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EXHIBIT H
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3 of 4 DOCUMENTS Copyright 2017 Federal News Service, Inc. All Rights Reserved Federal News Service January 10, 2017 Tuesday LENGTH: 14826 words HEADLINE: Full committee hearing on "Russian Intelligence Activities." (SD/24) BODY:
Subject: Russian Intelligence Activities Participants: Sen. Richard M. Burr, R-N.C. Chairman Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla.
Sen. Mitch Mcconnell, R-Ky.
Ex Officio Sen. John Mccain, R-Ariz.
Ex Officio Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. Vice Chairman Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
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Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.
Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.
Sen. Mazie K. Hirono, D-Hawaii Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-Nev.
Ex Officio Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I.
Ex Officio Sen. Angus King, I-Maine Witnesses:
James R. Clapper Jr., Director Of National Intelligence John O. Brennan, Director, CIA Admiral Michael S. Rogers (USN), Director, National Security Agency, Commander, U.S. Cyber Command FBI Director James Comey Witnesses: Director of National Intelligence James Clapper; Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan; National Security Agency Director Adm. Michael Rogers; and FBI Director James Comey testify Location: 106 Dirksen Senate Office Building Time: 13:00:00 Date: 2017-01-10 BURR: I'd like to call this hearing to order.
I'd like to welcome our witnesses, Jim Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence; John Brennan, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency; Jim Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Adm. Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency.
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Directors Clapper and Brennan, while I've said this to you before in closed session, this is likely your last appearance before the committee, at least in your current role. And I want to thank each of you before you get out of here, for your many years of dedicated service both in uniform and out of uniform, Jim. John, in many different capacities.
You have served your country in an unbelievable way, both of you. And we want you to know how grateful we are to you, and how grateful the nation is to you for the service that you've provided.
We convene today to discuss the president's directed review of Russian activities and intentions in recent U.S. elections. While Russia and the Soviet Union have used active measures as tools of statecraft since the 1920s, recent actions by the Russian government represent, as you reported, a notion -- a notable escalation. I know that the public disclosure of these activities surprised many. And the notion that another state would attempt to interfere in our elections is quite troubling.
However, Russian active measures as a general topic is not new to the members of this committee. We've held more than 10 hearings and briefings over the last two years that have focused in whole or in part to better understand the scale and scope of these efforts and the intentions behind them.
Each of our witnesses has appeared before us in closed session to discuss this topic, and in response on a bipartisan and bicameral basis, this committee and its sister committee and the other body have put forward unclassified and classified proposals to address these activities.
Some work has been done. But to effectively address this challenge to the integrity of our system of government will require a whole of government approach. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on the details of the intelligence community assessment.
Intelligence reporting over the last few years to include the classified and compartmented portions of this assessment gives me no reason to doubt the findings contained within the product. That said, we owe it to our colleagues and the American people to do an independent and a bipartisan review of the report and its conclusions. I've therefore instructed committee staff to carry out an assessment of the sourcing behind this report. And we will be asking each of our witnesses to provide the committee access to the intelligence that contributed to this assessment. I want to assure my colleagues on this committee and in this body that we will follow the intelligence wherever it leads. And we will conduct this review in a nonpartisan manner.
I also want to assure the witnesses before us today, as has long been our practice, the committee will treat the protection of these sources with the level of security and professionalism required. I'd also like to quickly thank the men and women of the intelligence community for their work in completing this review.
To each of our witnesses, please thank your respective staffs. I have no doubt that the president's directive, Jim, to you, and to others, ruined many's holiday plans. While this moment in our history is critical and the testimony before this committee in an open setting will, I hope, help the American people understand what Russia attempted to accomplish as part of its focused -- its focus on our 2016 elections.
I want to make this clear. Our democracy is not at risk. We can rest assured in the strength of the United States of America, have continued faith in the electoral process.
We must be alert, though, to the challenges that face us and the threats posed by those who seek to undermine Western democratic values, whether they're through interference in our elections, or relentless propaganda and active measures targeting our friends and our allies abroad. Our values are indeed under assault. The key differences between
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the efforts of the past and the attacks of today, however, is the tools being used to carry these out. Gentlemen, thank you again for being here today. I look forward to your testimony, Gen. Clapper, and to the opportunity to query questions to the rest.
I will now turn to the distinguished vice chairman, the senator from Virginia.
WARNER: Well thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to echo, first of all, your comments in terms of commending all of the witnesses, but particularly Dir. Clapper and Dir. Brennan for your great service to our country. I also want to acknowledge one of the new members of our committee. Both new members here, Sen. Manchin and Sen. Harris. I know Sen. Cornyn will be joining us briefly. And while she's not here yet I want to acknowledge the great role that Sen. Feinstein has played both as chair and vice chair on this committee. We're here today to discuss the intelligence community's comprehensive review into Russian interference on our 2016 presidential election. For me, one of the most serious events of my public life. Interference in American democracy and our electoral process by any outside power is unacceptable.
Now much of the press reporting and the conversation about Russian activities have focused on the hacks of the DNC and John Podesta. But as the report pointed out, the Russians also hacked systems associated with the Republicans. They just chose not to release that material yet. There's nothing that prevents them from doing so at a time of their choosing in the future.
While the target of this campaign was Sec. Clinton, any of us, Democrats or Republicans, including members of this body, could easily be the next target. What the Russians did was nothing less than attack on our political system and democracy itself. We can simply not allow it to stand.
The IC assessment is more detailed, but is in line with previous assessments from the intelligence community that Russian officials at the highest level, including President Putin, engaged in, your words, not mine, in an "unprecedented level of interference in our election." It concludes that these actions had the goal of harming the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, and the boosting the candidacy of President-Elect Donald Trump.
We are not here to relitigate the results of the election.
At the same time, I'm committed to ensuring there's thorough, bipartisan and expeditious congressional investigation of Russia's role.
In my view the committee should focus on three broad areas -- the Russian hacking and released of stolen information. Russia's use of state-owned media and other means to amplify real and fake news to further the goal. And contact between Russian government and its agents and associate of any campaign and candidate. I like you, Mr. Chairman, have written to all of the witnesses here today, asking them to cooperate with us in this investigation, and turnover as many documents and as quickly as possible.
I, like you, am reiterating that call today. It is equally important that the incoming administration, and those folks will take Director Clapper and Director Brennan's roles going forward will continue to cooperate in this effort. Additionally, it is my hope, while we've made a first step, that we'll to try to declassify as much material as possible, while again protecting sources and methods.
The American people deserve to know as soon as possible that their elected representatives have taken a close look at the intelligence report that we're considering today. They deserve to know whether we concur or not with its conclusions, and that we're prepared to respond to the threats outlined in the assessment.
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The actions the president took recently in response to Russian activities was an appropriate and first step. At the same time I still have questions why the Obama administration didn't further and didn't act sooner. But as we look forward, preventing future attempts to undermine our democracy and our position in the world will require sustained response from the incoming administration and from this Congress.
I truly believe the strength of America's democracy will be measured in part on what actions we take to develop a robust and proactive cyberstrategy. Part of that strategy must include tools and capabilities to deter and capabilities to deter and effectively respond to future attempts by foreign actors to influence America's Democratic process. One of the things I've always valued about service on this Intelligence Committee is the tradition of leading partisanship at the door, oftentimes when they go into that skiff.
I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, and all our members to complete this investigation as quickly and expeditiously as possible.
And, gentlemen, your agencies, the work that your agencies completed, underscores the importance of the role the nation's intelligence community plays, and the men and women who quietly work every day to keep our country safe. This report represents the best analysis of the men and women of the Intelligence Committee. These are professionals who have taken an oath of office to present the whole truth as they see it, faithfully to Republicans and Democratic administrations alike.
As a member of this committee and I think all of us who serve for some time, have seen first-hand the dedication of the men and women who work for you. I know that one of the most primary missions of the intelligence professionals is to render the best professional judgment regardless of political considerations and always be willing speaking truth to power. I support them for their work.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
BURR: Thank you, vice chairman.
For members, once Director Clapper has been recognized and completed his testimony, it is the intention of the chair to recognize members based upon seniority for five-minute questions. There is vote that's scheduled right now for 2:30. It is the intent of the chair to complete our questions in open session by the conclusion of that vote, and it is the intent of the chairman to then move to a closed session which would start after the 2:30 vote. If there's need to adjust that, we will make an adjustment on the way. Having said that, a reminder to all members that we are in open session and that you should take into account from the standpoint of the questions you asked and realize their unclassified and classified report.
And with that, Director Clapper, the floor is yours.
CLAPPER: Chairman Burr, Vice Chairman Warner, and members of the committee, first, thank you for your gracious comments. (Inaudible) and me, as this should be our last hearing, although one never knows. It's still 10 days left.
But more importantly the comments about the work, dedication and patriotism of the women and men of the intelligence community, so we appreciate that. We're here today to present the intelligence communities assessment of Russian and intentions during the recent U.S. presidential election.
As you indicated, some aspects of our report involve very sensitive sources and methods that we can't discuss in this open, televised hearing, so obviously we're asking for your support and understanding as we need defer to a closed setting.
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Our remarks today are based on a highly classified assessment that was produced by the three agencies represented here, the CIA, FBI and NSA at the request of President Obama, in which we, as you also indicated, released pubilcally in a declassified version last Friday afternoon.
The report covers the motivation and scope of Moscow's intentions regarding the U.S. election and Russia's use of cyber tools and media to influence U.S. public opinion. A runway clue that this report does not - repeat does not assess the impact of Russian activities on the actual outcome of the 2016 election or draw any conclusions in that regard one way or the other.
The IC's rule is to assess the intentions, capabilities and actions of foreign actors, not to analyze U.S. political processes or U.S. public opinion. We can say that we did not see evidence of the Russian's altering vote tallies. We can't discuss the full range of classified information that supports our conclusions because of the extreme sensitivity of these sources. But the key judgments in the public and classified versions are the same. I can say that the report draws on intelligence collected by all three of these agencies represented here, and some of which only came to light after Election Day. When the IC says "high confidence", we mean we have multiple high-quality sources of information that contribute to that assessment.
Intelligence comes from a wide range of sources including human sources, technical collection, and open-source information. The key judgments are based on cooperating (ph) sources that are consistent with our understanding of historical and current Russian behavior.
And while we cannot public disclose most of the information that backs up these judgments, we have briefed the report in detail to President Obama and his team, President-elect Trump and his team, and Congressional leadership, and this morning, the House Permanent Select Committee for Intelligence. They've all (ph) had (ph) the opportunity to explore the report and pose any questions they've had about the basis for our conclusions. Both the classified and public versions of this report were written by seasoned nonpartisan intelligence professionals consistent with the highest standards of analytic objectivity and true (ph) craft (ph) that the NIC had refined over the last 15 years or so to ensure we provide policy makers the most accurate insights that we can. And I - I
- I also need to add that this reflects the intelligence community's view, not that - that of the administration. The treating (ph) of (ph) cyber operations is difficult but not impossible. Every cyber operation, malicious or not, leaves a tail.
IC analysts use this trail and - and are constantly growing knowledge base of malicious actors and their tools and methods to trace operations back to their source and determine their connections to foreign governments. And this is exactly what we did here.
Let me start by - with respect to the findings, is that we'll first address Russia's goals and intentions. We have high confidence that President Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. The goals of this campaign were to undermine public faith in the U.S. Democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. Putin and the Russian government also developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. Russia aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publically contrasting her unfavorably to him.
Moscow's approach evolved over the course of the campaign based on Russia's (ph) understanding of the electoral prospects of each of the candidates. When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win, the Russian influence campaign began to focus more on undermining her future presidency. Moscow's influence campaign blended covert intelligence operations with overt efforts by Russian government agencies, state funded media, third party
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intermediaries and paid social media users.
We're highly confident that the Russian intelligence services conducted cyber operations against people and organizations associated with the 2016 US Presidential election, including both major US political parties. Russian military intelligence or the GIU compromised the email accounts of Democratic Party officials and publicly released victim data using the (inaudible) 2.0 persona and DC Leaks.com and exclusives to media outlets, they also relayed material to WIKI leaks. Russia collected on some republican affiliated targets, but did not conduct a comparable disclosure campaign. Russian intelligence obtained and maintained access to multiple U.S. state or electoral boards. However, the Department of Homeland Security accesses these types of systems were not involved in vote tallying. Russia's state room propaganda machine contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for criminal messaging using Russian government funded outlets such as RT.
Moscow has long thought to undermine U.S. led liberal democratic order. Russia like its Soviet predecessor has a history of conducting covert influence campaigns focused on U.S. Presidential elections. They've used intelligence officers, influenced agents and press placements to discourage candidates perceived as hostile to the Kremlin. Moscow's behavior reflects Russia's more aggressive cyber posture in recent years, which poses a major threat to U.S. military, diplomatic, commercial and critical infrastructure networks as well as, as we see now, our elections. However, Russia's activities in 2016, demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations,and we access Moscow will apply the lessons learned from the 2016 campaign aimed in the future to influence efforts worldwide including U.S. allies. I'd like to wrap up by saying I now I got just 10 days left in my 53 years or so, in the intel business and I've seen the ICA (ph) get things right and get things wrong. But I believe the level on (inaudible) trade craft and cross agency intelligence integration required to put this report together gives me great confidence that we've gotten it right here. With that, we'll open for your questions.
BURR: Director, thank you for that full and concise testimony. Director Clapper, as I stated in my opening statement, I've instructed a select group of committee staff to complete an independent and bipartisan review of the reporting that underpins the intelligence community assessment for us today. Do I have your assurance that you will provide the access that they need for the reporting necessary to make their conclusions.
CLAPPER: Yes.
BURR: Director Comey, I want to talk about forensics for just a minute because the FBI has the expertise there and I know there is tremendous investigative value when the FBI is actually able to conduct their own forensics review on devices that have suffered cyber intrusions and attacks. I believe there's some confusion though, at least some conflicting reporting as to whether the FBI requested access to the DNC's services, the democratic congressional committee servers and John Podesta's personal devices. Did the FBI request access to those devices to perform forensics on them?
CLAPPER: Yes, we did.
BURR: And would that access have provided intelligence or information helping in your investigation and possible findings included in the intelligence community assessments?
CLAPPER: Our forensic folks always prefer to get access to the original device or server that's involved, so it's the best evidence.
BURR: Were you given access to do the forensics on those servers?
CLAPPER: We were not, a highly respected private company eventually got access and shared with us what they saw there.
BURR: But is that typical the way the FBI would prefer to do the forensics, or would you rather see the servers and
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do the forensics themselves?
CLAPPER: We would always prefer to have access, hands-on ourselves, if that's possible.
BURR: Do you know why you were denied access to those servers?
CLAPPER: I don't know for sure. I don't know for sure.
BURR: Was there one request or multiple requests?
CLAPPER: Multiple requests at different levels and what was agreed to is that the private company would share with us what they saw.
BURR: There's been much debate over the content released by WIKI Leaks. Director Clapper, I should say DC Leaks and what the intentions were behind those disclosures. Director Clapper you made it perfectly clear in your testimony that the community feels vote tallies were not altered.
CLAPPER: That is correct.
BURR: Do you believe there's any evidence that the DNC or the DCCC or the Podesta emails released publicly were altered in any way?
CLAPPER: We have no evidence of that.
BURR: Director Comey, do you have any intelligence that any Republican system that was targeted by these same groups was either successfully penetrated, or if penetrated and there was data exult rated, was there any exultation? CLAPPER: There were successful penetrations of some groups and campaigns, particularly on the state level on the republican side of the aisle and some limited penetration of old republican National Committee domains. BURR: Penetration was of those national committee domains?
CLAPPER: Right, they were no longer in use.
BURR: From the standpoint of Republican candidates that were running for President, were any of those campaigns targeted under this same effort by the Russians?
CLAPPER: Campaigns themselves, not to my knowledge.
BURR: Vice chairman.
FEINSTEIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, we thank you Director Clapper for your report and the point that you continue to make that it was not your job to analyze the affects, if it was the political campaign, I would. And any of us who are up who have ever been through a close election is that any small item can either be cause or harm. (inaudible) there was some information though, that was taken from the public affiliated entities. There was a great deal of information taken from Democrats, there was selective leaking that the director has indicated with the clear political intent. In process, one of the things I'm (inaudible) somehow this as soon as in the rearview mirror, don't the Russians have the capability of taking, even if its old information, about Republicans or other information about Democrats and selectively leak that prospectively?
CLAPPER: Sure.
FEINSTEIN: This is an ongoing threat to all of us and our electoral process, we have to be on guard and could you speak, or any other members of the panel speak about the fact that you expect to see similar tactics used by Russians in
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terms of the upcoming elections in Germany, France or the Netherlands?
CLAPPER: Yes, we do.
FEINSTEIN: Are our allies taking what's happened in America with significant enough importance and are they putting up new defenses trying to guard against these activities?
CLAPPER: I can't say, maybe others can here to the extent to which they have reacted to this, but they are certainly aware. Europe has long been a target of Russian attempts to manipulate electoral processes so they will continue with that and certainly because of the controversy generated in our country, I think that will reinforce their desire to do that.
FEINSTEIN: One of the things that I've seen other members of the committee raise, certain Russian activities, again just to note, go to the seriousness, not only retrospectively, but prospectively that I believe there was a Russian dissident in London where Russian agents,in effect planted false information in this person's individual file and then called law enforcement and said look at this person's file, and there was criminal child pornography placed there.Could you anticipate at some time Russia trying, if we don't take more aggressive actions, trying those actions against American public officials?
CLAPPER: Russians might think they have no compunction about using tools and techniques available in their kit bag. So I wouldn't put it past them to do that or any of the other tools they've used. Such as paying people to participate in social media for example.
FEINSTEIN: This has been describes as in fact the new normal for Russian doctrine, is that correct. CLAPPER: I believe yes.
FEINSTEIN: And again we've seen our system, in your words, a significant escalation in all -- before us we had people with service in the ICA and the defense of our nation in hundreds of years -- in any of your careers have you seen this level of Russian interference in our political process? We'll start with Director Comey and just go down the line.
COMEY: No.
(UNKNOWN): I have none.
(UNKNOWN): No.
(UNKNOWN): No.
BURR: We have a lot of members, thank you Chairman.
Senator Rubio.
RUBIO: Let me begin by saying I don't believe this thing has anything to do with - - but let me just begin by saying, I think the chairman's already asked. It's clear that there was no hacking of voting machines and the changes of tallies. And I would argue this has nothing to do with - - because this term hacking is thrown around, and it makes it sound like some sort of cyber specific situation. This cyber tools that were used as a means to an end. It isn't necessarily what we should be focused on here, what we're talking about here is active measures. The active measures taken by the government of Vladimir Putin to influence and potentially manipulate American public opinion of the purpose of discrediting individual political figures, sowing chaos and division in our politics, sowing doubts about the legitimacy of our elections.
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So, when I - - if you look at the situation we now face, here's the aftermath. We had an election, where after some intrusions into some state databases, there was a leading - - one nominee for president warning about fraud in the election. Then after the election, we have some on the other side, questioning the legitimacy of the President-elect because of Russian interference. Then we have the President-elect questioning the credibility of the intelligence community because of its findings. This sounds like a pretty effective and successful effort to sow chaos, to undermine credibility of our leaders and of our government institutions. In essence, it sounds like they achieved what they wanted. To get us to fight against each other, over whether our elections were legitimate and - - and divide us in - - in the way that sows the sort of chaos that they sought to achieve.
My question is along the lines of what Senator Warner asked about a moment ago, because we see these active measures employed in the Baltic States, with the Russian speaking media outlets controlled by the Kremlin and the Dutch Referendum and the Brexit vote and the Italian Referendum. So, let me lay out a hypothetical, and you tell me if this is the kind of scenario we could face, because they don't limit this to elections. They target individual policy makers throughout many countries in Europe, particularly those in the former Soviet sphere. Hypothetically, imagine there's a U.S. Senator or Congressman who adopts a policy position that the Kremlin does not agree with, and so, somehow, through a phishing expedition they gain access to your personal computer network. And once they gain access to your personal computer network, they use it to fabricate and or actually conduct, use the child pornography example, I'd say, let's say money laundering activity, and then they call law enforcement and tip them off. Congressman John So and So has been money laundering. And they go into your home, they seize your computer, and sure enough, it's sitting there on your network, because someone got into it and did it. And now you're arrested and you're charged and you're removed from the public discourse. Is this not what we have seen the tactics that have been employed by Russian intelligence, on behalf of the government of Vladimir Putin and other countries around the world? Is that not a tactic they have used to discredit individual political figures? And isn't it true that that could very well happen here in the United States?
(UNKNOWN): It is certainly with, well within their, both their technical competence and their potential intent to - to do some things like that. The last two years running, in my threat presentations, I've cited that, I think the next (inaudible) trend, in the cyber business will be the compromise with the fidelity of information. And whether it's for a criminal purpose, or political purpose, so it is, this is well within realm, I think of possibility. RUBIO: In the context of what their goals were, ultimately, their ultimate goal, they may have or not, you know, I don't get into the whole thing about who they wanted to see win. But in the end, what they really wanted to see was Americans fighting against each other, bickering over these things, having questions about the legitimacy of the process, our leaders, etcetera. Was that not their goal? And if it was, have they not largely achieved that based on how this issued as been discussed since the aftermath of the election?
(UNKNOWN): I think in the first instance, that was their goal. It was - - first - - as - - as I said in my prepared remarks, was to sow doubt about the ethicacy of our system, and to cast dispersions on our - - our political system. RUBIO: To create doubts about the credibility of our elections, the legitimacy of our leaders, etcetera? (UNKNOWN): All that. Yes.
RUBIO: OK. And so my last point is, last time I checked Vladimir Putin is neither a registered Democrat nor registered Republican. And so what he is interested in, is achieving these measures in the United States for his own strategic purposes and therefore that (ph) is literally any political party should take this lightly. This should not be a partisan issue. This involves whether or not we are going to allow someone to actively interfere in our political discourse, and divide us as a nation against each other.
BURR: Senator Wyden.
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WYDEN: Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, thank you. And let me if I might begin with you Mr. Comey. After the election, as you know, the foreign minister, the Russian foreign minister was quoted in various news reports saying that the Russians had had contacts with people associated with the Trump campaign. Now that may or may not be true. There is however extensive press reporting on the relationships between the Russians and individuals associated with both the Trump campaign and the incoming administration. My question for you Director Comey is, has the FBI investigated these reported relationships? And if so, what are the agencies findings? COMEY: Thank you Senator. I would never comment on investigations, whether we have one or not in an open forum like this. So I really can't answer it one way or another.
WYDEN: We (sic) provide an unclassified response to these questions and release it to the American people prior to January 20th?
COMEY: I'm sorry, you said will I?
WYDEN: Yes. Will you provide an unclassified response to the question I've asked, and as I've said, it's been reported widely on the Reuters news service, widely reported. Will you provide an unclassified response to the question I asked and release it to the American people prior to January 20?
COMEY: Sir, I'll answer any question you ask, but the answer will likely be the same as I just gave you. I can't talk about it.
WYDEN: Well I will tell you, I think the American people have a right to know this. And if there is delay in declassifying this information and relating (ph) it to the American people, releasing it to the American people, it doesn't happen before January 20, I'm not sure it's going to happen. And that's why I'm troubled, and I hope that you will make a declassified statement with respect to the questions that I've asked public. Let me ask one other question if I might. The report has a brief description of Russian cyber intrusions in the state and local electoral boards. It reads, and I quote, "DHS assesses that the types of systems we have observed, Russian actors targeting or compromising are not involved in vote tallying." My question to you, and I think I'd like to have you involved in this too Director Clapper. Director Comey, Director Clapper, what systems, in your view, were compromised by the Russians and what was the nature and extent of those compromises?
COMEY: There were intrusions, attempted intrusions at state level voter registration databases. That is, not containing of the voting mechanism, but who's registered to vote and the address and the particulars of that sort. What the purpose was of those intrusions is not clear to us at this point. And we saw no activity on election day that reflected that anyone had messed with those voter registration databases. But there's no doubt, that the Russians attacked, intruded and took data from some of those systems.
WYDEN: Director Clapper.
CLAPPER: I think that's a (inaudible) response. I don't have anything to add to that.
WYDEN: And I hope you will also tell us in the days ahead, Director Comey, more about the nature of those systems, because it is very clear given what you found and reported in the declassified version. That we're going to be dealing with these issues coming up and I think we need to know more specifics and do it in a classified session about the nature of those system. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
BURR: Senator Collins.
COLLINS: Thank you Mr. Chairman. First, let me start by thanking Director Clapper and Director Brennan for your many years of service to your country. I also want to say that I appreciate the work that has been done by the intelligence community to produce this report, and I accept its findings. I do think that it's important that we understand
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more fully the extent of Russian intrusions into the electoral process to try to shape public opinion. And it is important to underscore two points that have been brought out already and that is that there is no evidence that voting totals were manipulated or changed. Or that emails that were released were manipulated or changed. Is that correct Director Clapper?
CLAPPER: That's correct.
COLLINS: The unclassified assessment states that Republican affiliated websites were hacked by the Russians. But the report does not go into detail about whether or not data were taken, stolen from those systems and whether information came from networks used by Republican candidates, whether that included the Trump campaign. Could you give us a fuller understanding of the hacking on the Republican side? Was the Trump campaign, for example, hacked by the Russians? Mr. Comey is the better person for this.
COMEY: Thank you Senator. I want to be thoughtful about what I say in an open setting, but there was evidence that there was hacking directed at state level organizations, state level campaigns and the RNC, but old domains of the RNC. That is email domains that they were no longer using and the information was harvested from there, but it was old stuff. None of that was released. We did not develop any evidence that the Trump campaign or the current RNC was successfully hacked.
COLLINS: Does the IC's conclusion that the Russians sought to assist President-elect Trump's campaign depend on an assessment then, that the Russians covertly collected information and from primarily Democratic sources but some Republican sources as well? But only chose to release the derogatory information from Democratic sources? CLAPPER: That is correct.
COLLINS: And I noticed, having looked at many IC assessments, that this one was produced by three agencies. And usually I'm used to seeing assessments where the entire intelligence community is involved. For example, the State Department's bureau, which was the bureau that was correct about the weapons of mass destruction, was not mentioned in the report. Is there a reason why it was -- did you only need the CIA, the FBI and NSA? (UNKNOWN): It had a lot to do with the sensitivity of the sources and who could actually contribute to the -putting the assessment together. We can discuss all that in a closed session. COLLINS: Thank you.
Finally, I just want to underscore your point that we have talked a lot about the Russians' attempt to rule public opinion for our campaign. And as Senator Rubio so eloquently said, sew the divisions and the seeds of doubt that it has everyone questioning. And charges and counter charges, which are really not healthy in our democracy when a new administration is taking over.
But there's also an active Russian campaign to infiltrate, as you have said, military systems, defense contractor systems, critical infrastructure, commercial interests. Don't we need to take a broad look at all of the efforts by our adversaries to either control our critical infrastructure, for example, or influence a decision making in those arenas as well?
(UNKNOWN): Well, if I understand your comment, Senator Collins, the point is valid that this was a multifaceted activity. And that it began with a rather broad gaged assault, if you will, attempt to infiltrate many entities across the board, which military, commercial, governmental, (inaudible) related.
And so yes, there -- they think of this holistically and use many tools, as they did in this case. Hacking was just but one of them.
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COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
BURR: Senator Heinrich?
HEINRICH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank Senator Collins for her continued focus on critical infrastructure because that's something that in light of what we've learned I think we need to think through and realize what our exposures are. I want to thank all of our witnesses.
Attribution, obviously, of responsibility in cyberattacks is the first key step toward imposing a cost on those involved. Since a number of us wrote to the president in November asking that information on Russian interference and the presidential election be declassified, the four of you and your respective agencies have done some very important work in making as much of your findings public as possible. And I want to say I'm very grateful for that. The public needs to understand what is at risk here.
To those who criticize these investigations as partisan, I would remind them that Russia didn't do this to help the Republican candidate. Russia did this to help Russia and to weaken America. And therein lies the heart of why this is so important because in the next election the shoe could easily be on the other foot, and a foreign power could decide it wants the Democrat to win this time.
I think that both scenarios are deeply offensive. And foreign influence under our elections is intolerable, no matter which party benefits, in any given election.
The ongoing efforts of Russia to impact U.S. elections threatens to undermine faith in our democratic systems, which is precisely their goal. And I think it's critical that they pay a price for their actions. I want to return to the issue of the Russians being able to obtain access to parts of our electoral infrastructure. Not the actual machines that count the votes, but the databases. And we've had a couple of questions on this. But I want to ask, first of all, do we know if they would be able to manipulate the kinds of data that they had access to? So for example, if you have a voter database in a local county that was penetrated, would they be able to change the information within that database?
(UNKNOWN): Potentially. And that was our concern at the time we discovered this. We saw no indication of that, but that's a definite possibility.
HEINRICH: If that had happened and, for example, the FBI or other elements of the intelligence community were not looking for that, would the electoral boards have had indications that that data had changed? (UNKNOWN): Potentially not. They would have the indication when chaos erupted on Election Day. If someone shows up to vote and your address is different or your middle initial is different or some particular is different that creates delay, controversy, confusion.
(UNKNOWN): So unfortunately, I think this tells us that we are vulnerable to future attacks and manipulation in this case. And I think that obviously you've laid out a scenario that would be very evident that also we could have very subtle impacts to the elections.
You could potentially have a scenario where someone's voter history, for example, is changed. And if they haven't voted for a certain number of years maybe they get purged from the rolls. Or you know many of us have had where we've seen flyers of our colleagues who've been criticized for missing the particular election. Maybe they didn't actually miss that election.
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So I think it begs the question what can we do in concert with those local county and city and state entities to make sure that we are protecting this data the way that we should?
CLAPPER (?): Part of our charge in this report was carried out by -- jointly by -- Dir. Comey speak to this, by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to come up with a set of sort of best practices for implicating greater degrees of cybersecurity.
DHS reached out (inaudible) Russia to the states. And I think ultimately about every state took advantage of the recommendations proffered by DHS.
Gentlemen, you want to add to that?
COMEY (?): I think that's the answer is just understanding they're a target and availing themselves of the expertise and technology to try to protect themselves that we on the intelligence community side pushing to the indicators of the bad guys.
HEINRICH: Dir. Clapper, I want to with my last question sort of change gears here for a moment. I asked you in the Armed Services Committee hearing last week about the role of Russian propaganda. Media outlets like RT. I saw a comment from Gen. Flynn last August that sort of compared RT to CNN or MSNBC. Is it -- is that a fair analogy? Is there a structural difference between the way that RT exists within the media infrastructure and say, Fox News or MSNBC or CNN or CBS?
ROGERS (?): To me, the major difference is the local funding for our team comes with the Russian government and the Russian government gives editorial direction on what RT is supposed to broadcast. I think that's a rulebook different in CNN.
HEINRICH: And they seem to exercise that discretion?
ROGERS (?): Yes they do.
HEINRICH: Thank you.
BURR: Senator Blunt?
BLUNT: Director Clapper, does RT get any of its broadcast into the United States?
CLAPPER: Yes it does, sir (ph). It does, its very prevalent in Europe and lesser so, I think there's an RT channel here.
BLUNT: And that would be a channel that would be accessible here to some number of people here? CLAPPER: Yes.
BLUNT: Lemme...
CLAPPER: They (ph) didn't move the -- you know, the audience size RT but...
BLUNT: I doubt if its -- I doubt if its very large, would be my guest. But I don't wanna defend RT, I think it's a propaganda arm of a government that is definitely not on our side. And we need to be aware of that, we oughtta (ph) -need to be aware that I think you said at one point, that they I think at that point you meant the Russians, think this -think about this holistically and use many tools. But we've watched other countries, the Chinese particularly, that we also believe work holistically and use many
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tools. This is one of the topics as you know from our other meetings over the years, I'm very concerned about cyber generally.
I'm also concerned about our failure to secure federal records. I think we could certainly give advice to states as to how to secure their record since we've had intrusions into our personnel systems, since we've had hacking, into the clearance process that a significant number of Americans including all of you and most of us, have gone through, that are very detailed.
You know, I was the state election official, chief election official in Missouri at one time. And those records, while could be confusing on Election Day, I don't believe there's any evidence of polling places where people had lines that were backed up because there were record changes that were out of the ordinary.
I mean often, people show up and say oh, I know I sent my voter transfer in when they may or may not have. But Director Comey, we don't have any evidence of any disruption of the participation process because somebody got into local registration records, is that correct?
COMEY: That's correct, senator.
BLUNT: It's also my opinion that in any state I'm aware of, there's nothing in those records that's not publically available. You can go to the local registration office, you can often to directly into those records to access those records.
Frankly, we have lost a lot more secure records at the federal level than the relatively open voter registration records. That doesn't mean that we don't wanna help state and local officials secure their records in every way. But those are neither the most confidential records nor the hardest records to get into and I guess for purposes of this discussion, most importantly there's no indication that any effort to get into those records impacted Election Day. And I think you've all repeatedly said absolutely no indication that anything -- any -- there was any intrusion into the vote counting process. I was a local election official when we first started counting ballots with computers, and one of my concerns always was that the security for how you verify that system was only really protected by how many of those systems were going on all over the country. The diversity of the system itself makes it fairly hard to manipulate. I don't know that we benefit by trying to standardize it either. But we will benefit by providing guidance on how to secure those important records.
No evidence, I think you said, Director Comey, that the Russians were able to get into Trump campaign e-mail or other records, or the current RNC records. Is that right?
COMEY: That's correct.
BLUNT: So since we don't believe they got in, the fact that they had nothing to release should not be a shock. (inaudible) have the records.
COMEY: Yes.
BLUNT: And we do believe they tried to get in?
COMEY: I can't say with respect to the Trump campaign. With respect to the RNC, there's no doubt they hit an RNC domain. And so it could be they were aiming at the current one and just missed it and hit an old one. But I can't say for sure, sitting here.
BLUNT: Well, I do know that the chairman of the RNC, I heard him say over the weekend he thought that they had done a better job securing their records. Whether that's true or not, I wouldn't know. I think I did read in one, more
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than one published account that the password to Mr. Podesta's e-mail was password one, with a couple variations of spelling, of using capitals or something in password. So hopefully lots to be learned here, and thanks to all of you for your efforts to help us learn.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Chairman, could I just -- for the Senator, and it was in the public report, in terms of YouTube views and YouTube subscribers, RT actually has a bigger presence in the United States than the BBC. BLUNT: And the BBC's also funded by the government, right?
BURR: Senator King.
KING: Well, I'll just follow up on that point because this is in the ad -- this is in the annex to the published report. RT America, millions of views on YouTube, 850 million; BBC about two-thirds of that; CNN significantly lower. Same thing in YouTube subscribers, RT America 450 million. So, RT is a significant media presence. And I think the important point with regard to RT is that we are talking about hacking, that's how this discussion is characterized. But this was a comprehensive strategy involving RT, trolls, paid bloggers, hacking, the whole -- the whole package. And in fact, General Clapper, this is exactly what the Russians have done throughout Eastern Europe for some years, isn't that correct?
CLAPPER: That's correct. I assist (ph) as technology has progressed and the Russians have taken advantage of it for this purpose.
KING: Just to -- I just want to make sure I heard correctly. Mr. Comey, did you answer Senator Wyden's question that there is an investigation underway as to connections between either the political campaigns and the Russian -Russians? COMEY: I didn't say one way or another.
KING: You didn't say that there was...
COMEY: That was my intention, at least.
KING: You didn't say one way or another whether even there's an investigation underway?
COMEY: Correct. I don't -- especially in a public forum, we never confirm or deny a pending investigation. I'm not saying...
KING: The irony of your making that statement here I cannot avoid, but I'll move on.
COMEY: But we sometimes think differently about closed investigations. But he asked me if I had any pending investigations, and we're not going to talk about that.
KING: All right. Is it my understanding that there are actually three reports, highly classified, that only went to certain individuals? Classified which this committee has seen, and the public report, but that the conclusions of those three reports are identical. Is that correct?
COMEY: That's correct.
KING: And the only issue -- the difference between them is sources and methods. Is that correct? COMEY: Largely.
KING: And the reason you can't reveal sources and methods is that you would compromise future opportunities to
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gain information, and also compromise fragile sources?
COMEY: Exactly.
KING: It seems to me that trust is one of the issues, and I mentioned in the Armed Services Committee, my folks and they tend to be skeptical. Prove it. Speak to me for a moment about the difficulty of proving what you've concluded pretty unequivocally, without revealing sources. How do I convince my -- my barber in Brunswick that this is for real?
CLAPPER: Well, that's why we have Intelligence Oversight committees, to represent the American people with whom we cannot share as fully and completely as we might like the evidentiary proof that we have and in which we're very confident. So, we're very dependent the given mutual intelligence work (ph) to start with, very dependent on you as our overseers to look at that yourselves on behalf of the electorate.
KING: But I think it is important to make the point to the public why sources and methods needs to be -- need to be protected.
CLAPPER: Well, we spend -- we need to chew (ph) the Congress appropriates. We literally spend billions of dollars gaining these accesses which we would -- we'd jeopardize. And of course this then impairs the support that we can render to the oncoming administration and successive administrations. And when we lose these accesses, it takes money and time to recover them. Not to mention putting potentially assets who work for us lives at risk. KING: Was there any political influence brought to bear on any of the three of you in the preparation of this report? Did the President tell you what he wanted to find, or was this somehow a politicized investigation? CLAPPER: Absolutely, not. The President asked us to compile all available information that we had, and when he was briefed on it, he made the point once again that he was not -- had not and was not going to give us any direction. That's why this is an IC product. It is not that of the current administration.
KING: Mr. Comey, would you affirm that as well?
COMEY: Yes. I hope I've demonstrated by now I'm tone deaf when it comes to politics, and that's the way it should be.
KING: Thank you. Director Brennan, same conclusion?
BRENNAN: Yes, absolutely.
KING: Final, sort of technical question. I noticed that the October tenth -- I'm sorry, the October seventh statement was the IC, the community itself, implying the entire community, this one was FBI, CIA, and DNI. Is there any difference why wasn't the report that was just released that represent the entire 17-agency community? CLAPPER: Again, because the three exclusive contributors to this are represented here, and because of the sensitivity of the -- many of the sources, we made a judgment to restrict it to these three agencies. KING: So, there was no -- there was no elimination of other views?
CLAPPER: No, there's was none that we felt -- again, because of the sensitivities of associated source, which we try to protect even within the intelligence community, to -- to cast the report from -- as from emanating from these three agencies.
KING: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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BURR: Senator Lankford.
LANKFORD: Gentlemen, thank you. Thank you for your work and your service to the country, and the leadership you've brought.
I need to ask a couple of questions, some that you've heard before, and just for quick review, and I want to build on several things from the report. Just to clarify again, what does anyone know of any votes that were changed or an attempt to change votes.
CLAPPER: We have no -- as we stated in -- in the report -- we have no evidence of any manipulation of vote tallies whatsoever.
LANKFORD: Voter rolls?
CLAPPER: No. There was reconnoitering, intrusion on certain voter rolls, but to the best of our knowledge no manipulation of them.
LANKFORD: Give me a best guess. How many other countries is Russia currently or have, let's say in the last four years, tried to influence in their elections?
CLAPPER: I think one of the annexes portrays that, the number of countries that in one degree or another Russia has expended effort to try to influence political views or opinions.
LANKFORD: Fifteen countries, 20? Give me a ballpark.
CLAPPER: A couple dozen maybe.
LANKFORD: OK, so maybe 20 or so? You also make a comment in the report itself about previous U.S. elections and Russian engagement in previous U.S. elections, going all the way back to KGB, putting a person, recruiting a Democrat Party volunteer or activist -- you didn't give the details on it -- even on Jimmy Carter's campaign in the 1970s, moving forward.
Tell me about the differences in aggressiveness and style, if the Russian and then back to even the Soviets before, have been involved in our elections since the 1970s and before. Tell me the degree of difference in this one versus how they've been engaged in others.
CLAPPER: The history of this goes back to the 60s. And when we say Russians attempted to fund certain candidates, parlay certain lines of opinion or lines of view, and of course they had in the day radio broadcast and that sort of thing they would do. And as the technology has increased, they've gotten more tools available to them. They've broaden the spectrum of things that they have done.
What is unique and what is disturbing, though, about this election, 2016, is the aggressiveness and the variety of tools they used in their activism in trying to convey information that they stole in an effort to influence the outcome of the election. That's different than any previous case.
LANKFORD: So, additional tools, additional aggressiveness. They've been engaged in our elections before. This one was just at a much higher level?
CLAPPER: Yes.
LANKFORD: You mentioned as well about the Russians trying to hack into both Democrats computers and political operations and Republican. Democratic in computer and political operations. Between the, let's just say DNC and RNC, let's use loose terms -- I understand there's multiple other entities that are connected there. Between DNC
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and RNC, were they able to penetrate the same level to get the same quantity, quality, and type of materials, or was there a difference between what they were able to glean from the Democratic DNC or the RNC? COMEY (?): They got far deeper and wider into the DNC than the RNC.
LANKFORD: Did they use similar methods with both? They were able to actually penetrate deeper, or why? COMEY (?): Hard to say. Hard to say in this forum, hard to say even in a closed forum because they didn't get into the RNC it's harder to see -- it makes it harder to answer. Similar techniques, the spear phishing techniques were used in both cases. But there is no doubt that they were more DNC deeper and wider than RNC. Did hit some Republican affiliated organizations, but not the current RNC itself. They didn't get in. LANKFORD: So, we're getting to current information, basically?
(UNKNOWN): Not on the RNC. They got at the state level some current information, but not RNC current. LANKFORD: OK, you also highlight several other ways that the Russians have been engaged in our nation, just as a whole. You mention not only the election and previous elections, but you also move and give two practical examples of how the Russians have been engaged in our political system.
One was an anti-fracking campaign that the Russians seemed to be engaged in. And another one was the Occupy Wall Street movement that the Russians were engaged in as well. Any additional highlights, or any additional details that you can give on that? I was interested(ph) that you highlighted those.
Can we tell the nature of -- for instance, with the Occupy Wall Street, the social media pages that were created to give communication capabilities to the occupy protesters, how those were used and if those were used? LANKFORD: Colonel(ph), I'll(ph) take(ph) that one for the record for -- just to be -- for the sake of accuracy just exactly what they did in those two campaigns. I -- I -- I don't have that off(ph) the top of my head. (UNKNOWN): OK, so they -- it was just in the report. I thought it was interesting just as a way of illustration in the report that there was an illustration to say that they've also been engaged in some of the anti-fracking and some of the Occupy Wall Street movement as well. Sir, I appreciate your work, thank you, yield back. BURR: Senator Manchin.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Thanks, Chairman. I(ph) thank all of your for your service and if I might ask, was there -was there any disagreements on the involvement that Russia has had -- or their attempts to have in this process of our elections by any of the intelligence community?
Did any of these have different takes on this or have to collaborate in order to come to one -- one conclusion? (UNKNOWN): There -- there was one aspect that the -- there was a difference in confidence levels held by NSA versus the rest of us on one single aspect. I'd be more comfortable discussing that in closed session. MANCHIN: OK. Any other countries that have been hacking us from a standpoint that brings a concern that you have with us(ph)? You're saying that no one's ever done this to this level in our political process but when(ph) you look at the espionage, sabotage, basically through military or industrial.
(UNKNOWN): Well, there's a lot of espionage. Certainly collecting us(ph) with trading information. Obviously the Chinese come to mind. But in, very much a contrast between -- whether(ph) the passive collection -- the passive exploitation(ph) as opposed to the actively purloining(ph) information and using it for a political end. That's the
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difference here.
(CROSSTALK)
MANCHIN: ...sessions(ph) are unique.
(UNKNOWN): Yes.
MANCHIN: I think all of us have been very much concerned that the outcome of the election was altered and you had been very clear saying that it has not been altered, nor would the outcome of this election have been any different. (UNKNOWN): Well, I'd have to clarify one aspect of what you just said, Senator. We did not assess the impact on the electorate. We did not do public opinion polls because that's not our charter -- the intelligent community -- to do that. So, we can't just say about whether -- whether the release of the hacked information outright changed any voter's opinion, we don't know.
MANCHIN: OK. (INAUDIBLE) What -- what recommendations of sanctions would you have? What sanctions recommendation do you think would deter Russia or any other country from continuing to hack us? CLAPPER: Well that's clearly a policy call, we got into that last Thursday at Senator Armed Services Committee and there are a range of tools that we could use and I think Admiral Rogers, in my view, is that we should consider the whole range of tools, not necessarily do a cyber for cyber reaction. And to look at all of them. MANCHIN: I'm thinking, what I'm trying to get to is if hacking is so serious and with technology that we have today can alter our lives, relatively very quickly, if that's all capability and possibilities of happening, shouldn't we have a broad - basically policy in the United States of America that any hacking internationally that's been confirmed and concurred by the intelligence community once you all basically authorize that this happened - as you've agreed right now, this happened in our electoral process that we should enforce the sanctions on any country that does this, so to determine (inaudible).
CLAPPER: Well, I think is again the discussion we had in the Armed Services Committee Thursday was if your conducting espionage, then if we're going to punish - nation (ph) states (ph) are going to punish each other for conducting espionage which is a passive collection of (ph) information. That's - that's a pretty heavy policy call which I don't think any of us want to - want to make. When it's an activist campaign as it was here, that's a different proposition and again, I think it's not our call to decide what to do in response.
Our only comment and I'll repeat it was, to consider the whole range of potential tools, or instruments of power national power - to respond. The challenge you get into with cyber for cyber of course you have to also consider the counter retaliation to that. And while we spend a lot of time agonizing over precision and being very surgical the adversaries may not be quite as precise as we might but. So again, bottom line, consider all tools. MANCHIN: I'm just saying when we know it's (ph) states (ph) sponsor, article five of NATO treaty specifies that all NATO members will defend the sovereignty and territory integrity (ph) of our other allies if they're attacked. Has NATO intervened at all? Has any of the other countries intervened in this? Our (ph) NATO allies? CLAPPER: Well, I can't speak for each individual NATO member, what they may - may or may not have done to defend themselves or to retaliate against the perceived cyber attack. I don't MANCHIN: Did we, as the United States defend any of them when they've been attacked? CLAPPER: Well, if the NATO alliance and member nation in invokes article five, I believe that's the provision. I'm getting out of my lane here, that's where attack against one is considered an attack against all. I don't know that that's ever been exercised. I don't think it has in the cyber context.
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MANCHIN: Thank you Mr. Chairman, my time as expired.
CLAPPER: Senator Cotton.
COTTON: I want to add my voice of gratitude to the many members of this committee who've expressed our gratitude for the men and women of our intelligence community. As President-Elect Trump said on Friday, he has tremendous respect for those men and women and I share that as well. Second, those men and women have concluded that Russia hacked into the DNC and John Podesta's e-mail. And while this committee, as the chairman said, will conduct a thorough inquiry into this matter, I have no reason to doubt those conclusions. Third, I don't doubt it in part because Vladimir Putin is (KGB). Always has been, always will be. Back in the Cold War, Russian intelligence used to refer to the United States as the main enemy and they still do today. Vladimir Putin undermined the United States and our interests for the same reason the scorpion stings the frog as it crosses the river. It's in his nature. And he's done much worse for the last 18 years across numerous domains.
(Inaudible) Donald Trump won this election fair and square. Vladimir Putin didn't hack into Hillary Clinton's calendar and delete rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin. Didn't hack into the speechwriter's computer and delete speeches that laid out compelling vision for the working class.
It's time to look into the mirror, say that Hillary Clinton lost this election not because of Vladimir Putin or Jim Comey or fake news or the Electoral College, but because she ran a bad campaign.
That brings me to a conclusion in the report about the clear escalation, Dir. Clapper, of the scope of the activities. That Russia has conducted these kinds of activities in recent years, but this was a clear escalation in the scope and the scale. Is that correct?
CLAPPER: That's correct.
COTTON: Why did they think they could get away with that kind of clear escalation against U.S. interests? CLAPPER: I think the challenge, particularly in the senator (ph) realm I'll say, is that there's kind of an insidious progression of aggressiveness. I've certainly seen in the last six years or so where other countries get progressively more -- as they develop more capability, they also have an intended willingness (ph) to try to use it. And we're seeing these particularly with the second tier, meaning North Korea and Iran, who are -- don't have the cyber capability, we don't believe, of the level of sophistication of certainly the Russians or the Chinese. But they are progressing. And that's, to me, what's bothersome about this whole business of cyber. And when do you be of a mind
(ph) to say you know enough's enough?
COTTON: Let's move to the question of motive.
The report states that at first Russia, in the assessment of the IC, had a desire to undermine the U.S. democracy, to sew discord and confusion. Over time, though, as it viewed Hillary Clinton as the likely winner, to undermine her presidency. But over time it developed a clear preference, is the language, for Donald Trump. Can you tell us when Russia viewed Hillary Clinton as the likely winner?
CLAPPER: I think that was in the summer timeframe, perhaps July, August or so.
COTTON: Can you tell us when you believe that Vladimir Putin developed a clear preference for Donald Trump? CLAPPER: Sometime after that. I don't know that, and certainly not in this setting, we can pick a date when he shifted gears. But he clearly did.
COTTON: Did he or the intelligence services ever believe that Donald Trump was a likely winner?
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CLAPPER: Initially, no. They thought he was a fringe candidate and didn't think that at all. COTTON: And if they had lied about the report over the weekend said something, I paraphrase, that Russian cyberattack aims to install Putin in White House. Would a more accurate headline perhaps be Russian cyberattack aims to undermine expected Clinton presidency?
CLAPPER: I don't think you'll find a line like that in our report.
COTTON: Your assessment of motive is based in part on the selective leaking and the relative levels of targeting Democratic material and Republican material on the one hand versus the other. Is that correct? So that more Democratic material was leaked, even though Russia...
CLAPPER: Clearly.
COTTON: Is it possible that they just leaked the Democratic material because they thought Hillary Clinton was going to win and they wanted to undermine her? They didn't view it as profitable to leak Republican material? CLAPPER: Well that's -- yes. I mean that would seem to be the logical observation, that they've -- the favored the president-elect and they wished to denigrate as much as possible Hillary Clinton. And had she won, their plan was to try to undermine her presidency.
COTTON: One final question about the leaks that have happened in this case.
First, in December, before President Obama directed this review to occur. And then there were none until last Wednesday night when the Washington Post reported o what may be sensitive signals intelligence. Dir. Comey, have you received a crimes report from anyone in the intelligence community about these leaks? COMEY: I don't think yet as to the December leak or anything, obviously, this month. Not yet. COTTON: Mr. Chairman, I suggest that we should include those leaks as part of our inquiry. BURR: The chair and the vice chair are working on that right now.
Senator Harris?
HARRIS: Dir. Clapper, your report states that "we assess Russian intelligence services will continue to develop capabilities to provide Putin with options to use against the United States, judging from past practice and current efforts."
You go on to write "immediately after Election Day we assess Russian intelligence began a spearfishing campaign targeting U.S. government employees and individuals associated with the United States think tanks and NGOs in national security defense and foreign policy fields. This campaign could provide material for future influence efforts." And then you indicate that the "election operation signals a new normal in Russian influence operations." So indeed, this is troubling.
My question is, is the intelligence community supporting efforts to ensure that the computer, networks and personal devices of the president-elect and his transition team are protected from continued influence? CLAPPER: It's my understanding that they are very, very sensitive to this threat. And we've done what we can to educate the transition team about the pitfalls of mobile devices in secure areas and the like. HARRIS: Do you believe your education efforts have been successful?
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CLAPPER: You'd have to ask them I think.
HARRIS: What about the president-elect's Twitter account? And in particular, what is being done to safeguard his phone and account given the potentially dire national security consequences of an infiltration? CLAPPER: Probably best left to closed environment to talk about that.
HARRIS: OK.
And Dir. Comey, this is more of a comment than a question. But I want to echo the points made by Sens. Wyden and King.
I understand why the FBI cannot disclose and comment on ongoing investigations. However, it seems that despite past precedent, the new standard that was created over the summer and fall regarding investigation into Sec. Clinton's email server was that there was a unique public interest in the transparency of that issue. Particularly given the findings of your report, I'm not sure I can think of an issue of more serious public interest than this one. This committee needs to understand what the FBI does and does not know about campaign communications with Russia. And I hope that we can follow up on this in closed session to have more of an idea of what the FBI knows and what we might do to prevent any further harm. Thank you.
BURR: Sen. Cornyn?
CORNYN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to each of you for your service to the country, and for the people you represent who faithfully discharge their duties daily, many times unheralded. I wanted to ask, first of all. There seems to be a disparity between the RNC servers and the DNC servers in terms of their vulnerability.
Adm. Rogers, this sort of perhaps is a good question for you. But is good practice in terms of defenses important in terms of securing information like that, that was stolen in these hacks?
ROGERS: Yes.
CORNYN: Would this also be -- would your concerns about the vulnerability of the -- of a private server also extend to government officials using private email servers and engaging in the exchange of classified information on those private email servers?
ROGERS: I would argue everyone needs to have an awareness of how they communicate, whether we're talking professional (ph) or at work. That's the nature of the world we find ourselves in now. CORNYN: And to do so in compliance with the law, the protocol of the federal government. When did the Russians first begin to hack U.S. networks? Adm. Rogers?
ROGERS: With respect to this particular issue?
CORNYN: No. I'm just wondering how long has this been going on?
ROGERS: Since the 1990s, off the top of my head.
CORNYN: OK. So while this has certainly become much more visible and focused, given the focus of the effort, this clearly is a longstanding effort by nation-states, including Russia, to hack into our networks. Correct?
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ROGERS: Yes, we have seen longstanding efforts to hack into our network.
CORNYN: This was perhaps unusual. Maybe I should ask you. In that there was a coordination between the hacking and the propaganda efforts of Russia in other -- in order to try to undermine the legitimacy of the election process. Dir. Clapper, do you agree with that statement?
CLAPPER: Yes. Orchestrated by the intelligence services.
CORNYN: And is this the first time in your experience where you've seen that sort of multilayered, multifaceted coordination between propaganda efforts and hacking into our networks? Or is this a new... CLAPPER: Well, it's...
CORNYN: ... new zenith (ph)?
CLAPPER: It's a progression of capabilities as they've acquired and used them. And certainly have longstanding practices like that against European countries.
CORNYN: And what has the United States done since United States government -- or we'll start with U.S. government. What have we done to respond to the hackings that have been occurring in U.S. networks since the 1990s in order to discourage or deter that sort of activity?
CLAPPER: Well, we've tried to up our game defensively. We have you know selectively responded. Sony Pictures attack comes to mind. And certainly there was a response to this case.
CORNYN: But the issue, as I said earlier, is if nation-states are conducting espionage against one another, which we do as well, as many other nation-states, that's -- and if the standard is to punish when the -- because of the conduct of detected espionage, well that's another policy call.
As I recall during the (inaudible) about the Sony hack, there was a lot of discussion as to how do you characterize this. Was this an act of war? Or was this a commercial -- is there criminal activity involving the commercial enterprise. How do you -- how do you -- how do you think about that? Is that -- have we gotten better about characterizing the nature of the attack?
(UNKNOWN): Well we -- we in the intelligence community and particularly the Bureau I think does an excellent job of attribution. And then of course the hard part is what if any thing to do about it? And again I would repeat what was said earlier about, was it against a cyber activity is the best response a counter cyber activity or not? In the end we -- there wasn't a case with the Sony attack. But there could be multiple options as I think you alluded to, it doesn't need to just be cyber for cyber, we can vote (sp) a multitude of ...
(CROSSTALK)
(UNKNOWN): Military options -- that was -- yes sir that was a (inaudible). I think that Admiral Rogers and I are made to the Senate Arms Service Committee, where they had this discussion there Tuesday.
CORNYN: And, perhaps this is heresy since I'm member of the intelligence committee but let me just give you my impression that we have so fractured the jurisdiction of oversight of cyber issues that (inaudible) still figure some better whole of government approach and I see Senator Rains (sp) smiling because of course the Arms Services committee has some involvement in this. Homeland Security and Government affairs. But we need to figure out some way I think to deal with it on a whole of government approach. So we're working as efficiently and effectively as possible. And, I know from what I read in the news paper of President Elect Trump is said he wants to commission a study to come back to him within 90 days, if I'm not mistaken with some recommendations in that regard. We would certainly welcome your insight and advice. Thank you.
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BURR: Senator Reed.
REED: Thank you Mr. Chairman and gentleman thank you for your dedicated service to the nation for many many years. The non classified intelligence assessment which is available to the public concludes that quote Putin, his advisors and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President Elect Trump over Secretary Clinton, closed quote. In part because quote, Put has had many positive experiences working with western political leaders, who's business interests made them more disposed to deal with Russia, such as former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Either General Clapper or Director Comey, does the community have any intelligence to suggest that President Elect Trump or those close to him may have business interests that made them more disposed to deal with Russia?
COMEY: The Russians just believed or came to the conclusion that because the President Elect is a business man that he would be easier to make deals with and -- than the Democrats.
REED: Thank you. Director Clapper, at the Armed Service Committee hearing I asked you whether, given the scope and the difficulty of hiding all of the different aspects of this comprehensive campaign was this -- what's worse that Putin advised that there was a significant chance of being discovered and second, did he disregard that because he wanted to send a message as well as being disruptive of our process? And, you differed that response until after you'd briefed the President and President Elect. Can you add anything to that?
CLAPPER: I'm sorry sir, that in the course -- would you repeat the question?
REED: Given the multiple aspects of this campaign, the hacking, the trolling, the social media, the idea that this could become unnoticed and given the scale and the intent, would be unnoticed raises one question at least. Was he in any way advised that you're taking a risk here and second did he disregard that risk, not only to be disruptive but also to signal to the world that he is prepared to engage in this type of operation and send us a signal? CLAPPER: Well I think, as we've seen, he I think always feels that -- or felt that he had deniability. That -- and of course that's what -- that's what the both the Russian government and the Russian media are denying any culpability. And we're somewhat restricted because of our sources and methods concerns about showing our hand -- showing our deck here so to speak. And, what lead us to those conclusions that we feel so strongly about. So he knows that, he a professional intelligence officer and he probably understands our approach for the protection of sources and methods and so he can just deny it and get away with it.
REED: And just a final point here ...
UNKNOWN: If I could add Senator. When you said a break in the press in early August, I had a conversation with the Director of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov and told him clearly that if Russia was doing this they were playing with fire and it would back fire and they would roundly condemned by the -- not only the U.S. government but also the American people. And he said he would relay that to Mr. Putin at the time. He denied any type of activity along these lines, but I made it very clear to him that basically we're on to them.
REED: Final point. Everyone has indicated and the report indicates that there was an effort made against the Democratic political campaigns and Republican political campaigns but one was much more aggressive, frankly than the other in terms of finding ways into the servers of not only the DNC but to individual Democratic operatives. Given what you posit as a goal of the -- of Putin which was to discredit Secretary Clinton as much as possible, assuming she might be president or in some way disrupting her campaign. It seems to be -- at least to me logical that they would devote those kind of resources to one -- to going after Democratic computers rather than resources of republicans. Is that borne out by your analysis Director Clapper?
CLAPPER: Yes.
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REED: Thank you very much. Thank you MR. ...
BURR: Senator Risch.
RISCH: Well, Mr. Chairman let me say that after sitting through this, it put this in perspective for the American people. Those of us who are involved intelligence matters at the dais here and for that matter at the table. I doubt there was any one who was shocked or even mildly surprised when these facts came out.
This hacking business is ubiquitous and it has been since the internet was set up. The question was asked when did Russia start this? I would expect it was the day that they hooked up to the internet. This is -- this goes on constantly and as we've been sitting here, there have been thousands of efforts against U.S. entities, U.S. computers, government, non government and this is just in the U.S. This is going on all over the world.
We've, those of us who engage in this and have watched these things and most of which never become public. On a scale of one to ten we've seen a number of 10's. This one doesn't come close to a 10. But the interesting thing is because it's been in the political -- it's in the political spectrum, it has caught the fancy of the media. It's caught the fancy of the American people.
Russia is not, in my judgment, the most aggressive actor in this business. I think there are other actors that are much more aggressive, and indeed I think much more dangerous. It isn't limited to state actors. There're state actors. There's non-state actors. And there's combinations. They go after everything. The criminal element is particularly troubling to a lot of people.
I just heard Dir. Clapper I think is the first time I've ever heard an admission by an intelligence person that the U.S. does espionage. By that I think he's inferring in the context were him that the U.S. does this. Now I'm not confirming that. I'll leave that to Mr. Clapper to do.
But nonetheless, the other interesting thing I found is I think I agree with Dir. Clapper entirely that you want to be careful here when you're talking about how you're going to respond to this and if it's responded to with a similar type of hacking. That escalates very, very quickly. And we've sat through actually getting out what would happen in a situation where we had an actual hacking, and then decided how we were going to respond to it and if we did how the other side would respond to it.
The good that has come out of all of this is that finally I think the American people are getting a picture of how big this is, how ubiquitous it is, how dangerous it is. And that something has to be done about it. Dir. Clapper I think is correct that our response has been to up our game as far as our defensive posture is concerned. And really that is where the focus needs to be.
And again, one would hope we could find the silver bullet where you could stand up a defense and say look, it's there. This can never be penetrated. Anything that happens behind this wall is just fine. I don't know if I'll live to see that day. I don't know if anybody will.
But in any event, it is good that we have this on the table. It's good that we're having the discussion about it. And I'm hoping that everyone will be patient with us, and will be supportive as we do our best to up our game, to defend on these things, particularly in the realm of most of the challenges that the government, that generally -- and the public generally doesn't hear about but the intelligence community does.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
BURR: Thank you. Sen. Risch.
The vote has started. Sen. Warner would like a question and a clarification. I have a clarification. Do any other
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members seek anything in this open session? If not, I'll recognize Sen. Warner.
WARNER: My question is this. I mean (inaudible) my colleague's comment. Many of us felt the conclusions were accurate. In many ways it was the president-elect until Friday who was questioning these results. I believe -- and I go back to your comments in my first line of questioning. When all four of you, with literally hundreds of years of experience said you have never seen anything in your career that approaches this level of Russian activities. And you think (inaudible) is the most serious threat. But anyone that underestimates the seriousness of this Russian threat I think does so at their own peril.
I want to ask you, Dir. Comey, and then I want to get a clarification. If a thief came up to the DNC and broke in and stole all of the most valuable information, and that same thief then drove to the RNC. And because they had a better lock on the door was only able to break in and get some old information. Would both of those be crimes? And would both of those be prosecuted?
COMEY: Sure. Yes.
WARNER: Dir. Clapper, one thing that I wanted to clarify, because I think it was Sen. Collins. There might have been some ambiguity. The conclusion you reached that the Russian government at its highest levels was targeting Clinton and favoring Putin was not the result simply of...
(UNKNOWN): Favoring.
WARNER: I'm sorry, favoring Trump and disfavoring Clinton was not the result simply of more leakage on the Democratic side. But I believe, based upon page one of your unclassified report is that Putin most likely wanted to discredit Clinton since Republican blamed her since 2011 and in a series of other activities. That conclusion of favoring Trump and not favoring Clinton was not simply the result of disproportionate leaking on the Democratic side. Is that correct? I just want to clarify that for the record.
CLAPPER: I mean just by virtue of the hacking?
WARNER: I was left with the impression that the reason you reached the conclusion that there was favoring of Trump over Clinton was because of the disproportionate releasing of information. I've seen in the non-classified report lots of evidence there was ongoing concerns between Putin and Clinton.
CLAPPER: That's clearly one aspect of this. But we reviewed the totality of what they were doing. Whether by this means or by the multifaceted propaganda campaign, the use of social media tools, planning, fake news. There was a campaign, all of which clearly seemed to favor -- clearly favored...
(CROSSTALK)
WARNER: Including after the elections...
(CROSSTALK)
CLAPPER: ... the president-elect over Sec. Clinton.
WARNER: Including after the election, the fact that Russian efforts to discredit the electoral process in America stopped.
CLAPPER: Well I think that was an overall objective throughout to accomplish that objective. And then as things moved on and progressed, clearly a proclivity for the president-elect and an attempt to denigrate Sec. Clinton.
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COMEY (?): If I might add, senator, that's the challenge of the unclassified forum. There's more behind that conclusion. We just can't talk about it here.
BURR (?): Dir. Clapper, I think this is in the scope of an open session. You'll tell me if it's not. Is there any intelligence that Russian leadership, specifically Putin, directed the GRU or the SVR to penetrate these political organizations? Or was the leadership involvement in this process triggered by what they were able to exfiltrate? And when the leadership saw the breadth of information they directed this information campaign to happen? CLAPPER: You said in your October statement there -- this came from the highest levels of the government. And I would assess that there was overall broad direction given with execution carried out by the services. BURR (?): So one can take the fact that this has been a continual fishing process on the part of the Russians that started in 2014. That from 2014 forward that was all directed by the highest echelons of Russian government? CLAPPER: Yes. And I -- again, I think it'd be best to get into the details of that in a classified setting. BURR: And we will do that.
Got a couple minutes left and a to vote. So actually we will reconvene in the committee room at closed session at the completion of that vote.
This open hearing is adjourned.
END
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