[inaudible conversations] [cheers and applause]. Good afternoon. The center of American Progress. Robert mueller will appear tomorrow before members of llngress to detail how the government worked to sabotage the 2016 election and donald trump andd his allies to aid and abet and coverup the operation at every turn. The president has lied over and over again and tomorrow the American People with the special counsel. This time around they will be contained within the margins of the legal documents. This time around we hear directly from himself that is utterly damning. Mueller described at least 37 meeting 272 contacts in total like the Trump Campaign that to the highest echelon of the Trump Campaign and through the inner circle including donald trump junior. Campaign manager Paul Manafort chaired internal polling and political strategies with the russian agent. And with that assault and integrity of our democracy. Yet not a Single Member of the trumpe campaign reported their interactions to the fbi instead publicly and enthusiastically encouraged those to intensify their attacks. Since the election the president has tried to derail the extensive and pervasive and ongoing relationship with russia. Fortunately the Progressive Community ison relentless to uncover the truth. After Trump Took Office the center for American Progress watched launched an initiative called the moscow project with Critical Research to track the full extent of the president s many contacts with russia. It has also deconstructed every aspect with elected officials and members of the media and the American Public and even launched a podcast outh the apple top 100 charts. Proud of everything they have accomplished in the moscow project will pursue its mission is finally fully realized and will become clearer than ever before the Mueller Report is not the end of the investigation only signaling the beginning of the next phase. Now to hold donald trump accountable and today we will hear from one of the leaders at the forefront of this effort congressmen shift. And the working to safeguard the interest of america and ourri allies. And then to expand also a former federal prosecutor serving as chairman of the house intelligenceen committee to host a special counsel during tomorrows hearings to be so grateful that the congressman can make time to join us this afternoon just a few hours before what promises to be a truly pivotalal moment in american history. And now i have the pleasure to turn over to the moscow project. Please help me to welcome both of them to theel stage. [applause] thank you for coming. Considering what takes place tomorrow but to start my questioning what that question that you asked yourself in 2017, that was the day of the first House Intelligence Committee hearing and announcing that there was indeed an fbime investigation with the ties to russia. To give a very prescient Opening Statement in which you outline of what we knew at the time on march 20th. So is it possible that all of these events and reports are completely unrelated and you said yes. And not disconnected to use the same techniques for those to be employed in europe and elsewhere we simply do not know k yet is this just a random coincidence. And that the Trump Campaign at the highest level to get that help then to set up a secret meeting that is what we would later learn on the Campaign Chairman that was giving the polling data for the russian states at the same time they were engaged a social Media Campaign i would not pose those questions but obviously we know a lot more now and is not the least bit coincidental and with that seriousness what the Trump Campaign did by lying about and obstructing into that that if they learned about this in drips and drabs and you can imagine but instead they come out discreetly so when the report came out we already knew about that. And how does that relate back to the other facts . But yes. And it seems very innocent for xhosa talk about the russia interference effort. And then they did interfere in this election. And to have a distinct russian Political Campaign with that digital operation was roughly the same size as a Digital Campaign operation. With this was a problem Going Forward into 2020 . So not everybody accepts that. When he met with Vladimir Putin he denied it of course and the president said we are united strongly and made the intelligence agencies did. And then to call this a hoax. And with this conspiracy hoax. And that it intervened the hoax. And then like a fat guy sitting on his bed. And then in terms of the actual impact that that social Medial Campaign for hundreds of millions of americans. And then to be communicated not the members of texas or florida but st. Petersburg and then add a cage at a rally or to organize a protest. And then we will simply never know. There are a lot of aspects of this that were influential at the end of a close election tth a social Media Campaign and the russians to could force them to respond to the dumping of documents. And as a meaningful impact on the Campaign Comes from donald trump himself. Dozens and dozens in which he trumpeted the wikileaks disclosures that he would not have done if he did not believe that was pivotal to his campaign. And then to disavow or to condemn that. And then something similar happened when al gore received that briefing book. And then to interfere in the election by stealing i materials and ejecting that. Is that they aided the russian attack by promoting the materials . Without a doubt. And also the opportunity of 2016 was that at the time when they involve themselves in the election but john mccain was not the nominee. John mccain iai am confident he had the strengthth of character to say i dont want your help i dont need your help. But it wasnt it was donald trump. And build that into his campaign c strategy one of the most startling facts is that within hours they were prove they were listening because they try to hack a server so yes a lot of responsibility goes to donald trump. So many of us were urging o the press it isnt always the case that the documents are stolen and sometimes to override that public significance. And with these articles and then to begin with the most important part we only know what the russians want us to know. And this is what we learned and without that critical context that the russians amplified. Spirit that my frustration and then it puts into context what people knew at the time. And then to dissemble the context. But over the course of your investigation that the Trump Campaign officials knew that russia was interfering that wikileaks was acting so was there an awareness on the part of the Trump Campaign at the time . Of course there was. They were reading the clippings like the rest of us in the intelof briefing that the russians were interfering in august but what was going on but they were delighted to have the help. The ethic was and even after all we have been through with giuliani or jaredr kushner. To bring themselves to say with the authorities there ethic is you would be a sap not to take the help it isnt patriotism or ethics but to escape criminal prosecution and withth that standard and the president of the United States. Then to make any criminal case if they think that is unfair. And that obliviousness and meeting with those russian representatives in trumpan tower in november and december. But what that meeting was about and why Jared Kushner wanted to be rescued because getting dirt from the russians on their opponent. And of course they knew the russians had stolenha emails. Much more valuable dirt and papadopoulosos advised with those stolen emails. And that is a modus operandi its better for the russians and to give directly to the campaign and the wikileaks publication gave some deniability but the idea that this meeting that they held a secret that they all denied having but then of course when its revealed then come up with this phony statement that the president dictates. So then that the idea that it falls completely flat so one of those Weaker Sections of, the report with the knowledge of the participants in the meeting were quick to point out and in terms of the criminality and was new to the president ial campaign. This isnt the first president ial campaign manafort was involved in. And that concealment and then they would consider that evidence of raw knowledge it knowing that wrongfulness of conduct. Unlike Robert Miller so why did they decide they didnt need to ask questions and what took place . Im sure the mueller team understood but thats all i will say on that today. I want to shift gears and in 1990 to prosecute espionage. In the same case Richard Miller with classifiedie information and with the kgb do you see any similarities coming back all these years later . And also coming full circle with the fbi agent and to tell you one thing that came out of that the investigation into one of their own to respect that professionalism that was a cut above but i learned about russian tradecraft how those assets in this country with the seductress. Be careful out there. So she emigrated to the United States an act of treachery and character and was unhappy and wanted to go back. Learning how the soviets and how they targeted people access to classified information and how to identify people with financial troubles and fidelity in their marriage and Richard Miller was a good target form them. And then to look at the investigation of who were the week links that they could identify . And and George Papadopoulos t d with those targets like Paul Manafort with russian intelligence to be driven by his desire and then to be made whole and monetize the work on the campaign and then make them right for potential targeting. And then to ask for something relatively innocuous then a little less and then they will give you that and then before you knoww it you are hooked because they can expose anything you have done this far. So certainly looking very much like russian tradecraft. And for the briefings or polling data. And the strategy of these key states and then to offer this. And then the precise nature among other things because they are using encrypted apps and then to be not the least bit cooperative. When i entered the state department the process of security clearance it was incredibly extensive of what investigators are looking at to determine the issues of my background as part of the investigation, the fbi announced the counterintelligence investigation so what is the status of that investigation . The status is one of the big Unanswered Questions publicly. And that information about that. And with this criminal investigation and counterintelligencebe with that form power and if they were influencing policymakers but the Mueller Report is a criminal report it to prosecute these people it doesnt say anything of who is at risk and how is that mitigated . But there are other ways to mitigate the risk so the concern with flynn when he lied to the administration about the vicepe president that they misledof the country when he was discussing sanctions with the Russian Ambassador that the russians knew what they were talking about so they were exposing and compromising mike flynn and also youre making a big real estate deal in moscow and no business dealings and associates like Michael Cohen and congressman ryan. The russians knew they were lies. Out one and when they were very close to putin, the russians knew in great detail and that gave the russians leverage over donald trump and the administration and what is so compromising about this that the negotiations went on long after to the middle of the campaign and that had emailed the kremlin and called the kremlin and issued a statement and said we never responded to that. That was aau lie. Here it was covering up so that when the president was confronted to say i might have lost the election. For their again is the standard for the investigation. But then he said why should i miss out . We still dont know where he plans to build moscow trump tower. Is still could be his motto why do i miss out on those opportunities . So the project worth hundreds of millions of dollars so that ought to concern every american with bob Mueller Reporting on the russian activity hen bob mueller outlinee russian interference campaign he identified two lines of effort and there was a Hacking Campaign and a social Media Campaign but one of the things we started to see in europe is that theres usually a financial component to russian interference. Theres been financial ties from a russian bank to the National Front in france and recent stories in italy can act with far right parties of dangling russian money and it seems to me rather odd that there were not be a russian financial component to interfering in this election and it is, after all, what candidates need and what campaigns politicians are asking for donations and having people for money to support the campaign and it is in fact, to fund it. Did more look into the finances and you have a sense of whether money was whether mueller examined or russian Money Laundering somehow made its way into the trunk campaign. Short answer is we dont know. We dont know what the scope of muellers invitation was and we dont know whether the decisions on scope were imposed on him by the acting attorney general or Deputy Attorney general and we dont know the answer to that. This is the reason replaced a giant priority and following the money because if that was not done at least it was not done as part of the criminal probe and someone needs to look at whether theres financial compromise and the report makes clear that bob mueller considered his mandate to be very narrow. As you point out, he considered his mandate to be investigating the social media operation, and best getting the hacking and dumping operation and determining very narrowly whether he could prove the elements of conspiracy of the trunk campaign with either of those two lines of effort. In terms of whether there was an investigation into whether there were other means of influence we dont know. We dont know. We are determined to find out. We are also determined to make sure that we do whatever is necessary to expose and economize so we can protect ourselves. Are you happy with the cooperation from Financial InstitutionsLike Deutsche Bank and have you gone financial records that you have been after . The Financial Institutions are more than willing to cooperate. They are being sued by trump to prevent them from cooperating and this is right we are in mitigation and so far were winning litigation. Lower courts have addressed th this, not only ruled in our favor but also gave such short [inaudible] in the opinions of the court to the trump arguments that the Deutsche Bank case look at the oversight committees accounting case and we are doing ours jointly with the Financial Services committee and we are sort of the legal equivalent of get out of my court. Its what they told the trump organization. Your arguments have no merit and dont even have tolerable merit. We feel pretty optimistic but the cold, i think, of the Trump Administration and Organization Even advancing what i think they know are spurious arguments is just to draw this out as long as they possibly can expect to have concerns over how the invitation concluded and Robert Mueller throughout it knows that the firing of Jeff Sessions with something on toms mind because he could exert control over the investigation and then trump, lo and behold, fired Jeff Sessions and appointed Matthew Whitaker who seem to have no qualifications and then appointed william barr but thats not the point when he fired Jeff Sessions. Maybe Nothing Happened but do you have any concerns over how the investigation concluded . Well, i have continuing concerns about the ongoing investigations in particular. Yes, i have concerns about the ending of the other investigation. We have little if any visibility into for example white the special counsel decided not to pursue an interview with the president and why not subpoena the president. The president played robe a dope with special counsel for a long time and i can understand from a personal point of view why the prospect of entering into a lengthy litigation to finally get the interview before you can conclude investigation was not attracted to people who had voted devoted their whole lives to living in a bunker working on this investigation but nonetheless there is no way to get a better answer to those questions and the questions that were of greatest importance in terms of the president s state of mind were the ones that he precisely refused to answer even in writing, those that went to instruction of justice. I am concerned about whether in addition to their own personal desire to have the over with whether there is pressure on them from justice to bring this to an end. But more than that when barr testified that he believed the president thought it was unfair he could have made it go away anytime he wanted but the indication of that is that he could also make any of these other investigation referred to bob mueller including the one that was just closed in the Southern District of new york go away. We are determined to ride shotgun to the best that we are able to find out if there is any improper political influence over any of these other cases and at the end of the day to find out whether there is improper role of bill barr or Matt Whitaker or anything else and any of the key points in the main investigation. At this time tomorrow you will be presiding over a hearing with Robert Mueller. What are your expectations . If you like the super bowl were everyone is plotting out how it will go and how do you think tomorrow will unfold . I would imagine by this time bob mueller will have cracked. [laughter] he will have acknowledged that the doj policy wouldve indicted the president and will say, in fact, because william barr told me i could reach that conclusion im not ready to reach a conclusion. Im joking. [laughter] i hope that where we are at this time tomorrow is with a better public understanding of the gravity of what the russians did and the systemic nature of what the russians did and the gravity of what the Trump Campaign did and what our own president did and how unethical it was and how unpatriotic it was and whether it could be proved to meet all the elements of the crime of conspiracy to willingly invite, make use of, foreign help and not just foreign help but help from a foreign adversary in a country that wishes us ill. And then to obstruct the investigation into that foreign interference for reasons of selfish protection of reputation or a desire to avoid criminal culpability, regardless of what it does to the country and how it leaves the country vulnerable. If the country has a better understanding of the facts i will consider the hearing to be accessible. I know most people dont have the opportunity to read all 448 pages and even those who do you know im a prosecutor. This is my language they are speaking in the support and i understand it and recognize what it means. If mueller concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to prove each element of the crime of conspiracy and was willing to say so because he could not prove sufficiently willful intent on don junior or cannot prove the value of the dirt they got met the statutory threshold if he could say that there was not sufficient evidence of this but cannot say that about obstruction the negative inference is clear and there was sufficient evidence to prove the crime of obstruction and that is clear to me as a prosecutor. It is why more than 1000 of the prosecutors has said if this were their case and if he wasnt the president any other person would be invited. But i think because of the incessant campaign by the president that i give him credit for being ruthlessly on message. He, i think, has endeavored to present the American People from understanding the seriousness and the appalling lack of integrity that he demonstrated during this campaign and demonstrates to this date. I want to ask you one more question on mueller and even asked about impeachment and i think one of the Major Concerns among democrats and progressives and people who voted to hold trump accountable to make sure no ones about the loss is that there it feels like theres been able to get away with so much in continuing to obstruct these investigations and is it tomorrow a big event and then we move on with their lives or will this be the start of a more rigorous process or public process . I dont know what the impact of the hearing will be and i think i am very realistic in her expectations and people are pretty doug and not just on trump and russia but just dug in on this president and if that appalling display of racism over the last two weeks was not enough to move people is there anything that bob mueller can say will . I am very circumspect about what the impact will be but at the same time i imagine that there will be millions of people that have never had a chance to read the report and there is a natural tendency among americans to think that if it was not true he cannot keep saying it. Sadly, it is wrong. There are a great number of things that the president says over again and theyre just as untruthful as they set it the thousands time he said it. For Many Americans learning what is in the report will be a revelation. What the impact of that will be on the congress and country i dont know but i tend to be very realistic about how much this very polarized country has moved to buy anything these days. One thing i think the public does not realize is that this will is just one slice of your broader job and i wanted to ask you about the Current Situation in iran and the seizure of the British Oil Tanker and how to use the events unfolding and are you concerned about the Trump Administration efforts to essentially there are no angels but they are looking like theyre provoking or instigating a conflict. I think were potential were closer to a potential investment almost 20 years now. It is not because i think iran wants to go to war or because donald trump wants to go to war but because the risk of mistranslation has never been greater. The tragedy about where we are right now is it was so eminently predictable and in fact, we could tell this from our own intelligence that if we went down this road and left the jcpoa and if we reimpose sanctions and tried to get them to impose their sanctions that iran would not stay within the deal and if you deprive iran a benefit from it white with a stay in the deal . And it was foreseeable that what they would do would be try to drive a wedge between the United States and allies and to up the temperature to up the risk into use that to get europe to try to help them financially and get out from under the sanctions and this is exactly what is happening. The reluctance of our allies to attribute these attacks to iran and of course its become harder and harder to do so given out that they sees the british tanker the reluctant is not because of questions in the intelligence and you saw them have video of iran retreating on unexploded mines and that reflects the view of our allies that this is what we told you would happen and this is exactly why we do not want you to leave the jcpoa and out you want us to link arms with you in march to iran and we dont want to go there. Where we are is tragically predictable and where do we go from here . We will need to protect shipping in the strait of arhus and we need to coax our allies into working with us to protect that shipping and our efforts should not be unilateral we should do it in concert with our allies and we need to recognize that the goal here to the isolation of iran is the United States and i am reminded of the comment that tom freedman made during the middle of the iraq war when we invited them to speak to our caucus and what would you do about iraq and he said to quote the new york cop who was asked by a tourist directions of how to get somewhere the cop says i would not start from here. I would not choose to start from here but that is what we need to do. Lastly, i want to ask you about it was reported recently that devon nunez met with now use the Ranking Member on the Intelligence Committee about what donald trump discussed a replacement for the director of National Intelligence dan coats. Do you have concerns about that next appointment in about dan coats feature and about heaven nunez conversation and potentially being a possible candidate for that role . Well, let me just say that what you should want the director of National Intelligence is someone who understands what the agencies do someone whos a good manager of people and someone who has the strength to speak truth to power, whether that is true to congress or to do the president. I think dan coats has done all of that and i hope he will continue. Hes been a terrific intelligence had. I hope he stays. That is my feeling on dan coats and im not going to comment on the rest of your question. As much as i attempted. Weve got time for just a couple of questions. Yes. Amy mckinnon from Foreign Policy magazine. Thank you for coming out today. Im sure youre currently busy ahead of tomorrow. My question is one of the things that they talk about we talk about the press and authorization is that it sows division in chaos and does not get controversial to say that that works to a certain degree but im curious how you plan on continuing your investigations but without further deepening whats been established . Great question. One of the issues that we have been exploring on the committee is how the russians might intervene again but use new technology to be even more effective and one of the areas im most concerned about is the involvement of deep state technology. Is a technology that allows the production of compelling video and audio that is utterly fraudulent and you could produce a figure of joe biden or donald trump or anyone else inserted into the ecosystem and it would be indistinguishable for most people viewing it with a naked eye. A lot of the fakes of the people have seen thus far have been crewed in the fake of nancy pelosi is whats called the cheap fake where she was speaking i think here at one of the conferences with a slowdown to make her seem impaired. You might imagine how the russians had that technology four years earlier than last president ial election where they can push out a narrative that Trump Campaign was trying to push out that Hillary Clinton was in Failing Health and that they could easily push out videos to make Hillary Clinton look like she was impaired. That is of deep concern and we are looking at not just the last war but what is the next were going to look like in the next Disinformation Campaign going to look like . How do we prepare against the late distribution of a fraudulent video . We are also doing her best to scrutinize what are the states doing in terms of the Voting Technology and how the federal government is helping the states prepare and we are doing the work that we would hope that the president would do but is not in that is in our various committees Foreign Affairs committee is pressing the state department and what are they doing to communicate to the russians the sanctions they will see if they screw with us again. We in the Intel Community are focused with our agencies and what you hear and what are you learning about with russian plans and intentions. Homeland security there focused on what is the harm in doing and what states are vulnerable or what states dont have paper ballots or paper trail and that ought to be right from the top but it is not because any of the cabinet people are raising the president and he considers it a threat to his legitimacy and will not reset. We were trying in congress to use our leverage and oversight powers to do that. Olivia with cbs news. Mr. Chairman, the House Judiciary Committee has confirmed that mr. Mueller tomorrow will be joined by aaron dudley, close eight, in the capacity of the council and the same thing going to happen but House Intelligence Committee and how does that change the dynamic of the conversation. It is certainly the desire of the special counsel to have one of his team present with him during the hearing and we are in discussions with them about that and what that would look like. But our intention is that mueller do the testifying and not have someone else do it for him. There may be questions that one of his team is better situated to answer of a technical nature but we dont want a hearing with bob mueller converted to a hearing with someone else and were discussing what the format would be in just what the role would be of having one of his team present and this has been a continuing discussion with the special counsels office and i would expect that he would have someone with him and we will have discussions about precisely in what capacity that person will appear with him. Yes. Cbp retired. Im struck at the power of a memo from the Justice Department to thwart what appears to be Constitutional Rights of the congress to pursue what you are rightly pursuing it. Just like executive privilege seems to me whatever they want it to mean. Can you address the legality and power and why is this a wall that cant be overcome . The administration is making the broadest most unsustainable claims of the executive privilege that any president has ever made. It is a stonewalling and delay tactic but it is one that ultimately we have to litigate and they know that. For them its a way to stall. They understand when he gets to litigation it gets to judge and if they lose except on the category of documents where there should be a privilege. This blanket assertion of privilege is prophylactic assertion of a privilege to later assert the privilege and it is legally unsupportable and yes, they are going to delay resolution of this and that is their whole points. What they are doing with the congress is what they did with special counsel which is delay, delay and then blame the democrats for the delay. That is their strategy. Weve had discussion about constitutional crises and we will be in a true fullfledged constitutional crisis if we ever get to the point where we have a final adjudication from the court and they still refuse. If this president takes the view that correctly i think it was president jackson wants took when the subpoena issued a ruling he did not like and said thats your opinion so lets see you enforce it. If we get to that point then we are in a fullblown crisis. But i think at this point theyre using this to stall. I would like to see us revive our inherent content power where we can try people within the house and heavy daily fines until they comply. Im urging that we do so and it seems to me that if there was administration deserving of the congress use of the hearing content it is this one. The last thing i will say is we are already writing our own post watergate reforms. I dont expect most of them to pass because the gop in congress has turned into a cult of the president. They have not acted like the responsible political party. When he is gone and trump is gone and when they no longer need to fear an angry tweet from donald trump maybe they will find their sense of obligation and we will be able to pass these reforms on a bipartisan basis. They are unwilling to stand up to him. Some of the corrective action we will have to wait until this president is out of office. If i could use the power of the moderator to follow up on this question russian interference with the hacking of voting systems in 2016 was a tremendous concern and senate Intelligence Committee did a lot of investigation on this point and do you have concerns about the security of the election and the actual voting systems going into 2020 . What do you think the chances are of legislation actually becoming law and getting to the senate . I do have grave concerns about the Voting Technology, both because the vendors of this technology is unwilling to share their software so we can examine vulnerabilities and people that i respect in the Silicon Valley who are far more expert in these matters then i am are convinced of the vulnerability of technology because many of the states and localities have not had sufficient resources and have not even upgraded the Software Systems and some are using systems that software they can no longer be upgraded and so i think it is negligent not to have a paper trail. The russians dont need to change the vote count but need to create a doubt among our people as to whether we can rely on the vote count. Thats a low bar and imagine going through a bush beat gore electronic tingling chad situation in a country is polarized as we are today. I am desperately concerned about this. I do think as i felt in 2016 that the less risky more effective vector for russian interference may not be to change the votes but to change the voters and do so by use of things like deep fakes and a deep fake that is designed to tap into a narrative that one side or the other has about a candidate could be enormously effective. If 20 many people saw the cheap fake of nancy pelosi experts will tell you a fraction of those 20 million will later learn that it was doctored and even though we do learn it doctored they will never completely lose the impression they had of seeing that misinformation. I tend to think that also because there is less risk of retribution in serving in multiple places on the planet with a deep fake that its a more attractive way to be disruptive for our adversaries. On that cheery note i want to thank german schiff for coming here today and not just for coming here today but i started the questioning by quoting you for march 20 over the last two and half, three years your leadership on the threat of russian interference and what the threat to our democracy you have showed tremendous the leadership and want to thank you that. Please join me in thanking german schiff. [applause] [inaudible conversations]