People are very mission focused. Theyre accustomed to the fact we do some of the hardest things there are to do for a living. And i like to think that our folks are pretty sturdy. I think of a woman i met just the other day, an agent in the miami office who had a bad accident. 12 stitch in her face and the next day, boom, right back at work. I think about the folks in the San Juan Office i visited recently. You want to talk about people going through a real storm. Right. They do it. Out in the community. I can tell you the Community Value what is they do on the island. Thank you. And oped by a number of former intelligence analysts called the nunes memo and the release, quote, one of the worst cases of politicization of intelligence in modern american history. End quote. You said you had concerns about that memo. I know you cant get into the gritty details of that but can you say in your view whether or not one of those concerns is that it may have selectively cherry picked information without presenting the entire fact pattern that led up to that fisa warrant application . Well, senator, i would just repeat what we said at the time which is that we had then and continue to have now grave searches about the accuracy of the memorandum because of omissions. We provided thousands of documents that were very sensitive and lots and lots of briefings and its very hard for anybody to distrial it down to three and a half pages. Director pompeo, have you seen russian activity in the leadup to the 2018 election cycle . Yes. Senator, i paused only im trying to make sure on the unclassified side. Yes, we have seen russian activities and intentions to have an impact. Director coats . Yes, we have. Anyone else . Admiral rogers . Yes. I think this would be a good topic for this afternoon in greater detail. Right. According to news reports, there are dozens of white house staff with only interim security clearances still. To include Jared Kushner until last week to include white house staff secretary rob porter who i would assume would have regularly reviewed classified documents as part of his job. Director coats, if someone is flagged by the fbi with areas of concern in their background investigations, into white house staff with interim clearances, should those staff continue to have access to classified materials . Let me first just speak in general relative to temporary classifications. Clearly with the new administration in particular were trying to fail lot of new slots. And the classification process and security clearance process has been mentioned. Yeah. Im only speaking with regard to folks of issues raised opposed to just being in the matter of course of going through a long process. Well, im not in a position and we can talk about this in the classified session but im not in the position to discuss what individual situations are for specified individuals. I might just say that i think sometimes it is necessary to have some type of preliminary clearance in order to fill a slot. But i have publicly stated if that is the case the access has to be limited in terms of the kind of information they can be in a position to receive or not receive. So i think thats something that we have to do as a part of our security clearance review. The process is broken as it needs to be reformed. It doesnt as senator warner has previously said, its not evolution. Its revolution. We have 700,000 backups so we have situations where we need people in places but they dont yet have that. Your specific question i think id like to take up in the classified session. Chairman, im over my time. Thank you, director coats. Senator blount. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Director coats, director pompeo, admiral rogers, i think you all talked about evidence that the russians would intend to do things to be active in our elections. I really seems to me two divisions of that activity. One is information thats put on the record that misleading, false, trying to develop that level. The other even more sinister might be the level of dealing with the election system itself. The voting day system. The registration system. And of those two clearly the voting day system, the one we need to have the most concerns about that Critical Infrastructure. This committee has been working toward both of those goals of trying to shore up Critical Infrastructure on election day as well as alert people to and decide what might be done about misinformation on the other side of the ledger. Voting begins in march. Thats next month. If were going to have any impact on securing that Voting System itself, it would seem to me we need to be acting quickly. I think a great part of the strength of the system is the diversity of the system. Different not only from state to state but from election jurisdictions within those states. Thats a strength, not a weakness, in my view but what are some of the things we can do to be more helpful to local Election Officials in encouraging them to share information when they think their systems are being attacked, getting more information to them than we have . There is a lot of criticism in the last cycle that we knew that some election systems were being attacked and didnt tell them they were being attacked. And so, the three of you in any order, lets just do the order i started with, director coats, director pompeo, admiral rogers, any thoughts you have on what we can do to protect the Critical Infrastructure of the election system and how quickly we need to act if we intend to do that this year. The Intelligence Community all elements of it are aware and we want to provide a collect and provide as much information as we can so that we can give those warnings an enalerts. So that we can share information back and forth with local and state and election processes with the federal government. Department of homeland security, department of fbi, obviously were involved given domestic issues but we do look to every piece of intelligence we can gather so that we can provide these warnings. It is an effort that i think the government needs to put together at the state and local level and work with those individuals who are engaged in the election process in terms of the security of their machines, cyber plays a major role here so i think its clearly an area where the federal government, foreign collection, potential threats of interference, warnings and then processes in terms of how to put in place security and secure that to ensure the American People that their vote is sanctioned and well and not manipulated in any way whatsoever. Director pompeo . Senator blunt, i was referring to the former, the first part of your question, not truly to the latter. The things we have seen russia do to date are the things senator warner was speaking of directly earlier. With respect to the cia role, i think admiral ronlg eargers wil his, too, we have to make those here to do the things, fbi or dhs. We are working diligently to do that. And then the second thing, and we can talk more about this afternoon, we have some capabilities offensively to raise the cost for those who would dare the United States elections. After admiral rogers, i may want to come to you, director wray, any impediments to sharing that information with local officials or any reason we wouldnt want to do that. Admiral rogers. Senator only other thing i would say where i defend networks is one thing we generally find in that role many network and system operators not truly understand their systems and structures and one of the things i think is part of this is how do we help those local, federal, state entities truly understand their network structure, what its potential vulnerabilities and harness the information that the intelligence structure and other elements providing them . Its part of working through the process. Director wray. Senator, i think this is one of the areas thats been a lot of discussion of doing better and this is one of the aerl yea areas i think we are doing. We recently scheduled meetings with various state Election Officials and normally the barrier is classification concerns, whether somebody had clearances. We were able to put together briefings appropriately tailored and with nondisclosure agreements with the officials so there are ways if people are a little bit creative and forward leaning to educate the state Election Officials which is, of course, you know, where elections are run in this country. Well, hopefully well be creative and forward leaning and well want to keep track of what were doing there. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator kaine . Thank you, mr. Chairman. First statement i want to make is more in sorrow than in anger. Ill get to the anger part in a minute. The sorrow part is that, director coats, in response to a question of senator collins, you gave an eloquent, factual statement of the activities of the russians and the fact that theyre continuing around the world and that theyre a continuing threat to this country. All of you have agreed to that. If only the president would say that. I understand the president s sensitivity about whether his campaign was in connection with the russians and thats a separate question. But there is no question weve got before us the entire Intelligence Community that the russians interfered in the election in 2016. Theyre continuing to do it and theyre a real, imminent threat to our elections in a matter of eight or nine months. My problem is i talked to people in maine who say, the whole thing is a witch hunt and its a hoax because the president told me. I just wish you all could persuade the president as a matter of National Security to separate these two issues. The collusion issue is over here. Unresolved. Well get to the bottom of that. But theres no doubt as you all have testified today and we cannot confront this threat which is a serious one with a whole of government response when the leader of the government continues to deny that it exists. Now, let me get to the anger part. The anger part involves Cyber Attacks. You have all testified that were subject to repeated Cyber Attacks. Cyber attacks are occurring right now in our infrastructure all over this country. I am sick an tired of going to these hearings which ive been going to for five years where everybody talks about Cyber Attacks and our country still does not have a policy or doctrine or a strategy for dealing with them. And this is not a criticism of the current administration. The prior. Im an equal opportunity critic here. The Prior Administration didnt do it either. Admiral rogers, until we have some deterrent capacity we are going to continue to be attacked. Isnt that true . Yes, sir. We have to change this current dynamic as we are on the wrong end on the cost equation. We are trying to fight a global battle with our hands tied behind our back. Director coats, you have a stunning statement in your report. They will work to use Cyber Operations to achieve strategic objectives unless they face clear repercussions for their Cyber Operations. Right now there are none is that not the case. There are no repercussions we have no we have no doctrine of deterrence. How are we ever going to get them to stop doing this if all we do is patch our software and try to defend ourselves . Those are very relevant questions. And i think everyone not only at this table but in every agency of government understands the threat that we have here. And the impact already being made through these cyber threats. Our role as the Intelligence Community to provide all the information we possibly can as to what is happening so our policymakers can take that including the congress and shape policy as to how we are going to respond to this and deal with this in a whole of government way. It just never seems to happen. Director pompeo, you understand this issue, do you not . We are not going to be able to defend ourselves from Cyber Attacks by being defense. We have to have a doctrine of deterrence. They will be struck back in some way. May not be cyber. I would agree and argue that while i cant say much in this setting, i would argue that your statement that we have done nothing is not reflect the responses that frankly some of us at this table engaged and the United States government engaged in both before and after excuse me, both during and before this administration. But deterrence doesnt work until the other side knows it. The doomsday machine in dr. Strangelove didnt work because the russians didnt tell us about it. Its important the adversary know it but not a whole world knows it. The adversary does know it . Id rather save it for another forum. I believe this country needs a clear doctrine, what is the cyber attack . What is an act of war . What will be the response . What will be the consequences and right now i havent senator, i agree. I havent seen it. We collect it. It is it is a complicated nature. I include us, too. I do, too. I take responsibility for not having been part of solving that. We do need a u. S. Government strategy and clear authorities to go achieve that strategy. I appreciate it. I just dont want to go home to maine when theres serious cyber attack saying we never got to it. We knew it was a problem and had four different committees of jurisdiction and couldnt work it out. Thats not going to fly. Yes, sir. Thank you for your service. Senator, i might just add we dont want to learn this lesson the hard way. 9 11 took 9 11 took place because we were not koord natding our efforts. We are now coordinating our efforts but we didnt have the right defenses in place because the right information was not there. Our job is to get that right information to the policymakers and get on with it. Because its just common sense. If someone is attacking you and theres no retribution or response it is just going to incentivize more contacts. Right now a lot of blank checks. A lot of things we need to do. Director coats, thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator langford. Thank you. Director coats, you and i talked about this issue as senator king was bringing up and a point person on who that would be and a defined person to give options to the president and the congress if a response is needed and warranted, this is the person, this is the entity that would make those recommendations and allow the president to make decisions on the proper response. Has that been completed . Is there a point person to give a response to the president . That has not yet been completed. Of course, youre understanding of this standup of Cyber Command and the new director that will be replacing admiral rogers, tdecision relative of separation of the functions that are currently now nsa and cyber is yet to be made. General mattis will is contemplating what the next best step is and theres they have involved the Intelligence Community in terms of making decisions and n that role. But we at this particular point cannot point to one sort of cyber czar but various agencies throughout the federal government are taking this very, very seriously and there are individuals that we continue to meet on a regular basis. The odni has sea tick, a coordination effort for all the cyber that comes in so that we dont stovepipe like what we did before 9 11. So things are under way. But in terms of putting a finalized, this is how we do it, together is still in process. Senator lankford, with respect to responses to that, these are title x dod activities unless theyre granted to some other authority, a title l authority and secretary mattis has that responsibility to advise the president on the appropriateness of responses in all theaters of conflict with adversaries. Okay. Thank you. I want to bring up the issue of the rising threat of whens happening just south of our border in mexico. Mexico homicide rate up 27 last year. We had 64,000 americans that died from overdose of drugs, preponderance of those through or from mexico. We have a very rapidly rising threat it appears to me. What id be interested from you all on a National Security level and seeing and what are we facing . What is changing in mexico versus ten years ago mexico and our relationship and the threats that are coming from there . I would defer to you, director wray, relative to what his agency is doing. Clearly, we have a continuing problem and the Mexican Government has a continuing problem relative to the gangs and the organizations. There have been some high profile arrests lately. We have taken down some labs. Mexico is cooperating but they themselves will admit that its almost overwhelming for their armys participating. Almost overwhelming for them to control the situation south of the border. We have our own issues then on the border, protection and as well as consumption here in the United States. Director wray. In many ways what we are seeing is more of the same but one of the things thats changed, because i think that was at the heart of your question, i think we are seeing one of the things we are watching in particular is more black market fentanyl being shipped to transnational crime organizations in mexico and taking advantage of the pricing advantages and thats being then delivered in large quantities to our streets. Certainly, the mexico relationship is from a Law Enforcement perspective and from a domestic security perspective one of our most important. I think the fbi legat office in mexico is our largest in the world. Im pretty sure about that or close to it if not 246789. Thats a reflection of the activity. Lets ask a specific oklahoma question and a national question. Theres an individual named alfalog picked up in oklahoma a couple of weeks ago by the fbi. His fingerprints were identified from a terror Training Camp in afghanistan. He was in the country for multiple years. And what im trying to be able to determine is the coordination of information local Law Enforcement and from data thats gathered from some of the work thats happening overseas in afghanistan an