has evolved into one of the most significant threats our country has seen in decades. Use onlinearies influence operations to try to weaken democratic institutions, undermine u. S. Alliances, threaten our Economic Security and shape policy outcomes. We expect our adversaries to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from the current experience, suggesting the Threat Landscape will look different in the future. Transnational organized crime, organizations have a destabilizing effect on the western hemisphere. By corrupting governments and government officials, eroding institutions, they profit from a range of illicit activities including human smuggling, extortion and trafficking. Their activity has led to record levels of crime and murder in mexico with a direct impact on the safety and security of our citizens. I want to address the events in mexico from the last 24 hours. The reprehensible killing of women, children and infants is a stark example of how these brutal organizations operate. The violence and disregard for human life is barbaric. Transnational organizations are motivated by money and power. They continually adjust their. Perations to avoid detection they are quick to take advantage of improved technology, cheaper transportation and better distribution methods. In many ways, cartels operate with the same sophistication of a foreign intelligence service. In conclusion, im very proud to ensure the safety and security of all americans. I want to thank you for the Committee Support to this department. Its a privilege to represent the department of Homeland Security. I look forward to your questions this afternoon. Thank you, mr. Secretary. Our next witness is the honorable christopher wray. Hes the director of the federal bureau of investigation. He was sworn in as the eighth fbi director. He served as assistant attorney general at the department of justice. Thank you, good afternoon. I am honored to be here today representing roughly 37,000 men and women of the fbi. It has been just over two years since i became fbi director and i have had the opportunity to visit all 56 of our field offices, many of them more than once from all across the country. I met with partners of every state represented by this committee. Ive had the opportunity to meet with every headquarters operations. I have a much better sense now of what we are all up against. Frankly, the threats we face today are very different from over a decade ago. They are evolving in scale, complexity, impact, agility and the fbis moving forward to meet those head on. Preventing terrorist attacks remains the fbis top priority. Even as we recognize our countries important achievements , with the death of albaghdadi, we know we have to stay vigilant against that threat both overseas and here at home. That includes people bent on joining terrorist organizations where they flourished abroad. Folks like the two milwaukee men sentenced earlier this year who were swearing allegiance and trying to travel to syria to join the fight with isis. We are laser focused on preventing terrorist attacks by people who are already here in the United States, people we refer to as homegrown violent extremists. Lone, loan actors ifteb actors, these folks are inspired by foreign ideologies and operate through websites and encrypted messaging platforms. We are also focused on threats of domestic terrorism attacks carried out by a wide variety of violent extremist ideologies. Thats everything from anarchist groups to racially motivated violent extremists. To confront these threats, we are working closely with lawenforcement partners and reaching out to all the communities we serve. Our efforts are paying off. We are being proactive, like in the case of a man in miami arrested in august for threatening to kill every american in miami. Or the las vegas man who had been discussing a synagogue attack and had already purchased bomb making materials. Or the man we arrested this past friday who also planned to attack a synagogue in colorado using pipe bombs and dynamite. These cases present a unique challenge because in this country, we dont investigate a person because of their beliefs. Homegrownle, like the violent extremists i was describing earlier, tend to work online quickly at the speed of social media, leaving dangerously low warning time to attack. You, after having walked through the crime scene at the tree of life synagogue and visited with the teams at the scenes in el paso and dayton, this threat is never far from our minds and is a focus all across the fbi. We dont have time to talk about all the top threats that we are dealing with, but i hope we can talk about more of them as a respond to your questions, in particular on the Counter Intelligence front where the Chinese Government is targeting our renovation through a wider than ever range of actors. Not just chinese Intelligence Officers conducting traditional and cyber espionage, but people they enlist to help them like contracted hackers, certain graduate students and researchers, Insider Threats within u. S. Businesses, and a whole variety of other actors working on behalf of china. We see the Chinese Government encouraging and assisting the abuse of incentive plans that offer cash and other enticements to bring information back to china. Information that is often actually trade secrets stolen from American Companies and universities and we are seeing Chinese Companies using that to compete against the very American Companies it belongs to. We are seeing intellectual property and data theft from companies and academic institutions in just about every size and sector. This is a threat to Economic Security and to National Security. It is also a threat to american jobs, businesses, and big cities alike. Even as we speak, the fbi has around 1000 investigations involving attempted theft of u. S. Based technology that leads back to china. That involves nearly all of the fbis field offices. I can tell you, that number is representing a significant uptick from a few years ago. It is growing. The men and women of the the the fbi dedicate themselves everyday to keep the American People safe. I want to thank this committee for your support. I can tell you it makes all the difference in the world to our agents, analysts and professional staff all across the country and frankly around the world, so thank you for the opportunity to be here. Thank you, director. Our third witness is russell travers. Hes the acting director of the National Counterterrorism center. He has been in this position since august 16, 2019 and served as the acting director from from 2017 to 2018. His Previous Service includes Deputy Director of an ctc, special assistant to the and information sharing of the National Security council. Mr. Travers . Thank you and good afternoon. Kevin johnson, members of the committee, it is a privilege to be here. In the years since 9 11, the the u. S. Counter to his room Counterterrorism Community has achieved success against many terrorist groups around the world. As we saw two weekends ago, the u. S. Continues to remove terrorist leaders around the globe. Over the past year, coalitions operations against isis, iraq operations against isis, iraq and syria and the socalled caliphate. Ongoing ct efforts across africa, the middle east , and south asia continued to diminish the ranks of al qaeda and isis. Removing leaders and operatives on a regular basis. Interagency efforts to enhance defense at home has resulted in continuous progress against terrorist attacks. There is a lot of good news. We need to because just because challenges remain and i will highlight and summarize just three. First, military operations have brought us time and space as we address a global Terror Threat. The diverse and expanding nature of that threat remains a significant concern and after 9 11 we were primarily focused on external attack capability emanating from a single piece of real estate along the afghanistanpakistan border. 18 years later, we face homegrown violent extremist threats and also 20 isis networks that range from tens of hundreds of thousands of people. Al qaeda and its branches and affiliates. Foreign fighters that flack to block to syria from well over 100 serious. Iran and its proxies. There is a growing Terror Threat for racially motivated threats around the world. By any calculation, there are far more radicalized individuals now than there were at 9 11. This highlights the importance of terrorism prevention. While some aspects can only be dealt with through connecticut operations, the ideology will not be dealt with by military alone. The world has a lot of work to do to deal with radicalization underlying causes. The second challenge stems from terrorists ability to exploit technology. They are good at it and very innovative. We have seen the use of social media to spread propaganda and transfer knowledge between individuals in the networks, the use of drones, highquality documents will increasingly undermined a screening threat to our security and we all seek greater use of cryptocurrencys and the potential use of chemical and biological weapons. Terrorist exploitation of technology has outpaced the associated legal and policy framework needed to deal with the threat. Looking out five years, we are concerned in the growing adverse impact encryption will have on our counterterrorism efforts. The third challenge i would highlight relates to a concern about potential complacency. Our whole of government approach to counterterrorism over the past 18 years has kept the country pretty safe. The near perm potential for largescale, externally directed attacks against the homeland has temporarily declined as the result of actions around the globe. As noted earlier, the threat itself continues to metastasize and will require close attention in the years ahead. In a crowded environment, it is completely understandable that terrorism is no longer viewed as it number one threat in the country, but that begs the question of what does the equation look like in a complex environment and secondly, how do we optimize resources in the best interests of the sources when the department may have Different Properties and thirdly, if we are going to reduce efforts, how do we do so in a manner that does not reverse the gains of the past 18 years. These are questions that will require sophisticated conversations going forward. Thank you for your questions. I was not expecting an infusion of optimism. These are serious threats and they are becoming more complex. One thing i noticed that was lacking in your written testimony, secretary gawain did reference the killing of the family. We did not talk about ms 13 and some of those gangs infusing inner cities and are incredibly brutal. The reality, potential for spillover as we saw with the mormon tragedy and the gains that we already know exist and really the current situation, as it growing is a growing . How much of a handle to we have on these gangs . Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this. I would say in regard to mexico, there are areas in mexico child characterized as lawless. Being that the drug cartels run the infrastructure, the services and their businesses which is Drug Trafficking. Ive heard a High Percentage of the communities are controlled by the drug cartels. I would be happy to come back in a closed session. We did an evaluation that we looked at and it is devastating right now. The numbers of drugs on the southwest border have increased the last two years. Few years. Their networks are sophisticated , they operated with a sophisticated supply chain with covert and overt operations. They will use assassination at will. Its all based on moving money and people over the border into the United States. Those supply lines and Drug Trafficking routes are defined. Where there is not, there is more going on. We held a hearing that ms 13 was not motivated by drugs. It was something else. Can you speak to gangs in inner cities . The fbi is spending a lot of efforts on gangs and inner city, not just ms 13, 18th street and gangs like that. If you talk to Police Chiefs around the country, it is neighborhood gangs that are really terrorizing communities and we view it as a threat that is alive and well. What has been the trend over the last 10 years . I think part of it is the trend towards neighborhood gangs. Ms 13 has become a major factor, but increasingly worried about neighborhood gangs. When you are strategic and prioritize going after threats, what you will find is if you prioritize, there is an effective tailwagging of the dog. In one city, it will be a particular neighborhood and other places might be a particular corridor for highway for a group with 20 or 30 people driving the threat. You will find the tail wagging the dog and if you are disciplined, you can have a dramatic impact quickly. Are the number of gang members growing . I read about things and they are just terrific. Horrific. Certainly ms 13 takes brutality to a whole another level. Violence is essentially a right of passage to join and move up the ranks, so theres a degree to which there is violence for violence sake. Are the numbers growing or is it flat . Im trying to get a feel for the trend here. Im not sure i can give you the number of gang members, but i would be happy if someone followed up on that. I know the crime rate has gone down some in the last year or two. Even though, not dramatically. It has gone in the right direction. In your oral testimony, you were talking about the cyber theft which is hundreds of billions of dollars. The big culprit is china. Cant personally envision a trade deal reining that in. I think we will have to use Law Enforcement from the standpoint foraving global partners, example, deny entry from management of these companies we know are stealing our intellectual property. Can you speak to that reality . I think you are exactly right, there is no one remedy that will deal with that. It is a threat that is broad, deep, diverse, vexing. I would say is there is a role for trade, a role for lawenforcement, a role for a diplomacy. In particular, building resilience in this country about working with the private sector and academic sector. The most effective defense against the chinese counterintelligence threat can be done by companies and other institutions in this country being smarter and more sophisticated about protecting themselves. So we are putting a lot of effort into that in terms of being more forward leading that we were five or six years ago. Helping them be part of the common defense that we all need. Canada arrested the cfo of huawei. It was charges related to violation of sanctions. Is there a concerted effort to try to deny entry, potentially arrest, people from these companies . Is there an organized effort globally with other western democracies to do that . We are doing things with other countries. This is a threat that is being confronted by a lot of our allies. I will say, in some instances, there are abuses of the visa process that we are trying to address. That is a state department if you issue. They are an important part of the fight as well and there may be people engaged in intellectual property theft in a way that violates the terms of their contract. They can be kicked out on that basis. Sometimes, thats a much better solution than traditional Law Enforcement. Lex the three of you have very difficult jobs and biggest possibilities. I want to discuss one of the jobs that the department of security has come up what security has, first of all to keep us safe, but you havent added responsibility to move trade and commerce efficiently as possible across the border. Michigan is something we look at a lot. The facilitation of secure trade and travel is absolutely essential to my state and many others. In order to support that, it is clear that dhs has a clear picture of the threats facing the northern border and ports of entry as well. Could you briefly speak to the threats on the northern border to support the northern border strategy as it exists today . Im a relatively unique witness. I led a team that did an assessment of the northern border threat which i would be happy to share and i traveled to the northern border, been to the border crossings and then to the intelligence center. There is a vulnerability in marine and land environment. It is a porous border. We are looking at how we deploy our assets in the air and sensor capabilities and individuals that maybe crossing unlawfully. A lot of our relationship revolves around partnerships with canadians. They are outstanding. We are relying on that partnership with each other. Backed up by good intelligence collection by our partners is critical to that. It goes on 24 hours a day. It would also like to highlight the National Reading center, our capability to identify atrisk individuals, which is being expanded to cargo. That is at full operational capacity, but we are constantly evaluating threats to the northern border. I mentioned this briefly in my opening comments, but your agency has not provided a Single Agency has not provided a single document in almost six months to a letter that chairman johnson and i authored dealing with domestic terrorism. This is a bipartisan letter that we were careful in terms of the scope of it, that it was not overly broad. But allowed us to have the information necessary to provide the kind of oversight, particularly as something as serious as domestic terrorism. Thats unacceptable. When you have a joint letter that is bipartisan, mira question is do you require a subpoena to respond to routine document requests from this committee . No, second i would tell you that we have tried very hard to be responsive to this community. Test test test. Test test test. Test test test d a long, written response and we sat down with your staff and test test test. That was very helpful on our end in understanding better the purpose and scope and intent of the request. I also know we have been providing monthly domestic terrorism reports to the committee staff. Having said that, the most important thing is to make sure we are being responsive and i will direct my staff to figure out how we can be more responsive and more forthcoming. So you will be more responsive than not responding at all . I think we have been you talk about the committee what we got from dhs were publicly available documents. Our staffs are pretty good at looking at publicly available documents, so that is not very helpful in the oversight role. These were very specific questions that we would expect a response. We believe we should probably have, as a committee, here is my question do you think the committee should have less access to documents than a general foia request . Thats what we are seeing here. I cannot speak for dhs response, but for the fbi i dont think providing verbal, written responses is no response at all. The point from my perspective is i want to make sure we are dressing your concerns, so dont want you to take any of my responses to say that i will not direct my staff to make sure we are doing everything we can to be cooperative. I appreciate that. Can get a commitment by the end of the week . We can get some kind of response. I need to get more information about what is still needed. I appreciate that. I hope you have prompt attention to that. According to the fbi, domestic terrorism has killed 39 people in 2019. It is the most deadly year for domestic terrorism since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Is, how would you you characterize the threat posed by White Supremacists . I would say that domestic terrorism generally, particularly lone actors, represents a serious persistent threat. I think we had had 107 arrest, which is close to the same number we had on the International Terrorism front. Within the domestic terrorism group, at any given time the number fluctuates. We have about 1000, sometimes closer to 900 and sometimes above 1000, of domestic terrorism investigations. A huge chunk involved racially motivated violent extremists motivated terrorist attacks. Fueledority of those are by some kind of White Supremacy and i would say the most lethal activity over the last few years has been committed by those types of offenders. Im out of time. Thank you very much. For convening this hearing on threats to our homeland. Thanks to all three of our witnesses for being here today and for your service to our country. I hope you will carry back with you to the men and women you from ar sincere thanks grateful country for all you do to keep us safe. I wanted to start with a question to you. Last month i traveled to afghanistan and pakistan and i heard the concerns of our military and Embassy Personnel about the growing and real threat of the isis affiliate in afghanistan. I hear it clearly that it threatens u. S. Forces in afghanistan and has plans to strike the u. S. Homeland. You said last month there are more than 20 isis branches globally. Some of which are using Sophisticated Technology to conduct operations. Despite our victories against isis in syria and iraq, it remains a deadly threat to the United States. K and other isis affiliates of isis want to strike the u. S. Homeland. Please tell us about their ability and what we are doing to mitigate the threat. Thanks for the question. Of all the branches and networks of isis, isis k is the one of most concern. Probably in the neighborhood of 4000 or so. We share the concerns of u. S. Military and the embassy. They have attempted to certainly inspire attacks outside of afghanistan. Toy attempted last year conduct a Suicide Attack in india. It failed. They tried a couple years ago to a tack inspire an attack in new york. There was an attack in stockholm in 2017 i believe that killed five people, so they certainly have got a desire and propaganda would indicate they want to attack outside of afghanistan. Thus far, relatively limited. I would say we saw attack claims by isis k ramping up, although now we are looking at about an attack a day. Interestingly, about an hour and a half ago they were the latest branch to declare allegiance to the new head of isis. Thank you for that. I want to thank your team in new hampshire. We had a field hearing about threats to our houses of worship from domestic terrorism. Michael gidley was very helpful. Been verys have encouraged by his work with them. Thank you. Ransomware, we are seeing the impact across the country, including an attack in my home state of new hampshire. Throughout actors target every aspect of our community, from Health Care Providers to our small businesses. Last week, i talked with director krebs about what the department of Homeland Security is doing to assist entities facing Ransomware Attacks. What is the fbi doing to address this threat . Is it tracking the number of Ransomware Attacks on our country . How was the fbi coordinating with department of Homeland Security in these efforts . Appreciate the feedback on the meeting in new hampshire. On ransomware specifically, i think what we are seeing is a shift to more and more targeted Ransomware Attacks. More and more targeting municipalities and there are a variety of Different Reasons they are more vulnerable. Were also seeing more enterpriselevel which affects every computer in the organization. One of the things we are trying to do is figure out through our unique role as a Law Enforcement agency and intelligence agency, there have been times where we are able to reverse engineer a decryption key. I can think, we had a case in the northwest, small business, 600 people, crippling ransomware attack, potentially all those people going to lose their jobs, the company would go under. But because of our work, they did not have to pay a ransom and got systems back online. A lot of thanks from those 600 employees. As far as working with dhs, we work very closely together. The fbi has the lead on the threat and dhs is the lead on the assets and essentially we Work Together in that respect. It is something that in the bash a lot of the work we have done as a committee, we have heard more and more concerned from local stakeholders about it. And really want to help all the various agencies coordinate and share information as effectively as possible. Director travers, i wanted to go back to the issue of domestic terrorism. In the aftermath of 9 11, the federal government built a robust and capable counterterrorism architecture to support state and local partners and address foreign terrorist threats unlike any before. Today, 18 years later, we face a surge in domestic terrorism and you will hear it from everyone in the committee, including rising threats against houses of worship. If we are to prevent these, we have to treat these as seriously as we did when al qaeda and other terrorist organizations have threatened after 9 11. The National Counterterrorism center was created to respond to threats from al qaeda and prevent attacks. Can you share your thoughts on the current state of domestic terrorism information sharing . What does the u. S. Government need to do to ensure it gets to the people who need to know it . I will start, but i think the intelligence reform act written by the Committee Gave a number of responsibilities for the realm of International Terrorism. There are references in the legislation to domestic terrorism, but quite clearly the bureau would have the lead, so i view and cpc as being in support. So we have a lot of things we can do and staffs working on parameters and things like addressing issues of radicalization and mobilization. We have done a lot of work with our partners on the International Terrorism side. It is clear that the process looks alike in terms of using social media and the internet and so forth, so we are broadening our efforts there so we can get that information to our state and local partners. Where i think there is value is working with partners around the globe. Everyone is struggling with this problem right now, trying to deal with it. We can bring a lot of analytic horsepower and collection to the International Problem set. That helps the bureau. Thank you. I see that i am over time. I dont know if the director would like to comment or take it up. The short version, we are looking hard at some trend of, for example White Supremacists or neonazis here connecting through social media with individuals overseas and in some cases actually traveling overseas to train. We are engaged with partners as we compare notes on this threat. Thank you. Senator harris . Good afternoon. As you know, our country is facing many threats. I thank all of the witnesses for being here today. I want to start by asking you about rudy giuliani. Have you communicated with him since you were the fbi director . No. Do you know if he holds any security clearance of any kind . I dont know the answer to that. Giuliani made any formal representations to the Justice Department or fbi regarding his business dealings or interests . Im not sure theres anything i could say on that here. Is that because it is a confidential matter or because you dont know or they dont exist . That is in part because i dont know the answer. What is the other part . If there was something that was shared with the fbi that im not aware of, it might run afoul of some of the other things you mentioned. Given the close relationship with the president and mr. Giuliani, has the fbi said that it could be a potential counterintelligence threat . I dont think theres anything i could say on that subject. I recall you have testified in the past that you have taken an oath to defend the constitution and i admire that and believe it to be true. Do you believe your loyalty is to the president or the constitution . My loyalty is to the constitution and the people of the country. If an american acting on behalf of a foreign person was seeking to influence or interfere with an american election, with the fbi want to know about that . I dont want to be onunderstood as commenting specific recent events, but as a general matter, any information about potential interference with our elections by a Foreign Government or by anybody else is something the fbi would want to know about. In sworn testimony before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee is june, you said you could not think of an instance where the president has directly or indirectly asked you to open an investigation into anyone. As of today, can you confirm or deny whether the president has asked you to open an investigation into anyone . Again, i cannot think of an instance. Weve had discussions about, for example, domestic terrorism threats, foreign intelligence threats, things like that, but those tended to be more about a threat in the aggregate, as opposed to a specific individual. Has the president or anyone on his behalf suggest anyone stop, start or limit the scope of any investigation . Not that i can think of. In your view, would it be improper for the fbi to start or stop an investigation requested by the president or anyone at the white house . Not going to wait into specific peoples conversations. The fbis obligation and the obligation i expect of all 37,000 men and women of the fbi is we will continue to investigate investigations. Without referring to any specific investigation, would be improper for the fbi to stop a criminal investigation at the request of the president or anyone from the white house would it be an appropriate if he white house . We should could conduct our investigations on nothing but the law. You believe it would be improper . Im not going to weigh on hypotheticals, but i think we are saying the same thing. We are talking about rules and ethics. I dont think the fbi should be closing an investigation for any improper purpose. I will ask you one more time. What is ethically appropriate . Would it be ethically to launch, limit, or stop a criminal investigation at the request of anyone at the white house . I think there should be no opening of an investigation based on anything other than the facts and the law. Thats my answer. Thank you. Has any member of the administration suggested that attorney general barr or any other member of the department start, stop, or limit the scope of an investigation . I cannot to general bars communication with others. During your time at the Justice Department and given your extensive and noble career, have you ever encountered suspects who tried to intimidate witnesses . Absolutely and prosecuted some. Witnesssnt intimidation a threat to the pursuit of justice . Why isnt . Why is it . Ok. I believe that witness intimidation is a threat. Investigations and prosecutions should be about the truth and pursuit of the truth. If witnesses who have firsthand information cant and dont come forward, that pursuit of the truth is frustrated. In june 2019, it was reported that officers around the country these groups include white lives matter, ban the dent of lacey, can you tell me what works your agency has done to investigate any of these cases and to what degree of success . Im not aware of the specific report you are referring to. I mentioned in response to one of the earlier questions, we do have about 900 and mr. Terrorism type investigations. That is not counting our hate crimes investigations. A huge chunk of those involved some degree of what one might call white supremacist ideology motivating the crime. Thank you for your service. Senator scott . I want to thank each of you for being here today and the chairman and Ranking Members for putting this together. My focus today is on the fbis ability to share domestic terrorism information and other information with local fbi offices and local and state Law Enforcement. Let me start by saying that the men and women of the fbi are dedicated public servants. They serve this country selflessly with no desire for praise or public recognition. I understand that the fbi gets very low credit for their success. I understand it is only the few instances where they get public scrutiny. The fbi deserves praise and credit for the work they do every day to keep us safe. But i also have concerns about a series of shootings in florida and a lack of after action transparency on the fbi. In the days following the attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in florida, i learned a of repeated failures of the fbi to actively investigate , act on specific tips about the shooter leading up to months before the attack. Shooting, a the warning about the shooter was received by the fbi National Call center. The warning was never passed on the the south Florida Field Office for investigation or to any state or local Law Enforcement. Months before that, the fbi was warned about the shooter through a comment on a Youtube Video where someone with the shooters name stated im going to be a professional school shooter. I understand the fbi gets a high volume of tips. But it appears the fbi did nothing with this detailed information of an imminent threat. Instances of preattack notifications received by the fbi guarding other attacks in florida. Ly such information from director ray regarding steps to hold accountable those in the agency for the failures. First, has anyone been held accountable . Second, what changes have been made to prevent this from happening again . So far, i have gotten very little information. As governor when this happened i asked for an explanation. I was told nothing. I got no information back. Aput together a letter and as a u. S. Senator, i was asked, i put together a letter and i asked on information on accountability and what changes. Again i got little information. I want to enter into the record the correspondents i received. No objection. The parkland families have also told me they have not gotten answers. So im asking today, has anyone from the fbi been held accountable for the failures that followed the attacks at Marjory Stoneman douglas, how have they been changed . I understand its not the responsibility for the fbi and people make mistakes. But the failure to act on specific information given to the fbi that could have stopped this evil person requires action to correct the errors. I recently introduced the tips act, which will require the fbi to share information with local state official, id like your feedback on that proposal. First if you could talk about parkland. Thank you, senator. Well, first, let me say, that there is no issue that tears us up inside more than a threat to kids in this country. Whether its the kind of example that you are describing or any number of others. And that was a heart breaking day for everybody in the fbi and i hope you know that and i mean that personally. Second, weve made extensive changes. I immediately after the parkland shooting dispatched a large special Inspections Team into cgis, which is where our Public Call Center is. As a result of that a number of changes have been made, without going into all the detail, let me just give you a few of the key points. First, weve increased staffing significantly. Both at the line level and the supervisor level. Second, weve enhanced the training significantly. Third, weve enhanced the technology significantly. Fourth, weve added more oversight. Fifth and this goes to parts of your question, weve put in place an entirely new leadership team, with a wealth of experience. And weve made other personnel changes, some of them disciplinary in nature, partly because of pending litigation against us and because of privacy implications to limit how much detail i can go into on the personnel front. But there is significant changes that have been made. I actually have personally gone out there not once, but twice, first to see what it was like before and, second, now to see how its changed since then. Ive actually sat in the midst of the call operators, put on the headset and listened as theyve dealt with the calls and watched how it happens. And i can tell you that there is an incredible amount of really good work going down there, just you mentioned the volume issue. I think its important for people to understand that on any given day, on any given day, our call center up there gets more than 3,000 of those 3,000 tips, about 60 a day, thats 60 tips a day are potential threats to life. So thats a huge amount of wheat having to get separated from the chaffe there. About 60, probably 80 have no probably nexus whatsoever. Were looking at way, thats the goal coming around to your legislation, thats a goal that i think we share, which is how can we get the right information. Thats the key word, the right actionable information that we and not the chaffe to our state and local partners as fast as possible. And there is something that we have in place that idad love t talk to you more about all eguardian, which is a system in place for a while weve significantly enhanced. And the key take away from that, senator, it would dual route so simultaneously go straight from the call center, not just to the local field of course but also to the state Fusion Center or the equivalent. Weve already had a number of instances and i can go through a number of them here where some threat comes in and within hours using that appropriate, within hours, weve had an arrest. So i think were very encouraged by the direction it takes, but make no mistake, this is one of the hardest things Law Enforcement has to deal with today and were doing our best and were going to keep working at it. So can you explain so heres why i never get a response and, first off, i dont think have you an easy job. I know its hard and you get lots of itemtips. I get all that. I dont get why somebody cant say a person was disciplined, you know, they were held accountable, something, i mean like in, im a business guy. In business, i mean, its the world. You have to hold people accountable. They made a mistake. Somebody said, the persons name, im going to be a professional school shooter. Thats pretty actionable, youd think. Somebody calls a week before a shooting and give detailed information, youd have to believe somebody got held accountable. To this point, the parkland families have never been told that anybody was held accountable. Its always the morphous. It has to be a better answer than that. If you take insight, you say Nothing Happened then and its you know there is nobody got held accountable. Well, like i said, to me the privacy act issues and the pending litigation are things i do have to take seriously in responding to your question. Im trying to lean in, in answering your question. I can tell you that there were two individuals principally involved with the call. Weve had one individual thats been reassigned as a result of that inspection report and one who is i guess the best way to put it is no longer with the fbi and i really cant go into more detail than that. But i would tell you that the more important thing is it should not be anybodys impression, i can assure you, that nothing has been done. Weve made massive changes out there and i know weve invited you and your staff to come out and see it. I would welcome that. I think you would be encouraged by what youve seen out there. All right. Thank you. Senator carper. Like i say, thank you all for your testimony. I thought you gave excellent testimonies. We appreciate that thank you for being here today and for the work that you do. Senator shelby white house, he was leaving when i was coming in, hes not on the committee. He wanted me to ask you about responding to qfrs, questions for the record, mr. Wray, i would ask you to check with your team to make sure you are responsive. He asked me to mention it on his behalf. I get a lot of those. I struggled to be the Committee Chairman a few years ago, it was during the Obama Administration and this, we had a hearing or two with folks from essentially from Homeland Security and the issue was swiss cheese. And i say why would it have been swiss cheese . Because the leadership and Homeland Security kind of looked like swiss cheese and we had a number of deposition that were have a cant in leadership positions. We had many others filled by people acting, never been Senate Confirmed and when i am happy you are here and others that are filling in. But if he were here, hed probably share the same concern, which is all these people in acting positions. I asked my staff to give me the number. They said, upon the itscoburn right now. Hes everywhere. But, he, i understand that when acting secretary Michael Cleveland leaves, i think hes been terrific. I hate to see him go. I understand 11 of the positions will be have a cant. I will say that again. 11 of the 18 positions requiring Senate Confirmation will be have a cant. One of the reasons that tomcoburn and i worked alock with people on our committee, Department Homeland security had the worst morale. It was measured every two years ago had the worst morale of the major departments of government. One of the reasons why was because of that. And when the last two years when they finish up in that administration left, i remember we were talking to jay johnson. He told me the last measurement, we get this measurement every two years and so on, they measure the mar rail of major departments. The department that made the most improvement in that was Homeland Security so that really does make a difference in more ways than we would expect. I will ask each of you, i will start with you, david, can you speak to the leadership at the highest levels of dhs affects the inner agency work that you all do to keep our homeland secure . And this would be just for you, secretary, how can we in Congress Push the president to nominate qualified individuals in order to ensure the department is able to carry out its vital mission, please . Senator, thank you for buying that up. And as 27 years in law enforce. And a career official starting as a houston Police Officer, its an honor and privilege to serve with the people of the department of homeland and they do incredible service. The career member versus carried on with this with an incredible professionalism. And i am happy to say our Employee Viewpoint survey even as these senate positions are not filled, we continue our trajectory as well as my office has seen the biggest increase in morale this year. Your office will having a says to that. I would say we have two officials under secretary of policy and our chief financial officer, we would appreciate their speedy confirmation and as one of the longest serving Senate Confirmed official, i appreciate that by the senate in this committee as well, sir. Would either other witness care to comment on this . Please . Senator, i would just say without speaking to dhs leadership vacancies, that we work very closely with the men and women of dhs across all their different subagencies every day on our task forces. Theyre fantastic public servants, great partners and were proud to stand with them. Thank you. The same would be true of events at tc. I have many people embed at s and many officers that work for me. Its a very strong partnership. I dont know if i was out of the room for a little bit. This has been raised. I want to talk about our withdrawal of u. S. Troops from northeastern syria. And i had so many troubles. We gave a speech on the floor i think it was last thursday, close of business and i mentioned it, i thought about 11,000 kurdish lives have been lost in the battle against isis and compared to how he was doing, he says, compared to what . And 11,000 of their lives and a wealth of handful of ours. And every one of those is dear and precious. But i just want to ask and well start with, lets see, i guess im going to ask what each of you, this will start with you, mr. Travers. You can speak of the effects of pulling out of u. S. Troops will have on our kurdish allies, please . I believe its true that the general mus lum and syria forces have been incredible allies. They have been very important in providing intelligent over the years. We were heartened by both the president s and the secretary of defense statements that the u. S. Forces in syria will have a continuing Counter Terrorism mission as well as the oil and that there will be continued engagement with the sdf. This remains a very important Counter Terrorism objective to us, because they are, they are guarding many different prisms prisons with iraqi and syrian isis fighters. So that relationship really needs to continue. And just a simple yes or no, were you all consulted on this matter by the white house . I was not. But it wouldnt necessarily be the case that i would be. Same question if you could, mr. Wray, could you talk a little about the effects of pulling out u. S. Troops from northeastern syria will have on our kurdish allies and i know this the a little out of your wheelhouse. But take a shot. Well, parts of it are in our wheel house. In particular, were obviously concerned about potential resurgence of isis if certain fighters, in particular, were to escape or be released. We will say that the biggest threat to the homeland is the biggest isisrelated threat here. In many ways is the online inspired threat, and in effect the virtual caliphate. So that threat is something we have been all over with or without the presence in syria. One of the things that we have done, we, the fbi, along with others, working with our partners, anticipating the day where we might not be there is biometric enrollment over on the battlefield in effect. In order to put us in a position where fingerprints, dna, et cetera, are available and can be shared with our allies and others so that in the event fighters end up spreading out for one reason or another, we have a better chance of intercepting them before they do harm. Same two questions if i could and ill be done. Same two questions. Were you consulted by the white house . A yes or no is fine. Senator and no, i was not. And i would not be in my current role. But i would say the following to what director wray said, our partnership with obtaining the biometrics from the isis fighters, al qaeda fighters, any terrorist organization is critical for our vetting program. In our relationships with the intelligence services, our Law Enforcement services abroad, our foreign partners. But the dispursement of terrorism is global. Southeast asia, northeast africa, mid middle east is threats frommal shabab and other affiliates. Its how we get that information and vet them. If the refugee close out of yemen or syria at large we have to have the biometrics to collect to run them here, make surer that not terrorists, criminals, or foreign Intelligence Officers. Its critical that vetting process we have to make sure bad things or bad people arent coming to the United States. Thank you for the service and the people you lead, thank you. Senator portman. Thanks to the three of you for great testimony today and most importantly for you and the men and women do every day to help keep us safe. I noticed in your opening statement, director wray, you talked about the thousand Talents Program and as you may know, the subcommittee investigations, with senator carper and oughts, were in the process of looking into that issue and have done a series of hearings on related items, including under the confucius substitute, we did a cconfucius institute report, for example, not allowing them to be here, they believe theyre politically sensitive such as the Tiananmen Square uprising, it goes beyond confucius institutes. You said china is abusing the thousand Talents Program and the fbi has about a thousand cases, coincidentally, investigating Technology Transfer and you said universities should be smarter about defending themselves. I guess my question would be what efforts have the fbi taken to inform the Higher Education community about this threat and what has your response been . So, i think you put your finger on an important issue. The role ofing a d academia is component to this counterintelligence threat. So in addition to investigations and i cant give you a number out of the thousand that involve universities and, in particular, graduate students and researchers, but certainly its a significant number. But in addition to the investigation, were much more actively engaged with major universities in encouraging them and informing them so that they can take appropriate action voluntarily, but robustly, to guard against a threat. As far as the reaction weve gotten, it varies. But i have been actually quite encouraged by quite a number of universities, which a few years ago would not have wanted to meet with the fbi under any circumstance much less than in the counterpartnership way thats occurring, including responsiveness from ohio state. Ive met with them. We had an academic summit in fbi headquarters just about a month ago, where we brought in chancellors and others from universities all across the country. A whole bunch of our sacs and kind of briefed them on some of the threats and had engagement about how we can work more constructively together to help them defend themselves. Ohio state and certainly other schools have expressed their interest in working even more with you and appreciate what has been done. They also i think are not providing us the transparency we need to know whether there is a problem. Would you agree with that in. Well, i probably let ohio state speak for itself in terms of its own transparency. Im not talking ohio state, im talking in general. We found out in our investigations that 70 of the schools were not properly reporting the Foreign Government payments that they were receiving with regard to the confucius institutes. So the transparency even though some is in law and not being followed is fought adequate in our view. Is that your view . I think its fair to say there is a lot of room for improvement, but were seeing improvement. Let me talk about another issue that the a National Security threat for our entire country but for ohio, particularly hard hit. Thats the drug crisis and the epidemic of overdoses and deaths. We know that the southern border has lots of challenges. One is certainly the drug issue. We know that crystal meth, which is the new drug that is causing havoc in our communities in ohio but also heroin and cocaine comes almost exclusively across that southern border. My question to you is really about whats happening. You see a significant reduction in terms of crossings. I look at data here that compares last month to the month of may as an x. Almost a onethird reduction in crossings. Or at least in apprehensions, which would indicate crossings. So the number of people coming over has slowed considerably, still a significant issue. But not like it was. And yet from all indications we have the drug flow has not been reduced. Even though many have linked some of the same traffickers who bring people across is bringing drugs across. Can you speak to that and talk about how these drugs were coming over and secretary clawe if youd like to speak to that too that may be helpful to this issue. What more can d with edork of course, on boarder . And also whatt the relationship between people crossing and drugs crossing . Senator, thank you for the question. Just to give you the numbers from 2017 to 2019 on the narcotic flows, we seen a 40 increase in seizures at the southwest border, a 40 increase in fentanyl a 30 increase in heroin and to your point a 200 increase in methamphetamine. Thats in addition to the emergency hon the border weve had with the migrant flows and border controls and marines and Field Operation taken off line for detention. We had a crisis at the southwest border, its all moving people and goods a illicitly across the border. Cartel itself are about moving goods and people. Its almost a third fewer people. Have you seen a reduction in the drug flow . We havent seen it on the other end . No, weve seen an increase. Thats what were apprehending. Those numbers are probably low. We seen those increases in the last two years and the cartel itself are a sophisticated business about moving supplies in the United States. Theyre as good as any major business. There are profits. It ranges largely. Theyre a fortune 500 country. Eighth Sophisticated Network and im sure youve heard the name of plaza bosses which run and controls what moves across southwest border. Theyre trafficking supply chains and their relationships with china. Fentanyl production is moving into mexico is very sophisticated, very obut and constantly changing in dynamic. Id like to follow up on the fentanyl issue. My sense a not a lot of production of fentanyl in mexico, there is processing. Theyre getting it as we were through the mail system and still do, by the way, but getting it to mexico often converted in a pill form and sending it over and again a huge increase compared to even a few years ago. So a new threat on the border. But look, i think the demand side is key here. Weve done a lot of work on that well continue to on prevention recovery programs and treatment. But we got to do something to deal with the flow, too. This crystal meth in columbus, ohio is less expensive than marijuana and deadly and so we would appreciate any input you have as to how we can do a better job to reduce that supply at a minimum not just reducing the poison into our communities. Were reducing the impact because it will increase the costs. Senator, i just follow up. As far as actioning this, its a sophisticated approach that goes beyond Law Enforcements. Its partnerships with our partners and mexican intelligence partners. The mexican military as well as our military. Their partnership is ro bust. We have a Good Relationship with our mexico partners. But its really upping the game and a strategy to impact these groups thats going to have to go city by city, state by state, as i mentioned to chairman johnson earlier, there are some areas that are primarily controlled by the cartels. Its a supply chain and very sophisticated and will require a strategic approach to how we are doing business. Senator langford. Mr. Chairman, thank you. First i want to say to all of you, thank you for the work that you are doing. You dont hear that enough. There are a lot of threats and you face a lot of things and you go through a lot of information each and every day for the stake of our nation and for the people in my state in oklahoma and we appreciate that very much. Yesterday, we had a an event in Oklahoma City that we just called day one. It was an event that is 168 days away from the 25th anniversary of the murrow building bombing in 1925. 25 years ago, we lost 168 oak la home oklahomans. Many of them family and children. We remember distinctly well what domestic terrorism looks like in Oklahoma City. We have not forgotten about that. So from all of us and the family and people we stay around. We want to say thank you you are staying vigilant in this. We do not take domestic terrorism lightly. So with that, let me ask you an unfair question. As you look at your thiem that you have to spend and the threats that you face right now, give me a percentage of threats that you face based on domestic terrorism and acts and International Terrorism that are coming. Is that 60 40, 5050, 7030 . Again its an unfair question. Give me your best guess of what are you tracking right now. Are you asking specifically within the terrorism threats or all threats . Within terrorism threats. I would think we are probably roughly, roughly halfandhalf International Domestic on the terrorism front right now. Certainly the number of arrests that we had in fiscal 19 was i think 107 domestic terrorist arrests, 121 International Terrorism arrests. The investigations of domestic terrorism probably about 900 right now, say. About 1,000 hves, home bound extremists. We do have other Foreign Terrorist Organization investigations. So its probably more investigations on the International Terrorism side. But that gave little bit of a sense. That helps. When you identify the different types of International Terrorism threats that are coming into the United States that have a threat that you can identify coming towards the United States, is there a certain ideology that seems to be more typical for International Foreign threats coming at the United States . Well, of course, were looking at both sunni and shia threats, but i think in terms of the most immediate lethality its the sunni threats that are the more concerning. Im sure director travers may have a few things to add to that. But in particular, the isisinspired attackers here, these are people who are not necessarily didnt get up in the morning true believers but kind of spent time online, radicalized and essentially have latched on to an ideology as an excuse to commit crude but very lethal attacks against often soft targets using easily accessible weapons. Thats probably the biggest threat to the homeland. Senator rosen and i have worked on an Antisemitism Task force to continue to bring up issues of domestic tlichl and threat as has already been named the threat confronted this past weekend in colorado toward one of the synagogues there. There is a growing sense of ideology in multiple different areas. We are grateful you are continuing to engage foreign as well as domestic. Let me shift topics slightly on that. I wanted to get a feel on where we were on that. Let me shift to Election Security. This is an ongoing Issue Congress continues to address. We talked about Homeland Security and their Election Security. This Congress Allocates 380 million in Election Security funding in 2018 to states but it is the last time that i tracked those number, not even half of that money has been spent by the states yet. Do you have a good estimate at this point what the state versus spent for the 380 million that congress allocated to Election Security and how do you evaluate the status and preparation for security right now . Nor, as head of intelligent, ill have to get back to you on the states allocation of those resources. We might as well take that question for the record to come back with you. Regarding the execution of what were doing within the department, you are very aware of the Cyber Security Infrastructure Agency directed by an aggressive partnership with all 50 state Election Officials and territories. In the leadup to the 2018 election, we conducted over 1,400 field interviews and engagements, directly with state officials. Just to give you an idea of the intelligent shared with the states classified and unclassified in the leadups to the 2016 election, we did 224 intelligence reports. In the leadup through my office we had 313. We will do quite more as a leadup to 2020. We are looking at attacks of the election strategies but also director wray mentioned as well, we are looking at that foreign influence campaign, the covert. The amplifying effect to try to effect elections but at any range of things that that can be used by state actors at the state and local little. Do you have what you need to be able to secure the elections . Senator, i well cold a discussion in going back with my colleagues in the department to have an answer for that. But i can say from the department, we are aggressively posturing our resources and partnering with the fbi and all the other Community Assets as well and specific election requirements they have regarding what our vulnerabilities are, i would like to highlight we are in over 80 Fusion Centers. Its an information touch point and id create the information sharing enterprise, the backbone of the technical structure, the Homeland Security Information Network. I have to thank. You guy versus funded and authorized us to use that thats been a fantastic information tool. Thank you. Director wray, i need to ask you a question, i dont need a specific answer for and go through greater depth on this, when american individuals travel to russia or china, there seems to be ample number of individuals to be able to track them and to be able to follow them and to be able to make sure that theyre aware of all of their movements. I have yet to be able to talk to an american yet thats traveled to china and russia and said, yeah, they ran out of people to trail me. Do you have the resources you need for individuals that you have suspicion on that are chine eats nationals or russia nationals currently in the United States to be able to make sure that we have coverage of the level needed for individuals that is here highest suspicion . I can tell you that our Counterintelligence Program is an area where we are in need of growth and resources, fought just agents and analysts, but linguists and we need more data analytics. All of these issues, including on the one that you are mentioned in todays world involve terabytes and terabytes of data. In order to be able to be agile to exploit that quickly and effective, we need to have the right tools to be able to get through that information and so we have, i know, the president s budget request, you know, has requests in that category. I can assure you thats the kind of thing that can be put to great use quickly. Thats great. Thank you. Senator romney. Thank you, mr. Chairman, one of the things ive noticed in the questions the questioners have begun by expressing participation to your respective agents for the work that they do. I certainly speak for myself. I believe i speak for all the members of the senate that i have spoken with. It probably includes almost all. Which is there is a very profound appreciation for the sacrifice and the extraordinary professionalism of the men and with imwho serve in your respective agencies. I hope that is expressed to your members time and time again. Plp clawe, you spoke about foreign nations in particular that try to interfere in our political process, our elections, russia, china, north korea and iran. Can you can any one of you give me if you will a kind of a rough sense, is this an ad hock process that goes on with another country or is it organized by their governments and staffed by a certain number of people with a Budget Associated with it . And if it is organized, do we have a sense of the scale of the enterprise thats under taken by each of these countries to interfere with our election process to sew disunity through social media and the like . Well, i think there might be more we can say in classified setting on that. But what i would say is that all of those countries Vice President designs and engaging in malign foreign influence in this country. Of them, the russians are the ones who have most advanced this idea of sewing divisiveness and discord, the pervasive messaging campaigns, false personas, things like that. But certainly, iran we know is taking very careful note of what the russians have done and has its own ma lined foreign influence efforts, some of which have a cyborg dimension to them. Its something were tracking. Of course, the chinese, thats a whole other kettle of fish as it were, they have a very robust foreign influence here. Its different. They all have their own shapes and sizes to the problem. But its highly organized by each of their respective governments, its not just something thats done on an ad hock basis . I think thats a fair statement. Yeah. As you spoke, director wray, about the the incursion on an hourly basis of chinese, in particular, but as well as other countries into our corporate databases, our government databases and so forth, i thought about how impossible a task it must be to try and protect all the place people can attack and i was reminded of the mushl wal assured destruction o mutual assured drugs with regard to nuclear weapons. Should we have a mutually disrupgs of some kind, which is to say, is the only way to prevent the number of attacks and the severity of attacks we are seeing an indication that we can do the same thing to them . Only we can do it harder and bigger and more instructively such as they say we better stop or we will suffer as well . Well, i dont know if i would say thats the only way. I think offensive Cyber Operations are an important part of any nations Cyber Strategy and it is ours. We are working much more closely with the private sector than ever before in terms of trying to help them defend themselves and our relationships with the with businesses ranging from small startups to fortune 500 countries are much more robust than when i was in this world, when i was a doj many years ago. And in many ways, todays cyber threat is lets less about and Cyber Security is less about preventing the intrusion in the first place, although, thats obviously the goal and more about detection as quickly as possible and mitigation as quickly as possible once you find it. Think of the example, its great to put locks all around the outside of your house and cameras and lights and everything else, if the guy has already managed to pay off somebody to get inside your basement and hes hang out there, all the stuff on the outside aint going to do a whole lot. A lot of the efforts, working with dhs and others trying to get organizations to quickly find the threat, quickly tie it off and prevent the damage from getting worse. Just one question and perhaps for any one of you or all three of you, and that relates to crypto currency, im not on the banking committee. I dont begin to understand how crypto currency works. I would think it is more difficult to carry out your work when we cant follow the money because the money is hidden from us. And wonder whether there should not be some kind of effort taken in our nation to deal with cryptocurrency and the challenges that that prevents for Law Enforcement and deterrence of terrorist activity. Am i wrong in thinking this is an area we ought to take a look at or is crypto currency not a big deal with related to your abilities. For us crypto currency is a issue, we can project out easily it will become a bigger and bigger one. Whether or not that is the subject of appropriate subject of some kind of reg lakes as the response, its harder for me to speak to. Were looking at it from an investigative perspective, including tools that we have to try to follow the money even in this new world that we are living in. But it is a part of a broader trend and director travers alluded to it, in terms of the terrorist threat, in terms of our adversaries of all shapes and sizes, becoming mof more facile, whether its crypto currency, whether its default encryption on devices and messaging platforms, we are moving as a country and as a world in a direction where if we dont get our act together, money, people, communications, evidence, facts, all the bread and butter for all of to us do our work will be essentially walled off from the men and women we represent. Thank you. I would just close, mr. Chairman in just acknowledging that the president today spoke of the tragedy which occurred in mexico, where apparently three women and six women were brutally murdered and has offered our National Support to help the mexicans get to the bottom of this and appreciate the fact that you are willing to participate in that at the direction of the president and hope we will find a way to bring people to justice who deserve to be brought to justice and also prevent events like this from happening in the future. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator romney. Senator holly. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Director wray, a question on the Cyber Security topic, if i could. And as it relates to china, in particular. Are you concerned about the growing practice of American Technology companies or any American Companies for that matter storing large amounts of da that consumer data, business data, in china and sometimes storing the Encryption Keys to that data in china . I mean, does this but what sort of a Cyber Security rick does this pose . Is this something you are tracking that you are concerned about . It is something we are concerned about. In part, because chinese laws require a level of access that is unparallelled, certainly, in this country, in terms of Law Enforcement and security services. Chinese law essentially compels Chinese Companies and typically compels u. S. Companies that are operating in china to have relationships with different kind of Chinese Companies to provide whatever information the government wants, whenever it wants, essentially just for asking. And so that creates all kind of risks, you know, across the various threats that we have to contend with. And that, your pointed there about the chinese laws and access to data beijing requires sort of works in two way, doesnt it . It is a problem for American Companies who choose to store large amounts of data in china. Because to do so, they have to partner under chinese laws with some sort of chinese counterpart that has ties to the government. Thats number one, number two, its a Security Risk from the point of view of chinesebased companies who having a says to our market, who do business here, thats large amounts of information on American Consumers, like tick tock, for instance. But actually are owned or based in china and, therefore, are subject to those same chinese laws on data and data sharing. Is that fair to say . Thats absolutely something that were concerned about. Even you start with the proposition that a astonishing percentage of Chinese Companies are, in fact, stateowned enterprises. But even the ones that are not technically stateowned enterprises, the ones that are ostensibly private are subject both to the chinese laws i referred to a minute ago, as well as a lot of people gloss right over this. 18 Chinese Company of any aappreciable size has by chinese law embedded in them Chinese Communist party cells or committees as theyre called, whose sole function is to ensure that that company says in lockstep with the Chinese Communist policies. Can you imagine Something Like that happening with the American Companies and american policy . I mean, its something that people need to take very seriously. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for your work on this i think as you point out, i think American Consumers dont realize the threat to their own Data Security and privacy when American Companies choose to store that data in china, thereby, open up a petition that data to use for the Chinese Government or they dont realize chinese based companies are subject to those same laws. So it works both ways. Switching gears, secretary, let me ask you about the border, senator partman was talking about the influx of meth and the serious effects it has in ohio. I can tell you in the state of missouri, we are absolutely overwhelmed with meth coming across the border. There is not a community in my state, urban, rural, north, southeast, west, that is not just awash in meth. You point out i think 2017 and 2019 that the set of border apprehension up over 200 for meth. I just wanted to drill down on a few Additional Details here and to get your input. Did i hear you to say to senator portman that the meth apprehensions, other drug apprehensions have continued to increase even as Border Apprehensions of illegal individuals has decreased. Is that right . That is correct. And again this is a twoyear snapshot, cocaine 40 , fentanyl 30 , methamphetamine 200 . Thats at the border in addition to the migration challenges weve had which is by officers taken offline with the detention processing, the numbers are up. In the last few months, weve seen a decline of Border Apprehensions to individuals, do you have a sense or do you know what the numbers for contraband look like . Senator, we can get back as a qfr on that, what i would say, and i said this earlier, is the Business Model for the cartels is to move illicit goods and people across the border to get them there and move them. That grows through a very Sophisticated Network inside the country of mexico and south of mexico as well as a Management Structure called plaza bosses that occupy the entire southwest border. They control what goes across and what does not go across. Its all based on money of moving people and goods. You talked about fentanyl production moving to some degree from china to mexico, it sound maybe in partnership with the chinese outlets. Can you say more about that . What i would say, they want to take this in a classified setting. But we have seen that the fentanyl production and trafficking as we would anticipate, the cartels own the supply chain, the traffic ro under the circumstances to getting in here that fentanyl and trafficking was moving into mexico. We are seeing this. Finally, let me ask you this, you said in order to address this crisis, the drug crisis and the flow of drugs over the border, it would require a change in our whole strategic approach. Can you say more of what you have in mind and what you think into evidence to change, maybe what this committee and this body would do to give you the tools that you need . Well, i who you would say i welcome a conversation that would expand upon my partners at this table. In my prior capacity, as a unique witness, i was a manager to have crime at odni. When i say the strategic aproven i mean bringing Law Enforcement, u. S. Intelligence community and Mexican Community community and military access to bear in these lawless areas where the cartels are running the area. That has to be hand in glove with our demand. The u. S. Is a high demand for narcot narcotics. Its a joint process. Its in that realm of having that partnership with our mexican counterparts in that space to identify the bad and film it with the good. Thank you very much, thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator hawle, before i turn it over to senator peters, a quick followup. We need to underscore this. Although our border is unsecure on our side, would you agree with this statement on the mexican side of the border, its pretty secure. Theres not much that passes through the mexican side of the border without mexico, the cartels and human traffickers knowing about it . The plaza bosses and cartels run the south side of the bor r border. Does Law Enforcement have the capability . We do, right then it will require a strategic approach how they are employed, but the cartels are incredibly powerful. We have to bear in mind there is a corruption angle that plays into this as well. So where there is a well secured border there is a wade and mexican cartels prove it on the Southern Side . Chairman johnson, yeah, i think your assessment there is correct. But there are models out there we have been successful. Colombia the a model of success we had in partnership with that government years ago. Senator peters. Thank you, platform. I want to follow up on what i hope is the priority for all three of you and thats to comment foreign influence in our elections. Director wray, my question to you and i think its accurate, thats a priority for you, yes or no . Absolutely. What direction, if any, have you received from the white house about the priority of foreign influence in our elections . I think its been made Crystal Clear to us that it is a priority for us to combat and malign foreign influence from any nation state, including russia, including china, including iran and others. Yeah, how has that been communicated to you by the white house . Well, weve had numerous meetings over at the white house with the nsc and with others on Election Security issues. And so its been sort of a recurring theme in those meetings. Is the white house doing anything to coordinate with other security agencies . Are they pulling folks together in a coordinated thattings in your estimation, if you could explain how thats happening . Well, certainly, weve had, as i said, weve had nsc meetings and nsc driven coordination over the time that i have been director, but, in particular, the way it works right now is that with the nscs direction and the white houses direction, odni brings together a Smaller Group as opposed to the more sprawling nsc apparatus, in particular, its us, fbi, odni, dhs, nsa are sort of the key players and others from time to time as need arises. And there is all kind of engagement between, for example, our Foreign Influence Task force, which i stood up after becoming director. The Russia Small Group at nsa that general lakasoney stood up. There is a similar body at odni and a woman at odni very, very experienced, very seasoned, who then director coates put and she has remained in charge of kind of coordinating the efforts kind of on a more daytoday basis. I continue to hear from my constituents in michigan about very lengthy and intrusive screenings every time they travel. Secretary hawle, they describe it as a back door travel ban that discounsel, them from traveling. It hurts their business and their families and certainly maintaining safe and secure air travel while protecting civil rights of law abiding travelers is a balance we may have achieved. You have a lot of balances you have to do in your agency. My question to you is the department has indicated to my staff they will now lead a comprehensive review of secondary screenings in fiscal year 2020 with input from other relevant federal partners. Would you describe how you would expect that process and those recommendations to come out . Director peters i have to take that question and go back to u. S. Border and customs, it sounds like they would lead that. Theyre the ones that do the secondary inspections. What i can say as coming from that organization, is we are always cognizant of the civil rights and Civil Liberties of u. S. Citizens, foreign citizens who travel in the United States and the protocols and the oversight with that has been very rigorous. But ill take that for the record and come back with an answer for you. If you do that in a quick manner, id appreciate it. The vast majority of constituents i also hear from are very deeply dissatisfied with the dhs trip, which is as you know the redress process for travellers who experience screening difficulty, are there ways to expand trips so africans dont feel ignored and do you have specific recommendations to make this process more sufficient . Similar to head of intelligence, i have to take that back for the record and have an answer that we could ge that answer quickly. I appreciate it. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I appreciate our witnesses being here today. As a senator of a border state i know its critical that we Work Together to tackle threats against the homeland and defense our nations borders and i work committed to keep arizonas border, keep arizonans safe and ensure migrants are treated fairly and humanely. Id like to start with the tragedy that occurred on monday in sonora, mexico. I deepest sympathies go to the victims and their families. Details are still coming in but we know at least nine people, including mothers and their Young Children were murdered by criminal organizations involved in the illicit drug trade. These victims have relatives from arizona and my state is hurting right now. My first question is for you, mr. Wray. In this situation will the fbi play a role in bringing these perpetrators to justice, ensuring that the families receive some redress . So thank you, senator. We too are deeply troubled and heart broken about the loss. We have reached out to our partners, our mexican partners to offer assistance and are engaged with them also with the embassy and the state department. In addition, we are in the process of having what we call our Victim Services division get in touch with the relatives who are here in the United States to see if they can be of assistance. Its a division that i think im very proud of, just given the way in which they bring a level of compassion and sometimes attention to some of the most basic concerns and needs of victims and their families. Thank you. For all of our witnesses who are here today, id like to get a commitment from each of you that my office is briefed on the investigation and id like to hear about your agencys efforts to combat transnational criminal organizations. As we see every day, the impact on arizona and arizona families is unabated. The fbi is the lead obviously with the u. S. Persons being targeted by that violence overseas. We are absolutely committed to partnering with you, senator. I would say as far as the benchmark of intelligence and operations, one of our top facilities is actually in your state in tucson. I would be delighted if i could escort you there for a visit to see it. Its really about that partnership with the state and local Law Enforcement, our mexican partners and sharing of that realtime tactical level information so we can identify those threats at the border. But really any way south of the border in mexico and sharing that information with our partners in the mexican government. Thank you. Senator, wed be happy to try to keep you informed as best we can and as is appropriate. I will underscore that of course what role the fbi will be able to play in mexico depends a lot on the willingness of our mexican partners to embrace and bring us in. Thats still something thats being worked out. Its a very fluid situation right now. As we sit here right now i dont yet know what our footprint, if you will, will look like but well be happy to follow back up with you as things progress. Thank you. And we dont work that particular issue. Thank you. Id like to ask you a question, mr. Glawe. I spoke with secretary mca leenan about improving allegations of abuse of migrants held at the yuma Border Patrol station. Im sure you recall. Can you share the status of dhs efforts to ensure these incidents are reported more quickly and swift action is taken when there are reports that require more protection of migrants and children . So, senator, as my role as the head of intelligence, i dont have a status update on that but ill take that for the record and have an answer for you back. I will say as a career Law Enforcement official as well as a federal Law Enforcement official that the men and women of the department of Homeland Security operate at the highest standards. When there is an incident that has to be reported to the Inspector General or the fbi, that thats handled quickly and mitigated as fast as possible within the department. Thank you. Back in september, this Committee Held a hearing with outside experts on domestic terrorism. At that hearing i spoke about the importance of information sharing and ensuring that our state and local Law Enforcement entities can access the information they need. Such information sharing is always easier for larger Police Departments such as those in phoenix or tucson, but is more challenging for our rural sheriffs. With regard to information sharing between federal, state and local Law Enforcement entities, what steps have your agencies taken in the past year to ensure that small or rural Law Enforcement entities are able to get better access to information about threats and trends, and what do these agencies still need to improve on . So ill start and then turn it over to undersecretary glawe. On our end, our principal engagement from a daytoday basis with our state and local partners, which includes some very small departments, is through our joint Terrorism Task forces. We have 200 of them all over the country and we have task force officers, who are essentially state and local officers from in many cases some of those small departments who work full or in some cases parttime on our task forces which gives them access to all the same information that all the fbi folks and federal partners on the task forces have. Thats probably the most significant means. In addition, we jointly with dhs or a number of instances will put out bulletins of different sorts pretty frequent that provide information in a fairly granular way about what were seeing in terms of threats and so forth. Those are some of the big ones that id highlight. Ill maybe let david chime in. Yes. Just to follow on that, a couple of the big infrastructure and ill talk about specifics with arizona and the southwest border. So my office hosts the Homeland Security Information Network intel. We host for state and local partners and the private sector. Theres 42,000 products on it. In fiscal year 2017, we had about 17 or so thousand views. In 2019 after a very aggressive rollout with this, we had over 90,000 views on this. We hosted over 11,500 products. This is on a classified Network Available on all Fusion Centers as well as satellite locations with a login capability. Along the southwest border we have a limited capacity and they need Intelligence Officers to give them tactical information, unclassified and classified. I did a piemt Program Starting in june and may. I put 19 dhs Intelligence Officers on the southwest border to include arizona. That resulted in 45 drugrelated arrests, 35 seizures of weapons and drugs and 150 intelligence reports. Im going permanently deploy 10 to the southwest border in the very small sheriffs and municipal Law Enforcement departments to enable them to do an enterprise approach and scale capabilities and share information. Thank you. A followup question for both of you. Last Year Congress passed and the president signed into law the preventing emerging threats act which grants authorities to dhs and the doj to counter threats from Unmanned Aircraft systems. During my visits to the border, ive seen evidence of the threats these drones can pose. Ive actually watched drones come over the border in broad daylight. So could you tell us about what dhs and doj are doing to mitigate the dangers to our nation from these unaccompanied aircraft system threats . Senator, thank you for the question. I was chairman johnsons one of his lead witnesses in the leadup to passing that legislation that he championed so i can speak specifically and i was also in the southwest border and did a report there for one of the news networks. So this is a threat that continues to be a threat. We track them not just on the southwest border but on drone incursions over critical infrastructure. Were seeing a percentage increase that just keeps increasing. In engagement with our state, local and private sector, i was just out with the Los Angeles Police department chief and commissioner on drones. Drone legislation is a outstanding first step but they are saying they need more capabilities and more within their own authorities to mitigate these threats. But the southwest border is just one of many from the drone threats that threatens our critical infrastructure, our Mass Gatherings and ways to move illicit goods over the border as well as use it as a countersurveillance platform to suck up information from our military, Law Enforcement or private institutions in the country. I would just add that while we are extremely grateful to the chairman and others for that legislation, this is a threat that is overtaking us in many ways. We are currently investigating a number of incidents in the u. S. Of attempts to weaponize drones in one way or another. Certainly weve been seeing them, as you mentioned, down on the border. Weve also seen drones used to deliver contraband into prisons and of course as the rest of the committee knows as well, there have been efforts to use drones quite frequently on the battlefield against our forces and our allies overseas. Our focus for the fbi has been principally on the mass gathering situation so were very focused on things like the super bowl, et cetera. Not because the others arent incredibly important but in the realm of being able to prioritize the use of these new authorities, thats at the moment where we are. Theres going to be a need for more Technological Solutions disrupting drones over large crowded civilian areas is a different kind of exercise than doing it in the battlefield. Were working very closely with our partners, dhs, department of transportation, dod and obviously doj on that. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, i have exceeded my time. Thank you for your indulgence. Yes, you have. Sorry, i apologize. Thanks. You used it well because you actually asked a question i was going to ask about drones. Oh, see . Then its fine. Let me quick follow up on that, though. We always Fire Department thelt legislation was the first step. Doing the research, develop the strategies for doing something very difficult to do. So the question that i have, how far have we come in terms of doing that research, developing those strategies, and do you already need more authority . Do you need another piece of legislation . Have you come far enough we need to go to the second step . I dont think im quite ready in this setting to propose some kind of additional legislation. What i would say is i think that there is if memory serves, theres a report that we are scheduled to be providing to you all on exactly the question youre raising to address the need for identifying other gaps that might exist. And i do know that from traveling around the country and meeting with state and local Law Enforcement that while theyre very excited that federal authorities now have this civilian use capability, they want to know when they can get it. Theyre still lacking. So youre not ready to say ill ask undersecretary glawe the same thing. Youre basically saying sometime in the future youll need some more authority. Also local officials. Just to follow what director wray said, we are partnering with the fbi in quantity coon the countermeshes through the threat is bigger. We monitor from the analyst side of the emerging technologies. We have radiocontrolled drones. Were moving into 4g which will have 5g capabilities. Is the legislation keeping up with the emerging technology. As this Technology Advances so rapidly for commerce purposes, the nefarious aspects of it or just from a safety aspect, theres a safety aspect to be had on how to stay on top of the legislation with this. That report will be important. Probably the main reason were able to pass that piece of legislation is because we had the video of isis using that in iraq. You can see the drone going over the target and drop the bomb, boom, pinpoint accuracy. That got everybodys attention. It still took a little while. We finally got the reauthorization bill but that cooperation is going to be important. Director travers, you addressed the situation of isis prisoners. I want to drill down a little bit deeper. Have our European Partners started stepping up to the plate and gotten a little more serious about again, i realize its very difficult. They dont necessarily have laws to handle this. But are they considering the return of foreign fighters and prosecuting under their own laws so they are not looking to somebody else to detain these people forever . Youre quite right that the issue of repatriation has been a problem for years. Because of the inability to either prosecute because of lack of evidence or short sentences they have not been willing to bring prisoners back. They have been somewhat more willing to bring women and children back but even thats been a bit of an issue. Ever since over two or three weeks ago when the incursion started, theres been a flurry of activity in european capitals about trying to bring their women and Children Home in particular out of some of the idp camps out of humanitarian interests. We have not seen any increased level of willingness to bring their foreign fighters back. In fact theres been some getting rid of citizenship just so they can kind of wait their hands of it. In terms of responsibility sharing, duty sharing, ive heard the proposal that maybe arab states could go into the camps with women and children, go through a sorting process to a certain extent. Which of those detained individuals would potentially be rehabilitated, brought back to society, versus those that need to be considered for longer term detention. Are you hearing efforts or any kind of issues occurring along those lines . Frankly right now because theres so much turmoil and uncertainty about whos going to control these things, the likelihood of that is probably going down. There has certainly been some willingness on the part of the iraqis in particular to bring back idps. Theres 30,000, 40,000 people there. But in general its a pretty difficult proposition to even know where these people are as they get moved around. Give me your general assessment of all the players. Weve got turkey and we have the sdf and we have assad and we have russia, we have iran. Obviously we have our desire to make sure that isis cant reconstitute. Is there pretty much a universal desire not to allow isis to reconstitute or is there a little bit less commitment on some of the some of those players . Theres no one that wants isis to reconstitute. I think its fair to say that the turks, for instance, are more concerned about pkk than they are against isis. I dont think anyone has as much concern as perhaps we do in the area about isis. But in general, for instance, my guess is theres going to be an effort to keep those prisoners in prison, whomever gets control of the prisons if the turks move any further south. My final question is for honestly all of you that want to contribute to this. But the Blue Ribbon Study Panel that we had testimony from a couple of years ago, their primary conclusion was we need somebody in charge. Their recommendation was put the Vice President s office and back then Vice President biden pretty close to the end of the term said every administration would be somewhat different. But we had the same issue when we were discussing 5g in our hearing just last week. I think we found out that its the National Economic council and larry kudlow is kind of in charge of the 5g aspect of cyber. But if you go all the way down the list, whether its, you know, catastrophic empg attack, shutting down our electric grid or financial system, some kind of wmd, chemical or biological attack, Natural Disaster i think we pretty well assume fema will take charge of that. Starting with local, then state and then fema comes in when it overwhelms the state and local governments. In the other instances, is there a sense within your agencies that you know exactly whos going to be stepping up to the plate in terms of recovery and response to one of these potential catastrophic threats . Ill start with you, undersecretary glawe. From the department its very well defined. The federal Emergency Management administration is there as well as the cybersecurity and infrastructure security. So within the department its clear and the lines from the intelligence from the vulnerability side is clearly mine and the collection requirements going to the u. S. Intelligence community and foreign partners flows through me. Within the Department Im very comfortable to say the lines again, thats been the department. Is there going to be turf battles . Is everybody going to be looking at and pointing fingers at somebody else in terms of who has the overall responsibility, whos in charge . From femas standpoint i think thats very clear their response capability. And within the cybersecurity and infrastructure security, i think thats very clear. From the intelligence apparatus as director wray mentioned, we have a cyber that aligns our intelligence capability at the odni. Director wray, obviously the fbi frequently is first on the spot at these mass shootings. What about a catastrophic type of attack on infrastructure . Do you have a sense, do you know exactly what the line of authority is . Obviously starting with the president. But i mean at an operational level within these dentdepartme agencies . Theres the terrorist category if you will and then theres the cyber category. I think youre asking about both . Im talking about no matter what might shut down our electrical grid or financial whatever could really represent almost an existential threat to this nation or be so catastrophic in terms of power outage or whatever. Well, i think what i would say on the terrorist attack category, for example, i have actually as somebody who was in the fbi Headquarters Building on 9 11 and intimately involved in these issues during the years after 9 11 and then having now come back to this world with some time in the private sector in between, i can tell you that the machine that exists now across the u. S. Government with our partners at the state and local level through the joint Terrorism Task forces, et cetera, is so much more mature and robust and kind of a welloiled machine in terms of everybody working together that it was one of the most pleasant surprises i found coming back. So i think the lanes in the road and the way in which everybody works together is pretty well dwien defined in the terrorist base. In the cyber area, although its slightly different lanes. As i said in response to an earlier question, in a major cyber incident the fbi is in charge of investigating the threat but dhs has got to be joined at the hip in terms of making sure that appropriate steps are taken to protect the asset. There are well defined lanes there. I think theres a temptation sometimes to assume that one person needs to be responsible for all those things. I think really the premium is on coordination. At some level given the unique nature of the authorities that are involved in whether its a terrorist incident or cyber incident, you Start Talking about Law Enforcement authorities that are constitutionally entrusted to the attorney general. You have military responsibilities, offensive cyber, for example, that are in the lane of dod. And i think it while it might sound nice to create some new person to be in charge of all that, i think in fact it would be more complicated and actually would not accomplish what was designed. So the key is to make sure everybody has their lanes and responsibilities well dwienefin and the partnership. And thats what im saying day to day. Not to put you at odds with the Blue Ribbon Study Panel, youre a little less concerned with that. Youre seeing a fair amount of coordination. You may lose sleep over the threat but you dont lose sleep over the fact it would just be chaos, nobody would know who was in charge and wouldnt know how to coordinate and operate within the agencies . Theres always room for improvement and thats important. I dont want to be understood as thinking everything is hunky dory, but we are in a so much better place as a country and government and i say that across government, federal, state and local than we were even five, six years ago. I think we learned a lot from katrina. Weve made Great Strides since that point in time. Director travers, do you have anything to add to that . Whole of government rolls off the tongue pretty easily. I would completely agree with chris. Ive been doing terrorism pretty much since 9 11. I do think that the Counterterrorism Community at large is the best integrated effort across the entirety because weve been doing it forever. Because we havent been attacked in the country now really, youve got to go back ten years to something really potentially big, there is a muscle memory issue it seems to me. Im big into interagency exercises to just compare notes on whos doing what, because new people come around. While we are much better coordinated than we were, i think its always useful to get people together and put them through their paces. I didnt think it was possible but the answer to that last question gave me just a little bit more optimism. Let me thank you all for your service. Like so many of my colleagues on the committee here, please convey to the men and women that serve with you our sincere appreciation for their service and sacrifice. I think that came across loud and clear and we sincerely mean it. That also gives me a fair amount of optimism. When i see the quality of the federal workforce, it does make you rest a little bit easier, even though were facing some pretty complex, difficult threats. So again, thank you for your service. The hearing record will be main open for 15 days until november 20th at 5 00 p. M. For the submission of statements and questions for the record. This hearing is adjourned. This week the House Intelligence Committee and chair adam schiff continue public impeachment hearings. Beginning Tuesday Morning at 9 00 eastern on cspan 3 watch live testimony from jennifer williams, aide to Vice President mike pence and director of European Affairs Lieutenant Colonel alexander vindman. At 2 30, ambassador kurt volker, special envoy to ukraine and National Security Council White house aide tim morrison. On wednesday at 9 00 a. M. Eastern testimony continues with u. S. Ambassador to the european union, gordon sondland. At 2 30 Deputy Assistant secretary of defense for russian, ukraine and euroasian affairs, david hale. On thursday at 9 00 a. M. Eastern the committee will hear testimony from fiona hill, senior director for europe and russia. Watch the first two public hearings in their entirety on our website, cspan. Org impeachment. There youll also find transcripts of witness testimony and procedures for the hearings, plus a points of interest feature that identifies key moments during the hearing indicated by a star in the timeline. This week watch live coverage of the house impeachment inquiry hearings on cspan3, cspan. Org or listen live with the free cspan radio app. Follow the house impeachment inquiry and the administrations response on cspan. Unfiltered coverage live on tv, our radio app and online. Watch primetime reairs on cspan or stream any time on demand at cspan. Org impeachment. Today Supreme Court Justice Elena kagan talks to George Mason University students about the american judicial system. Live coverage begins at 4 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan3, online at cspan. Org or listen live on our free cspan radio app. Next, a discussion on whats being done to combat extremism and domestic terrorism. We hear remarks from a former intelligence analysis director with the new york police department, and a former leader of a neonazi group called the National Socialist movement. Held by new america, this is an hour and a half. So, good afternoon, everyone. Were just going to get started. Thanks so much for coming to new america and thanks to coming to our session. A Civil Society approach to preventing terrorism and targeted violence. My name is melissa salykvirk a. 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