Press corps thought comey was coming in the back door. We will eventually see him here and there will be no shortage of pictures still and video of director comey. Nicole wallace, his reputation in washington. So interesting, i asked republicans this morning if trump isnt happy with what he hearse today, does he have any recourse, to Pete Williams point. And he said no, this president is stuck with comey basically. Theres no case to be made that hes done anything other than his job. You can criticize how hes gone about doing his job. I know some democrats are still pretty enraged about how hugh he handl how he handled the Hillary Clinton emails and i feel like weve been on this beat for many months. Comey was my colleague in the white house. He became famous for going to jim ashcrofts bedside and making a point on the terror policie policies. Theres nothing to suggest he isnt probably perfectly suited for this job under this president. Kasie hunt is outside in the hallway. What should we know about whats going on out there . Well, you saw director comey come down this hlway andnto the hearing room so were clearly at the point where we are gettin ready to get all of this under way. Of course comey reacting the way he has everybody time hes been up here, shouted questions from reporters and absolutely zero answers, reactions, nothing from the fbi director. If you are a politician who does not like to answer shouted questions and you need a role model, fbi director comey may be the one to look to. Staff nemembers are telling politicians, hey, you dont have to answer those questions. Comey does not. He is going to face questions from the members of congress. As we were talking to questions from the committee, it clear that i think there are partisan interpretations of the information were getting here but theres kind of unified frustration of kind of the lack of clarity between facts and rumor. I think hes going to get pressed pretty hard there. Right now were just at the point where you can see the other camera crews around here in the hallway and other members as well, brian. Okay, lets go into the hearing room. Sorry for the picture quality of the shot we keep taking of rogers and comey from the side. As soon as we get cleared here, we will have clearer video from the reverse angle, as their testimony going. Lets listen in. Id like to welcome james comey and admiral rogers. Thank you for being here today. I would like to remind our members and witnesses this is an open hearing. I recognize the challenge of discussing Sensitive NationalSecurity Issues in public, however, as part of this committees investigation into russian active members during the 2016 election, it is critical to ensure the public has access to credible, unclassified facts and to clear their regarding unsubstantiated media reports. To our guests in the audience, welcome. We appreciate you being here. I also expect that the proper decorum will be observed at all times today and disruptions during the proceedings will not be tolerated. And i will recognize myself for five minutes for the purpose of an Opening Statement. The putin regime has a long history of aggressive actions against other countries, including the outright invasion of two of its neighbors in recent years as well as its brutal military action in syria to defend the assad regime. But its actions take hostile acts aside from the many souls. They traffic in antiamerican conspiracy theories. Russia also has a long history of meddling in other countries election systems and launching Cyber Attacks on a wide range of countries and industries. The baltics and other russian neighbors have long decried these attacks, but their warnings went unheeded in far too many nations capitals, including our own. The fact that russia hacked u. S. Election databases comes as no shock to this committee. We have been closely monitoring russias aggressive for years. A year ago i publicly statedabi regime plans has been our biggest failure since 9 11. However, one benefit is already clear, it has focused wide attention on the pressing threats posed by the raugs auto democrat. In recent Years Committee members have issued repeated add forceful pleas for stronger action against russian blej rens, but the Obama Administration was committed to the notion and i hope todays hearing will shed light on russias active measure. First, what actions did russia undertake during the 2016 Election Campaign and did anyone from the Political Campaign conspire in these activities . Number two, were the communications of officials or associates of any campaign subject to any kind of improper surveillance . The Intelligence Community has extremely strict procedures for handling information pertaining to any u. S. Citizens who are subject even to incidental surveillance and this committee wants to be sure all surveillance activities have followed all relevant law, rules and regulations. Ive been saying for several weeks, we know there was not a physical wiretap of trump tower. However, its still possible other surveillance activities were used against president s trump and his associates. Number three, who has leaked classified information . Numerous current and former officials have leaked reportedly classified information in connection to these questions. We aim to determine who has leaked or facilitated leaks of classified information so that these individuals can be brought to justice. I hope this committee kmits bipartisan investigation. Did that end we encourage anyone who has information about these topics to come ford and speak. I again thanks witnesses and will recognize ranking nem ship. Hes asked for 15 minutes for his Opening Statement. I will give him 15 minutes for his Opening Statement. Mrschiff. Mr. Director, i think you. I want to thank mr. Comey and mr. Rodgers for appearing today. Last summer at the height of a bit early contested president ial campaign, a foreign adversarial power intervened to weaken our democracy and to influence the outcome for one candidate and against the other. That foreign adversary was of course russia, and it acted through its intelligence agencies and upon the direct instructions of its auto democratic leader, vladimir putin. The campaign may have begun as early as 2015 when russian officials launched an attack. This continued at least throughout winter of 2016. While at first the hacking may have been intended solely for the collection of foreign intelligence, in mid 2016, the russians weaponized the stolen data and used platforms established by the Intel Services such as d. C. Leaks and Third Party Channels like wikileaks to dump the documents. They were almost uniformly damages to the candidate putin despised, Hillary Clinton and by forcing her campaign to deal with the constant dripping, it favored Donald Trumps campaign. We will never know whether the russian intervention was determinative in such a close election. Indeed it is unknowable in a campaign in which so many small change cog have dictated a different result. More importantly and for the purposes of our investigation, it simply dots no matterap what does matter is ts the russians successfully meddled in our democracy and our intelligence agencies they will again. Russian intelligence has been similarly infearing in the personal and Political Affairs of our other loose if we thought the russians would not blatantly interfere in our affairs, we were wrong. We know a lot about the russian operation about the way they amplify the damage, their hacking and dumping of stolen documents was causing through the use of slick propaganda like r. T. , the kremlins media arm, but theres a lot we dont know. Most important we do not yet know whether the russians had the help of u. S. Citizens, including People Associated with the Trump Campaign. Many of the Trumps Campaign personnel, including the president himself, have ties to russia and russian interests. This is of course no crime. On the other hand, if the Trump Campaign or anyone associated with it aided or abetted the russians, it would not only be a serious crime but would also represent one of the most shocking betrayals of democracy in history. In europe where the russians have a much longer history of political interfeerps, it used a variety of techniques to undermine democracy. They played the hacking and do you mean le as they did here but they have also used bribery, blackmail, financial material and entanglement of individual citizens of targeted countries. The issue of u. S. Involvement is only one of the important matter that the chairman and i have agreed to investigate, which is memorialized in the detailed and diept scope of investigation that we have signed. Well examine whether the community or missed the opportunity to stop this russian attack much earlier and whether the leak of information of Michael Flynn or others is indicative of a systemic problem. We have also reviewed whether there is any evidence to support president trumps claim that he was wiretapped by president obama in trump tower and found no eftd whatsoever to support that slanderous accusation. We hope that dr. Comey can now put that matter to rest. Today most of my colleagues will be exploring with the witnesses the potential involvement of u. S. Persons in the russian attack in our democracy. This issue is least understood by the public. We realize of course that the witnesses may not be able to answer many of the questions in o open session. They may or may not be willing to disclose even whether there is an special, it is a matter of such gravity that it demands a thor other investigation not only by us, as we intend to do, but by the fbi as well. Let me give you a short preview of what i expect youll be asked by our members. Whether the russians active measures began as a matter of gain williing intelligence or m than that, we do not know. The months o october of 2016 was pivotal. It when they began using it to help donald trump and harm Hillary Clinton. The question is why . What was happening in july august of last year and were u. S. Persons involved . Here are some of the matters drawn from public sources alone since that is all we can discuss in this setting that concern us and weep believe should concern all americans. In early july, carter page, someone donald trump identified as one of his National Security advisers travels to moscow on a trip approved by the Trump Campaigned gives a speech critical of the United States for what he believes is a hypocritical focus on democratization and efforts to fight corruption. According to christopher steele, a former British Intelligence officers, who is reportedly held in high regard by u. S. Intelligence, russian sources tell him that paige has already ha had a conversation with a former kgb officer. Hes is offered a deal involving a 19 share of the company. According to reuters, the sale of a 19. 5 share takes place with unknown purchasers and unknown brokerage fees. Also according to steeles russian sources, the campaign is ofrtd documents damaging to Hillary Clinton, which the russians would publish through an outlet that gives them deniable like and it would be a policy that focuses on nato countries for not pairing their paper and now conversations have come to pass. In the middle of july, paul manafort, the Trump Campaign man injury and someone who was long on theayroll of proussian ukrainian interests attends the convention. Cater paige, bass from moscow, ld page the convention. It was ambassador Sergey Kislyak attends the Republican Party convention and meets with carter paige and j. D. Gordon and walid ferris. Ambassador kislyak meets with the chair. The Republican Party platform is chang changed. Manafort categorically denies involvement bit Trump Campaign in altering the platform but the republican delegate who offered states it was removed at the insistence of the Trump Campaign. J. D. Gordon admits to the inclusi inclusion. Later the first emails damaging to Hillary Clinton appear. The leading private Cyber Security firms including crowd strike, mannedion and threat connect review the evidence of the hack and conclude with high certainty that it was the work of apt 28 and 29 who are known to be russian intelligence services. The u. S. Intelligence Community Also later confirms that the documents were in fact stolen by russian intelligence and gusifer 2 acted as a front. In late july candidate trump praises wikileaks, says he loves them and openly encourages them to hack his opponents and they will be rewarded. And in the middle of august, he creates with the russian cutout gusifer 2 and offers a breitbart piece denying connection to russian intelligence. In august, stone does something remarkable. When he predicts that John Podestas personal emails will soon be published, trust me, he says, it will soon be podestas time in the barrel, crooked hillary. In the weeks that follow, stone says i have total confidence a that wikileaks and my hero Julian Assange will come soon lock her up. In election day on November Donald trump wins. Donald trump appoints one of his high fprofile surrogates, michal flynn, as National Security adviser. Michael flynn as a secret conversation with Sergey Kislyak. Michael flynn lies about the secret conversation. The Vice President unknowingly then assures the country that no such conversation ever happened. The president is informed that flynn has lied and pence has misled the country. The president does nothing. Two weeks later the press revealed that flynn has lied and the president is forced to fire mr. Flynn. The president then praises the man who lied, mr. Flynn, and castigates the press for exposing the line. Is it possible the removal of the ukraine provision from the gop platform was a coincidence . Is it a coincidence that Jeff Sessions failed to sell the senate about his meeting with russian officers . Is it a coincidence that mr. Flynn would lie about a meeting with the same Russian Ambassador when they spoke over sanctions over russian hacking . Is it a coincidence that the Russian Gas Company sold a 19 share afr former British Intelligence officer steele was told by russi sources that carter page was offered fees on a deal of just that size . Is it a coincidence that steele as you russian sources also affirmed that russia had stolen documents hurtful to secretary clinton that it would utilize in exchange for prorussian policies that would later come to pass . Is it a coincidence that roger stone predicted that john podesta would be a victim of a private hack and have emails published and do so before mr. Podesta himself was fully aware that his private email would be exposed . Is it possible that all of these events and reports are completely unrelated and nothing more than an entirely unhappy coincidence . Yes, it is possible. But it is also possible, maybe more than possible, that they are not coincidental, not disconnected and not unrelated and that the russians used the same techniques to corrupt u. S. Persons that they employed in europe and elsewhere. We simply doesnt know, not yet. And we owe it to the country to find out. Director comey, what you see dal we have to commit to this investigation. This is it. We are not supported by hundreds or thousands of agents and investigators were offices around the world. It is just us and our senate counterparts. In addition to this investigation we still have our day job, which involves overseeing some of the largest and most important agencies in the country, agency, which by the way are trained to keep secrets. I point this out for two reasons. First, because we cannot do this work alone and nor should we. We believe these issues are so important that the fbi must devote its resources to investigate each of them thoroughly. To do less would be negligent to our country. We need the full cooperation so we may know what you know. Second, i raise this because i believe that we would benefit from the work of an independent commission that can devote the staff and resources to this investigation that we do not have and that can be completely removed fri any political considerations. This should not be a substitute for the work that we and the intelligence should and must do but as an important complement to our efforts just as was the case after 9 11. The stakes are nothing less than the future of our democracy and liberal democracy. Because were engaged in a new war of ideas, not communism versus capitalism or authoritarianism versus democracy. Only by understanding what the russians did can we inoculate ourselves from further russian interference that we know is coming, only then can we protect our european allies who are, as we speak, enduring similar russian interference in their own elections. And finally i want to say a word about our own committee investigation. You will undoubtedly observe in the questions and comments that our members make during todays hearing that the members of both parties share a common concern over the russian attack on our democracy but bring a difference perspective on issues in the earlier stages o