Former home and secured testified at a House Intelligence Committee hearing on russian interference in the 2016 u. S. Elections. This is 2. 5 hours. Good morning. I have asked Rick Crawford to open with a prayer. We ask that her people would strive to be worthy of that blessing. Pray for humility and temperance and mail we do be pleasing to you. In jesus name, amen. Consultation with adam, i make a motion to give each member seven minutes to question witnesses. It is their discussion on the motion . Everybody would get seven including adam and i . Good to go . The meeting will come to order. Homelandcretary of security, jeh johnson. Think you for being here this morning. We are and will remain an open session. This hearing will address only unclassified matters. Interest ine the the committees informed work and we expect proper decorum to be observed at all times and disruptions will not be tolerated. Time, would mr. Johnson please rise and taken of . Take an of . Ath . Do you solemnly swear that what you say will be the truth, nothing but the truth comes hope you got . Wax i do. This committee is charged with getting to the autumn of the facts are guarding russias involvement in the 2016 election and what, if any steps were taken by the u. S. Government to prevent such interference. We seek to get to the truth of what happened and it seeks to provide recommendation for improvement. And the response to russian cyber activities. Unclassified january 17 assessment. Elements of multiple state or local electoral boards. That they werees not involved in vote tallied. Meddling in our election system is extremely disturbing. Our free and open election system. Systemsg electoral threatens our basic freedoms. Yourre at the helm in agency became aware of russian cyber intrusions into state and local election systems. You made the decision to the infrastructure as Critical Infrastructure in january of 17. The testimony will provide this committee and the American Public with a better understanding of what happened and what more could be done to prevent the russians from interfering. You for successfully safeguarding the talley systems. But it is troubling that other agencies did not respond more quickly to russian hacking. We are to talk about the future. Given all we know, why did our election systems remain so vulnerable . What more can be done . I hope you will discuss these challenges and assist the committee in identifying these relations. Thank you, mr. Secretary, for your Extraordinary Service. Three months ago, former fbi director james comey revealed for the first time that he had opened a counterintelligence investigation last july to determine whether persons associated with the had coordinated or colluded with the russian efforts to interfere in our election. Last month, we heard from john brennan who helped us understand what the russian government did, how they did it, and what motivated them. He testified the information concerned him that he feared some americans could be suborned to the russian cause and begin sending counterintelligence leads to the fbi for investigation. We will your testimony from former secretary of Homeland Security jeh johnson about how the u. S. Government responded to this unprecedented interference in our political affairs. What threat the russians pose to the infrastructure and what steps we took to inform the public what was happening and deter the russians from further meddling. Summer,iddle of last russians were not merely gathering information for additional intelligence purposes, but intent on weaponize and it for Public Domain and in no way intended to damage the campaign of hillary clinton. As a Ranking Member and part of the socalled gang of eight, i have been made aware of information concerning the russian hack. Saw, and we believed it was incumbent on the administration to inform the American People what was going on. The same day donald trump was urging the russians to hack Hillary Clintons emails, the senator and i wrote to president obama urging the administration release anynd Intelligence Community assessments related to the dnc hack and develop a swift and powerful response. When the Administration Still had made no Public Statement informing the americans about what russians were doing, senator feinstein and i issued our own Public Statement carefully vetted by the Intelligence Community should beating the heck to russia and senior levels of the kremlin. That the administration would take steps to talk about how significant an action it was. They expelled russian spies and closed facilities used by the russians for espionage against america. Hope, secretary johnson, that you will be able to share a sense of the debate that was ongoing in the executive branch as evidence of the russian involvement and hacked emails piled up through the late summer and early fall. What led to such a long delay of making attribution and why was the most significant step of imposing costs on russia for its interference come only after the election and what are the Lessons Learned . Relies on the trust of the American People and their institutions. The events of last year and the potential for worse in the future is a stark warning to all of us that we must guard our democracy jealously and there are powerful advocacys that wish to tear down americas role as its champion. We have our work cut out for us, but the world is counting on us to be up to the challenge. I thank you for your Extraordinary Service once again and your testimony today. I yield back. Secretary johnson, would you like to make an Opening Statement . Please proceed. Sec. Johnson mr. Chairman, you have my prepared opening remarks. Just briefly in the time permitted me, representative conway, representative shift, members of this committee. You have my prepared statement. I will not repeat it here. In three years, i had the privilege of testifying before congress 26 times. Though it is no longer part of my job description, i voluntarily accepted the invitation to be here today as a concerned private citizen. In 2016, the russian government at the direction of Vladimir Putin himself orchestrated Cyber Attacks on our nation for the purpose of influencing our election. That is a fact. Plain and simple. For thequestion president and the congress is, what are we going to do to protect the American People and their democracy from this kind of thing in the future . This committee has undertaken this investigation. I welcome it. , inincere hope is that bipartisan fashion, we find answers. Last years very troubling experience highlights cyber vulnerabilities in the political process. And in our election infrastructure itself. And clear in the rearview mirror, we must resolve the further strengthen our Cyber Security generally and the Cyber Security around our democratic process specifically. I have appeared to discuss my own views and recommendations on this topic. I look forward to your questions. I recognize myself for seven minutes. Thanks for being here this morning. A lot of questions will be asked and details. We will start with a toplevel conversation about dhss mission with respect to cyber. Particularly how intertwined it is with respect to Voter Registration, voting, vote tallying, all of those things. And if you dont mind for an in what appears to be a delay when the fbi became aware things were going on and when it seems the dhs was informed. How is the relationship to the fbi relative to this infrastructure at the time and maybe Going Forward . If you can weigh in on that, i appreciate it. I think the first, rules of the federal agencies in Cyber Security spell out pretty clearly last year in ppd 41. Basically, the fbi is responsible for threat response. It dhs is responsible for asset response. Fbi,rime, Law Enforcement, patching vulnerabilities in the texting that actors in the system. The way i like to explain it publicly is jim comey is the cop and i am the firemen. Jim,personal level, with we work very well together. Ive known him for 28 years. Days resisted u. S. Attorneys together in manhattan. And at the top of both agencies, we worked well together. Can i say that down to the field Office Working level, we were always fully coordinated were we always fully coordinated . No. But every morning in my intelligence briefing, there would be a net the i prefer there that was with me to give his assessment and tell me what the feedback on something was. So there is that. I spelled out, in my Opening Statement, my prepared statement , the first time i recall hearing about the hack into the dnc and i recalled that it had been some months before that the fbi and the dnc had been in contact with each other about this. And i was not happy to be learning about this several months later. Hack was at some point in time. What was the delay between the hacks the fbi was aware of . And the scanning of the attended intrusions . How long was there a delay between that and using your analogy, the flames are going up. How is that delay . Recollection, is that the fbi first discovered the intrusion. Into the dnc. That recall very clearly there was a delay between that initial contact with the dnc and when the report got timmy s secretary of dhs. It may have been that there were others at the staff level that were privy to this before it filtered up to me. Ignore the dnc for the moment and talk about the chance at whatever the russians did. When was that discovered . Who discovered it . My recollection is that the initial scanning and probing was discovered in late august. Been mid july. But late august, in my mind. And my recollection is that once it was discovered, that information came to me and other senior people pretty quickly. Is there enough it is one thing for the director and secretaries to have good working relationships. Institutionalizing is what thats about. It ebbs and flows. As the system of notification between the fbi and dhs is there any impediments to that working on its own without the Good Relationship you had at the time . Sec. Johnson in my observation, it worked pretty well but could stand improvement, very definitely. Theink it is incumbent on leaders of both organizations to instill that in their workforces. I think it worked pretty well together in my three years, but there were glitches. Did nots where we communicate as effectively as we could have. Thee want to reassure American Public with what we do in future elections Going Forward you said in your Opening Statement and your prepared remarks that there was no vote tallying changes. That still your opinion with respect to the election . That the intrusions did not affect the actual voting itself . Based on everything i know, that is correct. I have no evidence that through cyber intrusions, votes were altered or suppressed in some way. The Lessons Learned moving forward, you designated the Voting System is Critical Infrastructure. Us a quick snap as to why that was important in your mind . Was importantit because Critical Infrastructure receives a priority in terms of the assistance we give on Cyber Security. That is number one. There is a certain level of confidence and confidentiality that goes into the communications of critical structure and the department that are guaranteed. Number three, you get the protection of the International Cyber norms. Theyll shout not attack medical infrastructure in another country. Those are the principal reasons for doing this. There are 16 sectors already that are considered Critical Infrastructure. In my view, this was a nobrainer. It probably should have been done years before. And im pleased secretary kelly has reaffirmed it. Include the parties and infrastructure around candidates are just the mechanics of voting it elf . Itself . Read mynson if you statement, it is pretty much confined to the election process itself. Not the politicians, not the Political Parties. My time expired. Last the late summer of year, it became apparent the russians were doing more than gathering foreign intelligence, that they were dumping it in a way designed to potentially influence outcomes. Not by affecting the vote machines, but by affecting American Public opinion with the dumping of these emails. That is happening in late summer. Why did it take the administration so long to make a Public Statement that a foreign adversary was trying to influence the american election. The statement didnt come until october. Why did we wait from july to october to make that statement . Sec. Johnson i will disagree that there was some type of delay. This was a big decision and there were a lot of considerations that went into it. This was an unprecedented step. First, with to carefully consider if that information compromises sources and methods. There was an ongoing election and many would criticize us for, perhaps, taking sides. That had to be carefully considered. One of the candidates was predicting the election was going to be rigged in some way. That by makinged this statement, we might be challenging the integrity of the election process itself. This was a very difficult decision, but in my personal view, it was something we had to do. Before theo do it election to inform the American Voters of what we knew and what we saw. It would be unforgivable if we did not. And im glad we did it. Congressman, every Big National Security decision i made in my time, somebody always criticizes you for doing it and somebody elses summary else criticizes you for not doing it sooner. Im glad we did, frankly. I think the larger issue is it did not get the public attention that it should have, frankly. The same day, the press was focused on the release of the access hollywood video. A want to ask you about that as well. Were certain allegations by one of the campaigns, the trump campaign, that the process was rigged. But the allegation wasnt that it was by a foreign power. To inform important it public, then any risk might be seen as putting your hand on the scale . Did the public have a compelling need to know . Notwithstanding the claims of a different kind of rigging. And the need to rebut the idea that this was being presented to liberally to influence the outcome . Yes, and yes. Yes, that is why we told the American Public everything that we could tell them on that date. We attribute the hacking directly to the russian government and we were not yet in a position to attribute the scanning and probing to the russian government. We said it was coming from a russianbased platform at that point. At that point, we told the public everything we believed we could tell them. And im glad we did. The priority of informing the American Public did override all of those other considerations which is why we did what we did. Mentioned the statement did not get much attention. Why didnt the administration go further . But in the president speak about this . Have the statement without any further elaboration. There were no steps to impose sanctions on russia. Why were those additional steps taken when the first notice was essentially overlooked by the public . Sec. Johnson you should not view the october 7 statement in isolation. I had been engaging state Election Officials since august and i issued a Public Statement on august 15. I issued a Public Statement on september 16. Informing the public and state officials what we knew at the time. We shoot another Public Statement on october 1. The october 7 statement and then another on october 10. This was an ongoing effort to inform the public about everything we were in a position then to tell the public. It wasnt just the october 7 statement. The statement was notable in another way that it did not include james comeys signature as the agency that would be having the foremost responsibility for the forensic of attribution. While wasnt director comeys signature on that statement . The thinking was that a statement should come from the Intelligence Community. Jim clapper said on the Intelligence Community as the dni. Separately, we wanted to put out a statement from dhs about what state Election Officials can do about this. And again encourage them to come to us. Some point, we decided to make it a joint statement. Thats what happened. There have been public reports that the russian probing was far more widespread than was publicly at knowledge. And may affect dozens of states. What can you tell us about what was known at the time and what you know now as the length and breadth of russian probing. How widespread was it . Did it go beyond penetration of voter databases or manipulation of data in any way . Veryjohnson it was definitely a gr