They do not inherently include a prohibition of the Intelligence Community. Yes, sir. Mr. Comey, are you aware whether or not the director of National Intelligence, director clapper, ever briefed the president of the United States, then president obama, concern ing the possible collection of communication between the Incoming Administration or officials . I cannot comment on that. Why not, mr. Comey . Because it may involve classified information that i cant talk about here. I cant remember with the full committee. Well have to refresh your memory on those conversations then. Mr. Comey, did president obama ever acknowledge to you being briefed of possible inadvertent or incidental collection by the Intelligence Community of any communications of members of the Incoming Trump administration . Ill have to give you the same answer, mr. Turner. Mr. Comey, the first question related to whether or not mr. Clapper had briefed the president of the United States. He will be appearing before us next week and well certainly be directing the question to him also. Mr. Comey, are you aware of any evidence that general flynn prior to the election ever related to russian government or russian Government Official that the trump administration, in the future, would release, rescind or reverse u. S. Sanctions against russia or ever made any offer of a quid pro quo for releasing, rescinding or reversing u. N. Sanctions against russia . Are you aware of any evidence . Thats not something i can comment on, mr. Turner. Why is that . Im trying very hard not to talk about anything that relates to a u. S. Person or might rule in or rule out things that we might be investigating. Im trying to be studiously vague to protect the integrity of the investigation. Please dont interpret my no comment as meaning this or meaning that. I just cant comment. Mr. Comey, there are statutes, guidelines and procedures concerning what does it take for the fbi to open up a counterintelligence investigation into a u. S. Citizen. You cant say lets go look at somebody. You have to have a basis. You opened the investigation into members of the Trump Campaign concerning russia in july of 2006. Were trying to get a picture of what does it take to tip over for an investigation. Now, previously people have said that there have been individuals who attended a meeting with russian officials, individuals who a member who is paid to attend a conference, a picture that was taken. Travel to a foreign place. There are many people both in all of our administrations and sometimes certainly members who Left Congress who would qualify for that. What is the Tipping Point . Dont you need some action rather than just attending a meeting where a picture was taken or you traveled to a country before youre open for investigation for counterintelligence by the fbi . The standard is theres a couple different at play. Credible allegation of wrongdoing or reasonable basis to believe that an american may be acting as an agent of a foreign power. The reason were struggling with this, mr. Comey, obviously we have the statements of mr. Clapper that theres no evidence of collusion with russia. He just left the Intelligence Community. And as you were aware, we now sit because as you said, admiral rogers, the russians wanted to put a cloud over our system. And mr. Comey by your announcement today, there is now a cloud that undermines our system. There is a cloud that where were sitting with mr. Clapper, who was obviously in a very important position to know who stated to us that theres no evidence of collusion and you will not give us evidence or any substantive evaluation of it. We now sit with this cloud. And its important. Mr. Chairman, i have a few more additional questions if i might. Well get back to you, mr. Turner. Thanks, mr. Chairman. I recognize jackie spear. Thank you, mr. Schiff. Mr. Tillerson in 2014 started to lobby the United States government, asking them to shift or lift the sanctions. In his confirmation, as he said, i have never lobbied against sanctions personally. To my knowledge exxonmobil never directly lobbied against sanctions. Yet there is lobbying reporting that shows exxonmobil actually paid over 300,000 to lobbyists in 2014 and that mr. Tillerson visited the white house five times in 2014 and treasury with secretary lew seven times. Is there something disconcerting about a u. S. Ceo attempting to undermine the sanctions imposed by our government against another country for acts that we find to be disadvantageous to the world order . Director comey . Thats not a question i can answer for a variety of reasons. Im not qualified to answer and i shouldnt be answering questions like that. Okay. How about this then . Is it disconcerting to you as director of the fbi that a u. S. Ceo would say publicly that he is very Close Friends with president putin and has had a 17year relationship with him . Thats not a question i can answer. Would it raise any red flags . Thats not a question i can answer. Admiral rogers . Lots of american corporations do business in russia. I have no knowledge of the specifics were talking about. Im in no way qualified or knowledgeable enough to comment on this. All right. Lets move on to someone else in that web. His name is Michael Caputo. He is a pr professional, conservative radio talk show host. He moved to russia and was working for the agency for international development. He was fired from that job because he refused to follow a state department position. He then opened a pr firm in moscow and married a russian woman. He subsequently divorced her and in 1999, his business failed. Roger stone, a mentor to him, urged him to move to florida and open his pr firm in miami, which is exactly what mr. Caputo did. Then in 2000 he worked with media to improve putins image in the United States. Do we know who gas chrome media is . Do you know anything about gas chrome, director . I dont. Well, its an oil company. In 2007, he began his campaign and met his second wife. My question is, what possible reason is there for the Trump Campaign to hire putins image consultant . Any thoughts on that, director comey . No thoughts. Admiral rogers . Likewise, maam. All right. Do either of you know what Michael Caputo is doing for trump effort today . I have no idea. And im not going to talk about u. S. Persons. All right. Lets move on now to carter page. Carter page was the founder of global energy. Its an investment fund. He has only one partner and that partner is sergey lasenko, firmer executive of gas prom oil company. Before that from 2004 to 2007 he worked for Merrill Lynch in moscow. In march of 2016, then candidate trump referred to carter page as his Foreign Policy adviser to the Washington Post. The next day page asserts his that is an adviser on russia and energy. And then subsequently candidate trump says he doesnt know him. On september 26 he takes a leave of absence from the campaign, page criticizes u. N. Sanctions and natos approach to russia, saying and then subsequently says he is his stake in gas prom in august. He writes an article criticizing u. S. Sanctions in an article in Global Policy and then rebuked the west for focusing on socalled an exation of crimea. In july of 2016 he gives a graduation speech at the new economic school, denies meeting with the Prime Minister for steel and his dossier says he met with, again, igor session, offering a 19 interest in rosneft, the biggest transfer of public property to private ownership. Now carter page is a National Security adviser to donald trump. Do you believe that why do we i guess, again, here is another company that has had sanctions opposed upon it. Could you again clarify why we impose sanctions on companies . Admiral rogers did a better job than i did. Im sorry, i dont remember my response but ill stand by it. It was excellent. All right. At that point ill yield back, mr. Chair. I now yield to mr. Quigley. Thank you, mr. Ranking member. Thank you for service. Thank you for being here. Weve talked a little bit about the russian playbook, right, extortion, bribery, false news, disinformation. Russian playbook how its worked in eastern europa central eur e europe, a lot of it involves trying to influence individuals in that country. Correct . Yes. So it seems to be a black and white notion of whether there was collusion but does a russian active measure trying to attempt at succeeding in collusion, does the person involve actually have to know . Does it have to involve knowing collusion for there to be damage . Generally in the world of intelligence often times there are people who are called cooptees who dont realize theyre dealing with agents for a foreign power and theyre doing things for someone that they think is a friend, a business associate, not realizing its for the foreign government. It can happen. Its actually quite a frequent technique. And is it beyond that sometimes to include things where the actor doesnt necessarily know what theyre doing is helping that other government . Exactly. What are instances, examples of what that might include in a generic sense . Often times a researcher here in the United States may think theyre dealing with a peer researcher in a foreign government,er, not knowing that that researcher is either knowingly or unwittingly passing information to a foreign adversary of the United States. Can you explain and elaborate the differences with implicit or explicit collusion . Collusion is not a legal term of art. I have not used it here today. Were investigating to see if theres any coordination. Explicit or implicit coordination. I guess implicit i would think of it as knowing or unknowing. You can do things to help a foreign nation state, as i said, without realizing youre dealing with you think youre helping a buddy, a researcher at a university in china. What youre actually doing is passing information that ends up at the Chinese Government. Thats unwitting. And implicit would be im doing this because i want to help the Chinese Government and i know hes hooked up with the Chinese Government. Admiral rogers, can you give examples of what youve witnessed in your career . Sometimes u. S. Individuals will be approached by other individuals connected with foreign governments who will misrepresent their identity, if you will. Think im working for a business, commercial interest, create a relationship. Then it turns out there really is no commercial interest. Its a direct extension of a foreign government. Romance can be a feature. Somebody dating someone, create a close relationship and the u. S. Government person thinks theyre in love with this person and vice versa. And the other person is actually an agent of a foreign power. Would you describe this as naive acquiesence . Youre being naive about the issue. You see that at times. Okay. Going on to thing that you probably cant comment upon, which is of equal concern, were all, at this point, very familiar with mr. Sessions testimony before the United States senate in which he specifically said he didnt have this contact with the russian and then amended testimony in which he acknowledged, i believe, two such testimonies. First was in july during the convention. And then later in september, afterwards, all the while while the hacking and dumping of materials were taking place and certainly someone in the position of senator sessions would have been aware of this, perhaps would have remembered these conversations or might have mention ed asked the russin ambassador to knock it off. Apparently none of those things happened or at least he doesnt remember they happened. What were reading now is that there was a third meeting as early as april of last year in washington, d. C. A meeting in which candidate trump was present and the Russian Ambassador was present. At some point in time this goes well beyond an innocent under the best of circumstances, oh, i forgot sort of thing or that doesnt count. When you correct your testimony in front of the United States senate youre still under oath. Youre swearing to the American People that what youre saying is true. The third time is well beyond that. And is quite simply perjury. As we look at this, as we go forward, gentlemen, i ask that you take that into consideration. This is far more than what we have talked about just in the general sense did the russians hack or not in the scope of this to a concerted effort and plan to lie to the American Public about what took place and what the motivations were beyond this process. Again, thank you for your service. I yield back to the Ranking Member. I yield to mr. If you decide a witness deliberately lied about something significant in this case you should consider not believing anything that witness says. Thats familiar to me. And your testimony at the beginning of this hearing was that President Trumps claims that former president obama had wiretapped him is false. I said we have no information that supports it. With respect to donald trump, do you remember the other instruction relating to the truthfulne truthfulness . If a defendant makes a false statement knowing the statement was false or intending to mislead, that conduct may also show he or she were aware of their guilt. That sounds familiar to me, from my distant past. I want to talk about the russian playbook. And financial can be one . Yes. Compromise . Yes. Setting up a compromise. Yes. How about inadvertently captured in a compromise, meaning they have vast surveillance and you stumble into that surveillance and are caught in a compromise. And then take that information, try to use it to coerce you, yeah, thats part of the playbook. Ill yield back, chair, and continue. Gentlemans time has expired. Well go back to mr. Turner. Thank you. Gentlemen, i want to go back to the issue of admiral rogers indicated that the goal of the russians is to put a cloud on our system, to undermine our system. And i would think certainly today, mr. Comey, with your announcement of an investigation that the russians would be very happy with that as an outcome, because the cloud of their actions and activities continues and will continue to undermine until youre finished with whatever your investigation is currently in the scope of. I want to go back to the issue of how does one open an investigation. Again, im a little confused by some of the things that we hear as to the basis of an investigation. Mr. Comey, if an individual attends a meeting with a foreign leader, is that enough to open a counterintelligence investigation . More than somebody met with somebody . Yeah. No. Without more than if they had their picture taken with a foreign leader, is that enough . Would depend upon where they were, who took the picture. Assume that theyre in the foreign country and in that foreign leaders government offices or facilities, if theyre having a picture taken with them, is that enough to a counterintelligence investigation . It would depend. On what . Because im saying if theres just a picture. I can tell you certainly lots of people have had lots of pictures. Is it enough that a person has just had their picture taken with a foreign leader at the foreign leaders Government Official offices or place of residence . The reason i say it depends, it depends. Did the person sneak over to the foreign country and meet them clandest clandestinely . Lets say its not clandestine, that faes open. A person has attended an event, gone over to meet with the foreign Government Official, is at their foreign Government Official facility or their official residence and has a picture taken. And has no intention of being covertly with that person. Is that enough to open an investigation . Tricky to answer hypotheticals but that doesnt strike me enough. Your next question is going to get deeper into h wrchlt pos. No, no, these are pretty straightforward. What if youre paid to attend a conference in a foreign country and youre paid to attend that conference not directly by the foreign government, but nonetheless payment does occur for you to attend a conference. President bill clinton attended many such conferences and spoke and received payment. Is receiving payment by attending to speak in conference its not covert. Its open. Theyre attending to speak at a conference, received payment for purposes of speaking. Is that enough to open a counterintelligence investigation . I cant say as i sit here. It would depend upon a lot of different things. If you had no other information or evidence other than the fact that they attended, is that enough for you, for the fbi, to open a counterintelligence investigation of a private u. S. Citizen . I cant answer the hypothetical. Because it would depend upon a number of other things. I limited it. There would be no other things, mr. Comey. I said only. The only information you had was that they attended an event in which they were paid, a conference, and it was not covert. Is that only sufficient information to open an investigation against a private u. S. Citizen . Who paid them . Did they disclose it . What did they discuss when they were there . Who else was sitting with them . Theres lots of other circumstances that make that even that simple seeming hypo difficult to answer. Lets say that they traveled to a foreign country and they openly traveled. It wasnt covert. Is traveling there enough . Just traveling around the world . N no. Im very concerned, mr. Comey about the issue of how an investigation is opened and how we end up at this situation once again where mr. Clap per directr of National Intelligence