Warner, the top democrat on the Senate Intelligence committee as we get ready for the hearing. What is he saying about what they expect to see today . Reporter good morning. I caught up briefly with the vice chairman here as this hearing is set to get underway. He emphasized that they are trying to make sure they show americans that their investigation into russian meddling is credible, bipartisan, even nonpartison. Now of course the question here, one that we may not get into too much depth today is of course whether or not there were Trump Campaign associate who is commu who communicated with russians during the campaign. I heard James Langford say this morning he does really want to get to the bottom of it. Obviously weve got to get connections, whether there was any connection with the Trump Campaign and collusion with any russian officials. Theres no question now that russians were trying to affect our election and they were trying to engage and destabilize, the exact same thing they do across europe. Reporter i asked mark warner if he was surprised to hear a republican acknowledge that they do want to get to the bottom of that. Typically its not something we hear people say, at least not in front of cameras. He said no, that this investigation, he believes, is proceeding in a way that hopefully, in his view, will actually expose whatever may have happened regardless of the partisan Politics Around it. Theres also a lot of questions about the witness list. Today what youre going to see is mostly academics, people who worked in the intelligence community. We will have a former director of nsa this afternoon talking about Cyber Security and how that relates to all of this, hacking, fake news. Youre not going to see top officials like jim comey or jared kushner, who is somebody that we know the committee wants to get private testimony from. Theyre compiling a list of 20 or so people they want to hear from. Were trying to figure out whos on that list so far. We expect Trump Associates to appear on that list. We expect this to begin any second. Other at the white house theyre pretty sick of talking about this, right . But senators are making clear theyre just Getting Started now. Talk about how this administration navigates all these things. The president wants to do tax reform, infrastructure, health care. The shadow of it all are these investigations. Thats right. Theyre trying to keep the focus on their legislative agenda. Thats for sure. You talk about tax reform. That is where this white house is putting most of its focus right now, although they are having some conversations about health care as well. The president out today, though, with a stern warning to the Freedom Caucus. Thats the conservative branch of the Republican Party that the white house feels blocked efforts to repeal and replace obamacare. This is President Trumps tweet. The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire republican agenda if they dont get on the team and fast. We must fight them and democrats in 2018. Veiled threat to potentially campaign against those who dont get on board. But paul ryan also out with a bit of warning to his fellow republicans today. In an interview, essentially saying, look, the president has signalled hell work with systems on health care if republicans dont work with him. Saying look, we promised our voters to get a conservative Health Care Plan through. So youre getting some pressure ramped up behind the scenes but the reality is tax reform is going to be really difficult in the wake of the failed health care bill. And there are discussions going on about potentially reviving a health care package. I was told by one source a lot of those conversations are venting of frustration about the failure to really do something. One more point, were about a month away from a potential Government Shutdown overshad overshadowing all of this. To say theres a lot going on would be an understatement. I just want to make a quick note. This story about the Freedom Caucus versus the president is developing very quickly. Were getting reaction online from twitter. One is saying to the president , no shame in succumbing to the d. C. Establishment. Were going to be talking much about that. This bombshell exclusive in news week, this scoop on james comey wanting to go public with the russia investigation last summer. Max, come on in here. Tell us what you know about what james comey wanted to do and why ultimately it never happened. We learned that as early as last summer fbi director james comey wanted to go public with what was happening with russias tampering with the election. This would have been months before the federal government ended up doing this. He wanted to write an op ed for the new york times. White house and doj officials and Security Officials apparently shut him down. This is just in line with what weve seen with fbi director comey. Hes a transparent person. He wants to make the agency more transparent. This was happening last summer. This is part of just the culture of transparency that hes wanting to bring into the bureau. The reason that my colleague josh and i were told that this did not happen was because federal officials wanted to do a coordinated effort. I believe thats the term they told us. And we ended up seeing that cord that e coordinated effort a couple months later in october and then we learned much more later on in a declassified january document. Max, what did you he was never going to write about donald trump in this op ed . Thats correct. We were told this was going to be specifically more about the general russian involvement not about the sort of potential collusion we learned about last week at the house Intelligence Committee hearing. We heard from james comey at a National Security dinner where he spoke publicly about this. The last year its been almost a year now has been both difficult and easier than you might think. What makes it easy is, were not on anybodys side ever. Were not considering whos ox will be gored by this action or that action. We just dont care and we cant care. I imagine that there are some democrats who are listening to that going, okay, he still talked about this Hillary Clinton email situation but yet he didnt put out this op ed on russia. Is that a double standard . Explain what the thinking was there. We are hearing that criticism. Ive heard it from people in the wake of this story coming out last night. We also heard it in the past two weeks since director comey went public with the fact that since july the fbi has been investigating russia as well as potential collusion with Trump Associates. And that would have happened last july around the time he did have this press conference talking about the clinton investigation. So the thinking here is director comey has said that clinton investigation, that was a completed investigation. Even in his october letter to lawmakers saying he was going to look at new evidence, still it was a completed investigation. Whereas this Russian Investigation was an ongoing investigation. Thats something he has said he cant talk about. We are watching live now the Senate Intelligence committee. Senators warner and burr the top democrat and Top Republican on that committee walking in. This thing is set to begin any second. On the house side, you have essentially a standstill. As youve watched this development over the last 48 hours or so, whats your takeaway . There really is a story of two very Different Committee approaches here. On the one hand, the shenanigans from last week which really undermined the credibility of the investigation on the House Committee stands in contrast to what we saw yesterday, which was a bipartisan press conference by the ranking republican and democrat. And starting today with a hearing that is designed to really put the spotlight on why this investigation is so important, which is Vladimir Putin orchestrating a campaign of activities to weaken the United States. Vladimir putin responded to that just this morning. He essentially said, watch my lips, no, i had nothing to do with it. Lets take a moment for the Senate Intel Committee hearing. Requires that most of the work be conducted in a secure setting to maintain the integrity of the information and to protect the very sensitive sources and methods that gave us access to that intelligence. However, the vice chairman and i understand gravity of the issues and decide its dliescru that we take the rare step of publicly discussing the investigation. Thats why weve convened this second open hearing on the topic of russian active measures. To the extent possible, the committee will hold additional open hearings on this issue. The American Public, indeed all democratic societies, need to understand that malign actors are using old techniques with new platforms to undermine our democratic institutions. This hearing entitled disinformation, a primer in russian active measures influence campaigns, will consist of two panels and will provide a foundational understanding of russian active measures and Information Operations campaigns. The first panel will examine the history and characteristics of those campaigns. The second panel will examine the history and characteristics of those campaigns and the role and capabilities of Cyber Operations in support of these activities. Unfortunately, you will learn today that these efforts by russia to discredit the u. S. And weaken the west are not new. These efforts are at the heart of russian and Previous Soviet Union intelligence efforts. Our country has been a target of information warfare, propaganda and cyber campaigns and still is. The efforts our expert wils wil outline today continue unabated. The take away from todays hearing, were all targets of a sophisticated and capable adversary and we must engage in a whole of government approach to combat russian active measures. Today well receive testimony from experts who have in some cases worked directly to respond to active measures, who understand the history and the context of active measures and whose specific knowledge will shed new light on the problem and provide useful context. Were grateful to you for your appearance here today. This afternoon we will reconvene and welcome witnesses who will discuss the technical side of the question, Cyber Operations including Computer Network exploitation, social media and online propaganda activities and how they promote russian campaigns and Information Operations. We have a full day ahead of us and im confident that the testimony you hear today will help you to establish a foundational understanding of the problem as the community continues its inquiry into russian activities. Finally, id like to commend the vice chairman for his dedication to the goals of the committees inquiry and the integrity of the process. The vice chairman and i realize that if we politicize this process, our efforts will likely fail. How we may have failed to prevent that involvement, what actions were taken in response, if any, and what we plan to do to ensure the integrity of future free elections at the heart of our democracy. Gentlemen, thank you again for your willingness to be here and i turn to the vice chairman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I also want to welcome our Witnesses Today. Todays hearing is important to help understand the role russia play played in the 2016 president ial elections. As the u. S. Intelligence committee unanimously assessed in january of this year, russia sought to hijack our democratic process. That most important part of our democratic process, our president ial elections. As well learn today, russias strategy and tactics are not new, but their brazenness certainly was. The hearing is also important because its open, as the chairman mentioned, which is sometimes unusual for this Committee Due to the classified nature of our work, we typically work behind closed doors. But todays public hearing will help, i hope, the American Public writ large understand how the kremlin made effective use of its hacking skills to steal and weaponize information and engage in a coordinated effort to damage a particular candidate and to undermine Public Confidence in our democratic process. Our Witnesses Today will help us understand how russia deployed this deluge of information in a broad attempt to undermine americas strength and leadership throughout the world. We simply must and we will get this right. The chairman and i agree thisit vitally important that we do this in a credible and transparent manner as possible. Chairman burr and i trust each other and equally important we trust our colleagues on this committee that we are going to move together and were going to get to the bottom of this and do it right. As this hearing begins, lets take just one moment to review what we already know. Russias president Vladimir Putin ordered a deliberate campaign carefully constructed to undermine our election. First, russia struck at our Political Institutions by electronically break into the headquarters of one of our Political Parties and stealing vast amounts of information. Russian operatives also hacked emails to steal personal messages and other information from individuals ranging from Clinton Campaign manager john podesta to former secretary of state colin powell. This stolen information was then weaponized. We know that russian intelligence used the, quote, unquote, persona and others like wikileaks and seemingly choreographed times that would cause maximum damage to one candidate. They did this with an unprecedented level of sophistication about american president ial politics that should be a line of inquiry for us on this committee. And candidly while it helped one candidate this time, they are not favoring one party over another and subsequeconsequentl be a concern for all of us. Second, russia continually sought to kmini idiminish and ue our trust in the American Media by blurring our faith in what is true and what is not. Russian propaganda outlets successfully produced and pedalled disinformation to american audiences in pursuit of moscows preferred outcome. This russian propaganda on steroids was designed to poison the National Conversation in america. The russians employed thousands of paid internet trolls and botnets to push out disinformation and fake news at a high volume focusing this material onto your twitter and facebook feeds and flooding our social media with misinformation. This fake news and disinformation was then hyped by the American Media echo chamber and our own social Media Networks to reach and potentially influence millions of americans. This is not innuendo or false allegations. This is not fake news. This is actually what happened to us. Russia continues these sorts of actions as we speak. Some of our close allies in europe are experiencing exactly the same kind of interference in their political process. Germany has said that its parliament has been hacked. French president ial candidates right now have been the subject of russian propaganda and disinformation. In the netherlands their recent elections, the dutch hand counted their ballots because they feared russian interference in their electoral process. Perhaps most critically for us, there is nothing to stop them from doing this all over again in 2018 or in 2020 as americans again go back to the polls. In addition to what we already know, any full accounting must also find out what, if any, contacts, communications or connections occurred between russia and those associated with the campaigns themselves. I will not prejudge the outcome of our investigation. We are seeking to determine if there is an actual fire but there is clearly a lot of smoke. For instance, an individual associated with the Trump Campaign accurately predicted the release of hacked emails weeks before it happened. This same individual also admits to being in contact with the russian intelligence persona responsible for these Cyber Operations. The platform of one of our two major Political Parties was mysteriously watered down in a way which promoted the interest of president putin. And no one seems to be able to identify who directed that change in the platform. A Campaign Manager of one campaign who played such a Critical Role in electing the president was forced to step down over his alleged ties to russia and its associates. Since te election, weve seen the president s National Security advisor resign and his attorney general recuse himself over previously undisclosed contacts with the russian government. And of course, the other body on march 20th, the director of the fbi publicly acknowledged that the bureau is, quote, investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with