Transcripts For CSPAN House Judiciary Committee Reviews Mueller Report - Part 1 20240714

The Judiciary Committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare recess of the committee at any time privet we welcome everyone to todays hearing on lessons from the mother report part two, nonpartisan perspectives. I will now recognize myself for an opening statement. Last week, we heard from two former United States attorneys who described President Trumps repeated efforts to undermine special counsel motors investigation on russias interference in the 2016 elections. We also heard from president nixons former white House Counsel told us that the actions by this administration were substantially similar to the measures the Nixon Administration took to undermine the watergate investigation. There is one important difference. Special counsel mother was investigating a different kind of breakin. The target was similar to that of watergate. The barker was hostile organization. The crime was carried out through hacking operation that stole hundreds of thousands of documents. The hacked documents were used extensively to effect the outcome of the election. To be clear, the question is not merely whether Campaign Officials committed a crime, did they take a meeting with foreign officials to discuss dirt on opponent but the federal law or abits hacking operations from foreign adversary. The question comes down to what we as american citizens are willing to except from our leaders. Ago, the fbiars director announced the fbi was setting up a task force designed to combat both foreign influence overtions including actions by Foreign Governments to influence u. S. Political sentiment. The fbi explained that the goal of these operations was to spread disinformation, so discord, an elderly undermine confidence in our Democratic Institutions and values. I cannot imagine that a Single Member of this committee would disagree that these operations must be disrupted. In our hearing last week i was struck by a common theme through mark sets of some of our republican colleagues, acknowledging that we were attacked by foreign adversary, acknowledging that our election systems are not secure, they acknowledge that Congress Must respond to these threats without delay. Then they urged us to stop talking about the findings of the motor report. We cannot simply forget that the president s 2016 Election Campaign encouraged russias actions, both privately and publicly. The nations intelligence officials have made clear russian may do the same thing to the next election, or perhaps worse. Other hostile adversaries may try as well. Oft week, to the alarm americans across the political spectrum, likely the alarm of the men and women of the Law Enforcement and intelligence communities for working to prevent these attacks, President Trump stated in an interview that he would be willing to accept information about a political opponent from a foreign adversary such as russia or china. First, when asked whether political candidates were approached by Foreign Governments with this kind of information should call the fbi, the president responded, you dont call the fbi. Give me a break. Informed that both the fbi happened, he it responded, the fbi director is wrong. The next question was not confusing. President trump was asked by his what is campaign would do for russia orversary like china offered information on an opponent. He was asked should they accept it, should they call the fbi . The president responded that maybe you do both. Want to hear it. If they have information, i think i would take it. This time around the situation is even more alarming. The president was a private citizen before the 2016 campaign. He is provided with our nations most sensitive secrets on a daily basis. He has sworn an oath to protect and defend the constitution against enemies foreign and mystic. Even with the benefit of all that guidance, even with all the authority and responsibility has been granted, the president has said he is open to receiving information from a foreign adversary. Hestating publicly that would accept help from a Foreign Government, he may well have encouraged more foreign influence against our democracy. We heard some relevant testimony yesterday and we will be releasing that transcript soon. The president s willingness to welcome prohibited foreign assistance and now with a full understanding that the law prohibits it is indeed shocking. The president may be willing to describe discard the lessons of the mother report, but we are not. With the 20 20 election looming, we must act immediately in response to the ongoing foreign threats we face as well as the parents apparent willingness the president s apparent willingness to accept it. Recent, sorry history is not repeated. It is now my pleasure to recognize the Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee, the gentleman from georgia, mr. Collins, for his opening statement. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Bipartisan perspectives, i think we will have our tents to hear the statement. I do have a concern i want to bring up. It is a procedural issue, the chairman has every right to ,m glad he has listen to us when our son was asked, we were asked we were taught we obstruction. That was as late as monday night at 9 00, we were told it was going to be all about last week again, on obstruction. Its up to the chairman to do whatever he wants to do and we respect that, but to actually our witness, were happy to have him here, but it is something we were caught unawares about and it is something that if we can go arward, at least knowledgeable headsup would affect all. I think foreign interference in the election system is something we need to discuss. It should, been hearing which we have asked for and youre not going to allow us to forget the rest of it, so dont worry about that. As we go forward, the special counsel finishes investigation and found no one on the Trump Campaign conspired with the russians. I thought it would be great news to all americans, but no surprise, he really wasnt. Democrats are disappointed and angry. Imagine disliking a president so much that you wish you were a foreign agent. That is where the other party is today. Despite the motor reports conclusions, it came to democrats desperately trying to revive the russian conspiracy theory. They didnt like the outcome and democrats now have to redo the motor investigation. Hey launched the do over we will call that the 81 investigation. It was quickly abandoned in favor of plan b. Plan b was democrats manufactured a fight with the attorney general. They issued a subpoena directing the attorney general to violate the law. Unsurprisingly, the attorney general declined to break the law. Rather than engage in traditional process, the chairman held the attorney general in contempt in record time on flimsy ground. Even their own witnesses admitted the subpoena was asking for illegal things. The democrats overplayed their hand again with plan c. Subpoenaed don mcgahn knowing every president since the 1970s including clinton and obama claimed immunity over congressional testimony from close president ial advisers. Plans ac failed to accomplish anything of substance, we decided to go into d. Heavy artillery from plan was it Robert Mueller himself . That wouldve made too much since. It was the pivot to focus on wrongdoing, no, that would have been productive. How do we focus on real issues facing america . Was john dean. Yes, the convicted felon from the watergate scandal whose been 40 years saying that anything he did, anything that happens now is worse than watergate. The columbia journalism review ran the headline, the john dean hearing was a flop. A Washington Post columnist said no friend of the Trump Administration said the best thing that could be said about the hearing is that no one said its not like the one we saw last month. The democrats believe the American Public would be energized by john dean, who has done nothing relevant since the 1970s. The desperation showed last week when after the dean hearing bombed and at least one member of the committee scolded msnbc for ignoring the dean hearing, not showing it enough. I hope the john dean hearing put in into the circus. No matter how many times we really of relive the finding of the report, it will not change. As i said last week, our actions expose our real priorities. What hearing did we include for this week . The motor report, part two, bipartisan perspective. We were given, i fear that once again we are turning this committee into another circus. The attorney general made the motor report public two months ago. Weve had some wonderful, dramatic readings over the past week or two. We all know what it says. Robert muellerhe report is, no conspiracy. Run thel the shows have whole season, it was time for reruns. Tomorrow is the official start of summer. It is time for rerun season. Without further ado, let the show began. Thank you, mr. Collins. We will now introduce todays witnesses. Barry cordero is the robert gates senior fellow and general counsel of the center for new american security. He is an adjunct professor of law at georgetown university. Hes also the cofounder of checks and balances, an organization of conservative libertarian lawyers dedicated to constitutional principles and the rule of law. Richard hayes and is professional lawn Political Science at the university of california Irvine School of law. In 20012010, he served as founding coeditor of a peerreviewed publication, election law journal. He has authored more than 100 articles on election law issues. He received his back first from university of california at berkeley. Director of the project of global democracy and emerging technology, a fellow in the Foreign Policy Program Center on u. S. And europe and Security Strategy team at the brookings institution. She is an adjunct professor of schooln studies at the of advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins university. She received a bachelors degree from every university and a doctorate from the university of california at berkeley. I james monroe distinguished professor of law and Research Professor at the university of Virginia School of law. Before becoming up professor, he clerked for judge Lawrence Silverman on the u. S. Court of appeals in the district of and for Supreme Court Justice Clarence thomas. He received a bachelor from stanford and jp from yale law school. We welcome our distinguished witnesses and thank you for participating in todays hearing. If you would please rise. Or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony youre about to give his true and correct to the best of your knowledge and belief, so help you god . Thank you. Let the record show the witnesses answered in the affirmative. Thank you. Your writtenhat testimony will be entered into the record in its entirety. Accordingly i. S. That you summarize your testimony in fiveminute. To help you stay within that time, there is a timing light on her table. When the light switches to yellow, you have one minute to conclude your testimony. When the light turns red, it signals your five minutes have expired. Mr. Cordero, you may begin. Thank you, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here today to support the committees effort to bring Greater Public awareness to the information in special counsel muellers report. The written statement ive submitted focuses on the National Security aspect, including exposure of a sustained, systematic intelligence operation by the government of russia to interfere in the 2016 election, why foreign influence matters, and lessons we can draw from the report. It also discusses how the chain of events negatively affected public understanding of the reports facts and findings. A foreign intelligence operation of all two main efforts. The first was a social media operation intended to influence American Public opinion. The effort was successful. Part involved computer hacking to steal and release information from the Democratic Party campaign apparatus. There was a corollary to the social media operation that often gets overlooked. Russian operatives caused unsuspecting americans together for political purposes, pretending to be grassroots activists. They interacted with Trump Campaign supporters and Campaign Officials. The or they organize rallies in florida, new york, and pennsylvania. Russians released hacks tax stolen information into ways o ways. Much of the information regarding wikileaks is redacted in the report and given the harm wikileaks has caused for approximately a decade, we should all be able to agree that regardless of leading a criminal standard for prosecution, it is unacceptable and disqualifying for u. S. Political campaigns to willingly accept information and consider crafting a Public Relations strategy around leaked information from wikileaks or any Similar Organization and in the words of secretary pompeo when he was the cia director, walk and talk like a hostile Intelligence Service. The russian activities to pit americans against each other our ongoing. Foreign influence when conducted behind the scenes clouds the policy debate and impacts decisions about america on crowding out the voice of americans. Foreign Intelligence Service conducting their activities abroad dont care. Setting aside legality for a moment, it simply cannot be that it is acceptable for an american Political Campaign to accept foreign assistance in order to win an election. We have not done a good enough job explaining to the american why foreign influence matters. If we allow for interest to invade our thinking regarding our choice of candidates, to , and tour Media Outlets possibly invade our voter and election infrastructure, we are not making decisions for ourselves. We cannot allow foreign we speak to affect how to each other and interact with each other online. Or an involvement in our elections undermines our democracy. Members of congress have a duty to ensure that the government is protecting americans from foreign influence. We are only 18 months away from the next election. A written statement includes examples of the types of legislative steps that Congress Needs to take. On the leadership front, however, the duty is rooted in members of the ball for an allegiance to the constitution. The evidence in volume one of the special counsels report, in addition to recent Public Statements made by the president and Senior Advisors cannot be ignored. When cannot faithfully defend the constitution and be open to receiving foreign assistance to when an election at the same time and take action to actively federal investigation into those foreign influenced efforts. The oath in those acts are incompatible. It should be of great concern to this body which carries its on constitutional responsibility. We cannot write off what transpired in 2016. Noht now, today, there is Government Strategy to counter foreign influence in elections. No president ial leadership to secure our elections, no legislation passed by congress to address Election Security or foreign influence. Instead, we have deflection, apathy, and inaction. We cannot ignore the information in the special counsels report. We cannot not care. We have to care, and we have to act. We have to raise our expectations. Protecting americans from foreign interference in our. Emocracy needs to begin here protecting our constitutional system with checks and balances needs to begin here. Forecting our shared values free elections in our American Interest needs to begin here. Thank you. Thank you very much. Chairman, Ranking Member, and members of the Judiciary Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to speak about a matter that is among the greatest concerns ive had 25 years of researching and teaching about campaign issues. The potential for continued illegal foreign interference in u. S. Elections. From president Founding Fathers George Washington and Alexander Hamilton to Supreme Court Justice John Paul stevens and Justice Brett kavanaugh, american leaders have recognized that hostile foreign nation, as Justice Stevens put it, with no basic investment in the wellbeing of the country may attempt to interfere in American Elections in order to manipulate an elections outcome or curry favor with the winner. Justice cavanaugh in the 2011 case held that the u. S. Has compelling interest in democratic selfgovernment. Upheld the ban on foreign contributions and expenditures in the American Election and the Supreme Court affirmed the ruling without even issuing its own opinion. Indeed, until President Trump came along, there was broad bipartisan consensus that interference in American Elections undermines the idea that we the people and not outsiders get to choose american leaders. The wake of unprecedented russian interference in the 2016 president ial election and in light of the president s statement that he saw nothing wrong with taking valuable information, its worth what steps congress can and should take to ensure continued american selfgovernment. Volume one of the model report ealed to revealed eventually to support the campaign of trump. Released through wikileaks and other sources. They targeted individuals involved in the administration of elections including the state board of elections and voting machine companies. The department of justice charge 13 entities with crimes related to these activities. We will never know the extent to which these Russian Military activities affected the outcome of the 2016 elections but there is no question as to their attempt. Theres no question that foreign powers will attempt to interfere again in the 2020 election. It should be a wakeup call for all americans. Extending the foreign spinach or prohibition and requiring campaigns to report contacts from foreign agents. President trump has not only failed to support these bipartisan measures, he has encouraged foreign meddling. Targetedperatives personal offices five hours after he encouraged the russian clintons to find 30,000 emails from her time as secretary of state. Tolden more outrageously George Stephanopoulos he saw nothing wrong with taking Opposition Research about an opponent for the government. This is illegal. Cited that it counts as a thing of value under federal law. The report stated a foreign e. G. That engage in such research and provided the results of information to a campaign could exert a greater effect in election and a greater tendency then the gift of money or things of tangible value. Some may question whether american Campaign Officials understood that a foreign donation or Opposition Research to a campaign was illegal in 2016, everyone, including the president , is now on notice that for 2020, this is illegal. Yet the president statements appear to be another invitation to Foreign Governments to provide valuable information on his opponents. Legal or not, for government interference in American Elections undermines our democracy and selfgovernment. While it was the russian Government Supporting the republican candidate in 2016, it could well be russia or another country supporting a democrat in 2020 or beyond. The goal of the russians is to foment discord, something that should worry every american, regardless of political party. Thank you for the opportunity to present these views, and i welcome your questions. Thank thank you. It is a real honor and privilege to address you here today in this critical issue concerning our democracy. Thank you for inviting me to speak. I submitted my written testimony for the record, which focuses on russias intent toward democracies, in particular, the u. S. , their Political Warfare against the west, and why these actions should be of deep concern to all of us in the u. S. And elsewhere. A quick caveat. Throughout my comments, i referred to russia as a shorthand to refer to the authoritarian regime of president Vladimir Putin, and no way do i refer to the russian people, who are the victims of the regime. By now, it should be clear to all of us that russia is engaged in Political Warfare against western democracy. As is accurately stated in the Mueller Investigation report, the broader intent is to undermine trust in our Democratic Institutions, values, and principles, which the kremlin sees as a threat to its own authoritarian model of control. Influence is a 21stcentury adaptation of soviet era active measures, which include digital Disinformation Campaigns, cyber warfare, political infiltration, and the use of corruption to influence them accredit politics. To date, the report and the investigations from february 2018 to july 2018 against Internet Research agencies, socalled troll farm, and the Russian Military intelligence, gru, provide the most of the continuing and evolving russian threat. I will focus on the Information Operations the russian government carried out against the u. S. Mainly because this is an area we continue to lag behind in addressing this threat. The Mueller Report, which has been sustained by independent reporting, shows russias Information Operations were highly adapted in the political context of the u. S. , followed a well thought out strategic plan, and direction from russian intelligence. There were effective in infiltrating American Media while influencing public debate around the 2016 election. The Main Objective was to undermine trust in our democratic process. The nature of that attack, as my colleagues have stated, involves three interrelated part. An Information Operation led by the ira, a cyber hack and leak operation carried by the Russian Military intelligence, and an infiltration operation of the Trump Campaign. The Information Operations began as early as 2014, 2 years before our president ial election. They resembled a Marketing Campaign in using the tools provided by social media platforms. In brief, they proceeded in 4 phases. A initial phase of Building Network of online accounts by impersonating american individuals, particularly on facebook. By 2015, the second phase involved Building Audience growth and creating pages of content that were not necessarily political, even divisive, meant to build increasing attention to ira consult pages and accounts. The ira turned to the u. S. Elections with the goal of undermining the Clinton Campaign and amplifying social division. It was not until late spring of 2015, a few months before our president ial elections, that it turned to candidate donald trump. By the end of the 2016 elections, the ira has the ability to reach as many as 126 Million People on facebook, and 1. 4 million on twitter. The ira was part of a larger interference project funded by the Russian Oligarch called project. Due to the extent and nature of the reduction of the Mueller Report, we dont know the full scope of the command structure, how far into the kremlin the Decision Making process reached, and how it continues to be funded today. The russian operation against the u. S. Does not stand alone. It fits into a broader pattern of russian nonkinetic activities, first and foremost in the former soviet countries, most notably, ukraine. Russian influence operations do not focus on isolated events. They do not stop when the ballot box closes. Theyr taking as a whole, are the core of a political strategy honed and deployed against the west to weaken Democratic Institutions and sow discord in our societies. In my written testimony, i provide multiple examples of how has, atian government least since 2004, intervened and interfered in ukraines democratic processes, and how it continues since the 2016 election to interfere in the democratic of our allies in europe. It is concerning many european far right Political Parties have cooperation agreements with the united russia party, including the ruling party in italy, and the austrian freedom recentwhich has been a Coalition Government with the center right in austria. The operation targeting the u. S. President ial election may have been the most prominent case of russian Political Warfare, but have not been the less, nor will it be. That because so far, we have fallen behind in addressing this threat. In particular, the u. S. Has fallen behind european allies in opposing costs that would deter russia from carrying out future attacks of this nature in the Upcoming Elections and other critical moments of concern to the russian federation. Military strikes are much more readily felt, influence operations are not clearly felt by American People and other citizens in democratic society. Driptime, they are a slow that borrows a whole in the democratic contract between our institutions and citizens. Undermining the democratic process. The lack of consequences imposed on russia for its attack on the u. S. Sends a very clear message to other authoritarian regimes. They currently have an open door to further destabilize our democracy. We should not and cannot let this stand. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Opportunity tohe participate in todays hearings. My views today are just my views, they do not represent the institution i work for. I have 4 points today. I will be discussing the obstruction part of the report, part 2. President smphasize have broad constitutional powers over the Justice Department, including the fbi and special counsel sprayed that is their constitutional jobs. It is a mistake, fundamental president ialiew involvement and prosecutorial decisions as if they were sinister interference in doj matters. Does not demonstrate the president committed obstruction of justice, because the obstruction statutes do not apply to his official acts. Even if they did, we do not have proof he committed obstruction of justice. The removal of james comey and the attempted removal of Robert Mueller does not constitute a crime. Third, contrary to the doj, i believe president s may be prosecuted while in office. I do not believe they deserve immunity. Unlike you, they do not have immunity in the constitution. You have the privilege for arrest, and a speech and debate caused. There is nothing for president s. Thats contrary to the doj. They are not likely to listen to me. They are more likely to listen to their own opinions. I think the doj is wrong about that. The category of impeachable offenses are broad. You are free to impeach the president whether he obstructed justice in a criminal sense. If you think he abused his power, you can impeach him. You can also impeach him if you think he violated the appropriations clause. Lets talk about president s and prosecutions. The constitution makes the president the constitutional executor of the laws, as hamilton wrote during the washington administration. President s principal power is the power over law execution. And this was recognized not only by hamilton, but james madison, and of course, George Washington. George washington supervised american prosecutors. He told them who to prosecute and who not to prosecute. His successors did the same. John adams would read the newspaper every morning and identify seditious writings and send them to his prosecutors. There was a sedition act that was likely unconstitutional, but the point is john adams was reading the paper and asking prosecutors to prosecute individuals. Thomas jefferson supervised prosecutions, as well. He was heavily involved in the prosecution of his former vice president. They did this all without statutory warrant. My second point is the Mueller Report assumes to quickly that the obstruction statutes apply to the official acts of government officials, including the president. I think that is a mistake. Those statutes are written in terms. They apply no less to the department. It means every Department Official is involved in influencing a investigation,n which means an investigation. It is possible Robert Mueller and his aides committed obstruction of justice if they acted out of a corrupt motive. That is a seeley reading of the stat silly reading of the statute. I would not read it to Robert Mueller or the president. Independent of that reading, the president has constitutional authorities over law executions. It is a mistake to read the obstruction statute written in general terms when applied to the president. There are many Supreme Court cases that choose not to read general statutes as if they applied to the president , with fear that it would show the president s unconstitutional conduct. I think the courts would apply that rule to the obstruction statutes for fear that it may show the president s supervision of the department. If Bernie Sanders wins the next is then and chris wray fbi director, and Bernie Sanders believes he is misusing resources and dragging out an investigation, it is entirely permissible for Bernie Sanders to fire chris wray. There should not be an investigation because he did so. I think that was the mistake at the outset. I think it was a mistake. You cant infer an improper motive from the president s involvement. Report says the president can get involved in prosecution if he has political or policy motives, but not personal motives. Everyone understands the president had both motives when he chose to fire james comey. The personal would have been i dont want him to investigate me. The policy reason would be he is not allowing me to. Their ability to carry out their office is impeded by an investigation. If thats the reason, its not corrupt and it is perfectly fine. Once you understand that, the mueller does say this in the footnote, you can see why it is difficult to show the president s motive was actual corruption. I welcome your questions. Thank you. I will begin by recognizing myself for five minutes. Very briefly, you said essentially something we have heard a lot of people say, the president s certain bytutional powers exercising those powers, he cant commit obstruction of justice. He can fire someone for whatever reason he wants, is that correct . Thats not quite what i believe. You could have gotten that from my downgraded comments. If you look at the testimony, my view is we should not read a general statute as if it covers the president , just like we should not read it to cover Robert Mueller. If it does cover the president , it raises difficult constitutional questions. A member of congress has the right to move forward against the bill. If he voted for or against the bill because someone gave him a bribe of 50,000, that would be a crime . Yes. The president has a right to fire somebody. If he fired someone or did anything else with his power ath an improper reason, like bribe, or any other improper reason, you would agree that would be illegal . Arehe bribery statutes about official conduct. It is hard to read a bribery statute as if it go did not read, but these are essentially about quintessential conduct. Everybody is covered by it. It is easier to read a bribery statute if a covered official acts. Two bribe someone in an efficient some cover officials, others dont . Some do clearly because they say as much, some have the implication that they do. In your testimony, you are cofounder of checks and balances, an organization of conservative and libertarian lawyers dedicated to Core Principles and upholding the rule of law. As a conservative with expertise in National Security law, why did you find the president s statements last week about his willingness to accept Operation Research Opposition Research so concerning . First of all, in terms of the president s responsibilities as president , he is responsible for overseeing the National Security of the u. S. He has the commander in chief response ability. Receiving foreign assistance has been recognized throughout the entire history of the country as something that is counter and undermines the constitution. He has an oath that he is defending the constitution. There is no way that a president can, or any official, can willingly receive and indicate a willingness to receive foreign which he has not only constitutional principles that cut against receiving foreign assistance, warn about foreign influence over our democracy, and congress has passed statutes that tried to provide transparency and get at the issue and uncover potential eign o influencen influence on our Democratic Institutions. His being willing to receive that assistance is incompatible with his role. Is it likely or plausible that the president s statements may encourage russia or other foreign actors to commit those same actions against our next election . Payingourse, they are attention, listening to everything the president , his advisors, and members of this body said. When he or anyone else indicates a willingness foreign to receive assistance, that is not just a signal, that is an invitation to russian intelligence and any other Intelligence Service that wants to find a way to influence our democratic processes. Whyou have explained providing opposition counters the campaign conservation. A great thing of value for purposes of campaignfinance law. Some campaigns often pay a great deal of money for Opposition Research. The use the sale of Opposition Research or polling data has been found by the federal Election Commission to count as a thing of value for the campaignfinance laws. Giving it in kind if its value is over the value that is allowed that the contribution can be illegal. If a foreign provides Opposition Research to a campaign for free, that can constitute a significant inclined donation . Report and the mueller noted it can be much more than a dollar value contribution. You also explained u. S. Law prohibits any Foreign National from competing contributing to national campaigns. Then judge kavanaugh wrote in on1 upholding the ban foreign election contributions. Is it fair to say that he described the u. S. As having a compelling interest in preventing foreign influence in u. S. Elections . Yes, he recognized an interest in democratic selfgovernment. The Supreme Court thought the proposition was so obvious that it affirmed his decision and did not schedule a hearing on the case. Would anybody in the Supreme Court disagreed . No. Disagreed on many other points on the full agreement with your im in full agreement with your argument that it does not grant the president any privileges or immunities from prosecution. You said the constitution does not bring the president any sort of religious or immunities privileges or immunities. Would you agree white house advisers cannot claim they are immune from testifying before Congress Based on the theory that they act as the president s alter egos . I will tell you what i tell butlass, i agree 110 , administrations for the past several decades have claimed this privilege. Congress has been unable to stop them. I agree that people who work for the president should be forced to testify before congress. Except when you can establish executive privilege . Aboutont want to talk executive privilege, but i dont believe there is an executive privilege. Certainly not visavis congress. My time is expired. The Ranking Member, mr. Cohens mr. Collins. Committee we like to talk about the symptoms and not get a disease. I disagree with the three democratic witnesses. We have bills that we can be having this hearing on. Im glad you are here today, but you dont need to be here. We are like hypochondriacs talking about symptoms when there are cures we can work on. It is absolutely adding nothing to getting anything done as we go forward, which concerns me, because it is very obvious from the Opening Statements that we were under the understanding that it was supposed to be an obstruction hearing. ,t is late and we have emails as late as 9 00 on monday night, which could have had a better discussion of what you are wanting to discuss and we can still be talking about the symptoms when we can clear the schedule, even a markup, to deal with bills in the queue. I have a few questions. Were you first contacted by Committee Staff about testifying at todays hearing . I dont remember the date. I talked when were you asked about appearing today . At least one week ago. I dont remember the date. Evening. Ay monday. I believe thursday or friday of last week. The committee can Work Together on many things. I think the concern is we have to be exceedingly hostile or hide the ball on everything. Thats not the way this should be. Its frustrating for us for pairing for one thing and finding out for us, not finding out you were going to be testifying until tuesday morning, and finding out some of you are not even attached until this weekend, which is after we were told what would be happening, they called you. It needs to not happen as we go forward. One of the aspects of this, going back to obstruction, was an interesting issue we want to talk about. Important aspects of National Security is maintaining secrecy of classified information, avoiding leaks, whether they are foreign or domestic. Director comey leaked internal fbi memos to the media through columbia professor richmond. Would you consider that problematic . I dont know if the memo was classified, but if it was, it will be problematic. As we have confirmed through the special counsel and information, and evidence after , certainlygation former director comey did not have conspiracy. That came out in the Mueller Report. I find it troubling that mr. Comey leaked documents that helped spark the influence of the special counsels investigation. Doing so, could that leak cause an obstruction of justice . Mr. Comey was a private citizen when he leaked those memos. If it was for a personal motive, getting back to the president for firing him, that would be a corrupt motive. On the other hand, if he did it out of public interest, it wouldnt be. Which is the problem with trying to figure out whether something is corrupt or not. Both for this, and the president. Washe problem you just hit the same thing discussed in the Mueller Report and how this passed on to the special counsel, given to the attorney general, who said it did not have any corrupt motives. Also it took into account that counsel from their own department. After looking at this, there is nothing to charge. The stretch of counsel spent a great deal of time discussing the episode related to mr. Mcgahn. It turns on whether the president thought he was asking him to create a false memo. The report is equivocal on this. It does not know. The president has forgotten things in the past. The boban episode from woodward book where the president asked for a document to withdraw from the u. S. Trade agreement. He puts it on his desk, and snatch it back because they dont want him to sign it, and he forgot he asked for it. People are forgetful. It is possible the president did not realize he had asked don mcgahn to have special counsel mueller fired. At this point in time, we will continue this, what could have been an actual productive markup of bills that went therds obstruction, election and interference we have talked about before, foreign interference. They elaborated beautifully, but we have already began this process. I already asked for it. We could have had a markup. Instead we are having a rerun. From my perspective, something we could have anticipated in in a different way. Our witnesses have an civil opportunity to do that, but not the way down to us. In the future, i would hope we can communicate better on that. I yield back. The gentlelady from texas. Thank you for holding this hearing. I acknowledge and thank the Ranking Member. This is the task and job that is responsibility of the u. S. Congress. I want to think the witnesses for their presence here. I want to be as close to my questioning time. Let me thank you for your presence here today. I wanted to pick up on the executive privilege. My understanding of what you just said is that executive privilege should not be rendered as it relates to congress. . Is that correct . That is exactly right. Im not sure there is executive privilege at all. Im more confident of my view with congress. We had a witness yesterday, ms. Hope hicks, and i believe it is present in the media that there was a significant amount of executive privilege. So you would raise questions about the . About that . My view is a minority viewpoint, it is not held by the department of justice or the president. That is true for republican and democratic president s. Your view is a thoughtful view. I would think executive privilege so extensive yesterday ghts ofabuse of the ri this congress. I thank you for your addition to that. Let me ask this question. About report, they talked hte i the idea of the involvement of russia. First they talked about a russian entity known as the Internet Research agency that carried out a campaign that favored president ial candidate trump. The goals evolved. Political and social discord in the u. S. , targeted operations that by early 2016 favored candidate trump. Second, russias main intelligence director conducted computer intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working on the Clinton Campaign, and released documents. How damaging, troublesome, dangerous is that . As the special counsel has said in the report and his remarks that he gave at the Justice Department, this was a systematic intelligence operation against the u. S. , against our democratic processes. I would emphasize that according to current u. S. Intelligence statements by Intelligence Community leaders, this is an ongoing issue. It is not just limited to the past, it was not just 2016, it is ongoing. How dangerous is it in a reflection of 2016 to have president ial candidates and or their operatives willingly and excitingly engaging with the extent i mentioned intelligence agencies, the gr isbut how dangerous that . It is really inconceivable it is dangerous. That a president ial candidate would be willing to receive information that the campaign had reason to know was coming from russian Government Supported efforts. In other words, the work laid out in the special counsels report had a variety of different examples of how the campaign knew it was coming. It would have been more understandable had the campaign been able to say we did not understand. Instead, there is a particular reference to Deputy Campaign chairman gates, where he told the special counsel, because it is in the report, that they were going to create a press strategy around the wikileaks releases. There is a whole history of information. Based on your knowledge, because the lines regarding what counts as coordination between campaign and outside groups often becomes blurry. This is based upon the relationship and the campaigns of 2016, in particular, the Trump Campaign. In election law, questions about campaigns for the native with outside entities often arise in the context of rules governing super pacs and independent expenditures. Based on your knowledge, in the lines regarding what counts as coordination between a campaign and outside group often become blurry . In that instance, would you look back on the 2016 trump election and see the difficulty and its dangerousness . In terms of coordination with super pacs, there is a general problem across both sides of the alley with coordination with campaigns and outside groups that support them. What is especially different with the Trump Campaign was the potential for coordination with a foreign entity, something we do not normally see. Representative jackson lee should that be reported immediately . It certainly would be Good Practice to report any attempt and rebut any efforts. And rebuff any efforts. And to speak to the campaign general counsel, don mcgahn at the time, and alert them that it had been approached by a foreign entity that was trying to provide information to the campaign. Chairman nadler the gentleman chabot. Io, mr. S bot thetative cha russian interference discussed by the panel this morning, this did not happen under President Trumps watch, this happened under president obamas watch. It was the Obama Administration that all this happened, had evidence of it, knew it was going on and did nothing. It was the Obama Administration. Secondly, relative to what was done wrong, whether there was collusion with the russians, a lot of us including myself reserved judgment until the mila report came in. The mila report ultimately indicated there was no collusion between donald trump or his campaign with the russians. Secondly, the attorney general concluded there was no obstruction of justice. Yet here we are again, and another hearing relative to a matter that has already been cited, we are wasting time chasing our tails, it is taxpayer money that is paying for all of this. Fauxfollow it is a impeachment, because whereas the hardcore, hatetrump Democratic Base despise its president and democrats still refused to move forward on impeachment because they know that will blow up in their face politically, so we are having hearing after hearing after hearing about, really about nothing. Last week, john dean. Yesterday, hope hicks. Who are we going to have next week, sean hannity . Anybodys guess. In the meantime, significant, real issues are being ignored by this committee and this congress. 145,000ple, last month Illegal Immigrants flowed into this country. 145,000 in one month. A vast,apidly becoming International Territory between mexico and canada. Oured to attribute that to committee scholar, tom mcclintock, who used that definition yesterday and i think it is a good one, although it is unfortunate. A 22r issue, we have trillion debt hanging over our heads. This is the committee that could pass something i have introduced, a balanced Budget Amendment requiring us to do whatever state has to do, balance our budget, but now, we are not doing that. We have 70,000 people that died of opioid addictions last year. Are we putting any attention to that . Not really, certainly not enough. Maybe we ought to focus on some real issues that really matter, just a suggestion. Professor, let me ask you this. This committee has spent a lot of time relitigating the Mueller Report. Democrats on this committee and in the media have promoted the narrative that not only has the president obstructed justice in relation to the meal or investigation, but the president is now obstructing congress, allegedly. Last week democrats approved an authorization that authorized approved legislation that authorizes lawsuits against attorney general william barr and former white House Counsel don mccann don mcgahn. How would you address the merits of such a lawsuit . Im on record saying i dont believe the president should be able to invoke privilege against congress. I have that view. I dont think the courts will share that view. The courts have essentially required that congress and the president negotiate over claims of executive privilege and then have only reluctantly thereafter intervened. Think theyive you are going to fail in the courts . I dont know what the courts will say. But i do know that they seem to want to have you folks negotiate with the president first before they adjudicate disputes. I personal view of executive privilege, i happen to believe it is right, but it is my personal view. Representative chabot many acts of alleged obstruction involve the president exercising his article to authorities. Authorities. Can you defined obstruction of justice when the president invokes his Article Ii Authority . It depends on what the president is doing. If hes having a difficult time negotiating with foreign leaders a, then that is not corrupt motive. But if he is only concerned about saving his skin, that would be a corrupt motive. Representative chabot relative to the power to remove executive branch officials, do you believe the president committed a crime when he fired james comey . Absolutely not. Chairman nadler the gentleman from tennessee, mr. Cohen. Representative cohen ive noticed some constituents from my district, and not only my district but my zip code are here. Im glad they are here because they get to see what i have to put up with week after week after week. Colleagues who say the mila report,district but my zip codee obviously not read, say nope the Mueller Report, which they have obviously not read, says no collusion. The issue wasnt addressed in the Mueller Report. The issue was conspiracy. Number two, they say the Mueller Report said no obstruction. The Mueller Report said nothing about that. The Mueller Report said, if we could find that the president didnt commit a crime we would say that and we cannot exonerate him from committing obstruction of justice. Would you hold him out of order . My time. Have hearings about nothing. Hearings about nothing . Hearings about the russians interfering with our elections that is in the mila report, the whole first half of it, it sells the report the mueller this is not reality. This is the Judiciary Committee. And it is sad. The russians did interfere. You said the russians did interfere and you said it would be disqualifying that a Political Team would craft a message around wikileaks and around social media, and you said this in conflict this is in conflict with the oath of office the president takes to faithfully execute the laws of our nation, and also taking foreign information on an election, which President Trump said he would do. If this committee gets into an impeachment inquiry, we believe these are areas that should be looked into . Yes. I think if this committee were to initiate an impeachment inquiry, there is a variety of things that they could look into. One of the most important would be the matters discussed in volume two of the report. I think the special counsels report lays out at a minimum of four to potentially six acts of potential destruction that the committee could continue. The second and probably most important thing that is in the report that the committee would want to look at is the prior topaigns willingness receive foreign assistance and be the beneficiary of a foreign intelligence operation, and almost more significantly, current statements indicating a current and future willingness to take that assistance. Representative cohen you said that taking foreign assistance from a foreign country would be good would be illegal. Is that correct . It talks about federal Election Commission rulings holding that Opposition Research counts as a thing of value, and the report concludes that accepting it could be considered illegal, although there is no judicial decision. That issue never came to a court, so there is no judicial decision, but that is the federal Election Commission authority so holds. Ohen and if wec had an impeachment inquiry, congress could take that into invest take that into consideration. If the report says Opposition Research is something of value and therefore illegal to take, if President Trump said he read it,Mueller Report, read would you presume that maybe he just forgot . Or did he not read it . Because he obviously doesnt understand it. I dont know what the president reads, the latterve cohen part of your answer is more voluminous, what he doesnt read. Dr. , the Russian Military was definitely involved in this, right . Yes. N theentative cohe oligarch wouldnt have done it on his own, would he . We know from the report there was a Russian Military intelligence arm involved. From my understanding how the russian state functions, several proxies do the bidding of the kremlin and it is very likely there was a guiding and supple set sent to various proxy including tru and mr. Torsion to carry out an operation including gru and m out anhin to carry operation against the United States. We dont know if mr. Putin gave that order or not but he was very aware of what was happening. Representative jordan professor, you have an undergraduate degree from stanford, law degree at yale, a professor at the university of virginia, not the big ten but pretty darn impressive. Focus is on the constitution. Or 12 weeks ago the attorney general of the United States testified in front of the senate , and the attorney general said some interesting things. He said there was a failure of leadership, talking about the origins of the trumprush investigation, that there was a failure in leadership at the fbi. We know that is true. Everyone at the fbi under the Obama Administration has been fired, demoted, or left. He said spying occurred twice. He said there was a basis for concern about spying that took place, namely, was it properly predicated . And finally, he used two terms that should frighten every american citizen. He used the term unauthorized surveillance and political surveillance. Are you troubled by, as a constitutional law professor, some of the things the attorney general raised . But everybodyre, ought to be troubled by the prospect that tools of investigation might be to learned might be turned against opponents. If this administration did that to the democratic nominee i would be troubled by that as well. Jordan bruce ohr worked at the Justice Department had told us that he informed the fbi that the Clinton Campaign pay for the dossier. He told us that steele was biased against the president , so much so that steele conveyed to him and he conveyed to the fbi that he was desperate to stop trump getting elected. And he told them fusion gps worked with steele to put the dossier together, and his wife worked for fusion gps. When the fbi went to the secret court, they didnt convey any of those important facts to the court. Does that trouble you . Yes, it does. Polarities had been reversed, i think other people would be disturbed by the sequence of events. If it had been a Democratic Administration and a Republican Administration started this investigation in part based on a foreign dossier paid for by political operatives, i think the other party would be upset. It merits investigation is to why this investigation, why this surveillance began. Jordan let me ask you about a statement made by senator schumer talking about president elect trump and the tell and the Intelligence Community. He said, when you mess with the Intelligence Community, they have six ways from sunday of getting back at you. Does that statement trouble you, when you think about how unelected bureaucrats are supposed to act are supposed answer to elected officials elected by we the people . There are portions of the Mueller Report that suggest any involvement by the president and ongoing investigations is impermissible or improper. That is a mistake. I dont think it is possible to sail such involvements are impermissible. I think its a mistake to threaten a sitting president with the use of official resources as a retaliation for looking into possible wrongdoing. Timesentative jordan last i checked, two fbi agents werent on the ballot but they ran the most important investigations i have seen. Their names werent on the ballot. How about when emmett flood wrote the attorney general and said this. We would all do well to remember, if they can do it to a president , imagine what they can do to you and die . That scares me more than anything else. If the Intelligence Community can do what i suspect they did, and this is what the attorney general is looking into, if they can do this to a president they can do it to anyone in this country and that is what i believe this committee should be focused on. The president was falsely accused of conspiracy with russians to influence the election. Do we investigate how that false accusation happened, or do we continue to investigate something bob mueller spent 22 months on and came back with no conspiracy, no collusion, no coordination. And it wasnt just 22 months. And hed jim call me said, after 10 months of the fbi investigation, they had zero evidence. So after 32 months investigating something they had zero evidence of it and yet this committee wants to continue going down that road versus looking into how this began in the first place. Tellwouldnt presume to the committee what it ought to do but i support the attorney generals investigation as to why this process began. Chairman nadler i would remind the gentleman the investigation was not predicated on that. Its wellestablished the investigation was not predicated on the steele dossier but rather on the observation of mr. The gentleman does not have the time. The gentleman does not have the time at the moment. Representative im responding to what you said. Chairman nadler you not responding because im in the middle of saying something. Ofould remind the gentleman three things. The investigation was predicated on an incident with George Papadopoulos. Steele dossier insofar as it was used in the application for the fisa court, the court was informed in the memo that the information in the dossier was unreliable and came that was paidurce for by the Clinton Campaign. Three, i recognize the gentle from california. The gentlelady from california is recognized. My time youve in are making a parliamentary inquiry . Is the chairman going to permit himself to rebut every part every republican in this hearing . Chairman nadler no, not everyone. [laughter] representative i have some addresss, but i want to the issue that was just raised. To note footnote 465, that basically says that the Foreign Government conveyed information to the u. S. Government. That really was the origin of this investigation. People know how many other than myself have read the entire fisa application that was provided to the congress in the last congress conga congress, but i did. Saey provided not only the fi application, but all the underlying evidence that was provided to the court. I started reading it at 9 00 in the morning and canceled my entire day because it took me until 5 00 p. M. To read the entire application. I would suggest the members who have not read the fisa application that it would be advisable to do so before suggesting there was improprieties. Now to the questions i have. We have talked a lot about volume two of the report, and there are concerning matters concerned, some of the report is redacted and i look forward to seeing the redactions end evidence. But there were a substantial number of contacts between the russian government and the Trump Campaign. I have been involved in campaigns before. Anything likeeen this. The report talks about 170 contacts between the russian government, 28 meetings between the russians and the Trump Campaign. If you look at indictments and publicly atavailable information publiclyavailable information, meetingscts and 38 between the russians. That is just weird. Ive never seen anything like that in any campaign i have ever been involved in. Im wondering, dr. , you are an expert on russian affairs, indicate, i mean, that wouldnt happen without the russian government countenancing that, because that is a highprofile risk for putin to interfere in the governments of others. It could lead to a whole set of ramifications that ended up being a losing proposition. If i am wrong, you will tell me. Wouldnt that have to be a product of strategy by the russian government . Absolutely. It comes out very clearly in investigation, additional reporting, statements by our Intelligence Community, that there was a strategic intent infiltrate and gain access to the Trump Campaign. Representative one thing i cant get out of my mind is that the campaign chairman, mr. Excuse that has an he is trying to cozy up to his former sugar daddy in the ukraine, but that he gave sensitive internal polling data, not once but multiple times, and hes had his assistants do the same. Andsian operatives had his assistants do the same russian operatives at the same time there was a campaign states to benefit from. It strikes me that having that kind of internal polling data as a show of good faith is unusual. I dont know if you have enough familiarity and running campaigns to say whether that would be an odd thing to do. Im not on the campaign side, im on the law side. Representative lofgren i have been involved in many, many campaigns and i have never seen anything like that. As any one of you taken a look at the role that Russian Military played in supporting thirdparty candidates through . Heir social media efforts have you looked at that . In the United States specifically, i have not seen evidence because we really need information from the Intelligence Committee. Thats why the Mueller Report is the most comprehensive resource on that matter. Representative lofgren representative lofgren there were thousands of tweets aimed at millennials and africanamerican voters urging them to support the Green Party Candidate and criticizing the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. My colleague Sheila Jackson lee gaetz wasut chairman going to do a press strategy with the wiki leaks release. Wasnt the wikileaks release coordinated with russia, in your judgment . Russian correct that agents under the guise of noosa for 2. 0 did coordinate the release of the stolen information under the guise er two point oh did coordinate the release of the stolen information with wikileaks and members of the campaign were eager to publicize the information when it came out. Radcliffe ive special counsel mueller details what he calls a sweeping and systematic effort to influence the 2016 election by the russian government. Those details are set forth in two separate indictments, one identifying 12 Russian Hackers associated with gr you and 13 uussian evasion all gr and 13 russian individuals into companies. Did the special counsel find that thats weeping and systematic effort by the russian government to influence our election, the did the special counsel find that began sfore or after donald trump entry into the 2016 president ial election field . The indictments of the russian Intelligence Officers indicate the russian influence effort predated. Thank you. Ive the answer is before donald trump entered the field. On october 21, 2016 the obama Justice Department submitted a to surveilledon Trump Campaign associate carter officialsjustice theed an application for steeleamous unverified. Ca which stated there was a welldeveloped conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and the russian government. Did the special counsel find there was a welldeveloped conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and russian government . The special counsel analyzed conspiracy under criminal conspiracy law. Criminal conspiracy law, the special counsel did not find that there was a tacit or implicit agreement between the campaigns. Representative so no can speed representative so no conspiracy. I agree when you talk about the goal of the russians to sow discord into the american and despiteepublic, the fact that special counsel mueller found that neither donald trump nor anyone associated with his campaign conspired a colluded or was successful in any way and meddling in the 2016 president ial election, it is hard to argue that russia wasnt successful in that ultimate goal of sowing discord. Our country just endured a twoyear investigation to determine whether the president was part of a treasonous conspiracy with a foreign adversary to steal an election, an investigation that was started by the Obama Administration, who started an investigation into a conspiracy that the special counsel has now conclusively and unequivocally established never existed. If the purpose of this hearing is to talk about Lessons Learned from the Mueller Report, lets talk about factors that contributed to russian success. One factor was the Obama Administration opening a probe into the Trump Campaign, using foreign counterintelligence spying powers to investigate a conspiracy the special counsel conclusively determined did not exist. Another factor that contributed to russian success was the Obama Administration Intelligence Community assessment, which was used to tell the American People that not only did russia interfere in the election, but did so because vladimir puked in Vladimir Putin was trying to get donald trump elected. Another factor was the Obama Administration use of warrants based on the unverified steele. Ca, which obama and the fbi knew to be an uncorroborated Clinton Campaign research document. That might have contributed to russias success. And we have Obama Administration officials, some now under investigation for leaking information, perhaps classified information, falsely depicting a trumprussia collusion conspiracy that never existed. I love talking about the Mueller Report. Im just wondering when my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going to start asking questions about why bob mueller spent 40 million and had 60 people working around the clock for two years asking questions about President Trump and a conspiracy that never existed, and sped up instead of spending some of that time asking about president obama and how all this got started. Im done. Gentlemans time has expired. The witness will answer the question. What was the question . I dont know. Ill take a pass. The gentleman from georgia, mr. Jackson. Thank you, mr. Chairman and i want to thank the witnesses for a p are year today. Served the federal court of appeals for the d. C. Circuit and also the United States Supreme Court law clerk. Is that correct . For the record, represented im a cavalier, not a bulldog. Ok. You are, im not going to hold that against you. The point i am making is that you have a distinguished career, and you actually majored in Political Science. And economics. Stanfordiversity of at university. You obtained your law degree. Partou would, youve read one of the Mueller Report, have you not . Im sad to say i have not. But you have heard a little bit about it. Yes, representative. That the Mueller Report makes the case that the Trump Campaign knew about russian attempts to help it win the campaign. Point of order. I want him to have his full time. But brings up an interesting point. It should be understood that this again, this was not communicated to us, mr. Chairman. Its unfair to the witness to comment on a part that he was not brought here to comment on. If we want to do this fine. As much time as he wants but this is some that needs to be addressed as we go forward. That is not a point of order. That was not intended to be a point of order. Ok, i l beingbject to my witness interrupted. If the chairman not going to engage me on this . This is not fair. Representative, i am not a position to comment on what part one might have said. Talk]ible i will rephrase my question to you, professor. You would admit that it would be wrong for a president ial campaign to accept offers of foreign assistance. Representative is that wrong or right . I wish to be on the record for saying im opposed to foreign influence, whether it be republican or democratic. Reclaiming my time. Agree with me that it is wrong for a president to say that he would accept help for his reelection from a Foreign Government. Thats wrong. I think it is wrong to say it on i think it is wrong to do it. You would condemn it . I just said it was run. You would not condemn it. Im happy to use the word. All right. Thank you. Now, going on to professor your experiencen would it be reasonable to open an investigation such as the russian influence investigation when a Foreign Government reports to the authorities that a Trump Campaign official has stated that he has, uh, information that russia has dirt that it wants to share with the Trump Campaign. Do you think that serves as an adequate basis to open an investigation . There are attorney general guidelines for investigative operations for the fbi and you have to follow those guidelines. There has to be predication, they have to have information from a reliable Foreign Government. That predicates that would justify opening a counterintelligence investigation. When that information came to the attention of the u. S. Authorities on july 26. Excuse me, on may 6, 2016, and it was not until october of 2016 that the federal authorities were made aware of the steele dossier. Thatre you aware the fact the investigation, the counterintelligence investigation into the Trump Campaign activities began prior to the steele dossier being revealed to the federal authorities . Coniston, i have to say, i congressman, i can only have information that is publicly available and it is not altogether i think clear exactly when which investigations were opened. I would i would argue with you that it is clear. In the report, in the Mueller Report that the steele dossier came to their attention after the, uh, information came in from the Foreign Government that, uh, George Stephanopoulos, excuse me, George Papadopoulos was going around in a drunken fit talking about russians having information, dirt on Hillary Clinton. With that, i will yield back. I do not think the report indicates that steele dossier was the basis for the opening of the investigation. And, based on everything that is now apparent from the report about the systematic activities by the russian intelligence agencies and how that information would have come in, there is substantial information that would have justified opening the counterintelligence judgmenttion and in my it wouldve been a dereliction of duty for them to not investigate. Thank you. I yield back. The gentleman from florida. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. Are you going to subpoena Robert Mueller . I yield to you to answer. Im not going to answer that at this time. Part two ofe in lessons from the Mueller Report and so im wondering how we are going to learn those lessons. Brought in one we john dean to reexamine the nixon impeachment. Perhaps during part two we will get to the impeachment of andrew johnson. Maybe the folks here can teachers the lesson. For the witnesses to we do not have to individually go through. Heres the question, raise your hand if you would answer this in the affirmative. Do any witnesses here have personal knowledge regarding the truth or falsity of a single material fact in the Mueller Report . Knowledgee personal of the truth or falsity of a single fact, raise your hand so i can figure out who to ask the question of. The record can reflect no witnesses have raise their hands, no witnesses have any personal knowledge of a single fact in the report, no witnesses last week had personal knowledge will the gentleman yield . Ill certainly yield to the chairman. I would remind the gentleman thatthere is an ongoing controversy the white house is asserting the right to prohibit the testimony of any witness with regard to anything that happened. Im going to reclaim my time i fully appreciate that, mr. Chairman. Will the gemini of . Will the gentleman yield . I will not. The person to whom the white house can assert no privilege is Robert Mueller. You have you subpoena power extensively in this committee and you will not subpoena the person who wrote the report. So, this hearing should not be entitled lessons from the Mueller Report. It should be entitled hot takes from the Mueller Report were we are getting people who have no knowledge of the facts, no information as to the underlying information. They are just offering their analysis and their hot takes. But i think there is a farmer critical issue that our committee should be addressing and we could address. Of 5500w we are upwards people arriving every day on our southern border. And this committee has the jurisdiction to reform our o make changes to ensure we have a country that is protected and the rule of law that is being paid. One of our witnesses is somewhat of an expert on this subject. Miss cordero. The committee is not in order. Im sorry. Did someone say point of order . Mr. Chairman, i said the committee is not in order. The committee will be in order. Rdero, you are somewhat of an expert on the activities that go on on our southern border, arent y ou . I do some work related to National Security and Homeland Security, y es. Etown you3 for georgia wrote an essay, breaking the mexican cartels. Im going to interrupt and say this hearings about part one of the Mueller Investigation. I wish it was, mr. Chairman. The gentleman is out of order. The gentleman will suspend. We will proceed. Wrote breaking the mexican cartels is no easy feat, but is a necessary want to secure our southern border. Eliminate the presence of dangerous cartels in our cities, reduce americas contributions to the drug trade and resulting violence and play our role in restoring the mexican citizenry to a free society from daily terror. Is it your impression that since you wrote this in 2013 that the circumstances on our southern border have gotten better or worse . I will, excuse me, the gentleman will suspend. Reflects t, uh, this has nothing to do with part ene or volume two of th mullah reporter anything conceivably within the ambit of muellerring of the report or anything conceivably within the ambit of this hearing. The witness may or may not reply. Im happy to respond. When i wrote the report i thought there was an issue that needed attention. It was not the beginning of the Obama Administration, something that i think did get sufficient attention. There clearly is a changed circumstance. Were in 2019 now. There is clearly a humanitarian problem on the southern border that needs to be addressed. What you will not find in that article is any mention of a wall as a response to that challenge. Nor any encouragement of the use of emergency authority. I understand that but you recognize the crisis, you recognize it is worse than id knowledge that the wall may be something that divides us but reforming our asylum laws, assuring we have the appropriations in place to make sure people are not dying on our border. Is a lot more important than hearing people that know nothing about the Mueller Report. The time of the gentleman has expired. You guys impose on my time and then restrict it. Its a total farse. Its no wonder witnesses do not want to testify. I would be happy to come back another time. We may invite you another time. Point of order, mr. Chairman. Is the other side permitted to impugn the character and badger witnesses . Nobody is permitted to impugn the character or temperature witnesses. The gentleman from florida. Id like to answer the question. How are going to learn the lessons of the Mueller Report . How are we going to learn from people with personal knowledge . The answer to that is we have material witnesses, people are who are subject of the mullah report. You know well that is the truth because this administration has tried to exercise the blanket immunity that does not exist and prevented us from holding exactly the kind of hearings that you claim that you desire. So, yesterday the committee saw a continuation of that obstruction when holt hicks came in. Over 100 timesd in the mullah report. Congress has the authority to interview her about her time in the white house but instead, there is a blanket immunity claim over her and every other white house employee. That is nothing short of stonewalling our efforts which can worku and i together to convince the administration it is in the best interests of the administration to hear from them. Let me finish. Will the gemini of . Well the gentleman yield . We cant hold hearings with material witnesses. It is obstruction plain and simple. Yesterday miss hicks could not even answer whether she told the truth to the mueller team because the president s lawyers objected to the question. This committee must be allowed to continue its work. And you have witnesses who can answer the question. I look forward to working with you to implore the president to stop using this nonexistent blanket immunity. Will the gentleman yield . Wili will not because i have work to do. The Mueller Report details more than 170 contacted trinitron campaign and russias. The focus on the orchestration of the meeting and trump tower. It states on that, on june 9, 2016, city representatives of the Trump Campaign met in trump tower with a russian attorney expected to receive derogatory information about Hillary Clinton. Then it goes on the email and which is said that crown prosecutor met with his father this morning and then our meeting offered to provide the Campaign Official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary Clinton in her dealings with russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level information but is part of russia and its government continuing support for mr. Trump. Then, that was in the Mueller Report. Then we heard the president last week say, if someone is a Foreign Government approaches i think you might want to listen. If somebody called from a country norway we have information about your opponents, i think we would want to haeear it. He said, its not interference. If they have information, i think i would take it. If i thought the something wrong i would go maybe to the fbi if i thought that was something wrong. The following statement from the chair of the fecfec. Something 100 clear, it is illegal for any person to accept or receive anything of value from a Foreign National in connection with the u. S. Elections. That anyone who solicits or accepts foreign assistance risks being on the a federal of investigation, any Political Campaign that receives an offer of a donation from a foreign source should report that offered to the fbi. The foreign solicitation statute seems to be right on the mark. Did the mueller team go far enough in exploring this . I believe they did not go far enough in exploring this. In particular one of the basis on which it decided to declined to prosecute any trump Campaign Officials at the trump tower meeting was lack of evidence. Of willfulness. An order to be prosecuted for this crime have to know your violating the law. The report says the donald tomp, jr. Had failed momentarily speak to mueller. And then mueller did not subpoena him to answer questions under oath about what he knew at the time. I think that was a mistake. Outcouldve com e different had he done so. Rdero, after the president s, if you tweeted that they would likely be a campaign law information to receive information from a Foreign Government that is not the point. The point is it is contrary to u. S. National security interests and for a sitting president in violates his oath of office. That is a strong reaction. Can you share why you believe accepting foreign helps an election violates the oath of office . Foundational is a issue that goes back to the what the founders say, it goes back to mention of foreign influence. We can go back in my statement i cite in my written statement i cite washingtons farewell address that warns of foreign interference. And so, it is, so that is my view. My view is stated in the statement that i made there that president rary to a who is supposed to adhere and has an oath to the constitution and i would add that that is why the information in volume two, the obstruction discussion, is so important, because it matters what the allegations of obstruction are about. Aen, the report lays out series of potentially obstructive acts that the theident took to derail special counsels investigation and the special counsels investigation was about Russian Foreign interference. So, the very acts that are described are what was he obstructed . He perhaps thought he was obstructing potential inquiry into matters that would affect him or his inner circle personally, but what he actually was obstructing was the federal governments investigation into russian interference. Thank you very much. The judgments time is expired. The gentleman from louisiana, mr. Johnson. No . Im sorry. The gentleman from california, mr. Mcclintock. I want to touch on something the Ranking Member mentioned. James comey has admitted leaking classified fbi documents to a Columbia University professor in order to influence an investigation. Under what circumstances would that be a crime . Can you use your mike . Its on. I heard the question, if mr. Comey, his motive was to get back at the president , that would be under the Mueller Report, a corrupt motive. Hed be guilty of obstruction of justice. If, on the othe hand, his motive was, i want to make sure that something that does not ongoingo the investigation, it would not be obstruction of justice. Allege that will Hillary Clinton willfully destroyed 30,000 emails. Under what circumstances would that be a crime . I dopresentative, to me, not know enough about that to comment. Obviously some people find it very suspicious. According to the senate Judiciary Committee, mr. Comey had already decided he would issue a statement exonerating secretary clinton. That was long before fbi agents finish their work. Even circulated an early draft statement to select members of senior fbi leadership, the outcome of an investigation should not be prejudged while fbi agents are still hard at work trying to gather facts. Did these actions constitute obstruction of justice . I dont know, representative. The investigators prejudged the merits of that investigation before was complete, it would be a grievous error and might very well rise to the level obstruction of justice. Let me read from greg jarretts account of this era. Another oddity was the five socalled immunity agreements granted for Clinton State Department aides. Cheryl along with two other staffers were afforded immunity agreements as was brian, clintons former i. T. Aide and paul, an employee of plant River Networks who managed her server after she left the state department. Fox news reported he utilized the Computer Program bleach bit to destroy clings records despite an order from congress to preserve them and saying it also destroyed clintons emails. He established in the system that illegally transferred classified and top secret information to clintons private server. Thee disclosed to Clinton Family foundation breaking federal laws. Why would these five people given immunity from prosecution . In almost every criminal case, immunity is only granted after a witness is given a profit. Yet, no one, clinton included was never prosecuted. The prospect of a coverup was fueled by the inexplicable actions of the fbi when it reportedly destroyed the laptops of samuelson after they received immunity. Why would the fbi in race erase computers with classified information . Appears the destroyed evidence relevant to its own criminal investigation but there is more. According to a senior fbi source, he was allowed to sit in on the interview of clinton as her lawyer, as someone who was supposedly cooperating against the target of an investigation be permitted to sit by that targeted council violates any semblance of ethical responsibility. What are your thoughts hearing those observations . Representative, im not prepared to discuss that, an investigation. I will say that under the does it trouble you as an attorney . Someone who believes in the rule of law. I find many aspects of that investigation troubling. I will add that the special counsel definition of obstruction makes it possible that cooperating with the prosecutor for the wrong reasons is itself obstruction because its influencing an investigation. For instance, if you decide to cooperate to save your own skin, that is a corrupt person because it is personal. You have committed a crime, which i think suggest the special counsel definition is too broad. Let me touch on the executives use of a constitutional authority. In the early 1960s, the fbi under J Edgar Hoover conducted wiretaps of dr. Martin luther king. President kenedy called hoover and said, this is nonsense. Knock it off. Would that have constituted an obstruction of justice . No, sir. I wrote before the next election, the next president could fire the fbi director. John joyce was prosecuted for putting classified information on his home computer while negotiating a plea deal with his prosecutors and president clinton pardoned him. A clear constitutional prerogative. Was that an obstruction of justice . Sir. Do believe son, the gentlelady from california. Thank you very much. As my colleagues have noted before, the Mueller Report contacts more than 170 between individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and russian nationals or people acting on their behalf. You can see from the slide and the word cloud those are many of the russian nationals led been in contact with the campaign. One of the most direct interactions between russian officials and the campaign occurred in a meeting on june 9, and trump tower. A publicist emailed donald trump, jr. Telling him that a high ranking russian provideor offer to the Trump Campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate hillary in her dealings with russia and would be very useful to your father. Obviously very high level and Sensitive Information but it is part of russia and its Government Support for mr. Trump. Nald trump, jr. Responded if it is what you say it is, i love it, especially later in the summer. He, proceeded to set up a meeting between the russian prosecutor himself and Campaign Manager paul manafort, and Senior Advisor Jared Kushner and several of the prosecutors associate. This is a question. A Counter Intelligence perspective, how significant is it for a Foreign Government to reach out to an american president ial campaign and offered to help work against that candidates opponent . D think this happens often with president ial campaigns . From a Counter Intelligence perspective, our elected officials the usual targets of such activities by foreign powers . Toi do not have any reason think this is a normal occurrence with respect to a campaign. What the Mueller Report shows is that the russians were crawling all over this campaign. They were everywhere. And what the information that you just quoted demonstrates is that the trump members affiliated with the campaign the members affiliated with the Trump Campaign were aboutdgeable and willing russian efforts to support their campaign. That email is but one example. So, is this a typical tactic of the russian government in its efforts to acquire human intelligence or compromising information . Do you know of other examples around the world where they might have used the same tactics . Well, we certainly know and it has been well documented, im sure he has thoughts on this as well, that the russian influen and Europe Europe and Eastern Europe and western europe, their goal is to try to implement these democracies influence these democracies in a way that suits their interests. That is what i tried to get in my written statement is when a and russianty intelligence is trying to influence other countries, what they are trying to do is influence them in a way that is in their interest, not ours. How was it in their interest that trump be elected president . And what has happened since he has been in office that would have been in their interest . There was one piece of the report that described in individual affiliated with the Nongovernmental Organization actually was working on a sort russia plant for how u. S. Relations would take place. Thethere is information and report that indicates that there were various ways that the russian government was going at this. In addition the report also says that the russian influence efforts started before candidate trump entered the race. But, but that he, but that the effort then changed over time to actively support the Trump Campaign. Before i run out of time, would you like to continue . A few comments. Normal is part of russian intelligence operations to infiltrate and penetrate the local part Political Parties and campaigns. Weve seen this happen for decades now crossed injured europe and western europe. The efforts from the United States are part of a much broader pattern that has continued to this day. And continues today. Regarding the russian intent, it is never benign. It is not a benign offer of help. Regime adversarial approaches a Political Campaign with potential information leading to anything. That should be very clear to everyones mind. The one thing i will know therding why it would be in russian interests, there is one incident noted in the report and elsewhere during the Rnc Convention in which we know there was a line change regarding u. S. Support for ukraine. Of course, this was in the russian interests. There is one specific example inhow hoit wouldve been russian interest to support the republican candidate donald trumpt. Thank the gentlelady. The gentleman from pennsylvania. Not here. The gentleman from virginia. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank the witnesses and i would note that although my colleague mr. Jordan has left, you know, the university of virginia does currently hold a National Basque ball tim bishop. National basketball championship. Today is supposedly about bipartisan perspectives and i want to thank the witnesses for many of their perspectives on russian interference. Muellering from the report, although the investigation establish the russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump Presidency and the campaign expected it would benefit from information stolen the investigation did not establish that members of the campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election interference activities. What im hearing from my desperates is a effort to dig through the couch cushions essentially, trying to find anything they might be able to use to prolong the narrative and establish that these are, pushcant help but hearings on impeachment under the guise of oversight. So, i am disappointed, mr. Chairman in the way that the witnesses in the minority have essentially been whipsawed as to whether this hearing is on volume one or volume two, i wouldve liked to of heard some more about russian interference and what can be done to prevent it because i think that is a real issue. You spoke of foreign interference undermining our system. Still engaged in election interference . Recentrding to the most information ive seen from the u. S. Intelligence community which is in the best position to assess it, their activities to elections Going Forward, there was evidence of the 2018 election and i have not seen anything from Intelligence Committee leaders are the fbi director that says it has stopped. The articles ive seen indicate that the e. U. Elections two weeks ago showed evidence of russian interference. Any of the witnesses can respond to that if they are aware of it. I would be happy to respond to that, commerce and. Congressman. The interference of the United States was not the last incidents. Interference in the president ial campaign of Emmanuel Macron and we have seen manussian hack of the ger parliament, the bundestag, also in that year later. These efforts continue and the recent european parliamentary election that happened this past may. The european institutions issued a statement saying there was significant russian disinformation that targeted european elections. Highlight thest fact that our european allies are far ahead because of Political Leadership and within the European Commission in getting ahead of this threat. I would ask either miss one of oir miss the great attributes that enables us to be more resistant to foreign interference is the fact that we are in a decentralized system. Those decisions are made of the state and local and county level when it comes to machinery. Ability and the lack of standardization, the inability of a foreign entity to hack into d scale u. S. D systems is an act of you, correct . I would say. Certainly our system is decentralized and so perhaps there is an argument that that decentralization has benefit. There is aned federal responsibility from the department of Homeland Security agenciestate and local make sure they have the best information, the best techniques, the best advice to be able to secure our elections, and i am concerned that the administration particular with his attention to dhs is not pry prioritizing that assistant. I would agree that some help is appropriate. Removal of that state and local authority to a federal level is probably endangering that system or making it more susceptible to foreign interference. Would you not agree . If we were were remove that state and local responsibility . Awaregressman, im not proposals that would change that notctions be administered at the state andlocal levels, but if there is such a proposal i would argue that many of didnt go in h. R. 1 from removing authority from state and local elections and so this congress, actually this majority democrat leadership is in the process of trying to remove much of that authority. I yield back. The gentleman from new york, mr. Jeffries . Mr. Chairman. Miss cordero, it is Never Acceptable for a u. S. President ial campaign to welcome assistance from a hostile foreign power, is that correct . In my a judgment, yes. That is exactly what the Tramp Campaign did in 2016, true . Yes. And you believe that accepting and welcoming that assistance from russia, a hostile foreign power, is disqualified. Yes. What exactly did you mean by disqualifying . I dont think that it should the judgmentis in of the American Public, that there should be a legitimate candidacy of a candidate that is willingly willing to receive openly, willing to receive information from a, from a hostile Intelligence Service. So, i do believe that that is a fundamental violation of the oath. Think, and this is a political judgment, i do not think that should be a viable candidate. You make that political judgment as a conservative libertarian, is that right . As a conservative lawyer, as a National Security lawyer. Thank you. An expert ine russian Foreign Policy, is that right . Yes. Youn your testimony you detailed that russia is a hostile foreign power continuing to engage in Political Warfare against the west. And that included the russian operation that targeted the u. S. President ial election in 2016. It is your opinion i believe that manaforts past work in the ukraine absolutely casts a shadow on trends 2016 campaign. Can you repeat the question . That manaforts past work in the ukraine cast a shadow on his 16 campaign. 20 16t in part because of his association with Russian Oligarchs. And his previous undeclared work as an agent of a Foreign Government, yes. Manaforts russian and ukrainian contacts all had ties to putin. Is that right . I wouldnt go as far as to say all of them. Certainly some had ties to the kremlin. We do not know if those ties werent up to the russian president. Manaforts time leading the Trump Campaign he stayed in touch with some of these contacts through an individual named constantine is that rioght . That is my understanding, yes. Hes a longtime associate of manafort. That is what is stated in the report, yes. Rpi think the mueller concluded that he had ties to russian intelligence, is that correct . According to the report, yes. Now, i believe on two occasions, manafort met with him during the campaign. Off the top of my head, i cannot recall if it was two or more. But there were several meetings. One of those meetings took place in new york city in august of 2016. At the august meeting, manafort briefed him on Campaign Manager relateded polling data to the battleground states of michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania, is that right . Yes. Is it fair to say that Campaign Polling data is a thing of value . I will say i am not an expert on that issue. It is my opinion that it seems to be of value, yes. Is it your understanding that during the fall of 2016 after that meeting, russian operatives engaged in malignant social media activity and influence peddling in michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania . They did. The Mueller Report concludes i believe that the Trump Campaign welcomed russias interference in attack on our democracy, right . Correct. And donald trump won michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania on his way to the presidency, is that correct . Yes. The classroom looking to win all three states was Ronald Reagan in 1984. Is that true . I will take your word for it. A cloud to me there is of illegitimacy that continues to hang over 1600 pennsylvania avenue. That patriotic americans have a responsibility to try to figure out what the heck happened in terms of the malignant tumor that seem to have been embedded in that 2016 campaign. What did the president know . Point of order. When did he know it and how do we prevent that type of malignant activity from happening again . Time is expired. I yield back. The gentleman yield. The witness thank you. That the only say greatest contribution of the Mueller Report and the indictments from the Previous Year has been to expose the full broadspectrum nature and of russian intelligence operations and information offer operations against the United States and other democracies. Believe it should be up to this legislative bodies continue to seek more information related to that kind of interference in our democracy, which is absolutely corroding to our Democratic Institutions. Thank you. The gentlest time is expired. The gentleman from north dakota. Professor, just when we are discussing, and i appreciate your coming and we have asked you to be here. So, im going to ask questions of you. But i think i really would like premise of the p exoneration in volume two. And why that is problematic for not just obstruction, any kind of criminal crime with a prosecutor. Can you eliminate a little bit on that . Are you talking about volume one or volume two . Violume two. A prosecutor saying we cannot exonerate somebody. Think it is unusual for prosecutors say anything. They either indict or they dont. The Mueller Report reads opinions as if they say not only can you not indict or prosecute the present you cannot conclude the president committed a crime. And, of course, no opinion says that. Symptoms really know b ar so there was really no bar on mr. Mueller coming to a legal conclusion and i believe he was told this by the attorney general. Nonetheless, mr. Miller decided not to reach a legal conclusion as to whether or not the president committed instruction of justice and that can reflect two things. Noone it respect his unwillingns to cast a cloud of the president. It can also reflect his uncertainty over whether the president obstructed justice. Are you familiar with it rule . Yes, i am. Of give us kind some background and how that analysis applies to the report . Statement rule. Run of them is that statues that are written in broad terms, sometimes the courts can conclude we are not going to read them to apply to the president because doing so raises the separations of powers concerns. Go publicin the case citizen versus the department of justice decided not to read plies out of the concerns of the imposition and the cost to the president and power to appoint nominees. Involving se not daca but the apa, franklin versus massachusetts, the corso said we are not going to read the apa to apply to the president. Again, the concern was separation of powers. The interest is more palpable here, the concern is more palpable because if you read the obstruction statute as applying to the Supervisory Authority of the president you are basically making every president ial intervention a potential instruction of justice because one can always say that the president s intervention was corrupt. If you dont really know what the president has intervened. A separation of powers you said earlier, youre talking about a second a privilege and immunity. You and i can have a long, and a different scenario, have an interesting conversation about that. And where it applies and why does not apply. But it brings up a better point and we have done this several times today whether it is volume one or volume two. In volume two, we found, volume one found there was no conspiracy, no coronation. Collusion is not a legal term. Persons is a lay term. There was no coordination, no conspiracy. We talk about privilege and immunity which are two different things. When the president is using his Authority Regarding separation of powers. And last but not least, and i think it is important when we talk about willfulness, ignorance of the law is not a defense of the president and not a defense of the president s advisers, it is not a defense to anybody. 300 past have about criminal clients that should probably sue me for malpractice. So, when we are doing those things and working through them, i think it is important. With that i yield to my friend from florida. Cordero, you have been critical of James Clapper in the past, havent you . I dont think so. Is there something specific . Im looking at the sai reference where you wrote in january 2012 James Clapper devoted only three short paragraphs to mexico in his annual on classified worldwide threat assessment. His understated a senate appears to be at odds with other highranking u. S. Government statements and actions which indicate far more grave circumstances. So, it seems as though there is one case where your critical of mr. Clappers assessment of intelligence. Is that accurate . In that 2013, i think it was law review article, yes, i pointed out thank you so much, i yield back. They had only used a short amount of the worldwide threat statement to address border issues. It does not a pure he has gotten over some of his missed assessments. The general from rhode island. Thank you for holding this hearing. I was sent to hear more republicans colleagues to suggest we are doing is not important. I consider no more sacred responsibility we have a member of congress to preserve our democracy. Adversaryt no foreign of the United States interferes with the American Elections. When i think of the brave one men and women who have served our country and given their lives in defense of our democracy, and seems to me we owe it to them to do our part by conducting a series oversight and holding nosing countable who engage in this behavior and quickly pass strong legislation to prevent this from ever happening again. Nothing could be more urgent and more important. President s of the administration have been clear in stating that russia attacked our elections in 2016. And will likely try to do it again. The conclusion of the Mueller Report after a detailed investigation is that the russian government interfered in the 2016 president ial election in sweeping and systematic fashion. Thats a quote. But President Trump has not only said he would be open to receiving foreign help in the next election, but he has also repeatedly disparaged the men and women and the Intelligence Community and Law Enforcement community who are trying to help prevent this from happening again. The examples of that are so many. Have explained that one of the main purposes behind russias influence operations is distrust an institution and blur the lines between fact and fiction. When the president accuses american Law Enforcement and intelligence officials of spying, even treason, without any basis to suggest they h ad done anything wrong, does that advance russias aim . If so, how . It absolutely helps russian interest to hear a u. S. President seemingly not take seriously or not believe the findings of his own administrations intelligence agencies, yes. That suits russias aims because. T suggests that the u. S president is not believe or take seriously the findings of the Intelligence Committee to which clearly implicate the russian government and mr. Piutin in an attack on the United States. You wrote that the attorney generals allegations about spying on the Tram Campaign in an investigation into how the fbis investigation got started has put agents who applied existing rules in an untenable position. If the need arises you can does some to conduct similar investigation. You wrote the current environment creates a Chilling Effect on agency may be reluctant to open investigations on certain individuals based on the rhetoric coming from the president or attorney general or investigate foreign influence on Political Campaigns. Can you explain why theres a Chilling Effect and what the danger of that is . Sure. As a former National Security lawyer, that is perspective i bring to these, to thise issue. What im concerned about is because the attorney general has now publicly and openly and repeatedly said he questions the origin of the investigation, that he is then calling into question how agents are andorized and feel empowered to conduct their counterintelligence responsibility. Io, i hope his review does is actually think it would be beneficial for them to look at the policies and procedures. The attorney general does not agree with the approval levels to open these types of is withinions then it his prerogative to change them. Whats unfair to the analyst doing this work is to have rules that exist and then disparage them from following him. The origins of the Russian Investigation of and discussed by my colleagues, i will point to volume one, page 89. 2016 Campaign Adviser George Papadopoulos told a diplomat the Tramp Campaign received indications from the russian government it could assist the government through anonymous release of the information that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton. The page aer of continues the Foreign Government, the government from the diplomatic work, convey this information to the government on july 20 6, 2016, few days after wikileaks released related emails. The fbi opened its investigation of potential coordination between russia and the Trump Campaign a few days later based on this information. No mystery about how it started. You can wish is a different thing. Read it. My final question is, there is a lot of evidence about 170 contacts between the tron campaign and the russians, sharing polling data, the meeting at trump tower, dirt was to be conveyed, releases a wikileaks, the president inviting a hack into Hillary Clintons personal in ellicott. While you mention there was not enough evidence according to the special counsel for a criminal conspiracy, was there evidence of in fact coordination or conspiracy in some other way . Well, i think that the finding of volume one by the special counsels report that there was not evidence of a criminal conspiracy it really shows the limits of applying criminal law to what is a National Security investigation and problem. Witho, they were tasked conducting a criminal investigation. They applied criminal law, but that is different and should not be mutually exclusive from conducting what is a valid counterintelligence investigation. The goal of which might be to eventually have a prosecution or maybe not but the goal of which is to uncover the National Security threat. I yield back. The gentleman from arizona. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Theeld some time to gentleman from florida, mr. Gates. Mr. Chairman, can we get the file proudly displayed back up . I dont know. Can we . Will the gentleman yield . Reclaiming my time. Point of order, i am looking at the clock. The clock is not. Thank you. Now i yield back to mr. Gates. Im sorry. You just controlled the time. I didnt realize you were here. I have got work to do on his time. This is the word cloud with the name prominently in the middle, constantine clinic. Kiliminik. Id like to enter into the work, a stateof he aws Department Intel source. In this reporting by john solomon, there is evidence that kilimnik was meeting with state Department Officials in kiev to give us intel on the russians. This is the first major factual error of the Mueller Report because of the cannot delineate correctly between the people collecting intelligence for russia and people collecting intelligence for the United States, it would seem to be a departure from the necessary factual basis to proceed. Im hoping we could figure out was actuallyik working for. I yield back to the gentleman from arizona. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, ask for unanimous consent that article by david beb published june 18, 2019, admitted to the record. Without objection. Thank you, sir. I am intrigued frankly at the title of this hearing. Thepresented ngos at United Nations and other l institution and was the Senate President arizona for four years and majority leader for one. I have said on this committee iw for the 2. 5 year mark, supposed. Intriguing i find it whats happened today. Have not seen hearings conducted in this fashion before. And all of that weather at the International Level, the state all of that, and whether it be at the International Level and the state level and other subcommittees ive sat on this has been intriguing to me to watch in my opinion the devolution of the process in some ways. But i will say this. One of the lessons ive learned is that we all see things we want to see. We all miss things we want to miss when we look at indications but the one thing that rang out to me is that none of these witnesses has any fact, theyre not witnesses to any material fact. They are providing impressions and ideas about what they read in the Mueller Report and that is ok, thats fine. But i think miss cordero, i wr quote, said no Political Campaign should be a beneficiary of foreign operatives. Professor said that Opposition Research from f oreign operatives would be illegal. And one of the things that i always thought was interesting about that is that in 2016 the Clinton Campaign and dnc used perkins a politically connected influential law firm as a a gps. Gps. Cofounder was simpson he hired christopher steele, a british citizen, foreigner. Foreign operative in some ways. Steele was working at the time as an fbi informant for the obama Justice Department and representing Russian Oligarch. Thats what was going on there. Hilary Clintons Campaign boasted about accepting dirt on demo trump furnished by mr. Steele. Probably sourced by criminally linked associates. That would be illegal, that would be wrong. That is something that you can gather from the Mueller Report. But were not discussing that. But i think we should. I think we should. And i also think we all to give more than an hour and 20 minutes to review our witnesses testimony. Instead of opening it up to us at the last minute with a change of timopic. With that im out of time and i yield back. The gentleman yield back and the gentleman from california. Thats fine. Oh, is the witness i wanted to respond to that if i could. Point of order, there was no question before any of these witnesses. I want to respond to that question. I have always permitted witnesses to answer questions and to make comment on relevant proceed. Ss will, may parliament to inquiry the under whatn. Weunder what rule are operating . Ill solve this. Give me the time. The witness may perceive. Respond toanted to a characterization that i said that operation Opposition Research that is not what i said. The contribution of this would be illegal. Pain market rates is not illegal and it would like you to footnote 17 of my written report which quotes from the Republican House Government Select Committee on intelligence which wrote, under law, foreigners upper have been for making contribution is ordinations in connection with any campaign in the United States. However, it is not illegal to contract with a foreign entity including conducting Opposition Research on the campaign so long the service was paid at the market rate. And this was made in the context of i think the witness. Gentlemen from california. Professor, you earlier stated that he believed the foreign counsel exploring possible violations of federal election laws. I agree with you. It is illegal a person for a person to solicit, accept, or receive a donation. Definesler report Opposition Research as a think of the value. Lets talk about the Infamous Trump tower meeting. Donaldl was sent to trump, jr. On the basis that documents would incriminate Hillary Clinton in her dealings with russia. It goes on to say this is highlevel and Sensitive Information but it is part of russia and its Government Support for mr. Trump. A few minutes later, donald trump will reply, if its what you say, i love it. That could be read as soliciting a thing of value from a foreign power, correct . Yes. When that information came to light well before the Mueller Report, i said the next step needs to be an investigation. Donald trump, jr. And others need to be under oath. That could potentially be a criminal Campaign Finance violations. In fact, you believe it was not a good idea for the mueller to not have had donald trump, jr. Testify before the grand jury, correct . Correct. You believe it would be appropriate for congress to put donald trump, jr. Under oath and asking questions about that meeting, correct . Absolutely. We now have a recent tv interview that the president georgehere stephanopoulos asks the president about Opposition Research. Says if they have information, i think i will take it. What the president described could also be criminal conduct in violation of campaign must, correct campaign was, correct laws, correct . If you take what he said seriously as a solicitation, yes. There is no norway exception to our campaignfinance laws, right . You cannot take a campaign demolition best donation from a friendly ally donation from a friendly ally . Government, foreign hostile or friendly. I would like to talk to you a little bit about absolute immunity. The Trump Administration has engaged in unprecedented obstruction of congress a ttempts to get information on behalf of the American People. Why is the Trump Administration currently suing to eliminate Health Care Coverage for americans with preexisting conditions . We cannot get the information. We want information on white wilbur ross lied. We cannot get that information. Specific to the Mueller Report, we interviewed hope hicks yesterday. With both of those witnesses, the white house is exerting what they call absolute humidity immunity, preventing hope ask from testifying hope hicks from testifying about anything in the white house. I would assume that this broader thing called absolute immunity, you would also agree is something that is not within the constitution. Could you talk about that . I would be happy to, representative. The past several administrations have claimed that people who are in the white house did not have to testify. The bush administration, Obama Administration, now the Trump Administration is taking the same line. I dont believe they have immunity. I dont believe they had it during the Obama Administration. I dont believe they have it now. Thank you. Today you are the minority witness. The republicans called you to testify today, is that correct . Yes. So let me conclude to miss cordero. You earlier had said that the russians were crawling all over the chop campaign and trump Campaign Officials Trump Campaign and trump Campaign Officials knew about russian interference. It would be a dereliction of duty for fbi or Law Enforcement to not have investigated that as . Counterintelligence issue absolutely. Toy absolutely had a duty investigate russian interference. When they received reliable reporting and other facts that would have come and that justified opening counterintelligence investigation to find out whether there were ties to the Trump Campaign, they had a responsibility to do that. Counterintelligence investigations of start one place. They dont necessarily and up where one might expect end up where one might expect them to go. I have not seen anything in the public record, including in the report, that indicates that there was any ill will or malfeasance in the use of investigative techniques to conduct this investigation. The gentleman yield back. The gentleman from georgia is recognized. Thank you. Enlightenment in light of a collusion,g the word i would like to enter into the records stories and articles of most of the members on the democratic side of the aisle using the word collusion. We are not going to be lectured to by the same ones using the same language. I would be happy to not object to the inclusion in the record of the truthful information that collusion was in plain sight. Thats pretty good. The gentleman from maryland is recognized. Thank you. Us forolleagues chide having law witnesses instead of fact witnesses today, which is astounding, given that the administration has blocked all law witnesses fact witnesses from appearing. If they would work with us to get these fact witnesses and have them actually testify, we would not have to simply rely on the reading of the Mueller Report. Lets talk about the reading of the mueller quickly report quickly. The Ranking Member just i think, just missed the point about no collusion. If you read the report, you dont have to read the whole thing, just get to page two, and you will see special counsel mueller says we do not address the question of collusion, which is not a criminal the illegal concept criminally illegal concept. Contacts between members of the Trump Campaign and russian nationals and their agents i think could lead people to say that there was collusion. That is a matter of opinion. To come out and say that mueller found no collusion is absolutely absurd. , no obstruction flies in the face of 10 different episodes of president ial obstruction of justice, probably three or four of them that would be prosecutable but for the department of Justice Policy that the president cannot be indicted. Thats why special counsel mueller had a press conference to clarify that the president the resident the reason the president was indicted was not indicted was because of this policy. Let me come to you. Is scandalous and outrageous and dangerous that the president would say in the wake of special counsel mueller s finding that there was sleeping and a systematic efforts by russia to interfere with our elections, destabilize our elections, and control the outcome of our elections, that he would gladly accept research from russia or other Foreign Governments. What impression do you think this would have on russia . I think that sends a clear signal that there is still an open door for continued interference in our elections, not just to russia, but two other state and nonstate actors that would seek to interfere. There would be an open door. Thats the implication of it. What does it mean to a power like russia, which military cannot commit militarily cannot compete with america, economically cannot compete with america. Bet does it mean to them to able to use the internet to destabilize our elections if they feel there is an open door given by people at the highest levels of government . What the report shows and documents is that the russian Intelligence Services used our technology, u. S. Companies technology platforms, to spread disinformation. They purchased advertisements that were unknown to the viewers of the information. Be individualsto who were grassroots activists. They actually set up, tried to organize rallies and realworld of venice. It was events. It was the Virtual World spilling into the physical world. What the Senate Intelligence is investigation into this has shown is that the companies have provided some information, but i think we still dont have a full picture of the weight russia, as an Intelligence Service, are using u. S. Technology platforms. Thank you, professor. Opposition research is a thing of value, according to the federal Election Commission. Foreign governments are forbidden to interfere in our campaigns by making contributions. They can sell information at market rates if they go in the business of doing Opposition Research, but they give it to a campaign and the campaign accepts it, it becomes an illegal foreign contribution. What can be done legislatively, administratively to deal with a political actor who says he would break the law in this way by welcoming foreign assistance in the course of a federal election . Well, there can be civil complaints filed by the federal Election Commission. As far as any criminal claims, if we are talking about the sitting president , i think we run into issues on whether or not the president can be brought up on charges when he is the president. For anyone else, to the extent that you can show willfulness of trying to solicit a thing of value, we are talking about somebody potentially committing a felony. Is anything more that can be done legislatively . The gentleman will proceed under regular order. Is there any more that is indicated to be done legislatively . The witness can answer the question. Ignore the antics, please. Its not antics when you do the rules. We had a ruling from the chair the chair said i can complete the question. The gentlemans time has exceeded his time under the fiveminute rule. I will rule that it has been the practice here to be flexible with five minutes on both sides and always permit someone to answer the question once at his been stated it has been stated. The gentlemans time has expired. The witness may answer the question. He was answering another. The gentleman may answer the question he was answering. Its a new question. The gentleman may answer the question he was answering. All right, we will the gentlemans time has expired. Washingtonady from is recognized. Thank you. Why dont you quickly responded to the question, but it is my time, so be quick. Yes, including a law that would require campaigns to disclose foreign contacts. That would be a very good place to start. Ms. Cordero, you in your testimony said something very important. This was your written testimony. You said we have not done a good enough job explaining to the American Public why foreign influence matters. Can you tell me quickly and anybody that might be watching, your top three reasons for why foreign influence matters. Foreign influence matters because it affects the decisions that we make about how we self govern. A goes to the heart of our democracy. If there ise foreign influence, it affects how we interact with each other. If we are the recipients of online disinformation from hostile Intelligence Service, that affects a society, how we deal with each other. Another example is if there is for an interference in actual candidates. Heredisturbance, who sits in this body, it affects all we elect as candidates who we elect as candidates. It goes to the heart of our democracy and our ability to self govern that is in the American Interest, not in a foreign countrys interest. You stated that the early reporting and reaction to the report was skewed as a result of specific actions taken by the attorney general. I wanted to give you a chance to explain that and i have a question about the attorney general and his role. , the congress is aware attorney general issued a short summary letter that was sent to congress before the release of the actual report. Whatletter did not explain the special counsel actually did with respect to obstruction. In other words, the letter gave a miss impression a misimpression to the public, one that lasted for weeks. Thatft a misimpression perhaps the reason the special counsel did not make a charging decision was because the evidence was insufficient. What did the special counsel do when he heard the attorney generals reaction or explanation of what was in the report . We now know that the special counsel sent a letter in the summaries, which are prepared in the report, he sent those summaries to the attorney general, after him to reveal those publicly. The attorney general did not do so. And four weeks said he did not have the information he needed to redact. The public was misled about what was in the report. Who is the attorney general supposed to represent . He has an old to the constitution of the United States. H to the constitution of the United States. Would you consider in a broad constitutional sense that that is obstruction of justice . Im not willing to say. What i will say and what i have said before and will say again is that the attorney generals letter of march 27 was misleading. Does notal counsel make a fighting on obstruction because the special counsel felt constrained by department of justice legal opinion. Instead, the special counsel laid out a lengthy factual recitation of potentially obstructive acts. If you read to the very last page of the special counsel report, it specifically says that no man is above the law. No person is above the law. We are tractor reeducation reeducate the public about what was actually in the report. As the mueller explains report explains, Campaign Finance laws prohibit Foreign Nationals from making donations to u. S. Political campaigns. U. S. Candidates are prohibited aom soliciting, accepting donation of money or other thing of value. What are some of the reasons that we have these prohibitions against Foreign Nationals contribute to u. S. Elections . I know better than to quote Justice Stevens, who said we should not allow people who have no basic investment in the wellbeing of the country trying to influence who are leaders are. They either could be china to manipulate the outcome of the election or trying to curry favor with whoever is in office. If we believe in democratic selfgovernment, these laws are absolutely necessary. We could have a president that is not responding to the people of the country, but in fact, a Foreign Government. We could have a president that ,as not elected by the people in terms of where the money came for the campaign. Generally 80 the gentlelady yells back. Yields back. Thank you to all of our witnesses for joining us today. I do believe that the United States of america as the most powerful has the most powerful, capable, and most prepared military, and that we have the most talented Law Enforcement and intelligence officials. I believe that they are prepared to deal with any attack, cyber or otherwise, against our country. My biggest fear now, which i did not have prior to 2016, was to think about america being under attack, or america being under the threat of attack, and the president of the United States does absolutely nothing about it . Matter of fact, and we all now know that the president said a few days ago, they have information, i think id take it. You said earlier that russias intent is never benign. I really wish we have heard a lot of passion and concerned today i wish my republican colleagues were as concerned about russia attacking our democracy as they are about their colleagues on the democratic side. You said earlier, russias intent is never benign. Could you please elaborate on exactly what you meant by that. Absolutely. Russia sees itself as engaged in if not a kinetic war, not a kinetic war with the United States and with the west. Russian intentions towards the United States seek to undermine u. S. Legitimacy on the global stage, destabilize our democracy , so Greater Division among our public, and bradley split the alliance broadly split the alliance the United States has built since the end of the second world war. Thank you. Switching to the g are you intrusion gru intrusion, the gru also targeted individuals and entities involved in the administration of elections. The Mueller Report states that victims included state and local entities from florida, state boards of elections, as well as individuals who work for those entities. Even if russia was not able to change the vote tally, what are the types of damage that can be done if a hostile adversary gains access to systems used by state and local Election Administrators . I agree with you to say that there was no evidence of vote totals being manipulated, but there was evidence of intrusions into motor registration databases. That could because Voter Registration databases. That could cause terrible mission. Mischief. Peoples names could have been removed, or their addresses changed, and they are not allowed to vote. These are all statewide electronic databases now. You start messing with those databases, we dont have procedures in place as to how to handle that kind of massive problem on election day. Thank you. Could data like this also potentially be used by the gru or other russian actors to aid in their Disinformation Campaign , for example, by targeting particular types of voters . Potentially, yes. Is it fair to say that a hostile Foreign Government, in this case russia, potentially or weaponized the data of millions of americans . Given what we know from the Mueller Report regarding the probes of up to 21 states, i would think that they do have access to that information and would be able to microtarget constituencies in the United States. They dont need that because they have opensource access to our data via our social media platforms. Do you think congress has done enough, the house on the senate, understanding that the grim reaper is in the senate, but do you think we have done enough to secure our elections going into 2020 . Theo, i dont think congress has passed Election Security legislation yet. I laid out in my written statement a variety of steps i think congress could take with respect to Election Security legislation involving the administration of elections, updating commission reporting requirements regarding contracts , expanding or more clearly defining the scope of prohibited activity. I think there is potential requirements we could put on social Media Companies for them to have to inform the Intelligence Committees about evidence of disinformation and intelligence activity they see on the platforms. I think that Intelligence Community should have more information to inform congress about other country election interference. No, i think there is a lot more that congress can do. Thank you also very much. Ideal back i yield back. The gentlelady from georgia is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, each and everyone of you here today. Your testimony is extremely important for us getting to the truth. We appreciate you being here. And number of proposed measures have been introduced in the house and senate that would require political candidates to file reports with the federal Election Commission if a Foreign National tries to offer help to a campaign. Other proposals would prohibit campaigns from sharing a certain types of information with Foreign Nationals. And still others would require transparency in online political ads. , can you provide some of your overall impressions about whether a reporting requirement would be helpful and could be appropriately tailored to capture the type of foreign contacts that pose the greatest concern and threat. Issa port i support a duty w, which would require campaigns to report contacts certainly from Foreign Governments and potentially from Foreign Nationals. Ask would allow people to followup questions and ask what is going on. Need much greater funding and attention on Cyber Security in the states, because we really need federal leadership. Cyber security is a real problem, so we need that. It turns out that many of the advertisements that the russian government paid for on social media were not covered by current federal law and were not legal. That is it were not illegal. That is a problem. There is a lot that needs to be done. Let me ask you another followup question. What about requiring transparency and online ads in online ads . We have certain transparency adss that apply to some that are online and more that are on tv and radio. I certainly think that the upside of doing so would allow voters to know who was the ultimate source of a pitch to them to vote in a certain way. Social media platforms have shown they cannot do it themselves. The kind of disclosure procedures they have put in place are not letting voters know who was behind the ads. Congressional transparency legislation is very much needed. Do you think these types of measures requiring reports of certain for contacts, prohibiting sharing information with Foreign Nationals, and requiring transparency in online ads, would that help prevent russian influence campaigns Going Forward . It would be important, but not a sufficient for us to step first step. Required togns are file a report if they are approached by a Foreign National offering to help the campaign, would that be a significantly helpful Counter Intelligence tool . I think all of the reforms you have described are important and congress should be taking these up. I think that they will also have limits. There is more that congress can do to make clear in the law what is allowed and not allowed and what has to be reported. We have to remember, these are intelligence operations. The intelligence agencies, foreign intelligence agencies that are engaged in them will adjust. I think these are important reforms. I hope that congress will pursue them. We also need to recognize the limitations of them, which is why it is important we have candidates that are that have their eyes open about not receiving and being willing to receive this type of information. The foreign intelligence agencies will be coming at them. You coauthored a report for the Atlantic Council that describes the measures for the European Union that it has taken to combat this campaign. You wrote that the United States is lagging behind. What are some of the key lessons that we can learn from what appears to be working in europe . That is correct. The u. S. Is lagging behind in addressing the manipulation we see emanating from countries like russia and other for example, to establish an Interagency Group that coordinates as a mandate to establish policy visavis disInformation Operations against the homeland. It is not clear who in the thernment actually owns information portfolio. There is no information at the secretary level or above that has a mandate to carry out any sort of response. Secondly, most european governments in the European Commission have established a Rapid Response task force within their government to be able to understand when responses to information attacks are necessary, at what level the response should be, and how the United States how those countries should continue to build resilience against the operation. We have not taken any of those steps so far. The time of the gentlelady has expired. The gentleman from colorado. I know we are nearing the conclusion of this hearing. I will keep my questions brief. Professor, just a couple of yes or no questions. You are a distinguished professor of law, correct . Describe t others decide. You have certainly identified yourself that way. You teach at the university of virginia. I do. Witness for the minority here, correct . Yes. When i say minority, i mean the republican caucus. Correct . That is right. You submitted written testimony. That is right. On page 13 of your written testimony, you say, quote, i believe the president is committed impeachable offenses acting beyond the constitution. Correct . Yes, i said that of this president. With respect to that the tents you are referring to President Trump . In that portion a yes or no question. I hear your point regarding the others. The priorents went to several president s and not just this president. Am going to reclaim my time, sir. Nonetheless, there is your written testimony. You submitted to the house Judiciary Committee for purposes of this hearing after being requested to appear here by the , saying you believe President Trump has committed impeachable offenses at the expense of the United States. Those are your words. I yelled back the balance of my time. The balance of my time. The gentleman from arizona. Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered his government to engage in a systemic and carefully orchestrated cyberattack and Disinformation Campaign against the United States, volume one of the special counsel report. Helping the candidate most favorable to the kremlin. It worked. This was the most successful russian attack against the United States in our history. With the 2020 president ial election around the corner, america is still a risk. The Current Administration has done nothing to prevent further attacks despite everything we know about the attacks that took place. Denialinistration except from president putin. Other than get behind bills to it hands are security, the Administration Blocks them. Surprisedked, but not the president said, quote, he would accept your or negative dirt orion except negative information on a candidate. He said, you dont call the fbi, give me a break. What lessons can we learn from 2016 . Attack as itt this was happening . How can we stop an attack from happening again . Thank you for bringing important issues to the forefront. I want to think the witnesses for being here today. Recently the chair of the federal Elections Commission made some specific comments after the president gave that interview with mr. Stephanopoulos. How unusual was it for the chair of the fcc to release such a statement . I cannot think of another instance where the chair of the federal Election Commission has made a Statement Like this. As far as i know it is unprecedented. What more do you think needs to be done to make it Crystal Clear that Anyone Running for Public Office should under no circumstances receive anything of value from a foreign adversary . Thinkthis point, i further congressional legislation would be in order to further define terms so that there would be no ambiguity about what is illegal. And to provide transparency so that you would know when there might be potential contacts between american campaigns and Foreign Governments. Investigations into the president ial election have been conducted. In your expert opinion, what should the department of justice be doing right now to prevent interference in the 2020 election . I would imagine and i do not have information. But i would imagine the Justice Department, the fbi, which estimates the Counter Intelligence response abilities and that the Intelligence Committee, which has four in response to billy, are all working collaboratively to uncover ongoing and persistent efforts by russian intelligence or any other hostile Foreign Government attempting to interfere with our upcoming campaigns and election. That is consistent with what current intelligence officials have said. As i mentioned earlier with respect to the attorney generals review of prior investigations, i hope part of sot review includes clarity that counterintelligence investigators here, if they do come upon informations adjusting there is a threat to a National Security or counterintelligence threat to a to a currentn, they feel empowered to fulfill their responsibility. Hashe executive branch denied russia is responsible for trying to interfere in the 2016 election. The president has said he credits Vladimir Putins denial of russias interference despite being told the opposite by his own intelligence agency. You . Is troubling to if so, why . It is the definitive assessment of the u. S. Intelligence community as well as well documented in the Mueller Report that there was a russian governmentsponsored intelligence operation directed at the 2016 campaign. That is from an intelligence perspective indisputable. As the commander in chief and the individual who has executive responsibility to protect the country, it is deeply concerning, because the president legitimately does not believe that assessment. Thank you. The gentleman yields. The gentlelady from arizona is recognized. Thank you, and i would like to yield how much time would you like, mr. Collins . A few minutes to my colleague and drinking member mr. Collins. I will not take that long. I do appreciate ms. Cordero admitting you do not know what is going on right now. Indicationhat is an there is not anything going on. I appreciate you saying that. You were given the victim of having to go through the fiveminute rounds like we all are. We want to give you a moment of explaining further your exchange with the gentleman from colorado. Ofthe gentleman took out context my statement. My statement is that president s have abuse their constitutional powers and that is true of the past several president s area if you believe starting a war in libya was unconstitutional, that is impeachable. If you believe if you think the president violated the emoluments clause, this president that statement applied to all the past president s and not just this one. It is true that particular sentence only referred to this one. It is a mistake to think my point is that Congress Needs to move beyond partisanship. Members of congress have to take positions on the scope of the war power, on the scope of the emoluments clause, on the scope of executive privilege. Singling out one statement and using against one president was not the point of my testimony. With all due respect to the member from colorado. You and i have a difference actpinion on the war power itself being constitutional. As we look at this Going Forward , it is interesting we have folks telling us what we should be doing, when there are bills in the hopper we could be marking up. Instead we are hearing we should be marking up bills and we are not doing that. That goes back to the majority. With that, i yelled. Thank you, with that i yield. Frustrating to me because my constituents need to work on real issues and not do something that is the special counsel has investigated for two years. I do not really understand what my democrat colleagues think they are going to get out of this except maybe pr against the president of the United States is all i can imagine. Supposed towe were be talking about obstruction of justice is my understanding. Now it has moved, the democrats have moved to russia. Understand this obsession over the subject. Right here, the Mueller Report, page 173, it says the investigation did not establish that the campaign coordinated or conspired with russia in its selection interference activities. This is after two years, 2800 subpoenas, 40 fbi agents, 19 attorneys, and they have not bound this. Somehow, here we are going to rehash this . Some people want to influence the 2020 election. My question, since we are talking i would like to talk about instruction of justice. Y question is with mr. Prakash in your view, professor what is your view of the special counsels decision not to make any decision one way or the other on obstruction of justice . It seems odd to me that a prosecutor who is supposed to either charge somebody or indict somebody does not, or they do not. Do you think it is odd as well . Prof. Prakash i do. There is no opinion preventing special counsel mueller from citing whether the president committed obstruction. There was not one when he wrote the report. There is not one now. He is fully capable of making that determination. He is fully capable of saying i think there is enough evidence that suggests there is a guilty conviction. Or he is able to say there is some evidence, but not enough to go forward with prosecution area nothing with prosecution. I think he was told that and nonetheless decided to keep the report as it is. Rep. Lesko thank you. I also want to remind everyone watching that there was a joint letter by the joint special counsel and doj statement on the role of the opinion, saying im going to read it so i dont get it wrong. The attorney general has stated that the special counsel repeatedly affirmed he was not saying that for the opinion he would have found the president obstruction of justice. Know, if that is the answer my democratic colleagues get for why he did not prosecute , there was a joint statement made by both of them saying that was not the reason. Time. I am very short on one of the other questions. Professor, that there needs to be an underlying crime in order to prove there is a intent for obstruction of justice . Prof. Prakash i am not a scholar of that. If there is no underlying crime, it becomes less likely the person who is allegedly obstructed an investigation is doing so with corrupt intent. The time of the gentlelady has expired. One of our witnesses has to catch a plane. Committeehanks of the the committee will take a five minute break at this point. We will recess for five minutes, and i mean five minutes, not six. The committee is in recess. [gavel] gentlelady from florida is recognized. Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the witnesses. I want to bring up a little bit and read from the Mueller Report how the russians used misinformation to penetrate our political system and so discord here in the United States. Report 33 of the mueller , it states that among the u. S. , leaders of Public Opinion targeted by the Internet Research agency, an arm of the russian intelligence, there were various members and surrogates of the Trump Campaign. Truck campaign affiliates promoted dozens of tweets, posts, and other political content created by the ira. Posts from the twitter account were cited or retweeted by multiple Campaign Officials and surrogates, including donald j. Trump junior, eric trump, kellyanne conway, redp are scale, and michael flynn. These posts included allegations of voter fraud as well as allegations that secretary clinton had mishandled classified information. On november 7 what he 16, posts from the ira controlled twitter account were retweeted by donald trump, jr. On september 19, President Trumps personal account responded to a tweet from the ira control account at 10 underscore gop which already bins activated by twitter. The tweet had already been deactivated by twitter. I am extremely concerned that this continues to happen. Basis,living on a daily 10 hours a day looking at our phones, i am a mother of teenagers who are looking at misinformation all the time. I had a personal experience where my son brought to my attention the video we all saw, the nancy pelosi video, so imagine if my son was confused, what we are still seeing in our social media accounts. My question is first, you explained it is illegal for a Foreign Government to give anything of value to a u. S. President ial campaign. Running a social media influence operation, would that be considered a thing of value . Those were not being given to the campaign. They were not being done in coordination with the campaign, but there is a separate part of the same law that prevents Foreign Governments and other foreign individuals from expenditures, from spending money to influence the American Election. Unfortunately, the way the current statutes are written, very little of the kind of social media activity described , aree Mueller Report illegal. They dont even require disclosure of a source. That is why it is essentially pass legislation that would require people so we could at least know who is behind these things. I expect we are going to see this activity from the mystic sources, and even there, it would be valuable to know who is behind this kind of advertising. I know the Mueller Report confirms these counts were able americans26 million spreading misinformation on facebook, twitter, youtube, i just want to reiterate that for everyone watching or that attention. What we are seeing today is the continuation of the spread of misinformation on social media. One followup question. Is it illegal for a foreign entity to buy political ads that u. S. Audiences . What you means on by political ads. It is illegal to buy an ad that says vote virgil stein. But paying to run something that said Hillary Clinton is a satan, which we also saw, if that is on social media and not radio or tv , not a legal right now. Can you explain that . It says you should vote for or against a particular candidate, for First Amendment reasons, the lawsuit is instructed to differentiate between ads that are about candidates and ads that are about issues. There is a slightly broader definition that applies to tv and radio. I would support the extension of the honest ads act. Regular order. Regular order. Why do you think it is so important to have this hearing, because we are hearing from our colleagues this is not important. The gentleladys time has expired. I believe these hearings are important because the special counsels report explains what the russian influence effort was. It explains contact between the Truck Campaign and russian surrogates. It shows its willingness to receive information and volume two of the report articulates anywhere from four to six and up obstructedtially acts this committee has a duty to look into. The gentleladys time has expired. The gentlelady from pennsylvania. Thank you you, mr. Chairman. Thented to take a look at notion of disinformation. This information from a foreign foe, but also from within a country. The general definition i am using of disinformation is false information intended to mislead. I was really struck by the clarity with which you began your written testimony, that you talked about your focus on the significance in our National Security and our Democratic Institutions. One of your bullet points regarding volume one was, lessons we can draw from the report to ensure foreign interference in our Democratic Institutions can be looked at as an aberration and not accepted part of American Elections and public discourse. That is my ambition, too. I think you for clearly stating that. Informationlk about i saw coming from the attorney general. You commented on the skewed perceptions of the findings of the special counsel through the actions of mr. Barr. Im going to try to do this timeline fast. March 22, the special counsel submitted his report. March 24, the attorney general put out a summary that was misinformation about that 448 page report. March 25, the special counsel wrote a letter to the attorney general, including executive summaries he hoped would be released. March 27, special counsel again wrote to the attorney general the summary he released did not fully capture the nature and substance of his work or conclusions and worried about the public conclusions confusion. After almost four weeks, on april 18, the attorney general held a press conference where he said over and over again, no collusion, no obstruction. And then released the report. As we know from page two of the attorney generals report, he was never looking for collusion. The president and the attorney general have gone along saying no collusion hundreds of times. In that press conference, no evidence of trump collusion by attorney general barr. Theyou talk to me about problem of public confusion of disinformation coming from within a Governmental Institution and what is at risk when that happens . Careful not to confuse what the russian interference effort was as a hostile intelligence operation with what i described in my statement as the misleading letter of march 24 from the attorney general. I do believe, as i wrote in my statement, his letter was misleading and it created as the special counsel later wrote in his letter that was not released for several weeks, the special counsel acknowledged that the attorney generals Public Statement had created a misimpression in the public. In my view, the attorney general had a responsibility not to create that confusion. Because he is the attorney general, because we hold the attorney general up in an elevated position as the chief Law Enforcement officer of the country, we accept the attorney general will accurately and i expected the attorney general would have accurately represented what was in the report. The special counsels office was clear that the reason they did not make a finding on obstruction was because it was constrained by the legal opinion that a president could not be indicted. Therefore they did not think they could make the recommendation and they applied the doctrine of fairness which said if you cannot accuse somebody of a crime if they are not going to be able to stand trial, which a president would not. Last twoote in the pages, if you read all the way to the end of the report, at the end of a volume two, the special counsel says we had a valid basis for investigating the conduct at issue in this report. Of the application obstruction statutes would not burden the president S Performance of his article two functions. And that this protection of the Justice System with the fundamental principles of our government that no person in this country is so high that he is above the law, quoting that case from the 19th century. I believe the special counsel laid out their investigation so that this body would wrestle with the facts in that report. I think you for that and for your opening clarification. You. Olutely agree with interference, disinformation is extorted nearly grave. Members of this committee are concerned. I think it is critical that we within ourt happens institutions. It is very dangerous, as mr. Mueller himself told mr. Barr, to risk public confusion. That is what he did and continues to do, as far as i am concerned. Thank you for your expertise. Thank all of you. I yield back. Rep. Nadler the gentlelady from texas. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and many things to our panel today. I want to say for the record how deeply concerned i continue to be when i hear efforts to distract and distort the truth, when what is at stake is our very american democracy. Im going to be asking you a couple questions. I would like to get through as many as possible. I want to focus on russias hacking operations. The Mueller Report states in april 2016, the tru gru hacked into the president ial Campaign Committee and the Democratic National committee, the grus in total, stole documents from coppermines gmail accounts. Compromised gmail accounts. Released emails. It was time to to interfere with the 2016 u. S. President ial election in order to undermine the Clinton Campaign. Kushnerheard from jared after the report was released that all it was was a few facebook ads my question for you, how sophisticated was this operation . There were two parts of it. The social media operation and the hacking operation. They were government sponsored events. They were the activities of a hostile Intelligence Service. This is part of the russian intelligence, part of their military operations. Hadonline effort was they an Organization Called the Internet Research is inching agency, who had employees actually doing the activity of putting outposts. I do not know how sophisticated that is. The technical sophistication, we see the hacking activity, which ass per se safe w pervasive. Rep. Escobar you mentioned the military component of this. People would get up and go to work in order to do this . Yes, and that is consistent with what we see from other countries as well. Some of the chinese indictments have described prosecutions wheret Chinese Government this is their job. This is a foreign intelligence activity. That is what the russians were doing. Organized intelligence operations targeting us. Rep. Escobar why should ordinary Americans Care i have found myself having to explain this to folks. Why should they care about the fact that russia was trying to manipulate them . Because russian interests are not American Interests. This is why this is a bigger part of our Foreign Policy. Our domestic conversation in terms of, when a foreign country is taking intelligence activities against another country, they are doing it for their own interests. Political, economic, military. They determined this operation in their interest. That is not the same as American Interest. Maybe there are things we can cooperate with, but we need to Pay Attention and it is the responsibility of american leaders and government to protect what is in American Interests when we are the recipient of a foreign influence operation and we do not understand that, we do not understand how we are being manipulated. Rep. Escobar why would any american want to prevent an investigation into that kind of minute elation . Ofi do not know that kind man if you elation manip ulation. I do not know why any american would want to prevent investigation into that manipulation. Rep. Nadler the gentlelady from texas, missus garcia. Thank you for the witnesses. Apologize i was not here for your Opening Statements. I wanted to start with you, ms. Cordero. Our witnesses focused on evidence regarding obstruction of justice. I think there is something that sheds light on the allegations of obstruction. Describesother report efforts to undermine the special counsel investigation, what was the investigation the Administration Officials or the president was attempting to restrict . If the special counsel investigation had never happened, what are the things we would have learned . The special counsel investigation has been able to lay out in a way that we can see for the most part, and there are parts redacted that i hope the committee will be able to obtain we agree with you. What the activities were of the russian intelligence activities. In terms of the obstruction, volume two lays out a variety of steps the president took in terms of starting with the firing of the fbi director, then trying to encourage his staff to potentially relieve the special counsel of his duties, encouraging his staff to try to cover up the fact he had directed his white House Counsel to direct the Deputy Attorney general to fire the special counsel. I think the president perhaps thought, and i will make that speculation, that firing different individuals are changing the investigation the leadership of the investigation would end the investigation. Able tocys work was continue, but had the special and counsel investigation been curtailed, it could be we would not know all the facts that we do know already, and as an example, there is a section of volume one that says the Trump Campaign and the dissemination of hacked materials. Campaignee, the trump and dissemination of hacked materials is mostly redacted in the public report. This is obviously information the special counsel was able to uncover regarding what the campaign was trying to receive in terms of information that was hacked by russian intelligence. Rep. Garcia which is a perfect example of why we are trying to get a copy of the unredacted report. On page 90 and 91 of volume two, it describes how the president tried to enlist his former Campaign Manager who was not a white house employee at the time , no role in the white house, to deliver a message to jeff sessions. He told him to write it down and sessions to end the special counsel investigation, notwithstanding sessions former prior recusal. Saying, im going to meet with the prosecutor to explain this affair and let the special prosecutor move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections so nothing can happen in the future. He was trying to limit it. He gave the notes to the office. My question is, what it happened . Ossible would it have been possible . The individual overseeing the special counsel investigation the reason he wanted jeff is hens to unrecuse thought sessions might limit the scope. He could put in place an attorney general who thed not allow investigation to go into the obstruction detailed in volume two. That is the goal of trying to change the leadership. Possible to have hadspecial counsel that the special counsel been fired, another official had been appointed, it is possible we would not have the information in volume two, especially the obstructivehe conduct. Rep. Garcia i yield back. Rep. Nadler this concludes todays hearing. We think the witnesses for attending and for their testimony. Objection, the hearing is adjourned. [gavel] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] the house gavels in 9 00 a. M. To work on a spending package for a number of federal departments and agencies. And, wrote to the white house coverage as jim clyburn hold his annual fish fry. On cspan two, mers of the federal election members of the federal election on efforts to ensure Election Security. On cspan3, a house to to sherry subcommittee meeting on ethics and transparency in the federal judiciary. Political cartooning like advertising on television. You have five seconds to capture the viewers attention. You have another five seconds to deliver the point or sell the product. The only difference with television