Transcripts For CSPAN House Judiciary Committee Hearing On Election Security 20240713

The House Committee will come to order without objection. To chair is authorized declare recesses at any time. Welcome everyone to this hearing on securing americas election, oversight of government agency. I will recognize myself for an Opening Statement. Last month, this Committee Held part one of a series of hearings on securing americas elections. In that hearing, three witnesses who had jointly been chosen testified that our nations elections are under attack. The former director of the National Security council under both president clinton and george w. Bush warned that we must take hold and expeditious steps to address cyber threats. We must treat Election Security theecretary of state from commonwealth of pennsylvania elaborated. Election security is a race without a finish line line and our adversaries are not going down. This testimony has been confirmed by the leaders of our Intelligence Community. Foreign actors will view the 2020 election as an opportunity to review their selection. We expect them to add new tactics as they learn from previous elections. In short, theres no question that our elections, the corner stone of our free and Democratic Society are exposed. Protecting our nations democratic processes from foreign attack must be among our Top Priorities and we are committed to doing the work. Today, we have representatives from the four federal agencies leading the charge on election secure, the department of hs, the federal bureau of investigation, the department of justice and the election assistance committee. Commission, im sorry. At their core elections are run at their state and lowlevel. But our government should help states toe defend themselves from hostile, foreign actors. Protecting our elections requires a whole of Society Approach that relies on coordinated actions by Government Agencies at all levels including agencies represented here today. Federal agencies responsible for protecting our elections have made significant progress since 2016. These efforts are important and commendable. But significant vulnerables in our system remain. To start, our efforts must be integrated and coordinated. A simple Google Search of report Election Security issues turns up results for over 20 different groups across agencies and others these agencies and others. There must be clear line of authority to insure which of the multiple programs is in charge. Equally important, we must do more to insure better federal and state collaboration. That requires earning the trust of states. At a public speech on october dhs director crebs alerted the officials of threats, there was as he said no trust and there was no certainty or confidence in the ability of the federal government. One way to strengthen trust is through enhanced transparency. In 2016, the specific intent of the russians was not initially made public. Those we can do better we can educate state and local officials and the public about influence operations by bring our adversaries tactics to light, we can prevent them from succeeding in. Addition, we must insure that the development and maintenance of our systems matches the evolving nay cure of cyber threats, for example, current e. A. C. Federal guidelines for our certification processes were reated in 200 and are out of date. This process is more than a decade old. And its too slow and burden densome to enable officials to respond as quickly as needed to our agile adversaries. Final lip and most importantly we must insure that state and local officials the front line defenders of democracy have the resources and support they need to protect our systems. Its requested for example 20 additional advisors to help states in anticipation of the 2020 election cycle. May 15, 2019 the e. A. C. Testified that the u. S. Currency currently lacks funding. However, President Trump and his Administration Rather than listening to the warnings of federal agencies for request for resources to secure elections has done the opposite. The Trump Administration has cut senior cyber positions, downsized by half d. H. S. s Election Security teams and proposed significant budget cuts to d. H. S. s major Election Security program. All of these actions leave us more vulnerable to the ongoing threat to our democracy. We will not threat happen. Elections can not be a partisan issue. They must be an american issue. This committee is committed to working to to protect our democracy from all threats to our elections in all forms whether to our physical election infrastructure or the ongoing Election Campaign coming from adversaries like rush yafment i thank each of our witnesses for being here today. My colleagues and i are looking forward to hearing your testimony about your ongoing efforts to secure our elections and what important work we mains o be done. Without objection, the Ranking Members statement will be placed in the record and all other Opening Statements will be included in the record. I will now introduce todays witnesses. Matt masterson is the senior Cyber Security advisor at the department of hs where he mansion Election Security turned National Protection and programs directorate. He served as a commissioner. Prior to his opponent, mr. Masterson served as an interim ohio of state for the state. Mr. Masterson received his b. S. B. A. In oxford, ohio and his j. D. From the University School of law. Nd nicky floiss oversees the Intelligence Branch which includes the Foreign Influence Task force system. She entered the bureau in 2005 and served in many other positions including deputy si assistance director in the Counterterrorism Division where she oversaw terrorism, strategic terrorism and counterterrorism analysis. She has a bachelors degree in psychology and a masters degree in criminalology from washington university. Adam hickey is from the National Security division at the department of justice in. That role, he manages the divisions efforts to combat National Security threats including threats to our election systems. Before joining the department of justice, mr. Hickey clerked for udge jed rickoff for the Southern District of new york and for the second circumstance. He received his bachelors degree from Harvard College and his j. D. From yale law school. Ben hovlanz is the vice chair where hes the designated federal officer for the Technical Guidelines Committee which develops the voluntary system guidelines. Before being appointed vice chair he served as the acting chief council for the u. S. Senate committee on rules and administration. He received his b. A. From the university of Central Arkansas and his j. D. From the university of oregon. Please note that each of your written statements will be enter into the record in its entirety. I ask you that you summarize your testimony in five minutes. Theres a timing light on your table. When the light switches from green to yellow you have one minute to conclude your testimony. When the light turns red it signals your five minutes have expired. We want to thank you all for participating in todays hearing. If you please rise, ill begin by swearing you in. Do you swear or affirm under personality of perjury that the testimony youre about to give is true and correct to the best of yourm knowledge, information and beliefs so help you god . You may be seated. Let the record show that the witnesses has answered in the affirmative. Ok. All right. Mr. Masterson, you may begin and yall have to push the button to turn your microphone on before you start. Thank you. Mr. Masterson well, thank you. And good morning members of the committee. Thank you for this testimony to testify regarding the Cyber Security and infrastructure security everies to help secure election infrastructure across the country. My name is Matt Masterson im the former chair of the Assistance Commission. Sysa has a strong relationship with state and local Election Officials across the country. Our mission is clear to support election and their private sector partners to identify risk to their systems. Elections are run at the state and local level by dedicated professionals across americas 800,000 election jurisdictions. Ct we to make prote themselves. Weve worked tirelessly to strengthen our partnership with the Election Community. We provide free and voluntary services to all 50 states. Over 21 local and territory election jurisdictions. 12 Technology Providers. Our approach has continues to be threefold. One making sure the Election Community has the information they need to defend their systems. Two, making sure they have the tools identify and mitigate risk. And three, building to advance security efforts together. Sisa is laser focus ond to grow our information sharing capable. We share contextualize information through the Law Enforcement community and the private sector. State and local law officials are sharing what they see with us. We deploy intrusion cainlt or albert sense source to provide capabilities on election infrastructure in all 50 states. Pro Technical Support and services. Were shifting to capabilities that are quicker, less intrusive and can scale to more areas. We deployed a capibility thanks in part to the funding provided by congress. This testing capability allows us to identify risks without having to deploy teams into local election offices and without interrupting their time and people. Sissa has been working with electric Technology Providers to insure they undergo testing. This scale ability is critical because while our initial efforts were targeted at state officials we recognize the need to increase our support to counties and municipalities who operate elections. For example the last mile fish active provides no cost, information sharing tailored to identify cyber risk to mitigate those risks. The fainl area will be towards our collective defense. Governs, communication, coordination, training and plan rg the Critical Foundation elements of our uret ever of our efforts to secure the elections. Built e 2020 sissa has off the lessons lench learn around prioritizing the lines of effort. One expanding engagement Election Officials i. We continue to work with them to understand the risk of their systems. For example, in june we did our table top the vote exercise 47 states thousands of local officials, the private sector and federal government work fogget through scenarios to understand how we would all collectively respond to threats to our election infrastructure. With a better understanding of riskers we can identify and provide theer resources they need scurel their election systems. We share the best political practices including d. N. C. And r. N. C. Sisa has joined no briefings to the president ial campaigns. And has engaged directly with the p. C. We are commilted to helping americans recognize and avoid foreign disinformation, operations impacting our elections through innovative earths like our war on pineapple campaign where we educated them on foreign shunes campaign using a going to everyone can relate to the divisive issue of pineapple on pit zafment well continue to put out material to build resilience on foreign influence operations. Were working closely with our Intelligence Community in the private sector to increase the timeliness of production at the nclassified levels to help election. We are committed to working with congress and cultivate a resilient home lan. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before your committee. And i look forward to your questions. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ms. Floris. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to secure measures elections. Floris. Floi hey come bite maligned institutions. This includes the investigation of election related cyber intrusions and crime. In order to achieve their strategic geo political objectives foreign maligned agency distort u. S. Political sentiment and discourse. Under mine discourse, institutions or values. Most wildly report these days have been the attempts by foreign adversaries to discredit the u. S. Through the use of fabricated stories. These operations have aimed to civil disinformation sew discord and under mine our values. It involves a wide spectrum of activities. It is the subversive undeclared criminal that forms the basis of f. B. I. Investigative interest. Maligned we talk about influence. Interconnectedness have changed the character of the overall foreign threat and how the f. B. I. And its partners mustards it. We oversee the influence task force in. The fall of 2017 the director fittest. Ed the it comprises of professional staff from the counterterrorism. Following the midterm elections the f. B. I. Expanded the scope of it. Our efforts were focused on the threat posed by russia. Identify thiss to frals china iran and othered a vir sares. Through the fittest the f. B. I. Takes a three pronged approach towards a serious threat. The first prong focuses on our operations. We work with 56 field office to open investigation with a foreign influence nexus. You might think of it as a hub. Our investigator approach posts cost on our adversaries. Investigations with the cyber nexus work clap ra actively with the sibers task forces. The f. B. I. Can respond to election infrastructure. F. B. I. Cyber division works closely with the u. S. Intelligence committee to work to determine attribution. The second prong center is on information and intelligent sharing. The f. B. I. Works closely with our federal sergeant si agencies to help detect, disrupt and deter our adversaries. In 2018 that effort le to the creation of protected voices a jonathan initiative between the f. B. I. , department of just tirks Department Homeland security. United states secret service. We developed a series of videos to help political campaigns better understand this threat and made them available through the f. B. I. Else public website in the past months weve expected protective voices providing webinars. We are expanting the audience to concludes the threat. We collaborate extensively with our partners to provide information to social Media Companies so they they can harden their systems against harden attacks. Collaboration bilts a common understanding of the landscape. The last fart of our approach is if partnership. They have a front line to security their own Network Products and platform. Were doing our part by providing actual intelligence to address the use of their platform. The f. B. I. Has established relationships with these Media Companies and maintains an ongoing dialogue to spread rapid information. The f. B. I. s constantly reviewing the coordination as its outreach. To our knowledge no Foreign Government has attempted to tam ber u. S. Vote counts but even doubts can be damaging. We do know theyre trying to influence electorial processes in advance of our election. I want to know what they seek to influence our National Policies an Public Opinion and important ways beyond just election. We look forward to continuing this important work and appreciate the work of this committee. Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today. Im happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you very much. Mr. Hickey . Good morning. Distinguished members of the committee. And thank you for the opportunity to testify on behalf of the Justice Department concern our efforts to insure the safety and security of our nations election infrastructure d to comma lined foreign influence. Foreign influence it is meant to sew di sfligs our society or under mine our institutions. This can range from computer hacking to state sponsored media campaigns. This issue protecting our nations democratic processes has been an remains a top priority of the department. Our principle role here is the investigation and prosecution of federal crimes. But maligned foreign influence efforts extend beyond efforts to interfere with elections. They require more than these responses alone. Recognize that we expose this National Security threat the same as in other by using our lone legal tools as well as supporting the tools oaf others. We try to prevent crimes from cuffering or disrupt them in process. In part by sharing information with people and institutions to allow them to better protect nexts reflecting the priority of these issues last year, the attorney general Cyber Digital Task force analyzed the types of foreign influence operations an laid out a framework to guide our responses. And since the 2016, we have taken a number of steps to combine maligned foreign influence and support, security electionsments first, as an intelligencedriven organization and member of the Intelligence Community, the f. B. I. Pursues tips and leads including from f. B. I. Information to identify, investigate and disrupt illegal foreign activities. Nd to that end, the f. B. I. Accomplished the influence task force to lead is response to insure information flow. Resource allocation and coordination both within the department and among the department our federal partners in the private sector. Together r agencies through the series of outreach and education efforts have been Holding Public helpinc officials, candidates and social Media Companies to harden their own networks and platforms against the maligned foreign influence third, we have improved enforcement of the foreign agencies registration act one of the statory tools that helps re tans parent si of transparent sys of individuals. D activities occurring within the United States. Forthcoming of our investigations have led to a number of criminal charges and other Enforcement Actions that have exposed the maligned influence efforts by the foreign states and their proxies. While we work with other nations to obtain custody of the foreign defendants whenever possible, just the charges themselve themp educate the American Public about the threats that we face. This can our investigations have supported the actions of other u. S. Government agencies such as financial sanctions imposed by the secretary of the treasury. Finally, even outside of the context of criminal charges, we have used the information from our investigations both to warren and reassure the potential victims and the general public alike about the maligned foreign influence activities. Now the victim notifications for defensive countenotification tor Intelligence Briefings and Public Safety announcements are Traditional Department activities. But they must be conducted of particular sensitivity in the context of the elections and in some circumstances exposure can be counterproductive or otherwise improve and. Given the countervailing considerations, the department has adopted a Public Policy for evaluating whether and how to disclose the maligned foreign influence activities and among its First Principles of the partisan Political Considerations must play no role in our decisions. Our adversaries will undoubtedly change their tactics and we will need to be nimble in our. But the framework we have developed to respond will have staying power and as you can see, the department plays an Important Role in combating the foreign efforts to interfere. But there are limits to the role and that of the federal government as a whole combating the maligned foreign influence requires the whole of Society Approach and relies on the coordinated actions by Government Agencies at various levels. Support from the private sector and active engagement of an informed public. Thank you again and i look forward to your question. Thank you very much. Good morning members of the committee, i thank you for the opportunity to testify before you this morning to detail the work of the u. S. Election Assistance Commission better known as the eac to fulfill its missions and help america vote act. I also appreciate this opportunity to highlight the great work of the state state ad local Election Officials around the country. As you know the nations elections are run at the state and local level with each of the 50 states and u. S. Territories running elections in different ways. Officials in over a thousand loca8,000 localjurisdictions ary responsible for conducting our elections and their work truly protects and ensures the most fundamental pillar of our democracies of the vote. Since 2016 theres been an enormous increase in focus on the security which is just one of the many responsibilities Election Officials must address. Im pleased to report from my Vantage Point at the community has responded in an aggressive fashion considering the challenges we face. Nearly every conference i attend while traveling around the country has a substantial focus on security and protecting the integrity of elections is a constant topic in meetings with election administrators, federal partners and external stakeholders. Even so, we need to ask ourselves the key question will that be enough if the officials do not have a substantial resources they need to defend our democracy against potential threats . The good news is the department of Homeland Security designation of election infrastructure Critical Infrastructure there has been a change in information sharing between the federal government and state and local officials. This includes the creation of the Government Coordinating Council which brings together state and local officials, federal partners as well as the coordinating council which has helped organize private sector vendors and nonprofit entities that support local Election Officials. Weve also seen the creation of the infrastructure information and sharing and Analysis Center which now has over 2100 members including every state officials office. The deployment of the monitors hardening of the systems increased training and promotion exercises around the cyber events evolve exponentially increased since 2016. The 2018 appropriation of 380 million of funding which was distributed in most of its obligation has largely contributed to these improvements. It doesnt cover everything the official stated that the states would have the ability to essentially choose from a menu of reforms and improvements in the priority is the code address the most pressing needs and vulnerabilities. As the chairwoman testified earlier this year, the project 85 of the 2018 money will be spent in advance of 2020. We have seen some states use the funding to replace aging or paperless equipment and other states have replaced the statewide Voter Registration databases or added additional security measures like multifactor authentication. Some have posted a training and a tabletop exercises ahead of 2022 dead in Election Officials a handson experience that can help them prepare for various threats. One of my personal favorite uses of the fy 2018 funding is the implementation of the cyber navigated programs. Essentially the state recognizes that many local jurisdictions do not have the capacity or the need for the fulltime election Cyber Security experts of the state employs individuals with regional responsibilities and they provide Technical Assistance to several counties on the disabilities. This is the kind of Innovative Program that will help bolster the Cyber Security defenses and improve how the states conduct elections. Its also a model that they would like to amplify nationwide should the funding support such an effort. Unfortunately not all of the news is good. As you know the threat of the foreign adversaries remains real and ultimately state and local officials do not have the resources to support a truly determined sophisticated state actor. This is why we must take action to build resilience here at home and implement policies that the two are the adversaries of opposition is a real sanctions regime. Additional funding is crucial to allow the states to continue to make necessary improvements that increase the strength and resiliency of our election systems. When we talk about Election Administrations, we are talking about the infrastructure of our democracy. To make meaningful and lasting change requires the investment over time and it cannot just be about 2020 or anyone election but about all of them going forward. During the Senate Rules Committee in may i share the recent discovery that the operating budget of 7. 95 million is less than the amount kansas city spends on potholes. Its startling to think of one city with a population of around 500,000 people invest more to protect its residents car tires and alignment than the country invests in the only federal agency dedicated to completely improve Election Administration at helping more and helping more than 200 million registered voters cast their ballots. I thank you for your time, and i am happy to answer any questions you may have. We will ask unanimous consent that my Opening Statement is entered into the record and without objection, under the fiveminute rule i will begin by recognizing myself for five minutes and let me before i start to think the vice chair of the committee for resizing while i was testifying in another kennedy. In 2016, but elections were hacked in three years later the community is universally confirmed for an actors have redoubled their efforts and are preparing to attack on the 2020 elections. If the president has blocked security efforts and cut the programs designed to safeguard, for example they issued instructions not to mention the Election Security. The president also disbanded the commission on the integrity and eliminated the cybersecurity coordinator on the Security Council and dramatically downsized the two teams fighting for the interference. The 20 budget for the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency even further. The president is handicapping the agencies and securing our elections. In the latest midterm elections it comes from the president himself, the foreign leaders interfered and this isnt the first time. The 2016, president of trump than the candidate encourage russia to illegally hack the adversaries emails. This past june President Trumps and information on his adversary and 2020 from a Foreign Government and justice by President Trump publicly suggested, quote, china should start an investigation into biden. To be clear it is unacceptable to ask the foreign adversaries to interfere in any way in americas elections. If we ask others to interfere, if we undermine the publics confidence in the integrity of the voting process we are doing our adversaries work for them. We cant continue to undermine our own values on the world stage. The president s own officials agree. The ambassadors with me state clearly inviting them to undertake in the purpose of influencing an upcoming election would be wrong. Each of you sitting here today responsible for protecting the integrity of and Public Confidence in our elections i would like to hear from each of you in turn, yes or no do you think it is appropriate for the president of the United States to ask a Foreign Government to investigate his political opponent in a 2020 election . Yes or no . No. No sir. Im not going to comment on the president s activities, but we are committed to confronting the violations. To ask to investigate opponents. It im focused on enforcing the criminal law. No. Thank you. The report concluded that at approximately june 16, im sorry, quote, approximately june, 2016, the Russian Intelligence Organization compromised Computer Network of the Illinois State board of elections and gained access to the database containing information on the millions of registered voters. The report confirms that the Russian Hackers successfully breached the databases and was found to alter or delete the voting records. Last month i as asked our expert witnesses of the impact if they had been able to alter the databases. The director of the National Security council under president s bush and clinton testified about altering the databases would have been, quote, devastating including because tens of thousands of voters could have been turned away at the polls. The Intelligence Community has confirmed the threat of this happening again is very real. Its made it harder for the federal agencies to do their job to keep our democratic processes. Processes. Indeed the white house has intentionally cut the budget and staff going into an election on the Intelligence Community has confirmed that the biggest threat to the nation has seen a. Like our tabletop to exercise. When or if they identify that wonder or if they identify, how they work with the state and local jurisdictions, the federal government, and what processes we have in response. Havenstance, they responsibilities both remotely and teams that can support Election Officials and reporting of incidents. Looking for state and local elections to have in place a provisional ballot if there is an issue with the voter rolls they are prepared to administer broadly to make sure every voter has the ability to know the vote was counted as cast. So now that ability should that large county and then that we dont have a long postelection excuse over a couple of thousand votes quick. The level of funding with a 33 million of last year and the proposed funding now allows us to maintain that level of support in order to ensure that from election day. The gentleman from ohio. We wasted so much time on bogus russian collusion investigation and now these that will not go anywhere its nice that we actually have the department of justice and Homeland Security and the fbi and us election Assistance Commission before us to talk about a real issue which is protecting americas elections there are various pieces of legislation to better protect our elections in the future of original cosponsor of hr 3442 that denies entry into the United States an individual that interferes with our election. And maybe we could Work Together in a bipartisan fashion with this committee that we are the Gold Standard of what the rest of the world looks to. We had then that Gold Standard so i will ask by starting with the legislation that i just mentioned. What is the standard for determining what type of content posted by Foreign Agents that rises to the level of being a foreign influence . Is there a certain type of herbage or rhetoric the fbi looks for . And do you think engaging in such behavior online should be considered with United States quick. The fbi does not content or Police Information on the internet. That is certainly not our job. That what we look at is known of various actors and we have identified a foreign actor who is participating and is part of the operation seek to propagate the information or post derogatory content that is investigative interest but we do not start with content and work our way back. Do you agree with that. No. Thats right. We focus on known actors and tips from providers in a way that helps them make determinations of their terms of service. Is anything different of justice is doing to work with social media in advance of the elections quick. We support the efforts and sometimes work with providers. Are there any countries other than russia you have seen or you believe is showing some interest in disrupting our elections in 2020 or in the future in general quick. We have spoken about foreign influence activities from china and we are certainly concerned about others perk obviously we have seen actions by other nations like turkey and ukraine. To any witness, what was your agencys role to secure the 2018 congressional midterm elections and what specific efforts were made quick. Our role as it is now helping to secure the 2018 midterm elections was to provide information sharing support services to officials to help them manage risk to their systems. We started by building the relationships with state Election Officials that are appropriately skeptical of the federal loan loan role in elections and the information we provided services help them to identify risk to their system so we are doubling down on efforts to reach across the state how do we get the information sharing she needs to manage risk quick. I am close to being out of time but would you agree the fbis reputation was significantly damaged by political bias against President Trump specifically exhibited by a number of top level officials from your organization quick. s or i will not comment on any damage or lack of damage to our reputation. I will answer it. It really was like peter struck and others pretty much damaged it it is unfair to the rest of your organization because you are truly a Great Organization one of the best in the nation. I yield back. For the record i think peter struck worked in the highest level. Thank you to all the witnesses not only for your testimony and your service to our country it is recognized and appreciated. Just a note to the gentle man from ohio the bill that he has cosponsor there is some variations about denying pieces to those who are interfering in our elections. That will be made part of the shield act through the managers amendment and i just wanted him to know that that we are taking a good idea and moving it forward. The Mueller Report describes evidence that the then Trump Campaign chairman Paul Manafort talk to the russian operative of a strategy for winning democratic votes in midwestern states and internal polling data of the campaign which i always thought what was going on . Why the internal polling data to the rushing age one russian agent . I would ask you to comment but generically, why would a campaign see in turn all data for the battleground states to be helpful to someone seeking to impact our elections and specifically what a hostile actor do with such information with any campaign if they got internal polling data quick. Thank you for the question. Looking at china or russia they take a whole government approach with foreign influence not just federal elected officials but state and local elected officials as well because anyone can influence policy moving forward. So because they take a whole government approach any bit of information can help inform their decision how to move forward with their operation so on the surface it may not seem like a great benefit but china and russia uses every tool in the toolbox to get all information they seem valuable. If we were candidates one of the things we know is that if you are interested in polling data you could not do a poll without being caught. The only way you get this information is from a campaign that was legitimately done. A report this month was released by the Senate Intelligence committee on russian interference with our elections and it said the russian government use geographic targeting features to reach audiences in specific locations and in 25 percent of the ads purchased were targeted down to state or city or University Level in michigan and wisconsin they were targeted with advertisements overwhelmingly focused on the subject of Police Brutality to move populations in one direction or another. If a campaign made its information such as polling data are readily available to a Foreign Government and then used it to target the voters through social media is that something the department of justice would investigate . Or is there a law that would allow or stimulate an investigation spent there are two parts i dont know if Campaign Finance of the statutes would apply with respect to National Security statutes i am familiar with a focus if an american is acting as an agent of a Foreign Government under the direction or control of the Foreign Government. In that example it is the reverse of that if they are directly in control or procuring from the government. I will note we will have an opportunity in the near future to make this much clearer by approving the shield act which would prohibit the sharing of internal data by an American Campaign from a foreign power so you have a very clear basis to proceed on that. I hope we can get a strong bipartisan support for that measure. With that my time is expired i yield back. The gentleman from arizona. Thank you. I would love to spend this time talking about Election Security. It is critical. Im prepared to ask those questions but we come to this hearings and it is impeachment all the time. This committee we were told by the chairman but here we sit if you want to ask the questions or mischaracterize a conversation then go get into the closed hearing downstairs but you cannot get in because i tried. So when i hear the chairman open up the Opening Statement about the ukrainian phone call and suggest the president asked the ukrainian president to interfere in the 2020 election you can characterize it anyway you want to but i would suggest that is not the proper characterization. Talk about ukrainian interference in the 2016 election that is what President Trump was asking president zelensky look into. Now with biden here is my question doj, fbi, do you think a person who has admitted criminal conduct should have immunity from investigation . Because they are potential political opponent in the upcoming election . What do you think . I think nations should follow facts and law where they lead with criminal investigations speak in. Regardless of their potential candidate or not quick. Without fear or favor. The other thing that was suggested is if i ask questions and the chairman doesnt like the responses with the statement that i make, when i am done he will offer his comment. Thats when he said peter struck was representing the highest ideals were highest standards of the agency. That is highly unusual normal if you want to make that comment he asked to have somebody else yield that time to him so he can rebut that comment but that happens perpetually here because it is convenient. On the chairman i can do whatever i want. But i would suggest to you i do think mister struck is exactly the opposite. His misconduct actually reflected poorly and has caused Much Division and heartache in this country. And thats just the way it is. We focus a lot on russian interference of the 2016 election the maligned influence of the russians. Are there other nationstates that have engaged in 2016 from the 2020 elections . The one big country we are focused on outside of russia is china. Make no mistake china is aggressively pursuing aggressive influence they do a different tactic they prefer interaction in these economic levers is to see the Global Economic superpower so as we go towards 2020 russia certainly is a threat in 2016 and will continue in 2020 we are aggressively looking at china as well. Did you see other states in 2016 besides china and russia quick. I would refer back to the report released in 2017. In the 2018 general elections was found that any identified activities that have a Material Impact of the security infrastructure used in the 2018 midterm elections that there was no hard evidence that they change through the system. You previously worked on the Voter Registration list so can you tell me about the importance of those that are uptodate quick. Absolutely. The national Voter Registration act that ensures both individuals are able to get registered but if somebody is not in their jurisdiction with the proper way having those allows jurisdictions to save money and ensures the right people are where they need to b be. My time is expired. The gentle lady from texas. Thank you chairman and Ranking Member for the hearing and all witnesses for your service to the nation. Let me ask a question for each of you. How confident are you we will have the impeccable safe and secure election in 2020 with the work that you have now done at the federal level . Or without intrusion from foreign entity. Thank you for your question. Anybody that has run election can tell you there is no such thing as impeccable but absolutely we are confident the 2018 election was more secure than 2016 and 2020 will certainly be more secure thanks to the hard work of officials of the private sector thats working with them. Yes or no. Im confident against the threat to Election Security. Agreed. Agreed the sentiments that traveling around the country it is amazing to see all of the Election Officials are doing to address the issue. But none of you have said we cannot have the impeccable election they think they are owed the impeccable election to be honest. I will follow up my line of question being of how secure are we . And proceed to raise the question that in light of the fact there seems to be a loophole of security, what is the approach of the doj to prosecute and be proactive or what intrusions may occur in the 2020 election quick. We will be very proactive. One of the most important lessons coming out of 2016 is how we handle information that may be targeted getting victim notifications to the right people and following up and we are in a better position now than we were in 2016 with policy and the sensitivity. Doj prosecutors and researchers one resources need to be ready for that and other federal elections. I think we are wellpositioned also the budget for 2020 includes Additional Resources that will improve our standing in that regard. Congratulations to the congresswoman for the work of her committee on the question of shielding us from this kind of intrusion and including her congratulations to include my legislation this year the language that says of a candidate for any individual knowingly receives an offer for assistance then they know is a foreign power that kennedy shall refuse the offer and notify the fbi within 72 hours. The intent should be acted upon so what infrastructure do you have to ensure a Quick Response to any reporting of this activity quick. Thank you for the question the fbi becomes interested in foreign influence once it hits the category we spoke about in the beginning with the undeclared nature. The fbi will respond in any investigation not only the Foreign Influence Task force but those hundreds of agents or analyst for that day in and day out we will use all the tools in our toolbox. And your staff for the 2020 election the potential of this reporting quick. We could always use more resources but for sure we put everything we can against this threat facing with absolute determination. The Homeland Security committee i appreciate the deep dive you have taken. Give me an understanding of how you have shared actionable intelligence to identify threats and ramped up that part of your work quick. Absolutely. First is the buildout of the election information this is what we use to reach state and local officials we have all 50 states and territories as well as 2100 local Election Officials so this ensures actionable and timely information is reached in the field so they can take the steps they need. Second, a continued push with the Intelligence Community to provide classified briefings whether conferences or in person as well as working with private sector Threat Intelligence authorities with private Sector Companies about what they see internationally so we explore all avenues trying to find efficient ways to get this to Election Officials. The gentle lady from arizona. My first question, does anyone with foreign influence have pfizer applications or warrants quick. No maam. Looking back at the fbis activities investigating 2016 election it has been reported that the fbi never obtained the original servers from the dnc that allegedly were hacked by russia instead relying on image copies. First of all is that correct . I cannot speak to that. And someone else on the panel . Yes maam we got the information that we required for our investigation and its pretty common for us to work with a security vendor in connection with computer intrusion. Can either one of you answer did the dnc cybersecurity consultant strike still have possession of the clinton servers quick. I dont know what they have possession of now. Does anyone on the panel though . Next question. I know you were asked what other countries have shown an interest in disrupting the 2020 election but what other countries have shown interest or try to interfere in the 2016 elections quick. Based on what i have read in what has been put out and investigations by congress it only refers to russia that i am aware. Earlier there was a question by chairman nadler and i want to clarify what you think or if you think its appropriate for the president of the United States to ask a Foreign Government to investigate previous election interference for i would like all of you to answer that question. Can you please repeat the question. To think its appropriate for the president to ask a Foreign Government to investigate previous election interference . If there was election interference going on . You know if there is anything he thinks was unlawful and other countries are asked the other countries to determine if there was something unlawful happenin happening. I think its appropriate to understand any attempts of interference in our election so we can continue to work to build resilience in the process. The fbi is interested in any criminal violation as long as there is the foreign angle to the operation. I will give the same answer as before i dont know about appropriate but i am focused on the criminal law. It is important to understand what occurred with our election so officials have the information they need to prepare for future elections. I yelled back my time. Thank you mister chair in 2016 i understand there were reports that russia tried to interfere with a lot estate election goals, maybe all of them is anybody here aware of those reports . Yes dhs in coordination with the fbi released an information product out to officials that stated based on the information we had as far as activity in 2016 the pattern of behavior is likely that the russian actors conducted at least research on entities across all 50 states. That doesnt mean they attempted to access the systems it could be as simple as a Google Search but based on the information that the Intelligence Community has that it is assumed they were at least researching all 50 state elections. Why would they do that quick. Presumably to understand how elections are run across the United States. Spring training . Anybody else have knowledge of that or your thoughts . What about florida was there reports that two different jurisdictions voting systems were contacted by the russians . I think we have briefed officials on activity targeted systems with successful intrusions but i think its important to be clear that there was no Material Impact on registration based on the evidence we have seen to be clear about that. And as i mentioned in my Opening Statement, it appears that the vast majority of that will be spent we are seeing over 90 of that going towards improving security and again whether that is replacing out the equipment from implementing audit based on a number of things because the variations in how elections are administered state to state to identify priority states have taken the information that is dated based on the work in the states where the risks lie and used to apply and i will give you a specific example of a the state of wisconsin deployed two factor authentication and after all of its local officials for the statewide Voter Registration database that we seem remarkable and you realize the 1800 jurisdictions in wisconsin if they focused targeted steps theyve taken. In the Clinton Campaign they stole emails and said shame on us we are not ready this time around. Have you consulted with the president or anyone involved in the campaign . We have made contact and off with just the Trump Campaign that goes around the president ial Election Campaigns to make sure they are aware of the services and information sharing responsibility. The stalwarts in the american system of government and the rule of law and i would have to disagree with previous statements made and individuals in the organizations responsible its the one i caused by those actions i wish this were a sincere hearing ended up where we might be marking up some of the Bipartisan Legislation members of the committee have worked on. By the congresswoman murphy, mr. Deutsch, myself to have greater connectivity prior to any intrusion or we might be marking up the legislation joined by mr. Colins and 3238 would create greater consequence for those that engage in election interference but that isnt what this is about. Its about smearing the president of the United States, aninvalidating the people who he been involved in delegitimizing a historical election and we know that because moments ago the chairman said that he was acting in the highest traditions of Government Service and i believe you hold the job engaging in an extramarital affair and the fbi with a coworker acting in the highest tradition of Government Service. Im not going to comment on the. Are there regulations against it but you are aware of . Im not going to comment on that. Are you saying you dont know if it is extramarital affair with a coworker asked i hold a slightly different job and he held over the Intelligence Branch. He was over the operational branch. I am just not going to comment on whether or not his behavior was out of context. Is in the highest tradition of the service for the fbi to engage in affairs o a series ofs you should know that if you work there. I am not going to comment on the. Maybe i will ask another one. The Inspector General said we do not have confidence to prioritized the investigation over following up on the midyear investigation and the Inspector General didnt have confidence in the way someone prioritized something is acting in the highest tradition of Government Service flex i am not going to comment on the. Further, they foun found thae only indicative of the biased, but even more suspiciously, implied the willingness to take action to contact the candidates electoral process and this is anticritical to the core values of the fbi and department of justice if someone, anyone is engaging in behavior that is antithetical to the values of the fbi and department of justice are they acting in the highest traditions of the government . We have an entire Section Division is goin and not going r these questions from the position that im in. Its just interesting the unwillingness to be critical of the conduct so detrimental to the country and as people all over america are looking at the corruption that negatively impacted they say you know what its about idea to have affairs with your colleagues and underlining the trust people having to be prioritized in investigations of her politics but nonetheless, here we sit. You announced an impeachment inquiry in the committee and i believe you our committee would be engaged i in that process but as the secure today, three other committees are in the basement of the capitol conducting secret interviews engaging in selective and coming out having a theatrical performances of transcripts that didnt really occur and there are lies of the contacts with whistleblowers. Regardless how people feel, one would at least think the chairman of the Judiciary Committee announces the launch of an impeachment investigation members of the committee might be willing to pour enabled to participate in that when weve gone to participate would have been locked out so it is my sincere hope the last time we gathered that he would take up the cause not just of someones purpose and ambition but that he would take up the cause of the committee and ask fo asked for y to participate because one can only suspect the reason the house Judiciary Committee has been dealt out of the hand of the impeachment is because Speaker Pelosi didnt like the outcomes in the committee they didnt know what to do with it. When House Democrats brought in Robert Mueller there were promises that this was going to sway the public and create a flood of support for impeachme impeachment, and that was obviously something that didnt hold to their. So, please stand up for the committee and lets start with this. I will yield back. Thank you mr. Chairman. I think the witnesses for being here today. I would hardly call this busy work to protect our elections, so i wish our colleagues on the otheother side would be as concd with Election Security. Back in july the Senate Select committee released its bipartisan report on russian interference in our 2016 elections. The senate intel found that come up wit,quote, russian government affiliated conducted a level of activity against the infrastructure in the runup to the 2016 u. S. Election and called for sweeping action to protect the 2020 elections that canada after counting the vote and the officials report the results were tempered with him if in fact the candidate one what is being done at the federal level to first prevent attacks on the results in the second, if such an attack occurs to ensure Public Confidence in the reporting of our elections mr. Masterson lets start with you and then move on. The reporting systems that you are referencing for an area weve worked with our officials to secure and understand first the most important thing to understand that all of the folks on the committee here understand the results are in fact unofficial results but there is a campus process that goes on after election day so ensuring they have that information and understanding the nature of the results and that there is an entire reconciliation process following the correctness and the second is the top priority for us working with officials to have the results and ensure efficient and effective auditing of the results but is absolutely critical to ensure that their vote was counted so that is to areas of higtwoareas of high prs working with state and local of the steps theyre taking to protect the systems and really offer the reassurance and transparency on the backend. In this circumstance where we know the state is being targeted, its important that we get to the state officials at the right level and with a sense of urgency so they can do whatever they can to mitigate the systems. I would echo what mr. Masterson said and added that the commission, the part of the work that we have done is host it trainings for the officials that is relevant to the topic and work with them on an improving audit processes and certainly think that the issue you raised is one of real concern. There are a number of responsibilities that the officials have and i believe that the election Assistance Commission should be more empowered to work on those but the reality has been mentioned in my Opening Statement is that we are 7. 95 million agent fee and we have one lawyer, one financial person for since its inception the commission has been kicked around like a political football and we have never been in power ar empowered in a way to actually help Election Officials in the way that we can and i think that right now in this time we see the need for the federal clearinghouse that it was created to be and i would ask you all to help make that possible. Thank you. As a senior Cyber Security advisor, how have you engaged with local, state and National Media outlets to ensure the unofficial vote reporting is protected from malicious interference and with Media Networks specifically have you met with, and have any refused to meet with you and with new measures are you taking a in 2020 that were not applied in 2016 and 2018 . Thank you for the question. The first is that the associated press, the team that handles the result is on Election Night is t is a member river were coordinating council which is the council that we work with on providing support and services and information sharing, so they have been an active participant in that coordinating council to the extent of the threat and risk they can take to secure the results for the reporting and i know hes taking that very seriously. Second, as we held a tabletop exercise with members of the National Media prior to the election to talk about some scenarios that can play out in house at being exchanged not just from state and local officials but Media Companies, Political Parties and others to ensure that the media have access to the information they need before they report on the results or other items. Heading into 2020, we anticipate engaging Media Outlets individually that have a tabletop exercise again heading into the 2020 election to work with ththrough the scenarios ane they have the information they need. Digital yields back. The gentleman from virginia. I want to thank the witnesses for being here. I am concerned and cosponsored the bill which would amend the immigration act to those that have engaged in improper interference in elections inadmissible to the u. S. And also cosponsored 3238 which would prohibit interference. I want to go ahead and ask in your testimony you say we do know our adversaries are trying to influence Public Opinion and electoral in advance of the election. Youve mentioned in your testimony influencing the opinion in various social media. What electoral policies, what efforts to interfere are you aware of . Thank you for the question. One thing i want to highlight is the countries that russia and china prove they are a threat its not just based on the electoral sites and operations, is essentially always present. And it comes to the electoral process, you can look at some of the Voter Suppression. The whole concept of pushing out false and information. Of highlighting, places to go but are actually not true, the concept of disinformation that we have seen the russian focus on. That in and of itself can interfere in the process. But nothing to the extent of actively trying to hack into or interfere. We havent seen anything specific regarding hacking into the systems of the 2020 election. Thank you. I would yield the remainder of my time. Thank you for yielding. Im curious if theres a unanimous consent request. First is the request to be entered into the record and email on the 30th of may titled documents on the Ukrainian Party of the regions. Without objection. I also see to enter into the record of the article to summer 12, 2018 the ukrainian corporals disclosed disclosure meddling in the u. S. Elections. Without objection. Also, from 2018 from the post, the publication of the payments violated law from interfere with elections and court rules. Without objection. What is happening is this a law firm that hires and it seems to email to her husband about issues with manafort and ukraine and then works its way into the u. S. Election dynamic and the court ruled that the activities to disclose the activities in the United States constituted election interference and was illegal under the ukrainian law. Does anyone on the panel that has a reason to disagree with the conclusion of the Ukrainian Court that the constituted . So, no one has reacted on any basis to disagree with this and the record reflect that. So, my question is what are we doing as a government to prevent future election meddling like that which ukraine engaged in where information was disclosed in the United States unlawfully in the foreign jurisdiction and then entered into the enter intm of the politics of . Thank you for the question. I will go back to what i said previously. The fbi is not in the position to police content on the internet. That being said that they can identify it for an actor regardless of the country who is trying to push out this information with the end goal of showing discord, discounting the process and it is done in some sort of a undeclared criminal matter that is where it becomes an interest to the fbi. The trick is identifying that known for an afternoon we cannot work back from content. If we find that for an actor behaving in these obligations and part of the validation tells disinformation yes that would work with the providers to provide as much actual intelligence as we possibly can. In this case it looks like we must know the actor because the court ruled the disclosure of the information was illegal so is there anything the fbi is doing now to follow up on the decision that there was illegal meddling in the United States that emanated from ukraine . I cant address anything related to the possibility on the existence or nonexistence of an fbi investigation. It would seem my colleague said this a few days between now and the upcoming election i hope sincerely that this meddling is being identified and pursued by the government and i would yield back. The gentleman from florida. Thank you mr. Chairman for holding todays hearing. And thanks to the witnesses for being here. We know that they interfered and that the National Security experts have warned that they will do it again in 2020, 2020 primaries are fast approaching so we are running short on time to ensure every state is taking the necessary steps to harden the differences and to guard against this generally. One of the fewer than 20 states that still had electronic machines to verify the ballots in 2016 and they are moving in a different direction between 2016 and 2018 they drop from 24 to four to move completely to the paper verified systems under way. After learning some of the systems were in 2016 they expected a strong response to bolster the security and we expect that whenever it is done anof olympic coordination with state and counties targeted by the Foreign Governments and other benefactors. According to the report the russian theory agency was able to gain access to the network of at least one florida county government. Subsequently, members of our congressional delegation requested a briefing from the lawenforcement agencies and work informed that the networks of at least two counties that have been compromised. Most recently, the report by the republicanled Senate Intelligence committee suggest as many as four counties may have been successfully attacked. Apparently no systems for access, only the registration rules, but whatever the number infected, weve got to learn the lessons and guard against the vulnerabilities before next years elections in florida clearly worked on its need to improve the auditing procedures, but we cannot do that alone. Certain breaches were not immediately detected. What signs should Election Officials look for, what should they be trained to look for on election day to ensure there are no attacks and how are you working with state officials to train them to detect such signs . Thank you for the question, sir. It starts long before election day. You may be looking for those signs and i will talk about our activity there, but there are indicators that Election Officials are aware of and can be attuned to. But to our information sharing and possible malicious activity, and i know in the state of florida, florida was the first to deploy across all county governments, so florida is uniquely positioned for that kind of detection and alerting. In addition, having that auditability in place, as you mentioned, i think in florida, there was less than 100 ballots cast in 2018 on the systems, and a drive towards complete auditability is really critically important. To reach protect and recover from this. In our hearing witnesses stressed the importance of the interconnected systems and we heard any device that touches these must be safeguarded to the Device Security management centralized and i would like to hear from each of the witnesses what your organization is doing to help centralize and streamline the security process. We will start with you. Yes. So, essentially if the Systems Commission we are participating in the Government Coordinating Council. We consistently worked to put out best practices, but again sorted through our capacity moving beyond our statutory requirements is very limited as we have the world series coming to washington i would note that if we were a Major League Baseball player we would be the 173rd highest. We would be a middle reliever. We have no lack of ambition to take on these challenges and help, but we need the resources to do it. Appreciate the world series reference. Im going to answer a bit of analogy. We have a number of Department Components on the security. Weve got fbi agents in the field and headquarters, prosecutors in the field, public corruption prosecutors, National Security prosecutors, computer crime prosecutors. All of them potentially touch on this issue and so it is on us to train them so they are aware of each other in a coordinated and that is what we are doing this weekend at the end of the week rather the end of the month the fbi is putting together an all hands on meeting with agents around the country to train them including on how to react and relate to state officials when it comes to the notifications. Thank you for your question. I distrust the task force whose purpose was to be with you just asked to coordinate the efforts across the enterprise as it relates to Election Security. We have election crimes coordinators across all of the field offices whose primary goal is to interact with officials. Leading up to today of the election we have got our cyber task forces across all 56 of our field offices and we are working to increase our task forces as well. And the Foreign Influence Task force really is the hub brings all of the efforts together again leading up to, during and after. Thank you for the question, sir. Across the cybersecurity and researchers at the agency, over a third of our ambiguities in 2018 engaged in Security Work across the United States. We have field representatives protecting the security advise advisers. I appreciate the witnesses being here today. As the Intelligence Branch restrictive matter over the Intelligence Branch was one of our two operational branches in the ig about Hillary Clintons private server being hacked. Do you know why you were not included in that briefing . Until the fall of 2018 in the time frame i was in the Counterterrorism Division. So, you came into your current position after peter left. Yes, sir. Since the foreign influence headquarters component im concerned they ran to the biggesrented thebiggest cases is headquarters for special cases rather than the traditional way of running the cases in the field officers. As the Foreign Influence Task force running the cases from headquarters now . Knows her. Can you tell us why peter was their . Since there is such a deal about the influence peddling and 2016 and even the uk name after that that you woul he would be e bit concerned about the influence peddling when he was there, have you not looked into that at all in your current position . My focus is on the 2,020th elections and moving forward. The creation of the task force happened in the fall of 2017 way we are laser focused on those moving forward. The comment you dont think that there is anything to be learned from looking at what occurred in the 2016 election to help you prepare for whats going on and could go on in the 2020 election, really, you dont think theres anything to learn from history . There are always lessons to be learned and wha what we have learned in 2016 and i can speak strategically on the threat across the entire u. S. And the community. We are now better engage and collaborate far more on a daily basis and we are working with our social adf companies. All of it from 2018 to put the best practices forward as we move into 2020. Were you aware of dispatching to influence in 2016 . That wasnt my question. I didnt ask you that. I asked you did you know that is . Im not going to answer that question. I will be happy to go back and go into detail about the current investigations. You didnt say if you know a person. You are supposed to be telling us about 2020 and you cant even tell us about whether you know anything about people involved in 2016 if hurts the credibility when you cant do that. If you cannot even tell us about ukraine. I am very disturbed and concerned. First of all thank you to the panel for being here today and service to our country. Trusted the election election system is trust of democracy with cyberattacks time is of the essence. When Financial Institutions are attacked the militarys response within seconds is usually coordinated throughout the industry not institutions or individually but if not worldwide. Given the importance of american democracy i presume that now a lack of coordination among Government Agencies to be one of the Lessons Learned that we have a system in place now to coordinate that kind of information of a cyberattack. So a question to all of you. You are absolutely correct as it relates to cyberwe have an extremely Strategic Plan so simply put i will allow my colleagues to add on but that responses jointly look at the fbi is a threat response of the crime has been committed we will open an investigation dhs protects the vulnerability from cyberintrusion in and of itself. You open the investigation but the cyberattack happens within seconds. So how quickly or who is the leader how do you get that information out to your investigative agencies or the Defense Task Force instantaneously . You have that system in place quick. Yes. Following 2016 the top priority was to work with state and local officials to have protocols for exactly this reason. In 2016 dhs being new to not even know who to call. Now we have a point of contact and information sharing. You do have points of contact for each and every state quick. Yes. Now they know how to share information with us. The most likely people to repor report. Now individuals for each state who to talk to quick. Are we talking silos or is it a twoway street cracks you have folks at the state level that you trust to work with that you all share the information on a realtime basis quick. Absolutely. We have point of contact across all 50 states so they feel comfortable sharing that information and we can take not just respond to the individual incident but take that response distribute it broadly across the entire community so they can take defensive actions or look for possible compromises across the entire infrastructure thats the biggest area of improvement since 2016 the amount of information we are receiving from officials on a regular basis whether it is reporting for those detections. At the secretary of state of california calls you do you return the call immediately . How does that get channeled into the system or is it even a phone call quick sword you have a digital system where somebody types in the alert something is going on . A certain viruses detected so the rest of the country quick. Yes. He does have my number and calls me regularly. It is an incredibly engaged partner. That is correct a report to one is the report to all within the operations center. We have members of the fbi and Intelligence Community and election in for mary information sharing sitting on the floor as reporting comes in we can take that information and analyze it and support the victim but then begin the process to share broadly across the sector. Elections are not just about election day but that. In california it is three weeks. So how do you assure that whatever you detect three weeks out that you follow up one follow up on and is coordinated quick. Working for information sharing and Analysis Center if there are additional facts or jurisdictions, we can coordinate that and look for those trends and the information to connect. I have been through a number of elections i detected irregularities. So 2020 i walk doortodoor i see Something Weird who do i call or google your telephone number quick. Depending on the activity of private Public Sector individual. So from our perspective you can report any local election official who can remediate that. In addition we work with Voter Protection groups in 2018 and will in 2022 have points of contact on election day that there is reporting that indicates a trend we can reach out in coordination. I yield back. I recognized the vice chair of the committee once again thank you for beginning this hearing. Thank you chairman. On october 3rd the fbi issued an advisory to stay Election Officials the russian government would be using Voter Suppression tactics to interfere in the 2020 election. Can you give us any idea when the fbi learned about these or any gap in time when the threat was identified and the states were notified quick. Thank you for the question. I cannot speak in specifics about the reporting but as a rule with 2020 as with 2018 that is our goal across the entire Intelligence Community to report information as quickly as possible to the audience who needs to hear it taking into account the sensitivity of how that was collected. You talked about the Foreign Influence Task force formed in 2017 you described it was expanded after 2018 and a glowing list of foreign adversaries youre looking at. So can you tell us the number of people that make up that task force of that has grown from the present or if you need additional people or resources to do that job quick. Thank you for the question i will not get specifics with the individuals on the task force but our intentions that are the same for 2020 but what i will note those and are not the only individuals working on foreign influence given that nebulous nature on the investigative side on the house to counterterrorism as well their agents and analysts across all field offices who work foreign influence in investigations. Regarding resources we are happy to have more resources and can use more resources but they use everything they can right now to mitigate this serious threat. Is the reason you cant give us the numbers between 2017 because you dont have them or is there a security reason quick. No security reason but its hard to compare when we are only focused on russia with the expansion to include all global actors that participate its not necessarily a good one one comparison of where we have com come. You mention one aspect of the dojs efforts to disrupt operatives has stepped up enforcement of Foreign Agent registration act that are required to register with our government. So we know some of those would have a guilty plea by Michael Flynn and the convictions of the Trump Campaign manager Paul Manafort. Possible involvement of Mister Giuliani or possible violations are those the kind of things you are talking about quick. With respect to the last case those are Campaign Finance violations but i think the charges if they lead to a foreign location that kind of activity we would be alert to. At the moment the charges are Campaign Finance allegations. But stepping back if there are indications of a foreign principal covertly trying to influence politics whether a Campaign Finance or political activity we would be involved in. The one i really concerned about which is listed on doj is the Enforcement Actions with the 13 russian nationals who worked on behalf of the russian government to interfere in the 2016 election by manipulating social media to advocate for the Trump Campaign against the Clinton Campaign. Organizing political rallies like in pennsylvania where they literally took pictures of coal miners and slapped them on the rally pages and try to disrupt them in a particular direction. Does doj have the resources it needs to prosecute those malign actors as we approach the 2020 election quick. We do because we have used those resources to bring the case unfortunately the 2020 budget including those funding for the counterintelligence section which is devoted to foreign influence is also an addition to cyberthreat and other activities. What about before the 2020 election quirks because those came two years after the influence. As i said in the Opening Statement disrupting it is more important than getting somebody after the fact. We put a lot of thought into how people disrupt that if we will provide notification to Congress Based on those factors including to make sure the public is as educated as we can make them. My time is expired. Thank you mister chairman. The Senate Intelligence Committee Report of interference say that this Information Campaign isnt just one platform moves across various platforms with multiple companies there must be greater cooperation between the tech sector to address these issues. In fact we are taught facebook removed network as locals in the swing states attack former Vice President joe biden this is a threat we saw in 2016 and appears to be repeating as we approach 2020. The report that we referenced talks about collaboration among social media platforms to defend against this information. With violent extremist content. This is yes or no has your organizations created a task force to coordinate cooperation between government and the private sector as they did with violent extremist content quick. I will defer to my colleague at the fbi but yes with my team the Election Security initiative and the team that works regularly for social media tech sector on these issues. Thank you for the question so with a significant effort to increase engagement with the social Media Companies we meet almost on a monthly basis we try to create a relationship where we share with them actionable intelligence and they share with us information related to individuals have violated their terms of service. That was the primary strategy rolling into 2020. That they help coordinate all of that quick so they just cooperate with each other quick. It is within the task force that is our goal to coordinate with social Media Companies relating to influence. Making the 2019 report detailed including false Information Operations deep state technology and digital message attacks describe the impact of this type of threat to our elections and what dhs is doing regarding this informatio information. My team within the Election Security initiative working with state and local Election Officials to talk about ways to engage voters about this information around the election process officials see this regularly through social media or through the administration we want to work with them on a variety of products to help them engage the electorate on what to look for but how to empower themselves as voter to check their status to make sure its up to date they understand when and where and whats on the ballot and how the process works and understand who the trusted voices are there a local officials that have the information they need so they can go to the polls with confidence building on dad effort our team is focused on expanding that engagement with trusted voices whether mayors or governors or others how to identify this information and build resilience. I heard your test one testimony but you also said you wanted to raise public awarenes awareness. With 8800 jurisdictions, how are you really getting the word out with 8800 jurisdictions that have to be on the lookout clicks you talk across the country we think we are focused on a handful of states. So what are we doing that all 8800 election jurisdictions know how to detect on these issues quick. Thank you for the question. It is twofold. By building these relationships they reach the county so i mentioned in my testimony geared toward county Election Officials specific how to manage risk including how to talk to voters about the process and manage voters expectation. It isnt just the individual tabletops but we conduct National Level exercises in coordination with state Election Officials in participating over three days this year and next year a high level to talk to exactly what you said how the information is shared and how they get it back we have full awareness and can push broadly to understand the threat or ris risk. I yelled back. The gentleman from colorado. Thank you for holding this important and timely hearing also thank you to the witnesses for your service to our country. I must confess i am disappointed by some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who chose to use their time impeding the integrity of former government officials instead of talking today with these distinguished witnesses about the subject matter at hand which is protecting our public to ensure the integrity of our elections i understand each of you have a wide range of colleagues on that and i thank you for that. I reviewed the written testimony and you noted on page three that alluded to this in your verbal testimony social Media Companies deactivated those accounts that were linked to actors by dilation dialogue information so i take from that you have a robust relationship with the social Media Companies the fbi as a task force and other apparatus of doj. Yes sir. I very much appreciate the task force and the other entities are taking. Part of what is most disturbing for me is what you mentioned earlier that it is happening in realtime. Foreign actors are from that disInformation Campaign that they are engaged in utilizing those social media engines they change the way americans think and interact with each other and the way in which we view Public Policy issues. I am sure you are aware there was a report recently covered by cnn from the campaign that issued on october 21st 2019 russia accounts posing as americans targeted both sides ahead of the 2020 election are you familiar quick. In title only. Same answer. I asked this be submitted to the record. So facebook announced a take down a 50 instagram accounts posting about us social and political issues and they concluded it originated from russia and showed some links to the Internet Research agency that will farm the previously targeted the president ial election in 2016 these accounts act acting elizabeth warren, Kamala Harris almost half of those in swing states like florida so that is not dissimilar from what they did before focusing on the content that is posted was divisive serving to have hostility against other individuals those that were posted on both sides like Police Violence a topic addressed side with hashtags like Police Brutality and black lives matter and others that Blue Lives Matter and then go back and forth you are familiar with these i suspected these postings from before. Correct quick. Yes. Yes. So the question i have is clearly our Law Enforcement agencies are working very hard to combat this misinformation but it strikes me that the root cause of this information is the reality of anonymous accounts in the social media engines for go theres been a lot of discussion if universal verification as opposed to constantly be reactive working with the social Media Companies like facebook but instead we can get at the root cause and it would eliminate so much of this information and misinformation perpetrated to the American Public i would like to get your senses as to whether or not that is something your agencies have discussed internally or something you would recommend we pick up as a matter of discussion on the policy basis. I will agree the anonymity of the internet generally pros on poses a broad cybersecurity challenge. At office the number one reason why with respect to foreign influence, but it is a leading one and how you address that is very tricky. How you have verification or authenticity so you know who is actually sending you a message is who they claim to be. At the moment we are not in a position to propose legislation. What were trying to do is if someone is not who they claim to be then we will be tied to individuals to whom we are investigating. Also we are prosecuting entities in District Court right now but certainly we are hoping to impose consequences for activity related to 2016. Your time is expired. The gentle lady from georgia. Thank you mister chairman. Thank you for convening this hearing today. Thank you for being here. We would all agree this is the foundation of democracy. And protecting our ability and the voting infrastructure from foreign interference is paramount. In georgia we have learned before the 2016 election a russian agent visited the counties that i represent looking for vulnerabilities and while it appears the agent did not gain access to our system in 2016 we continue to face attacks two computers were stolen that had Sensitive Information that relates to every single the litter in georgia. So as we take on these threats i want to make sure we working to build collaboration for the state and the american people. I want to ask how we can increase this transparency while also improving Election Security. Im curious about your thoughts on whether states should be treated different than other victims of sharing victims identities it was reported the election system into florida counties were breached that the government did not identify which florida counties were breached. On one hand we want to encourage states to represent and talk about these vulnerabilities and report them to share this specific information publicly could discourage reporting but on the other hand we want the public to have confidence in the election system and the transparency of our process. So indeed you testified that exposure of foreign influence operations ultimately may be one of the best ways to counter the them. Can you speak to how you think the federal government should navigate disclosing information in the Election Security context quick. I appreciate your nuanced treatment because it does implicate competing values. As vice chair said once she gave her Opening Statement, we want to encourage and guard the trust of the states so theyre willing to call the fbi and not worry we will release their identities publicly. Also core principles. Number one it is a matter for state officials to decide when they disclose to their public what the threats to their infrastructure have been. We will leave it to florida officials to communicate with the voters in that state or any other we worked with the fbi and we will leave it to that state. But the second key principle ultimately stay level officials are accountable to certify the results of the election so currently it is reviewing guidance on how to handle notification in the context of elections to be accountable to the state election official so that they are aware of what the fbi is doing at a more local level. Very briefly i would like to hear from you and if more transparency is needed. I will speak to the very briefly reestablished communication protocols on how information will be reported to empower them to speak to activity targeting their systems and most important need to be transparent of those indicators in the unclassified environment about what threats are targeting election system so not only to take those defensive measures but talk to voters about the threat being real to secure the process that voters know they take it seriously. So this is critical as voters have the ability to engage directly with those who have their questions answered they can be poll workers and watch the testing so how can we empower those officials with that information to talk directly to the voters and respond quick. Just one thing in addition to the colleagues on the panel when it comes to being transparent one of the benefits to share as quickly as possible for whoever needs to receive that information is not a decision the fbi can make unilaterally including individuals outside but rest assured it is a strategy to share that intelligence with those who need to receive it. Thank you for being here with the important work you are doing to protect our election we take this very seriously and you do too so we have the department of Homeland Security and fbi and department of justice in the old Election Commission you are so important on the frontline we are here to partner with you. Starting quickly to ms. Florez on october 8 the Senate Intelligence committee publish the second volume of russias interference in the 2016 elections in the us governments response to that attack it concluded october 2017 the Counterintelligence Division had an outside contractor to identify russian influence activity on twitter that fbi either lacked resources without consideration this is concerning do you believe you have enough resources to investigate and protect our elections quick. Thank you for that question we could always use more resources now we throw everything we have against the foreign and through and influence threat we continue to engage with all field offices that they are as closely. Are you using outside contractors or are you moving away from that with Election Security quick. I cannot speak specifically within the workforce or how specifically are working on the foreign influence threat. We would love that information if you could share that with us can you tell us if youve ever used in inside contractor from iran or china cracks do you know quick. I will defer that question to human resources. Do you have adequate resources and you use outside contractors quick. Thank you man we have the resources we need to build on the success to support state and local Election Officials with more resources comes greater capacity with dad ability to increase support to build on remote Penetration Testing but we have to build on the success also to go to human resources. I would say the Election Commission absolutely does not have the resources we need i would also echo that the fy 18,380,000,000dollar that went to the state did not provide the funding level to solve all the challenges but as i mentioned earlier we have seen people prioritize from a menu of options there are number of things state and local officials could do and that is crucial to help them do that. We would love that information to me briefly that budget would increase funding from the counterintelligence section to malign foreign inter flute one influence. I dont think those contractor specifically for this area of work and they are vetted but i will say choosing contractors is a judgment air with Technical Expertise so we bring them on board for specific experience. Russia china iran . Leave that them and they have to be screened for security clearance for quite a know their nationalities but i know they are vetted. But the president fiscal year 2020 Budget Proposal this is especially troubling with each of you and Robert Mueller and the others is a threat that is systematic i will and on this question i wanted to follow up that you talk about this information can you be specific of a concrete example of what this look like and how voters were just informed quick. Leading into the 2016 election i cannot speak in specifics right now but i can take that question back. Thank you very much. The gentle lady from texas. Many thanks to our witnesses we appreciate your presence today and your work. I am so very concerned and the public should be concerned about our elections of 2020. Three years ago russia was wildly successful in attacking our democracy by attacking our elections. Despite the information we have and despite the unified voice from the Intelligence Community we have a president who was cutting resources to Election Security. And it is stunning to me the president of the United States would be willing to erode Election Security instead of fighting to keep it safe. The machines are still outdated. Many vulnerabilities remain today so we should all be very concerned. I hope you will continue your work to confront those obstacles ahead of you to inform the American Public and with that said we know special counsel muellers indictment against entities noted that one of the ways interfered with the 2016 election was by encouraging minority voters not to participate it was found africanamerican turnout dropped by 20 percent despite the fact we had record turnout in the country. The report details the strategies russia used to target the Africanamerican Community and discourage them from voting. So for each one of you what steps are you taking to combat interference to discourage minority groups from voting and are they sufficient quick. With the influence task force is building resilience where that trusted source of information is in that process. We have created a variety of products in working with various communities and groups reaching out to the naacp to provide those resources to recognize they can talk to their members about how they are targeted with this information and how to respond to this whole concept of literacy with the American Public we cannot stress enough to understand when and how to vote. Your foe matters that its up to you to have that literacy and where you obtain that information. I will hit on that engagement to share those threat indicators and to continue that dialogue as we roll into 2020. Part of what the Justice Department does is help them investigate. So they are there to have that process to investigate what foreign actors are doing that information can be what is shared with the providers to confront the information you are suggesting. When it talks about the election process or the issues or how to participate that is where it would fall and in doing that we are working with state and locals to encourage their citizens to participate to identify trusted sources of information to check Voter Registration to make sure its updated and accurate and that is where our focus has been. I have two followup questions you mention working with social Media Outlets on spreading the threat of disinformation. Sometimes we have american candidates repeating this provided by russia. Do you alert social media about that disinformation coming from candidates . And what specific steps did you take to identify if there were foreign efforts to discourage minority voters quick. I will address the first question the fbi cannot be the truth police that is not true or false information is propagated that for an aspect to the fbi that is what we provide to social media providers to determine whether or not that content violates their own terms of service. If we saw that same activity certainly not at the same level and that success of the inter agency collaboration. I yield back. The gentle lady yields back. Thank you for being here today. February 2019 issuing a joint statement that there was no evidence to date that any identified activities of agents have a Material Impact on the 2018 election. Your agencies reached this conclusion because the Intelligence Community did not detect the threat. Correct quick. I think that is more or less that it was a twostep process to gather reports and then we evaluate that Material Impact. But that Intelligence Community did not detect a threat thats why you issued the proclamation that was to date of any Foreign Government had a Material Impact on the election. State and local officials also did not detect a threat. Isnt that correct quick. Actually i think they did gather a report of the purpose of interfering dish interfering. It wasnt detected it was successful. That is my understanding. Now you have concluded also that they did not detect a threat. Correct quick. Sensors across the country regularly detect possible malicious activity against infrastructure. None was detected in 2018. Im not aware of any foreign adversary gaining access to election infrastructure. Isnt it possible they could have access to change the database without being detected in 2018 . Is a possible . Yes or no quick. We have no information that it could. Fair enough. Your testimony is 8000 local jurisdictions many of those used direct recording and electronic Voting Machines in 2016 president ial elections and also 2018 investigating interference after that how many tens of thousands of electronic Voting Machines used in that election were subjected to a Forensic Audit by any federal agency . I am not aware of Forensic Audit one audits performed. Any other testing or analysis on electronic Voting Machines used in the 2018 elections . I would say as far as the Election Commission goes. Are you aware of any agencies that have any analysis with those electronic Voting Machines the 2018 or 2016 elections . We have not been asked its not our role to audit state certify the accuracy. That simply has the federal government used its resources of any Voting Machines in 2016 or 2018 . And it appears the answer is no what anybody disagree. That is my guess. I am concerned about the 2020 election considering the Voting Machines it has come to light in the past three years and i would like to hear from those representative agencies with their Response Plan should they be successfully hacked in 2020. What would be the federal response to a successful hacking in 2020 quick. The time is expired you may answer the question. I will keep it short but dhs is prepared to offer Response Services including deployment of the locality or the state to conduct analysis to mitigate the impacts of the possible cyberintrusion. In addition we have numerous analysis capabilities remotely to provide to help determine if there is an intrusion. So the fbi would work in concert if there was the intrusion detected to make sure we can determine attribution. We try to prevent that we try to help them to batten down those hatches before it was successful. With 380 million and other resources the number of paperless machines has decrease substantially over 90 percent of americans will vote with some type of paper audit trail. Thank you mister chairman and coming here this morning to such an important hearing and has been confirmed that they confirm russia interfered in a sweeping and systematic fashion we have heard from several witnesses they are engaging in interference as we speak. The chairman may have asked of this previously but do you think its appropriate for a sitting president or any elected official for that matter to ask a Foreign Government to interfere in our elections . No. You dont like the word appropriate that i will say we would urge anyone who is indications of such interference to come to the fbi and work with us we can investigate those allegations. We are certainly invest on interested in any activity relating to foreign influence. During the 2016 election my single state with hacked to be targeted by the Voter Registration system and they were able to successfully hack into the systems of two different counties a security briefing from the fbi and others on that issue. One of the things i asked if they could say with certainty they manipulated the data and i was told that they could not but you cannot say with certainty that they have not manipulated the data can you confirm that with me again. I wasnt at the closed briefing i dont know what is classified or unclassified information but i do know we have said we have no indication to believe there was a Material Impact on the ability to vote. I think it is the data. I would echo what my colleague said. I have no reason to doubt what was brought up. There is a group now working with officials to secure our elections call the Election Infrastructure Coordinating Council to improve Security Working with local and state Election Officials to respond to threats quickly. s florida part of that counsel quick. Yes. Has two representatives that can work with us. Can you briefly describe that quick. That growth and engagement of the establishment has been great with 24 state and local members that represent the communitys secretaries of state local officials from across the country. The purpose is to inform the approach to help them to secure elections. Their view of risk what information sharing would best help them manage that risk and how do we that they feel comfortable sharing with us. The directors specified the president still had not received a briefing on russia interference in the 2020 election. Yes or no . Are you aware briefing the president and the 2020 election quick. Im not aware but that does not mean it hasnt happened. That is above my level but we engage regularly across all government on the Election Security work. You know if your agency has tried to meet with the president on Election Security quick. I dont know but that does not mean it hasnt happened. Would it be important for the president to understand the threat before he allocates resources on Election Security quick. The work we have done has provided to coordinate that so i assume as part of the coordination with us. County times have you met to discuss Election Security. I cannot answer that specifically that doesnt mean it hasnt happened i just dont know personally. Same answer. Is it important to discuss this. I think its important for the president to understand the National Security threat facing the country. Its important for everyone and to understand especially as it relates to Election Security. Including todays hearing we think the witnesses for participating their five additional days to submit written questions or additional materials for the record the hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] inaudible conversations] cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up this morning, well preview the week ahead with washington. Role call staff writer and a discussion on Election Security in the u. S. With david becker of the centerbe sure to watch css washington journal, live at 7 00 eastern this morning. Join the discussion. Tuesday, the Senate Commerce science and Transportation Committee hearing examining the boeing 737 max 8, following two international accidents last year, testifying before the committee is dennis muilenburg, and the Vice President and chief engineer, john hamilton. Watch tuesday live at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan 3, online at cspan. Org, or listen wherever you are live with the cspan free radio app. Announcer senior representative john conyers can be the longestserving acting member of , has died at the age of 90. Having begun his tenure during the johnson administration. Committee chair, Judiciary Committee chair, and team at the house, he served until december of 2017, when he resigned amid scandals. Represented he last , michigans 13th, which covers parts of west detroit come is now represented by democratic rashida to lead rashida tlaib. [music plays] susan chris arnade, i wanted to put the cover of your new book, dignity, on the screen. Explain its essence to me. Chris ok,