[inaudible conversations] ready to go . I want to thank you all for coming today, including our panelists and of course representative schiff and his staff for their help including my friend tim who works for the congressmen on the intel committee. I will be presented and have a lot of time and we have a lot to talk about. It is my honor to introduce representatives at an schiff who represents californias 20 Congressional School districts in los angeles county. Representative schiff among other things is the ranking democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on intelligence. He is the leader in all intelligent use and has been particularly outspoken and thoughtful on the issue of russian interference in the recent u. S. President ial election. Give opening remarks in the Panel Discussion blood by the Vice President. No other participation including my old friend whos had a distinguished career of Public Service and his acting secretary of the department of security and dick clark. As the United States marine in vietnam. Jeremy bash, another old friend and colleague from the cia and the pentagon will be on the panel. Jeremy is managing of Global Strategies and was in excellent shape as that for the gun fanatic, one of the best person that worked for the cia and dod. Julie smith will participate. A college as well. She worked at the pentagon for Vice President biden. She now works as jeremy at the center for new American Security. Shes also one of the smartest people in town on europe and russia. Finally, when i started studying the soviet union, the top with focus that over time we then went from the bill to peer into putins eyes, to reset to today. And who knows what price will come up with to describe the nontrump relationship. A line from old apollo spring sun sums it up for the moment for me. Theres something happening here, what it is aint exactly clear, the representative schiff, maybe you can help us get clearance. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you it is a pleasure to join you today a special appreciation for American Progress for the fabulous for the center does an invitation to come and speak with you today. I very much look forward to our panel. There is a lot to talk about. I thought i would focus my brief remarks on the convergence of two trends in the world. The trend affect and russia at this place in the world and the world view of Vladimir Putin as well as the trend of increasing potency of cyberas a weapon. We saw those trends come into uniquely pernicious combination last november, which will bring us to the heart of the topic today. Let me start out by talking about russia with an anecdote from a few years ago when i was introduced to a Russian Oligarch in los angeles and made the observation that it was a shame that medvedev hadnt been given a freer hand, the relations between United States and russia could have been very different, that couldnt seem to have a chip on his shoulder, that anything in the United States interest was High Definition and pathetic to russias interest, and they had put in a lab and it has greater autonomy, they mightve had a different relationship in our countries might have been on a different greek because indeed there were a number of common interest. His answer was very dismissive. Medvedev he said was nothing. Do you know, he asked me, that medvedevs hot at that medvedev added all time someone someone called the pillow carrier . Do you know what the job of the pillow carrier is. When i asked him, it was the job of the pillow carrier to smother the edits in his sleep if he did something but didnt like. I imagine if i had someone following me around i would say very well. I dont know how well she slept, the tragically, i think prudence worldview sharpened after the mass protest in 2011 that weve heard a lot about recently because they played such a wonderful role antipathy to secretary clinton. I think its also an important chapter in modern russian history because the gravest concern for Vladimir Putin is longevity of its regime and the biggest threat that he saw was this mass protest they call revolutions and of course the russians think the revolutions indeed the entire arabs bring were in the cia. I would congratulate them on their omnipotence to be able to produce these world changing event. They have far greater capabilities that im aware of, but nonetheless this is apparently the russian divine things. I used to describe as recently as a year ago the threat emanating from russia as a form of creeping authoritarianism coming from the kremlin. I would no longer say it is creeping. I think we are not in a new cold war, but we are in a highly consequential war of ideas now not between communism and capitalism, but authoritarianism and democracy and representative government. We see that obviously busily in the rush and propagation of its model and its desire to tear down democracies in europe, tear down the american democracy of course. One of the core conclusions of the Intelligence Community and russian interference in our election was the desire to sow discord in the United States. So this is i think a hugely important battle of ideas. Sadly in this battle of ideas, you see at you on the march. Ec countries in europe that are becoming increasingly autocratic, increasing the naturalist in their origin. Easy changes here in the United States where our own new president displays often very authoritarian qualities and i think the weakening of europe, the brexit, all of these factors are greatly endangering the future of democracy and i think this is going to be the struggle of our times. Let me talk briefly about the other trend and that is the explanation of the potency of cyber. I think many countries had a desire to blur distinctions between a different kind of cyberactivity. There is obviously a cyberfor the purpose of fast, of intellectual property. This is a problem we had with many countries, but probably among the foremost china for many years. You have cyberfor the purposes of the gathering of foreign intelligence, which all nations have a safer capability engaging. You have what we saw recently in erin election cyberfor the purposes of affect in political outcomes of meddling in the internal affairs of another country. We have seen this from russia and europe in the past this was the first and most brazen example of cyberbeing utilized in those needs. United states. Cybertragically i think for the United States is a wonderfully if a metric weapon. It is easy and cheap to go on offense. It is phenomenally difficult mx and good to be on defense. They just need to find an opening. One of the illustrations i love to give his target when target was packed. The hackers got into target to the hvac, the airconditioning system because in an internet of things from the you are only as secure as your needs vulnerable port of entry and in that case was apparently the airconditioning. So in the july swear calls to the airconditioning ducts, the thieves were able to go through the hvac system and migrating to the Financial Data and all of a sudden target had a huge problem on its hands. So this is cheap to do. It can be done remotely. It can be done always has some level of deniability. In the context who is doing damage to the United States, whether its north korea attacking a company our russia attacking our democracy, it will always put the administration in the difficult position of proving its case when it makes attribution or deciding it cant do so without giving up important sources than that theyve been making the decision not to attribute conduct. The skit made to the point i would like to conclude on. Our new president who is doing deep damage to himself and to our countries. Hes doing this in many ways. Hes doing it in his willingness to make up facts as he goes along and were in the midto the most recent flareup, the invention that lands of Illegal Immigrants but why is this significant, what is this have to do with russia, National Security or anything else. They will become a time when the president is to be believed by the country. They will become a time of the president is to make a case for what intelligence agencies tell him without revealing what sources of information are. If the president cant be believed by his own people, let alone our allies come that the president has sown. The credibility of intelligence professionals providing the best insights in the world, what hope does he have persuaded his own country let alone our allies to make common cause to do with the thread. This is i think an enormous problem. As you may remember as early as september, senator feinstein and i made the initial decision to go public with attribution of russias involvement before the administration was willing to. Obviously we were lying the administration to make the attribution. My argument was that the administration didnt need to reveal sources and methods, but it did need to make attribution. Certainly, whenever that the case youll have come the people in the public and people in the press stadium where is your proof . It is going to be very much in our National Interest that time to make attribution and not disclose sources and methods. Im sure the kremlin would like Nothing Better than the whole some accounting of how we know just what the russians were doing. Right now russians are reverse engineering everything in the open source report and trying to figure out how we know what we know. I think it is very important president has the confidence of the public to be able to come before the American People and say that either the iranians are cheating or the North Koreans are advanced than on their miniaturization of the new year were ahead on an icbm for whatever the case may be that warrants action. Its going to be important that the president have credibility and i think there is no one doing more to undermine its own credibility and legitimacy than this president had up. We can talk more in the panel, revisiting the creation of black sites or go back to waterboarding or interrogation techniques. The consideration of a ban on immigration or defense to muslims in any form he says are colossal mistake that will cost s. Relationships with allies for many who would depend on in the war in terror. This is a chapter that many of us that have returned the page on. I think it would read a tragic mess they are the country to revisit this and make the same mistakes all over again. Im not optimistic note, i will conclude in the forward to her discussion. Thank you very much. [applause] good morning, everybody. Thanks for being here. Thank you for the kind introduction of the congressmen and all our distinguished panelists. For those of you who dont know, and Julian Jeremy and of course congressman jeff, are in the National Security program here. Im grateful to all of our panel is joining us here today. Theres a lot going on in the news. Im grateful for your taking the time to be here and talk about what might be one of the most important issues weve sorted face of the country. Im going to bounce around the panel a little bit, come back here and try to save some time for questions. We will have a bunch of them at the end. I would like to start with you, jeremy is the former chief of staff at the pentagon and the cia. One of the things we saw this week i may be an attempt by the president to bridge the divide echoing to langley and talking to cias doubts that didnt necessarily play out as we would have expected or liked any of the sort of questionable whether it has the desire to impact. What are the implications to a congressmen schiff was talking about, the dynamic antagonism between the president and his premier Intelligence Agency and what does that sort of mean for us having the intelligence we need in the country. Banks. I was at the agency on december 30, 2009, a day that we sent about a dozen of our best officers out to a post in eastern afghanistan to conduct counterterrorism operations, went tragically wrong when he asked that their officers are supposed to be detonated a suicide vest. On that day he killed darrin, harold, jennifer, lives, scott, dane and an officer named jeremy. The seven cia officers are memorialized in the Memorial Wall in the lobby of the original Headquarters Building at langley along with 100 other members of the agency who lost their lives in service to our country. It was particularly jarring, disturbing and upsetting train number of professionals has spoken to see the president s presentation there on saturday. As they think about it, there are four areas where i think this important relationship between the president and his Intelligence Community will come into some tension and potential conflict for the first is that the congressmen noted on the inception of russia. The Intelligence Community has been clear in warning for many years about threats posed by russia and i dont think thats fundamentally been shared by the president and his team. Second, im counterterrorism, the president vowed on saturday essentially reinvented cases. That is something you said before and we shouldve taken their oil and we may have a Second Chance to take their oil. If you combine that with some of the other misguided counterterrorism needs to start in on such as a hiring freeze for the Intelligence Community for tsa for customs and Border Control for the people who keep our country safe. Combine that with going back to waterboarding, misguided policies that will not prevent terrorist attacks were country. You see an inevitable collision between the president and professional intelligence and will make the job of our Intelligence Officers harder. Third, in an era of alternative fax, what does an Intelligence Officer do . And Intelligence Officers credo is emblazoned in the lobby of the original Headquarters Building is from john. He shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. They have to have truth to power even when its uncomfortable, and what america stands for. When you start from the premise of alternative fax, and undermines the whole premise of intelligence. Designed to put parameters around policy to make sure the policy is guided by. Every meeting begins with a factual predicate of an intelligence picture never throw that out the window, we are going to be destined to make very poor policy. Finally, i do think that theres something very important in the president s world view. During his doctoral address company talked about america first. Fundamentally, the Intelligence Officers i know arent hopeless in the outlook. They believe that American Security depends on our interdependence with other countries. Much of the work that our intelligence professionals he was working with other countries to keep us safe. These are people come in many of whom lived overseas, they like serving overseas. They are more Like State Department professionals than almost anybody else in our government. You have to be involved in the world. If we retreat and having nativist nationalist approach to our security it wont work. So for all of those reasons, i think we are potentially in for more Stormy Weather ahead. I think im going to go to two of germanys fourpoint they are. The first being longstanding Intelligence Community assessment engaged in russias favorite city in the United States. Obviously, the election is getting all the attention, but both acting assistant secretary for Homeland Security and in what you do now, focusing on cyberthreats, what is the spectrum of threats we face . What is beyond the election . What should americans be worried about in a another aspect of our security from cyberwrit large and particularly russia . I would start with a simple declarative statement. Brescia is the greatest threat to the United States in cyberspace in the world today and we have known this for some time. Just looking at the election, just looking at the breech of the ds the other revelation of the email said john podesta and others and looking at the fake news, we see the current manifestations today. But thats not all there is to it. If we look at the whole spectrum of crime that congressman schiff referred to when we know that operate within Russian Space and what we dont have a clear demarcation about is what is the connection between russian organized crime and the russian state. If we cant specifically identify that, we can look at a visible fact that isnt happening and that is russia is not cooperating with the United States in criminal investigations of People Living in their country who have breached particularly databases within this country, whether it be a retail store or other kinds of Economic Activity within this country. A