Of sorts. I think that gives you a sense of the scope of what we need to do here. Hello. Hows everybody today . Thank you for being here. Its a busy day around the country. Mark and i recognize the tragedy of nevada this week and at this point im glad to say it doesnt seem to have a terrorism nexus. Thats not always the outcome but are howards and prayers go out to all those individuals who are affected both directly and indirectly and i can assure you that from an Intelligence Committee standpoint and the agencies theyre providing as many assets the local Law Enforcement and to those people that are tasked with the investigations of this unbelievable act. So we are here to update you about, you and the American People about the investigation into russias meddling in the 2016 election. When we started this investigation on threejanuary of this year, we had a clear focus. We were focused on an evaluation of the ica, the Intelligence Community assessment of russias involvement in our election. Additionally the investigation was to look into any collusion by either campaign during the 2016 election. The third piece was an assessment of the ongoing russian active measures including information and influence campaigns that may still exist and may be ongoing. The investigation started with those three buckets of interest. Now we are over 100 interviews later which translates to 250 hours of interviews. The almost 4000 pages of transcript almost 100,000 pages of documents reviewed by our staff and some by members. It includes any classified intelligence reporting and includes emails, Campaign Documents and technical cyber analysis projects. The committee has held 11 open hearings this calendar year that have touched on russias interference in us elections. I can say that our dedicated russia investigative staff have literally worked six to seven hours a day since 23 january to get us to the point we are today. 67 days a week, excuse me. So far in the interview process, we have interviewed everybody who had a hand or a voice in the creation of the Intelligence Community assessment. We have spent nine times the amount of time that the community spent during the ica reviewer reviewing the ica on all the supporting documents that went in it but in addition to that the thing that were thrown on the cutting room floor that they might not have found appropriate for the ica itself but we may have found of relevance to our investigation. We have interviewed every official of the Obama Administration to fully understand what they saw, what clarity and transit currency they had intorussian involvement and more importantly what they did or did not do and what drove those actions. We are reminded we will come out with a finding at some point and part of that hopefully will be recommendations as to changes we need to make so we tried to think as thoroughly through this as we can. We have interviewed literally individuals from around the world. So for those of you that choose to stay out when the next witness is coming, there are some that have snuck through because you dont know who they are. Now, id like to say that the inquiry has expanded slightly. Initial interviews and document reviews generated hundreds of additional requests on our part for information. It identified many leads that expanded our initial inquiry. The volume of work done by the staff has prepared the committee. To look at some areas for our investigation. That we hope will very soon reach some definite conclusion but we are not there yet, we are not ready to close them. One of those areas is the ica itself. Given that we have interviewed everybody who had a hand in the ica, i think there is a general consensus among members and staff that from we trust the conclusions of the ica. We dont close or consideration of it. And in the unlikely point that we find Additional Information through the completion of our investigation. The Obama Administrations response to russian interference as i said, we have interviewed every person within the administration. They have volunteered and they have been unbelievably cooperative to come in and share everything they knew and in most cases were interviewed were over two hours. The meeting at the mayflower. Let me be specific, these are not issues that are closed. We have not come to any final conclusions. We have interviewed seven individuals that attended the mayflower event. The testimony from all seven were consistent with each other. But we understand that with the current investigation open, there may be Additional Information we find that pulling that thread may give us additional insight that we dont see today. Pages to the Platform Committee and again on addressing some things that have been written by you in this room and they may not have been on our charts but we felt that we had to dig deeply into them. We have, the Committee Staff has interviewed every person involved in the drafting of the campaign platform. Campaign staff was attempting to implement what they believed to be guidance to be strong, to be a strong ally in the ukraine but also leave the door open for better relations with russia. Im giving you the feedback we got from individuals who were in the room making the decisions. Not close but open for the continuation. The last one i want to cover is the cold meat memo. This topic has been hotly debated. And the committee has been satisfied that are involved with this issue has reached a logical end. As it relates to the russia investigation. Now again, this is not something that weve closed. But we have exhausted every person that we can talk to to get information thats pertinent to us relative to a russia investigation. Questions that you might have surrounding his firing are better answered by the general counsel or by the justice department. Not the select committee on intelligence in the United States. There are concerns that we continue to pursue. Collusion, the committee continues to look into all evidence to see if there was any hint of collusion. Im not going to even discuss initial findings because we havent any. We got a tremendous amount of documents still to go through and it just to put in perspective i said we got a 100 interviews, over 250 hours. We currently have booked for the balance of this month 25 additional. That may not end up being the total but as of today, there are 25 individuals booked to meet with our staff before the end of this month alone. Pertaining to the russian investigation. We have more work to do as it relates to collusion but we are developing a clearer picture of what happened. What i will confirm is that the Russian Intelligence Service is determined, clever and i recommend that every campaign and every election official take this very seriously as we move into novembers election and as we move into preparation for the 2018 election. Im going to ask the vice chairman to cover the other areas we are in the process of pursuing. I want to say again, im very proud of this committee. Im proud of the way the committee has acted, im proud of our staff and the amount of work theyve done. I know the chairman and i see many of you daily in the hallway. And i know this feels like its taking a long time, it is taking a long time. Getting it right, getting all the facts is what we demand from people. Weve seen for example, stories that emerged in the late summer around mister trump juniors meeting and the possibility of a trump power moscow. We want to find a way to close things down but we still see strains and threads that we need to continue to pursue. I want to talk, touch on two subjects. The first is what richards already said. The russian active measures did not end on election day 2016. They were not only geared the United States of america. Weve seen russian active measures take place in france, weve seen concerns raised in the netherlands. Weve seen concerns raised in germany. And we need to be on guard. One of the things that is particularly troubling is the fact that its become evident that 21 states Electoral Systems were not all penetrated but there was at least, there was at least time to open the door and these 21 states. Has been very disappointing to me and i believe the chairman as well that it took 11 months for the department of Homeland Security to reveal those 21 states. And i dont know exactly why last friday was the date they chose to reveal that information. I still believe there needs to be a more aggressive hold government approach in terms of stepping our electoral system. Remember, to make a change Even International election doesnt require penetration into 50 states, arguably. The states could be, you could pick two or three states in two or three jurisdictions and alter an election. And i believe in statewide finding where virginia and new jersey and in 34 days, we have elections and im glad to see dhs has said they are going to up their game and particularly those states with elections that are happening this year. But we need to make sure that there is a organized hold government approach. In virginia for example even before we discovered we were one of the 21 states, i think the state electoral board in an abundance of caution decertified one set of machines, touch screens that didnt have a paper ballot or a paper trail. One of the things we wanted to emphasize this briefing is that this is an ongoing concern and that the states dont proactively move forward, very shortly we will be getting into binary seasons early on in 2018 and this is an ongoing challenge and i point outeven after last week , in texas and california, they still have some lack of clarity about whether the appropriate individuals were notified. I also want to raise an issue that the chairman and i have been working jointly on as well and that is the russians use of social media platforms. Social media platforms have been increasingly thevast majority of us turn to for information for news , in a way that is very different. If you lookfor example at the realm of political advertising , weve seen an over 700 percent increase. In the use of digital political advertising between 2012 and 2016. The expectation is that may double or triple again. In terms of the next election cycle because of the ability to target voters. I was concerned at first at baby social Media Platform Company did not take this threat seriously enough. I believe they are recognizing that threat. Now, they provided us with information. We think its important that the monies that weve invited, google, twitter and facebook will appear in a public hearing so that americans can again here about how we are going to protect what are you free areas, one,making sure that if you see an ad , appears on a social media site and americans can know where the source of that and was generated by foreign entities. Two, make sure that if you see a story that is trending, between becoming more popular, whatever that trending is because a series of americans are liking that story or liking that particular page , but generated by real individuals or whether thats generated by box or in some cases it may be a false identity, falsely identified accounts for example, facebook has gone between 30,000 such accounts were taken down in france. Due to russian interference. And third, just emotion that both of us have been in politics a long time. If you have any running an ad against you, you want to be able to take at least a look at content the same way that it adds were run on tv, radio or newsprint, you can at least get a look at that content. Its an ongoing process that we are seeing increasing levels of cooperation and with that i will turn it back to the chairman. Many of you have asked us if we are going to release facebook ads. We dont release documents provided to our committee, period. The senate Intelligence Committee does not release documents provided by witnesses, companies, whatever the classification. Its not a practice we are going to get into. Really if any of the social media platforms would like to do that, we are fine with them doing it. Weve already got scheduled for an open hearing because we believe the American People deserve to hear firsthand and just to remind people on october 25 we will have another open hearing, number 12. On november 1 we have invited the social Media Companies that mark mentioned to be our guests at an open hearing and we feel confident they will take us up on it. As it relates to the dossier, unfortunately the committee has hit a wall. We have on several occasions made attempts to contact mister steele, meet with mister steele to include personally the vicechairman and myself as to individuals making that connection. Those offers have gone unaccepted. The committee cannot really decide the credibility of the dossier without understanding things like who paid for it. Who your sources and some sources are. We are investigating a very expensive Russian Network of interference in us elections and though we have been incredibly enlightened our ability to rebuild backwards, the steel dossier up to a certain date, getting past that point has been somewhat impossible. And i say this goes i dont think we are going to find the intelligence product that will unlock that key through june 2016. My hope is that mister steele will make a decision to meet with either mark and i or the committee or both so that we can hear his side of the verses for us that depict in our findings what his intent or what his actions were. And i say that to you but i also say it to chris steele. Potential witnesses that we might ask to come in in the future. I strongly suggest you come in and us. If we believe that you have something valuable to bring to the committee, if you dont voluntarily do it, i assure you you will be compelled to do it. I can compel you to come, i cant compel you to talk but that will be done in a very public way if you turn down the private offer. The committee has proven to be balanced, professional and willing to listen to everybody. Let me say in closing, those following our investigation in the press, i want you to know that you only see glimpses of the amount of work the committee has done. We are doing much of our work behind closed doors to ensure the privacy and protection of witnesses and sensitive sources and methods. Its become increasingly clear that the committee has stayed focused on building the foundation to be able to finish our investigation thoroughly and in an accountable way. Im confident today that when we started with, we chose wisely by choosing our professional staff to do this investigation and not to the talking heads around the country that suggested we could dothis unless we hired a whole new group. I think the numbers here reflect that. Ultimately, we look forward to completing our work and presenting our findings to the public. I cant set a date as to when that will be, mark cant set a date as to when that will be. We will share with you when weve exhausted every thread of intelligence, every potential witness can contribute anything to those, i dont by any stretch of the imagination tell you that theres been a value to everybody. But if we had met with them, then you would have questioned us as to why we didnt. The truth is nobody in this room mark and i might be included, none of us in this room may know everybody weve met. We are not going to share who we interview. We are not going to share what we ask and we are certainly not going to share what they tell us. Were not going to share the documents we got but when you receive 100,000 documents plus, a large group of that coming from the company, when you look at the countries most sensitive intelligence products, let me assure you we are going to get the best view of what happened anybody could possibly get. At the end of this process we will be sure we present to the American People our findings as best we have been able to accumulate so with that i would be happy to open it upto questions. Between these russian facebook with the campaign. We havent even had our hearing with any of the social media platforms. If you look from 10,000 feet, the subject matter of the ads was things that have been to create chaos in every group they could find in america. From sampling any involvement, let us have the opportunity to ask these folks the questions and in many cases, they didnt even take advantage of what some of the most technical targeting tools that exist within those social Media Companies so i would defer answering your question until we completed the investigation. I believe and i think you will see that there will be more forensics done. Again, when we look at scale and the United States, facebook in terms of what happened, i think theyve got more work to do and i think they are out doing that work now. The president said repeatedly. [inaudible] youve interviewed all these people. Im going to let you guys quote the president and asking questions about what he said, its not going to be the committee. You have any evidence that suggests the president knew about any of these contacts with associates and russia . Ill go back and say what i was pretty clear that the issue of collusion is still open. That we continue to investigate those intelligence and witnesses. And that were not in a position where we would come to anybody for a temporary finding on that until we have crossexamined. Are you pursuing the question of whether there is a link between the ads that appeared on social media sites and the Trump Campaign . Let me say that i let mark address if youd like to. If there was any connection, that would be perfect for an investigation of russias influence in the elections. We have had incredible access to cooperation by both social Media Companies that have been in. Some of them have been interviewed twice. At the end of the day, we will be compared to ask the right questions that may answersome of your questions. We have to get the universe first, i was concerned on the funding but first ask you theres not a thorough enough pass. I tried to be, the only ads that were produced, obviously there are various forms of payment so i think the companies are increasingly understanding that their actions need to match their public statements and if they realize how important it is as they realize the integrity of our process. I think of the end of the day its important that the public see these. You talk about the level of cooperation with the Obama Administration officials. Can you characterize the level of cooperation from the Trump Campaign officials and those of the Trump Organization . Coming from the Trump Campaign official that we have asked the command that has not come in. There are some individuals that may have been involved in the Trump Campaign that to this point we might have limited the scope of our questions. But with the full intent of them coming back when we were a little bit more intelligence threads. Do you find that they been able . I dont think, i think our interviews to this point, outside of the time specific areas that we knew exactly what the universe wanted to talk to, we knew what we were trying to find out but we are in an exploratory mode trying to piece together what people did, where they were, who they talk to. In most cases we have access to email records, text messages, phonerecords, voluntarily. Usually when you get Something Like this voluntarily, somebodys going to tell you the truth. But the reason that we cant definitively answer some of your questions today is we will take everything that our staff has put into the transcripts and we will test back against every piece of intelligence and other interviews that weve done. To suggest that weve done that to everybody thoroughly would be misleading. Let us go through that process but i will assure you that if somebody has come in and ive been through the books , we will catch them on that and they will come back and that will be the subject of great intensity. Based on the work done so far, whats your assessment with what the russians did do in 2000 16 and what they are doing now. I would just say, i think theres a large consensus that they into political files. Released those files. And then in an effort to release the in election. We think they actively tried to at least test the vulnerabilities of 21 states Electoral Systems. And we feel that they used social media firms both in terms of paid advertising and what i believe is more problematic , created false accounts in others that would drive interest in port stories or groups and generally the stories or groups to sow chaos and drive division. And i think its a pattern that they used in america, they have used in other nations around the world and i fear sometimes if you add up all the extents that was a decent rate of return. Let me add to it if i can. We can certifiably say that no vote totals were affected, that the tallies areaccurate, the outcome of the election based on the count of votes , they did not in any way shape or form that weve been able to find alter that. Once i want to reiterate something mark said. You cant walk away from this and believe that russia is not currently active in trying to create chaos in our election process. I assume that the same antics that we saw in montenegro and in france and in belgium and in the United States will continue to be tested within our structure of the election process. Pivoting off that point, you just noted that facebook, they say 10 Million People saw their ads, there were Information Campaign weeks to get one candidate by the russians, and of course may through 21 states to catch. So can you definitively look at the American Public and the say that the election was not influenced in any way by this massive russian operation . Let me alter the premise of your question. Neither mark or i said there was a campaign targeted against one. We are looking at both campaigns. Thats what the idea is. The ica did not look at collusion of the campaign, the ica look at russian, let me finish. Russian involvement in the election process, we are in agreement with that. We have not come to any determination on collusion or russias preferences. If we use, solely social Media Advertising that we have seen, theres no way that you can look at that and say that that was the right side of the ideological chart and not the left. Or vice versa. There were indiscriminate. One of the things thats most challenging to this investigation is with the exception of certain pieces that have already been assessed, it seems that overall theme of the russian involvement in the us elections is to create chaos at every level. And i would tell you the fact that we sit here nine months later investigating it, they have been ready successful. How would you rate the administration and the countrys response to this in terms of presenting Something Like this from happening in the future and how ready are we were preventing an election in 2018, whats to be done . I will let mark address that. Let me say this, our role is not to necessarily suggest here are the things we need to do. Our investigation to create a roadmap for committees of the proper jurisdiction to follow. For states to follow, mark and i made a decision to create the initiative in our authorization bill that we require in our authorization bill that there be a designated person in every state who has a security clearance to debrief on electionissues. But we can say secretary of state , thats not the case in every state but we felt compelled with what we had learned to make sure that just the fact that somebody wasnt cleared at a high enough level , to put estate out there not being notified so weve made some steps in the right direction as we see those things that we think its appropriate for us to do, we will do that. If we see that is not appropriate for us to do, we will hopefully invade that in a way that presents a roadmap. The administration is paying close enough attention. I appreciate what you just said. I think youre putting this in our in trouble, yes, it seems very strange to me that somehow there was an excuse that you cant sell an election official because you should have a higher clearance. Im glad to see as of last friday the dhs has changed that position. I believe we needmore and this , i would say that, this administration or any administration , a whole of government approach about protecting our electoral system but we need a whole government approach for that matter in a whole site Society Approach in terms of our cyber vulnerabilities across the board. Youve heard in hearing where there was uniform in consensus that the facts breached may be in the hands of elements that there wasnt appropriate cyberprotection there so this is , its why i characterized some of this as the wild wild west. We all need to step up the game. At the russian lawyer on the drop. You think this report needs to be designed and your conclusion needs to happen before the 2018 election in order to warn people about what and where do you think the most work needs to be done . I wont set an artificial deadline but mark and i, weve got to make our fax as precise with regard to russias involvement in our election potent prior to the primaries Getting Started in 2018 which means sometime the first of the year. Its still my aspirational goal in the entire investigation this calendar year but when we started nine months ago, i saw three intimate, i talked about the cybersex so i had a dream that what it would expand to and i cant predict what they are going to share with us that might lead us in a different direction. One of the things again is were going to follow the facts. And we want to do it positively, we want to do it right. Shes offered to come in open committee and have you reached out to her, issue one of the 2500 list . [inaudible] is there any progress on creating legislation for new rules to regulate how advertising works in these platforms . I know that you had said after klobuchar. Senator klobuchar and i are working and that would be the latest touch on making sure that foreign aid for advertising doesnt penetrate our political system and that there was an ability to at least look at the content with regards to political campaigns the same way that the aggressive media already have. I want to make sure we are hoping to finish that draft in the coming days. I assure you that one of the first people i want to share that with is my chairman cause this to be an area where it would be led by consensus. I hope at least from some of the comments of the companies is that ive heard at least that they are open to that type of disclosure. Let me state today is illegal for foreign money to find its way into us elections so its not like weve got to rewrite some laws. I want to get clarification, so far you have not been able to verify the Intelligence Community assessments that russia was weighing in on the side of trump . Weve been very confident that the icas accuracy is going to be supported by our committee. We are not willing to close the issue given the nature of the rest of in the investigation that we might get a threat of intelligence that suggests possibly on the area of the ica that our interpretation is different so we are leaving it open, its not closed and i think any smart investigation would stay open. Im trying to be very careful here, but richard mentioned in some of these meetings, we also had to talk to all of them the balance of many. We are being extra cautious here, that we are not reaching final conclusions until weve had conversations with them. With that effort be recorded in the midland. [inaudible] that it could lead to interfering in the results of the election . Thats a very theory people are working under. I only know that one person one and thats how its going to stay. Will there be any coordination on what the Senate Judiciary committee. [inaudible] we are focused on our investigation,everybody has their jurisdictional lanes. I hope is a stay within those lanes. I wont say regularly but when you are with the special council and the council was focused on criminal acts, you are not focused on criminal acts and if you find one they are the first. The president was in the country but he hasnt really been out other than to call it, do you want to be part of any efforts to seek out. [inaudible] i think of my chairman alluded to the fact that the ball was slow getting dhs to recognize this. It didnt take us as long to get to the last administration to run the clock on it. So we are not trying to look back and point to things that were done wrong. Everybodys done things wrong. Should the president now based on what you said today lead some kind of formal effort to. Im not asking the president to take the briefing that we did at a press briefing about progress and assume that that in any way shape or form fully encapsulates what our final report will say but what i will say is what the vice chairman pointed out, that the department of Homeland Security is taking a different posture. This administration, im sure they have his direction or his leadership direction. We are pleased with the progress that they make. Some of the things that hopefully we will be able to point out will be important steps be incorporated in their thought process moving forward. Thank you guys. [inaudible conversation] cspan washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues impact you. Coming up thursday morning live in right for kentucky for the first on the trendline must capital store kentucky secretary of state Allison Wonderland grimes will be our guest, discussing their state budget issues and the security of voting systems. The sure to watch cspans washington journal why have seven eastern thursday morning. Join the discussion. Thursday, former equifax chair Richard Smith is on capitol hill for a third day to testify before the highs House Financial Services of any about the company data breach. Wide coverage begins at 9 15 a. M. Eastern on cspan3, online cspan. Org or on the free cspan radio. It became clear that my impression of breitbart as having an outside influence on the 2016 election was an understatement in the extreme but that in fact according to research, breitbart was the driving force on the right side of the political spectrum. Sunday night on q and a, New York Times magazine contributing writer will often talked about his feature story down the breitbart hole. This is really what gets to the disparity between the way i always heard people talk about and continue to hear talk about breitbart as this historical, shoddy machine for creating offense. And its much more sort of an anodyne reality of a News Organization that comes on a daytoday basis. Sunday at eight eastern on cspans q a. Secretary of state Rex Tillerson draws media reports that he considered leaving his post and was advised by president pentz to stay on. His remarks from the treaty room at the state department are about 10 minutes. Good morning. There are some news reports this morning that i want to address. First, my