Homeland security jay johnson. Mr. Johnson, thank you very much for being here this morning. As a reminder to our members, we are and will remain in opposition. This hearing will address only unclassified matters. To our guests in the audience, welcome. We appreciate the public and media interest in the committees important work. We would expect proper decorum will be observed at all times and disrussians to todays proceedings will not be tolerated. At this point in time, mr. John be so, will you please rise and take an oath. Do you swear that the testimony will be the truth so hen you god . Thank you. Thank you, secretary johnson, for being here today. This committees charged with getting to the bottom of the facts regarding russias involvement in the 2016 elections and what if not steps were taken by the u. S. Government to prevent such interference in our election. While our investigation seeks to get to the truth of what happened during last years elections, it also seeks to provide recommendations for improvement. One focus is the u. S. Governments reto russian cyber activities during the 16 election. According to the intelligence communities, unclassified january 17 assessment russian intelligence accessed elements of multiple state or local electoral boards. Dhs also assessed that thankfully the systems russian actor actors saw were not involved. A corner stone of our democracy and the foundation of our selfgoverning republic. In actions by a foreign adversary to access electoral system also threatens our basic free many dos. As secretary of d is, you were at the helm when your agency became aware. And you made the decision to designate elections infrastructure as Critical Infrastructure in january 17. I hope this will provide a better understanding of what happened and what more could have been done if anything. And while i commend your efforts to address the cyber threat emanating from moscow. Its troubling that dhs and other agencies did not respond more quickly. Why did our election systems remain so vulnerable . What more can be done to address these vulnerabilities . I hope youll discuss these challenges and assist the committee in identifying solutions. Three months ago, during the committees first open hearing, former fbi director james comey revealed for the first time that hed opened counterintelligence investigation last july to to determine whether any u. S. Persons associated with the Trump Campaign had coordinated or colluded with the russian efforts to interfere in our election. Last month we heard from former cia director john brennan who helped us to understand what the russian government did, how they did it and what motivated them. He testified that information he was seeing concerned him so greatly that he feared some americaned could be americans could be suborned to the russian cause and began sending intelligence leads to the fbi for investigation. Today well hear 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 steps we took to protect our institutions, to inform the public was what happening and to deter the russians from further meddling. By the middle of last summer it was apparent the russians were not merely gathering information for intelligence purposes but were intent on weaponizing it in a way to damage the campaign of hillary clinton. As a Ranking Member of the house Intelligence Committee, i had been made aware of information concerning the russian hack. My counterpart in the Senate Diane Feinstein and other senior leadership. What we saw alarmed us and we believed it was incumbent on the information to inform the American People what was going on. On the same day donald trump was urging people to hack Hillary Clintons emails the senator and i wrote to president obama urging the committee release any assessments related to the dnc hack and develop a swift and powerful response. Over a month later when the administration had still made no Public Statement informing americans about what the russians were doing, senator feinstein and i took the extraordinary step of issuing our own Public Statement, vetted by the Intelligence Community attributing the hack to russia and senior levels of the kremlin. It would be yet another month before the u. S. Government would publicly declare russia behind the interference in our election. It wouldnt be until well after the election that the administration would take steps to signal how truly significant an action the russians had taken. When it opposed sanctions on russia over the hack, expelled russian spies and closed facilities used by the russians for espionage against america. I hope secretary johnson that youll be able to share with us and the American People 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 day in making attribution and why would the most significant step of imposing costs on russia for its interference come only after the election, and what are the Lessons Learned. At its heart, our democracy relies on the trust of the American People in their institutions. The events of last year and the potential for worse in the future are stark warning to all of us that we must guard our democracy jealously and there are powerful adversaries that wish to tear down liberal democracy and 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 and i yield back. Thank you. Secretary johnson, would you like to make an Opening Statement . If so, please proceed. Mr. Chairman, you have my prepared opening remarks. Just briefly in the time permitted me, representative conway, representative shiff, members of this committee, you have my prepared statement. I will not repeat it here. In three years as secretary of Homeland Security 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. Now the key question for the 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. Im pleased that this committee has undertaken this investigation. I welcome it. My sincere hope is that in bipartisan fashion you find answers. Last years very troubling experience highlights cyber vulnerabilities in our political process and in our election infrastructure itself. With that experience fresh in our minds and clear in the rearview mirror, we must resolve to further strengthen our Cyber Security generally and the Cyber Security around our democratic process specifically. I am prepared to discuss my own views and recommendations on this topic and i look forward to your questions. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Secretary. Recognize for seven minutes. Again, thank you for being here this morning. A lot of questions will be asked. A lot of details. Toplevel conversation about dhss mission with respect to cyber, particularly given how intertwined it is with respect to Voter Registration, voting vote tallying and also if you wouldnt mind fold into that what appears to be a delay between when the fbi became aware of things that were going on and when it seems that dhs was informed what was going on. Hows the relationship with fbi relative to this particular infrastructure either at the time and then maybe Going Forward. So if youll weigh in on that, id appreciate it. Couple of things, sir. First, i think the roles of the federal agencies in Cyber Security spelled out pretty clearly last year in ppd 41. Basically Law Enforcement, the fbi is responsible for threat response, dhs is responsible for asset response. So the crime, Law Enforcement, fbi. Patching vulnerabilities, detecting bad actors in the system, dhs. The way i explain it is jim comey is the cop. Im the fireman. On a personal level with jim we worked very well together. Ive known him for 28 years from the days we were assistant United States attorneys together in manhattan and on a personal level 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 . No. But i was impressed that day to day the process seemed to be working well. Every morning in my intelligence briefing there would be an fbi briefer there who was with me to give his assessment, to tell me what the fbi 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 i was learning of this that the fbi and the dnc had been in contact with each other about this. And i was not very happy to be learning about it several months later, very clearly. Theres two things going on. Dnc hack was at some point in time what was the delay between the hacks that the fbi was aware of or who found the hacks to the scanning of the various Voter Registration systems . Who discovered that . If it was the fbi, how long was there a delay between that and because using your analogy of the cop and the firearm, if the flames are going up, we need the fireman there first. How was that delay between the infrastructure were concerned my recollection is that the fbi first discovered the intrusion thats my recollection. Intrusion of the state systems . Into the dnc. Okay. And i recall very clearly that there was a delay between initial contact with the dnc and when the report got to me as secretary of dhs. It may have been that there were others at the staff level in dhs who were privy to this before it filtered up to me in an intelligence report. But thats my recollection. But i was asking lets ignore the dnc for the moment. Lets talk about attempts at scanning or whatever the russians did with respect to the election systems. Voter registrationings. When was that discovered and who discovered it . And if it wasnt dhs my recollection is that the initial scanning and probing around Voter Registration systems was discovered in late august. Could have been july. 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. Okay. Is there enough its one thing for the director and the secretaries to have good personal working relationships. Institutionalizing that is what were about. That ebbs and frlows depending n whos in those jobs. Is the system of notification between fbi and dhs and that working, is there any impediments to that not working on its own without the Good Relationship that you and mr. Comey had at the time . In my observation, it worked pretty well but could stand improvement. Very definitely. And i think its incumbent on the leaders to instill that in their work forces. I think it worked pretty well together in my three years but there were glitches. There were instances where we did not communicate as effectively as we could have. One of our purposes this morning was to reassure the American Public with respect to the 16 election and also secondly look at what we do in future elections Going Forward. You said in your Opening Statement, in your prepared remarks that to your knowledge there was no vote tallying changes, that no ones vote was they voted one way and it recorded some other way. Is that still your opinion with respect to the 16 election, that the intrusions, whatever it is the russians did, did not affect the actual voting itself . Based on everything i know, that is correct. I know of no evidence that through cyber intrusions, votes were altered or suppressed in some way. Okay. Lessons learned in moving forward, youve designated the Voting System as Critical Infrastructure. In the remaining time, can you give us kind of a quick snap as to why that was important in your mind . It was important in my mind because Critical Infrastructure receives a priority in terms of the assistance we give on Cyber Security. Thats number one. Theres a certain level of confidentiality that goes into the communications between Critical Infrastructure and the department that are guaranteed. And number three when youre part of Critical Infrastructure, you get the protection of the International Cyber norms. Thou shalt not attack Critical Infrastructure in another country. And so those were the principal reasons to do this. There are 16 sectors already that are considered Critical Infrastructure. In my view, this was something that was sort of a nobrainer and in fact probably should have been done years before. Im pleased secretary kelly has reaffirmed it. Does that include the parties and infrastructure around candidates . Or is that just the mechanics of voting itself . If you read the way i wrote the statement on january 6th, its pretty much confined to the election process itself, election infrastructure itself, not the politicians, not the Political Parties. Thank you. Time expired. Recognize the Ranking Member. Adam . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, in the late summer of last year it became apparent that the russians were doing more than gathering foreign intelligence, that they were the in fact dumping it in a way designed to potentially influence outcomes, not by affecting the vote machines necessarily but by affecting American Public opinion with the dumping of these emails. So thats happening in late summer, mid to 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 until october to make that statement . Well, congressman, im going to disagree with your premise 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, we have to carefully consider whether declassifying the information compromises sources and methods. Second, there was an ongoing election. And many would criticize us for perhaps taking sides in the election. So that had to be carefully considered. One of the candidates, as youll recall, was predicting that the election was going to be rigged in some way. So we were concerned that by making the statement, we might e might in and of itself be challenging the integrity of the election process itself. This was this was a very difficult decision but in my personal view its something we had to do. It got careful consideration, a lot of discussion. My view is that we needed to do it and we needed to do it well before the election to inform the American Voters of what we knew and what we saw and that it would be unforgivable if we did not preelection and im glad we did it. Every congressman, every big National Security, Homeland Security decision ive made in my time, somebody always criticizes you for doing it and somebody else criticizes you for not doing it sooner. Jim clapper and i made the statement on october 7th and im glad we did, frankly. I think the larger issue is it did not get the public attention that it shouldve frankly, pause the same day the press was focused on the release of the access hollywood video. Thats what made our news below the followed news that day. I want to ask you about that as well. Couple things. There were certain allegations by one of the campaigns, the Trump Campaign that the process was rigged. Yes. But the allegation wasnt being rigged by a foreign power. Why wasnt it more important to tell the American People the length and breadth of what the russians were doing to interfere in an election than any risk that it might be seen as putting your hand on the scale . Didnt the public have a compelling need to know, notwithstanding the claims made by a campaign about a different kind of rigging, and the need to rebutt the idea that this was being presented to the public deliberately to influence the outcome . Yes, yes and where he which is why we did tell the American Public everything we were in a position to tell them on that d