Transcripts For CSPAN3 Former FBI Director James Comey Testifies On Russia Investigation 20240712

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming. Well get started with our hearing. I want to thank mr. Comey, james comey, the former director of the fbi for appearing today before the committee to talk with us about cross fire hurricane and anything else the committee would like to speak with him about. So give a little brief introduction of why were here and what were trying to accomplish. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is a tool thats been around for a very long time. For our Intelligence Community, the fbi to make sure that when Foreign Agents, terrorists or agents of a Foreign Government are in our country, they can be surveilled if theyre doing things that are threatening to our National Security. I think this legislation goes all the way back to the 70s. And its been used a lot. Its been used in terrorist cases when we suspect someone of being a terrorist under the foreign intelligence act. We have the Legal Authority to surveil those people. And you can get a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to actually follow an individual around. I will say the system is very much in jeopardy, the crossfire hurricane, crossfire razor investigations i think have really shaken confidence in the system. And my goal as chairman, and this will go into the next congress no matter who is in charge, senator feinstein, is that fisa needs to be reauthorized, but right now without substantial reform i dont think we could get it reauthorized. And my goal is to understand how the system failed, how it got off the rails and be able to assure the American People and ourselves that what happened here will not happen again. So the horowitz report is sort of the basis of what ive been trying to do. Mr. Horowitz is the Inspector General at the department of justice and he did a deep dive into the fisa warrant applications of carter page, and he found 17 significant errors and omissions, and the committee in its work has found other things that were pretty disturbing. We tried to use the foundational document of the horowitz report. And i want to thank mr. Horowitz and his team of the thorough investigation of the carter page fisa application. They found evidence the primary russian subsource was a single individual. They found interviews in january and march of the subsource where he basically said the dossier which was essential in getting the warrant get carter page was bar talk, hearsay, and quite frankly much worse. We found the primary subsource, a gentleman named igor, was actually suspected by the fbi of being an agent all the way back to 2009. And what happened here as a result of this information the fisa court issued a order rebuking the fbi and department of justice conduct. The fbis handling of the carter page applications was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor described above, but this expects the government to provide complete and Accurate Information with every filing with the court. Without this the fisa court cannot properly ensure the government conducts, electronic surveillance for intelligence purposes only when there is a sufficient factual basis. So were trying to find out as the committee of oversight and department of justice and the fbi how this happen asked to make sure it never happens again. So the basis of our inquiry started with the horowitz report, an independent Agency Within the department of justice. And were going to look at the fisa rebuke and see if we can find a way to convince the court in the future this problem has been solved very quickly. Carter page was on the Trump Campaign team and carter page is an interesting character, but the fbi sought a fisa warrant against carter page for suspected ties to russian intelligence operatives. They were unable to get the warrant approved internally just based on contact with russian operatives. Mr. Page denied knowing half the people, and theres yet to be any indication he was lying. And the other group that he was associated with were foreign intelligence operatives of russia, but he told the fbi early on i was working with the cia, thats why i knew these people. And the cia confirmed to the fbi that was true, but later on mr. Cline smith doctored the information coming over to say mr. Page was not with the cia. Why was that important . If the court would have known these contacts had no legitimate purpose, there would have been no basis for the warrant. How would you like in your case for the government to alter a document that was exculpatory to you . And thats what happened, and thats a criminal act thats going to continue to be prosecuted i hope. But during the court between october and june of october of 2016 and june of 2017 the dossier that was central and essential to getting the warrant had so many holes shot through it that it became almost a joke. The point is without the russian steele dossier there would have nono warrant. It wasnt until the dossier appears on the scene that they were able to go and get a warrant. The dossier was prepared by a man named Christopher Steele who was hired by fusion gps that was being paid by the Democratic Party and the Clinton Campaign to do Opposition Research against candidate trump. He had a subsource we didnt know until now it was a single individual he hired named igor, we now know igor was suspected by the fbi back to 2009 as being a russian agent slash spy, a National Security threat to the United States. Thats the man who gave all the material to mr. Steele. I will go in pretty deep detail about how the dossier over time not only became uneliable, it just lost all credibility and the court was never told of the information that was obtained between october and june. The fbi ignored exculpatory evidence, altered documents from the cia, had interviews where the subsource disavowed the accuracy of the document and never submitted any of that information to the court. This to me is a stunning failure of the system to work. And i will end with this. Warrant applications are nonadversarial. If theyre trying to get a warrant against you or your family there is no lawyer there to protect you. The court has to rely on the agents, the department to be honest and forthright when it comes to obtaining a warrant against an american citizen criminally or even in the fisa arena. So heres the question. What do we do when we find that the warrant application relied upon a document that was fundamentally unsound, that the fbi ignored all the warning signs about this document, misled the court about the author and the reliability of the document and over and over and over again it was used to keep an investigation of american citizens alive that we now know had 17 irregularities. What do we do . We just say, well, that was bad, thats the way it goes . Does anybody get fired, does anybody go to jail . And im saying this to my democratic friends if it happened to us, it could happen to you. Every american should be worried about this. This is not just an abuse of power against mr. Page and the Trump Campaign, this is system fi failure, and you could be next. Make sure this never happens again starting with finding out who did it, whos responsible. Apparently everybodys responsible but nobodys to blame is not the right answer. So my goal is we can have a deep dive and understand how this happened and working together to assure the American People it never happens again to any Political Campaign of any party and the system can survive this very sad chapter. Were turning the paige on a very dangerous chapter in the history of the fisa program, and were trying to start anew. And the only way we can start anew is find out what happened and hold people accountable. Were not prosecutors here. There are people out there who do have prosecutorial authority. Well let them decide what to do independent of us, but it is a responsibility of this committee to try to restore trust in a program we all need. And we will start that endeavor seriously today and continue until we get to the bottom of it. I have two documents id like to introduce for the record. I have a office of intelligence attorneys statement. This is the doj lawyer that signed off on the fisa application, and the letter says the attorney advises that had he she been aware of the significant errors and omissions identified by the oig Inspector General and the errors in the woods process he she would not have signed the carter page fisa applications. The oi attorney further advises he she is not aware of the additions on the page. This is yet another person saying if i know then what i know now i wouldnt have signed this report. Horowitz did a really good job. Rosenstein and sally yates said to this committee who signed the warrant application. If i knew then what i know now i would not have signed the application. Mr. Chairman, may we have copies of that document, please . Yes, well submit it to everybody. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. We are here again today as part of the chairmans examination of cross fire hurricane. The fbis russia investigation. The president has long claimed the investigation of his campaign was a witch hunt and a hoax. Contrary to the president s claim of a witch hunt the department of justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed in a detailed report that the fbi was justified when it opened the investigation into ties between the Trump Campaign and russia. The fbi learned in july 2016 that the Trump Campaign appeared to have advance knowledge of russias plan to release, quote, thousands of emails end quote to harm Hillary Clinton and help trump. The fbi learned this one week after wikileaks published 20,000 emails that russia had stolen from the Democratic National committees hacked computers. The dnc hack and the possibility that the Trump Campaign knew of russias plans to interfere in the 2016 election by releasing stolen emails created a significant Counter Intelligence concern. Mr. Comey has said that the fbi, quote, would have been derelict not to investigate, end quote. And i agree. Special Counsel Robert Mueller assumed control of crossfire hurricane after mr. Comey was fired by President Trump. Muellers findings confirm that the fbi was correct to investigate. Mueller found that the russian government, quote, perceived it would benefit from a Trump Presidency and worked to secure that outcome, end quote. And that the Trump Campaign knew about, welcomed and, quote, expected it would benefit from russias interference. Mueller also uncovered numerous contacts between the Trump Campaign and individuals linked to russia. For example, mueller found the Trump Campaign manager Paul Manafort gave internal polling data to constantine kilimnik, a russian Intelligence Officer. The Senate Intelligence committee of which im a member recently issued the bipartisan finding that manafort was, quote, a grave Counter Intelligence threat, end quote because of his ties to russian intelligence. So think about that for a moment. The president s Campaign Manager had ties to russian intelligence and could have used them to share confidential campaign information. Mr. Chairman, of course the fbi should have investigated. Unfortunately, the president and his allies have been trying to rewrite the russia investigation since the day it concluded. They have seized onairers in the fbis applications for fisa surveillance on carter page to assert that the entire Russian Investigation was corrupt. Those errors were serious. But the errors and the socalled steele dossier, this is important, played no part in the broader russia investigation. This was confirmed by Inspector General horowitz and former Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein who told the committee that none of the Mueller Reports findings of criminal charges rely on the steele dossier, none of them. President trump and his allies also claim that the russia investigation was a political witch hunt overseen by investigators who hated the president. But Inspector General horowitz found no evidence that political bias impacted crossfire hurricane. And none of the ten witnesses the committee has interviewed during the chairmans investigation provided such evidence either. We should not ignore or excuse what happened in 2016. Fbi director wray and the Intelligence Community have warned that russia is interfering in the 2020 election with the aim of denigrating Vice President biden. We should condemn russias current and past interference not downplay it. And insist the president condemn russias interference as well. Mr. Comey, is our Technology Working today . Mr. Comey . I can hear you. Okay, great. Will he be on the screen . Okay, can you count to ten for us, please. Sure. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Well, you did your part. There we go. 11 must have been the magic number. Thank you very much for being with us. Can you raise your right hand, please . Do you solemnly swear the testimony youre about to give this committee is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . I do. Thank you. If youd like to make an Opening Statement you may if youd like. I have no Opening Statement and im ready for your questions. Mr. Comey, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the top of the line great how would you rate the crossfire hurricane investigation in terms of being done thoroughly by the book and an investigation the fbi should be proud of . Im not sure i can apply a number scale, but i would say in the main it was done by the book. It was appropriate, and it was essential that it be done. So youre proud of it . Overall im proud of the work. There are parts of it that are concerning which im sure well talk about, but overall im proud of the work. When did you first learn of the existence of the steele dossier . Some time towards the end of 2016. Do you agree with mr. Horowitz that the dossier was central and essential to the carter page fisa warrant application being approved . I agree that it was important. I cant tell you whether it was essential, and by that i mean it wouldnt have been granted without the steele information. Lets go through the application. There are two parts to the application. Was there an effort to get a warrant approved without using the dossier . Yes, my understanding is that in the summer i asked doj whether they would support moving forward on a warrant application. And they said no. Correct. I think its fair to say doj decided to move forward after the steele information was part of it. Yes, so i would say that it was central, essential based on that. Heres what id like to ask. The contacts between mr. Page and alleged russian operatives are one part of the application, is that correct . Thats my recollection. Okay. Did mr. Page deny knowing people that you accuse him of having contacts with . I dont remember. I think the horowitz report says that in the fall of 2016 speaking to an fbi source he denied knowing certain people, but thats about all i recall. Well, heres the facts. He denied knowing these people and the fbi has yet to find any evidence that he was lying. The people that he did have contact with, did he tell the fbi that he was working for the cia and thats why he had contacts with these people . I dont remember. Do you now agree that the cia confirmed that mr. Page was, in fact, helping them. I know from the horowitz report the cia confirmed he was what they call a contact. So the fbi in august of 2016 had information from the cia informing the fbi that in fact mr. Page was a resource. Did you not know that . I did not know the nature of his relationship with the cia, and im telling you thats what i read in the horowitz report. Do you think it would have been fair for the fbi to tell the court that mr. Page had a reason to be talking to these people because he was working with the cia . Would that have been a fair thing to tell the court . I dont agree with your characterization of what mr. Horowitz found. No, im talking about you as a director. The fbi has in his possession in august 2016 information from the cia confirming what mr. Page said, that he in fact was assisting the cia which explained the contacts. That was never given to the court. Should they have been informed of that because thats exculpatory to mr. Page. I believe mr. Horowitz found they should have at least considered should you youre the director of the fbi. Would you wish that had been been done if youd known about it . Im sorry, senator. What had been done . That you informed the court tat mr. Page was in fact working with the cia and that explains these contacts. Do you think out of a sense of fairness the court should have been informed of that fact . Again, i dont agree with your preamble. I dont think the record established he was working with the cia. Weve got this email from the cia confirming that he was a source for the cia. Are you aware of the fact that that email later on was doctored . Again, i dont accept what you said. I dont think the record establishes he was a source for the cia. Why is mr. Clinesmith facing criminal indictment . I only know what ive read in the Public Record that he was accused of youre the director of the fbi. You didnt know your own agency had information from the cia verifying what mr. Page told you, yet these contacts had a basis in fact because he was working with the cia. Did you know that mr. Klinesmith doctored the email for it to read there was no association between page and the cia, that he changed there was to there was not . How do you feel about that . I knownothing about mr. Klinesmith. How do you feel in general about an fbi director doctoring an exculpatory statement that failed . In october when the warrant was submitted, the application was submitted, what effort had been made to justify the dossier in october . I dont know specifically. I know the Counter Intelligence division was working to see how much of it they could rule in and rule out. How much time did they spend ruling in and ruling out regarding the dossier . You dont know. You signed the application. Whose job was it to make sure the facts are right when you present them to the fisa court. Well, the most basic level is whoever is signing the affidavit. Did you sign the affidavit . No, i signed a certification which is required of the fbi director. Okay. Does the fbi director have any responsibility to make sure the facts are right when theyre given to the court . Not in connection with the certification. But in general the fbi director is responsible for everything that is being done underneath the fbi director. What were trying to find is who provided the application to the fisa court, and why was it so flawed . Can you give me a group of people we can look at to hold accou accountable for misleading the court . Who should we be looking at . To understand the process in general and in this case you would start with the horowitz report where you would counsel many of the people involve. But you dont know as the director of the fbi who actually prepared the application, is that correct . I do not. All right, so in october its clear, mr. Comey, there was no effort to verify the dossier before it was given to the court. Do you agree with that . Well, thats the answer. In january of 12, 2017 the warrant application was renewed. Did you sign that . A signed a certification in connection with one in january and one three months later. Are you aware of the fact between october and january the fbi had found that the russian subsource was on the payroll of mr. Steele was suspected of being a russian spy by the fbi all the way back to 2000 . I dont remember learning anything additional about steele sources how could it be, mr. Director, that the fbi finds in its file that the man that prepared the dossier for steele was suspected of being a threat to National Security, and it doesnt make it up to you . I dont know. I could speculate, but i dont know. I dont want you to speculate. Well try to figure this all out ourselves. Do you know who Christopher Steele was . When did you find out who he was . When the steele dossier was briefed to me some time like i said i think late september. Were you ever told that he hated trump and he wanted him to lose, and he was very much down on donald trump as a person . Not that i recall, no. Do you not remember briefing the team about steeles biases, that you have to really watch this guy . I dont remember ever do you remember Foreign Governments putting us on notice he intends to exaggerate and go off on crusades . Did that make it to you . I dont recall that. Okay, thank you. So should the court have been informed in a Perfect World that the primary subsource was a suspected russian spy . At a minimum they should be teaming with the fbi and justice should discuss whether to inform the court about that. Are you aware in december 2016 the cia tells the fbi they characterized the dossier as internet rumor . I dont recall being informed of that. Were you ever told by the cia to be careful with the dossier and steele that this is not good craft here . I dont ever being told anything like that. Okay. All right, so lets fast forward now. Am warrant application is renewed in april, 2017. You sign it in january 12. You didnt know that the primary subsource was suspected by the fbi of being a russian spy all the way back to 2009. You didnt know that the cia told the fbi the documents internet rumor. Are you aware of the fact the subsource was actually interviewed by the fbi in january 2017 . I dont remember anything about interviews with the subsource . So as the director was this an important case for the fbi . Or was this kind of the run of the mill thing . The overarching investigation was very important. The page slice of it far less given the scope. Well, you have a sitting president of the United States by january 2017. You have a document salacious as hell that accuses the president in being involved in all kind of sex ecupaids and russia and you keep using that document over and over again to get a warrant. Every time you use the information to put the reliability of the dossier in question everybody seemed to ignore it, just plowed forward. So i want to know in january youre not aware of the fact the fbi interviewed the primary subsource, is that your testimony in. I do not remember being told about any interview of okay, should you have been told about it . I cant answer that. I wasnt so i dont know what the considerations were. Heres what happened. The primary subsource told the fbi in january 2017 after the dossier had been used twice to get a warrant that the subsource has no idea some of the language attributed to him came from, that the contacts never mentioned some of the information attributed to them, and he did not know the origins of other information supposedly from his contacts. He said the statements word of mouth and hearsay conversations said with friends over beers were conversations made in jest that should be taken with a grain of salt. Did any of that ever get to you . Not that i recall, no. Do you agree thats Important Information concerning the reliability of the dossier . Its information that should be waived in light of a variety of circumstances. Its inherently exculpatory. The document who put the document together is telling the fbi its bar talk, its grain of salt. They tell the fbi, and they keep using the same document. You know how they describe to the court the subsource . You know what they told the subsource in the application . The court about the subsource, that he was thufl and cooperative. Do you think those terms to the court fairly reflect the interview the fbi conducted in january and march . I know the Inspector General found the disclosure was inadequate in that regard. Not only is it inadequate, it is criminally inadequate. You have a document central to getting a warrant against american citizens. It is falling apart. The cia says its internet rumor, the person who prepared it was on a jihad against trump, on the payroll of the Democratic Party. When that person was interviewed by the fbi he disavowed the reliability of the document to the point that it should never have been used again. And my question is how could the system ignore all that, and how could it be used again in april and again in june . Do you know how thats possible . Again, im not going to respond to your preamble. I think mr. Horowitz found a variety of facts were not disclosed. He didnt find intentional conduct but found a failure to disclose. All i can say is is there a duty by the fbi . Theres a heightened duty of candor that includes exculpatory information and anything do you think its important for the court to know when he said the people he worked with was a result of him being associated and working with the cia . Do you think that would have been beneficial to mr. Page . Again, because i dont agree with the predicate to your question, i cant answer that. Dpooung it would be only fair for the court to be told that the primary subsource disavoed the document as being reporter bar talk, youd take half of it with a grain of salt . Do you think the fbi owed it to the court and mr. Page to tell the court about these stunning revelations . I think mr. Horowitz found and it seems a reasonable conclusion how could the director of the fbi not know all of this . How is it possible that the system gathers so much exculpatory information, its internet rumor according to the cia that the actual interview of the subsource disavows the reliability of the document, that the actual subsource was with respect to a russian spy. How could that happen and not get up to you in the history of the fbi . How is that possible . I can only speculate because it didnt. And as i said the investigation overall was incredibly important. It should be important to every american. Is there anyone advocating to mr. Page during the warrant process . Its the next part i just want to understand this. Its an exparte event. It means that the cops have a duty to tell the court when they find things beneficial to the person under investigation and over and over again between october and june all the information found about the dossier made it less reliable, not more reliable. And you kept using it again and again and again, and question was there bias . At one point in time do you put two and two together the reason they ran all these stop signs they didnt want to take nono for an answer. Do you recall getting a letter about a concern thaClinton Campaign was going to create a scandal regarding trump and russia . I do not. You dont remember getting an investigatory lead from the Intelligence Community. Hang on a second. Have to find the document here. September 7, 2016, the u. S. Intelligence officials forded an investigative referral to fbi director james comey and peter struck regarding u. S. President ial candidate Hillary Clintons approval of a plan concerning u. S. President ial candidate donald trump and Russian Hackers hampering u. S. Elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server. You dont remember getting that or being taught thats a pretty stunning thing it didnt ring a bell, but it did come to you. Lets just end with this. You get this inquiry from the Intelligence Committee to look at the Clinton Campaign basically trying to create a distraction accusing trump of being a russian agent or a russian stooge or whatever to distract from her email server problems, and how farfetched is that, mr. Comey, when we now know the Democratic Party through fusion gps hired Christopher Steele, a Foreign Agent who had a strong bias against trump who hired a russian subsource who the fbi believed to be a russian spy to compile a dossier that was a bunch of crap to be used against an american citizen working for the Trump Campaign . It seems to me youd want to investigate other allegations, but youre telling me you dont recall this. Im sorry, senator, is there a question . Yes, you dont recall this inquiry i just read about september 2016. Do you remember being told do you remember being told by the Intelligence Community remember the episode with trump and the hotel with the hookers and the dossier . Yes, i remember that portion. Okay, thats pretty hard to ignore. Do you remember in december the Intelligence Committee basically said a u. S. Intelligence Community Report contained information about the falsity of the details of trumps Sexual Activity in moskow and assessed that they were the product of Russian Intelligence Services infiltrating a source into steeles network. So this is from the horowitz report. In other words, the Intelligence Community had assessed that the dossiers description of a sexual escapade was actually a russian disinformation campaign. Did you know that when it came out . Im not familiar with what youre reading from. Its in the horowitz report. I guess what im saying is the horowitz report it information they had in the file that the whole scenario with trump in the whole sexual escapade was russian disinformation. If in fact the russians had infiltrated steeles sources to create this myth about Sexual Misconduct of the president , that to me seems to crowd for slowing down and stopping, it. All i can say is you believe it would be a care lidereliction o not to argue trump russia. Im not here to argue it was someone other tan the russians who hacked into the dnc. It was the russians. What im here to say that theres ample evidence of the other side being involved with russia to create a scandal around trump. They hired a Foreign Agent on the payroll of the Democratic Party who have hired a russian spy to create a document that was absolutely full of misinformation and complete lies. Did you know there is no russian consulate in miami and the dossier mentions that there was one . Shouldnt the court have been told that part of the dossier is not reliable . Do you also know Michael Cohens adventures in prague never happened . The dossier asserts Michael Cohen went to prague on some venture for trump and russia, and it never happened. And they know it didnt happen. They had information from a Foreign Government saying its not true, and they never told the court. They never corrected all the misinformation in the dossier. It was used over and over again, they never told the court how unreliable it was. Is that a small thing or a big thing . Anytime there are material omissions in an applic to a judge of any kind but especially the next part its a very important issue. Did you have a duty to look at any allegations regarding clinton and russia . I dont know what you mean. Well, you said you had a duty to look at the Trump Campaign involved with the russians. You got a letter from ratcliffe saying they intercepted where Hillary Clinton approved an effort to link trump to russia and the mob. Did you have a look at the investigation to see whether that was true . I read mr. Ratcliffes letter which frankly i have trouble understanding. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. The president and his allies argue that the fbi should never have investigated the Trump Campaigns ties to russia. However, special counsel mueller and the Senate Intelligence Committee Found that the Trump Campaign manager, Paul Manafort, gave internal polling data and Campaign Strategy to a russian Intelligence Officer. The Senate Intelligence committee issued the bipartisan finding that manafort was a grave Counter Intelligence threat. Id like to put in the record this report of the senates select committee on intelligence, mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. Would you agree that a direct tie between a president ial Campaign Manager and a russian Intelligence Officer is a grave Counter Intelligence threat . Yes. Could you tell us why please . Because someone occupying a role in the heart of american democracy running a campaign is in a position to supply information about that campaign or the workings of our democracy to a foreign adversary. Thats the definition of a Counter Intelligence threat. So you would agree that this type of Counter Intelligence threat does warrant investigation . Yes, of course. The Senate Intelligence committee determined manaforts presence on the campaign and proximity to trump created opportunities for Russian Intelligence Services to exert influence over and acquire confidential information on the Trump Campaign. Does the possibility that Russian Intelligence Services are exerting influence over president ial campaign create a counterintelligence risk that warrants investigation . Yes, as the Senate Select committee on intelligence found last month. Correct. Thank you. Special counsel mueller found that Michael Cohen, trumps personal attorney, pursued the trump tower moscow project on trumps behalf during the campaign. Is there a counterintelligence concern when a candidate for Political Office pursues a lucrative business deal in russia at the same time he publicly claims to have zero interest in russia . Yes, because of the ability that offers the foreign adversary to have leverage over that individual. Correct. And does this type of counterintelligence concern warrant investigation . It may depending on what fact you have to predicate the investigation. Thank you. You told the Inspector General that you received no requests from the Obama Biden White house to investigate members of the Trump Campaign. You have also said that if president obama or a member of his administration asked the fbi to investigate the Trump Campaign, your answer would be not only no but hell no. Did president obama or Vice President biden ever ask you to investigate a political rival or to go easy on a political rival . Never. Why would that have been problematic . Because it would compromise the independence of the Justice Department and the fbis work if its a criminal case or a counterintelligence case, it would introduce politics into what should be a factdriven process. Thank you. U. S. Intelligence has assessed that russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President biden, end quote. And quote, boost President Trumps candidacy, end quote. Fbi director wray has said that russias antibiden efforts have been very active. President trump has said that he would take damaging information on a political opponent from a foreign adversary. And that he would not commit to informing the fbi. He publicly asked china to investigate joe biden and was impeached for pressuring ukraine to investigate biden as well. Are you concerned that trump will embrace and use russian interference efforts to his advantage excuse me as he did in 2016 . Well, im a private citizen now so as a private citizen, yes. He said he would. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Senator grassley. Thank you for your appearance here. On january 6th, 2017, the Obama Administration issued its Intelligence Community assessment on russian interference in recent elections. That assessment included nxa, which said that the fbi had identifi identified and unidentified sources related to the steele reporting and Russian Investigation. Prior to that, in december 2016, the fbi had identified steeles primary subsource and knew that he was a subject of counterintelligence investigation. You either knew or should have known that the primary subsource was subject to counterintelligence investigation when you made efforts to include the steele dossier in the assessment. Did you make any effort to insure that nxa identified that some sourcing may have been from a suspected russian spy or otherwise unsubstantiated . If not, why not . I dont remember any information reaching me about any investigation of the source of steeles now, and i know there was some public investigation back in 2009. That can cut both ways, so i dont know how the people working on the investigation felt about it. The primary subsource was a suspected russian spy. The subsource disavowed elements relating to the dossier. He was subject to a counterintelligence investigation and offered people money for classified information. Shouldnt you have investigated the primary subsource instead of trump, page, flynn, papadopoulos, and whatever else . Im not able to answer that question because i dont know the details of the investigation back in 2009. Okay. Thanks to declassified footnotes from the Inspector General, we know the following one, the fbi knew the russians had the intent to target steele. Two, we see they had the opportunity to do so by various contacts steele had with russian intelligence assets. Three, we see the success of those efforts because some russian disinformation made its way into the steele dossier. It looks like both the Democratic National committee and Russian Intelligence Services manipulated the fbi under your watch. How could the worlds premier Law Enforcement agency miss all of these signs . Im sorry, senator. I disagree with a lot of aspects of your preamble so i cant answer that one. Well, it sounds to me like you should have known, and it pretty much speaks for itself that maybe you arent on top of things the way you should have been. Question number four, on february 14th, 2017, you met with the president and he allegedly asked you to let flynns case go. In any of your meetings with President Trump, did you inform him that the flynn case was supposed to be closed on january 4th, 2017, and if not, why not . I dont think i had any conversation with President Trump about flynns case except for that february 14th let it go conversation. Well, if you had that conversation, then couldnt you have informed him that the flynn case was supposed to be closed on january 4th, 2017 . I dont know why that would be relevant fact for any conversation about flynn lying to the fbi. On january 12th, 2017, email to james clapper, you stated that, quote, we have concluded that the source crown is reliable. On january 12th, 2017, the fbi received a report outlining inaccuracies related to steeles reporting about Michael Cohen. The report also assessed that the information was part of a russian disinformation campaign. That same day, you signed a fisa renewal. The fbi received another report on february 27th, 2017, that also stated parts of the dossier were false and subject to russian disinformation. You signed another fisa renewal on april 5th, 2017. Steele is clearly not a reliable source. Why did you say otherwise and why did you approve the fisa application in light of the evidence . What i said about mr. Steele that you read at the beginning of your preamble is what i believed based on what i had been told and the rest of the reports you listed, i dont remember ever being told about them so i cant comment on whether theyre accurate or not. Did you ever speak with president obama or Vice President biden about any aspect of crossfire hurricane . If so, what did you discuss . I dont remember any discussion. I remember some time in the summer of 2016, i think august, during a meeting in the situation room, i told the president that the fbi was endeavoring to understand whether any americans were working or associated with the russian effort to attack the election. I didnt talk about any names but i believe i alerted him to the skrerl nageneral nature of. Did you ever speak with president obama or Vice President biden about any aspect of the flynn case . If so, what did you discuss . I remember the Flynn Investigation coming up once. I think it was january 5th, when president obama held me back to urge me to do the case in the normal way and to let him know if there was any reason that he should not be sharing Sensitive Information about russia with the trump transition. I assured him that i would keep him informed and i would conduct the investigation in that way. During the january 5th, 2017, meeting between you, president obama, Vice President biden, sally yates and susan rice, did you mention flynns calls with a Russian Ambassador appear, quote unquote, appear legit . I dont remember using that word. If i used it, i would have meant authentic and not fabricated. I wouldnt have meant appropriate, but i dont remember using that word. My time is up. Senator leahy. Mr. Chairman, are we covering the hearing . Youre good. Okay. Well, mr. Chairman, i am afraid listening to this from the beginning that this is more like a political errand for President Trumps reelection effort and perhaps for others in the committee. I think its offensive to all americans who pay taxes and realize the president does not, but the senate has no time to address the deadly covid pandemic thats surging again, taking more than 200,000 american lives, instead, mr. Chairman, your priority, republicans, is two priorities. First, to approve a Supreme Court nominee on the eve of a president ial election. Just a few days before the Supreme Court will consider the republican lawsuit to strip millions of americans of their health care. And then of course, to once again investigate the investigators who were trying to respond to russias brazen attack on our 2016 elections, and candidate trumps real brazen embrace of that attack. I appreciate my 40 years on the judiciary committee, but i never thought of it as either the Trump Reelection Committee or any other reelection committee. And we shouldnt be debasing ourselves this way. Director comey, you and i have known each other for a long time. You served our country for both republican and democratic administrations. I expressed to you some of my strong disagreements with decisions you have made as fbi director, but i also recognized you were placed in a truly unprecedented situation. I never questioned your integrity or your loyalty to the law and to the country. Now, when Vladimir Putin was interfering in our elections or paying bounties to kill our troops or brazenly poisoning dissidents, it seems President Trump is incapable of publicly criticizing him. But more investigation, they decided to not look into financial ties between the president and russia despite some on the team who believed it would be relevant to a central investigation. We now know that President Trump owes more than 400 million in debt to largely unknown sources. In 2014, the president s Trump Organization said they did not rely on american banks for financing and instead received all of the funding we need out of russia. Now, that was a trump statement, not anybody elses. Do you think its possible the russians have something over the president . Why do you believe that this is a possibility . And have you ever felt this way about an american president . I have never felt that way about an american president. And i dont know whether the russians have something over President Trump, but its difficult to explain his conduct, his statements in any other way. Especially his refusal to criticize Vladimir Putin, even in public. So it raises significant question and obviously the question has only deepened by disclosure, if its true, of significant indebtedness. Director wrays suspicions in your mind, based on your experience, thank you. Yesterday, reportedly under the objections of officials, John Ratcliffe declassified and released unverified russian intelligence, likely disinformation, about former secretary clinton. Information was rejected by the republicanled Senate Intelligence committee. And mr. Ratcliffe has refused to testify in public on our own intelligence agencys assessment of Global Threats to the United States, including from russia. Are you concerned, mr. Comey, that Intelligence Leaders handpick for their partisan loyalties, are weaponizing intelligence by selectively releasing foreign disinformation and withholding american intelligence assessments . I dont understand mr. Ratcliffes letter well infer to comment. Its confusing. It contains in a statement within it that it is unverified information so i dont really know what hes doing. I see some of my colleagues on the other side trying to delegitimize the investigation into russias documented interference in our 2016 election. We know from our own reporting that russia is again trying to interfere in our 2020 election. Just this month, fbi director wray testified that russia is very active in its efforts to influence and undermine the 2020 elections. If you had to convey one message to the American People about the persistent threat of russian interference in our democracy or any foreign interference, what would it be . Know that a nation that does not have americas best interests at heart wants to reelect donald trump. Let that sink in. Let the guide how we ought to conduct ourselves going forward. Thank you. Youre also the former National Security adviser Michael Flynn was pressed by a judge about communications with the Justice Department and the white house. After initially trying and failing to claim executive privilege, after saying for months he was not receiving special treatment to reveal you had directly talked to trump about the case and asked him not to pardon flynn. She talked with a Trump Campaign lawyer about the issue as well. As part of the trump reelection effort. You once supervised this investigation. What does the disclosure mean for either Trump Administration or the official Law Enforcement responsibilities . Well, again, i have watched this as a private citizen, read the pleadings in the Court Case Involving former National Security adviser flynn, and i think the departments conduct in handling it is deeply concerning. Best summarized by the federal judge who briefed the issue for judge sullivan in the District Of Columbia court. Its deeply concerning because this guy is getting treated in a way that nobody has ever been treated before. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, i may, after hearing the other questions during this hearing, i may have some questions for the record. Absolutely, senator leahy. Senator cornyn. Director comey, is it appropriate for the federal bureau of investigate to influence a president ial election . The fbi should do everything it can to avoid having any impact on an election. Are you aware of the allegation against you that your handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, your press conference on july 5th, the subsequence announcement based on Anthony Weiners laptop investigation, youre reopening the investigation in the runup to the election, are you aware of the allegation you were responsible for Hillary Clintons defeat . Yes, im aware of that allegation. Does that concern you . It concerns me whenever anyone has questions about whether the fbi is conducting itself in a competent, honest, independent way. Did you call the steele dossier salacious and unverified . I called a portion of it that related to alleged Sexual Activity, i think thats the term i used to refer to that. You did not refer to that as unverified . I think the term salacious and unverified, its not all that important, but i think i reserved that for the sex part of it. The entire dossier is something we were trying to see if we could rule or rule out. To the fbi, it was unreviewed when it came in the door, and there was an effort to see what was true and what wasnt true. Short of inspector horowitzs report, are you aware of any verification of the steele dossier by the fbi . Sorry, senator. Im not tracking the question. I apologize. We got comprehensive report from Inspector General horowitz on the steele dossier, but before the Inspector Generals report on the dossier, which tells us a lot of what we know now that we didnt know then, did you know that the information that was reported by inspector orawits that should have raised questions about the reliability of the steele dossier . Oh, i see. Im sorry. I learned a lot about the steele material and the subsource interviews from the horowitz report that i didnt know before then. Can you rule out the possibility that the crossfire hurricane investigation was predicated in part on russian disinformation . I think so. I think both your colleagues on the Senate Intelligence committee and the Mueller Report and the Inspector General found there was predicated based on credible information from a friendly foreign nations ambassador. So youre saying even though we know now that the subsource for the steele investigation, for the steele dossier was a russian agent, that doesnt in your view taint any of the basis for that investigation . First, i dont agree with your predication with respect to the fbis investigation of the subsource. But the investigation wasnt open based on anything from steele. It was open based on information from an allied ambassador based on something a trump Foreign Policy adviser said in london in relation to Hillary Clinton. It wasnt until two months later that the steele information came to the campaign. Steele dossier was used to obtain a fisa warrant, correct . Correct. After the election, the Intelligence Community submitted a report, Intelligence Community assessment. Do you recall that . I do. From january 6th or fie5th. I think thats right. Do you recall a discussion between you and the cia about whether the steele dossier should be included as part of the Intelligence Communitys assessment . I remember some interaction with my fellow leaders of the Intelligence Community agenciess that were a part of that assessment. I dont know whether it was over email or on the phone about how we were contributing this material to the effort and how they were going to approach it. You dont recall that director brennan said it should not be included as part of the ica because it has not been verified . I dont know whether it was brennan. I remember being told that the groups view was it was significant enough and consistent enough with other intelligence that it ought to be included but it wasnt sufficiently corroborated to be in the body of the assessment so they put a brief summary of it in an annex. Mr. Comey, youre aware that when we tried to reauthorize laws like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is essential to our ability to protect the National Security of the United States, there are members of this body and people on the outside who question whether congress should have that authority, the Intelligence Community should have that authority because they think those tools will be abused. Are you familiar generally with that . Yes, i have participated in those reauthorization debates throughout a lot of my career. I know you have. Does it concern you at all as a former leader in the Intelligence Community, as director of the fbi, that the questions that have come up as a result of the horowitz Inspector General report, the information we know now about the flaws in the crossfire hurricane investigation, including the use of the steele dossier, the inclusion of less than complete and Accurate Information by an fbi attorney, as part of the predicate for that . Does it concern you that the questions that have been raised here will make it harder, perhaps even impossible, for congress to come together and reauthorize important tools like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act . Yes, and it concerns me even more that the Inspector General found mistakes in every fisa application that he reviewed. Well beyond the particular case we have been talking about. So yes, it concerns me. Senator durbin. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Comey. Mr. Comey, is personal debt an important consideration when an individual is seeking a security clearance . Yes. Why . Because a persons financial situation could make them vulnerable to coercion by an adversary and allow an adversary to do what we try to do to Foreign Government officials who are indebted, that is recruit them to our side. Go ahead, im sorry. So its a serious issue in any background review. So someone with substantial debt could be vulnerable to influence from a foreign adversary. Yes, a government official, yes. Director comey, its been publicly reported that President Trump has a debt of over 421 million, personal debt, most of which has to be repaid in the next few years. My source, new york times, september 27th. So as a general matter, are there serious risks when someone with hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, personal debt, has access as the president does, to all of the countrys classified and Sensitive Information . Its a serious concern when anyone seeking or with a clearance has that kind of financial vulnerability. I dont know the circumstances, the particulars of the president s case, but in general, yes. If the president disclosed his income tax returns, we might be able to know a little more. Let me just say this. This is an Important Committee with a great history. I have said that before and i mean it, and i can certainly point to many times in history where the Senate Judiciary committee was the leading committee, investigative committee, when it came to the United States senate. I think it is entirely appropriate that we are meeting today to discuss russian influence on American Elections. I cant think of anything more insidious than Vladimir Putin trying to affect the outcome of the American Election and overruling the verdict of democracy by the American People. It is a great issue. It is an important issue. Theres one problem. Today were focusing on the wrong election. Today, were focusing on the election of 2016 instead of the election of 2020, the one that is merely five weeks away. Fbi director wray testified earlier this month that russia is, quote, very active in the 2020 election. Director wray said russia is exerting, quote, malign foreign influence in an effort to hurt the biden campaign. Direct quote. That would seem to be something that the Senate Judiciary committee might be interested in. Not only that theres a possibility of interference with the American People voting for president of the United States, but that interference comes from a foreign source, russia, and they really have their favorite in the race, and their favorite appears to be the incumbent president. And yet, we are not taking a look at that today. Were going back on a trip down memory lane to four years ago. To decide whether or not certain documents were handled properly and i will concede the fact some were not. But lets be honest. If we were doing our job, we would be talking about the 2020 election, whether american law is adequate to discourage the russian intervention and what steps we are taking as a nation to protect the integrity of the election process. We are not doing that. Because the agenda here is all about a dossier written five or six years ago. Well, that may be advantageous to some but not to most of the American People. I think it comes down to some fundamental questions. W why if were embarking inthis escapade of 2016 and the russian interference in that election in 2016, why did we decide on a partisan basis to reject my effort to include subpoenas of Paul Manafort and a russian agent konstantin kilimnik. Why wouldnt we subpoena them . But yet, on a partisan roll call, this committee decided not to. Not interested. Dont want to get into probing it. We have lots of questions today of director comey as to whether he read every document, when he read it if he did, what impact it had on him, but when it came to these two key witnesses whose names appear over and over and over again in the russian interference of the 2016 election, this committee on a partisan roll call rejected my effort to extend subpoenas to these two individuals. Is there some information we dont want to know from those two people . I think theres a lot of questions that have gone unanswered. I also want to make it clear this notion about the steele dossier, let me ask you this, director comey. Was the steele dossier the reason the fbi began look nothing to interference in the 2016 election . No. Are you aware, director comey, not one, not one of the indictments or criminal counts resulting from the Mueller Investigation relied on the steele dossier . I have read that. I think that makes the case that all of this attention on the steele dossier is fascinating as that document may be, did not have direct relevance on the conclusion that the russians were interfering in the 2016 election or the indictments that followed from the Mueller Investigation. Thank you. Im sorry. Is my time up . No. Oh, thank you. Let me ask if i might, on a statement made by the attorney general. Lets see if i can find this. Make sure i get this accurately. On may 18th, attorney general barr gave a quote at the department of Justice Press conference. He said what happened to the president in 2016 election and throughout the first two years of his administration was abhorrent. It was a grave injustice. It was unprecedented in american history. The attorney general went on to say, the Law Enforcement and intelligence apparatus of this country were involved in advancing a, quote, false and utterly baseless russian collusion narrative against the president , end of quote. Then he went on to say, the proper investigative and prosecutive standards of the department of justice were abused in mew view in order to reach a particular result. Director comey, would you comment on that statement made by attorney general barr about the men and women and the Justice Department . He says that a lot. I have no idea what on earth hes talking about. This was an investigation, it was appropriately predicated and opened, that had to be opened. And it was in the main conducted in the right way, picked up by the special counsel, led to the indictment of dozens of people, and a finding by your colleagues in the senate that the head of Trumps Campaign was a grave counterintelligence threat to the United States of america, because he was giving information to a known russian Intelligence Officer. The notion that the attorney general believes that was an illegitimate endeavor to investigate that mystifies me. Thank you, director comey. Thank you. If i could just respond a bit to what senator durbin said about the committee. Im not here to suggest that the russians did not interfere in the 2016 election. They did. Would they try to interfere in 2020 . They would, they are. Is china trying to interfere . Yes. We have had briefings about this. Im very concerned about it, but what brought us here today is that i supported legislation with my colleagues on this side of the aisle and your side of the aisle to make sure mr. Mueller could do his job. Without political interference. Well, after two and a half years and 25 million and 60 fbi agents, that job is done. Not one person has been charged with colluding with the russians in the trump world, not one. Now, when we look into the work product, and i have asked mr. Mueller to come and tell us about the Mueller Investigation. He has chosen not to come. If you want mr. Wiseman to come, i would invite him. The committee is trying to save the fisa system. The fisa warrant application against carter page should make every american concerned about how off the rails this system got. That the document necessary to get the warrant against an american citizen, the key document, was prepared by somebody on the democratic pay roll who hired a russian suspected spy and all of the information in the dossier fell apart over time and the court was never informed of the exculpatory evidence that was coming in and what astounds me the most is that the director of the fbi in charge of this investigation and involving a citizen president , is completely clueless about any of the information obtained by his agency of suspicion over the document, that the subsource was a suspected russian agent. That when he was interviewed, he said it was all bar talk, heresy, should be taken with a grain of salt. That the cia told the fbi in december this is internet rumor. None of that made it to the court. None of that. And he didnt know any of it. How is it possible that an investigation at this level, that none of this information that is damning to the case against mr. Page never makes it to the top . And you want us to reauthorize this program with a system like that . Everybodys responsible but nobodys responsible. Somebody needs to be responsible for misleading the court. Excluding information to the court that was excullpkuculpato would have mattered. How would you like your client to be treated like this. My point is, im trying my best to understand how the warrant application failed so many times, how the court was abused over months, and nobody seems to be as concerned about it as i am. Well, count me in about being concerned about russian interference in 2016 and 2020. But if this committee does nothing else, it is up to us to find out how it got off the rails, how an fbi lawyer could doctor a document that was excupuexk exculpatory to the subject of the investigation be a crime. How could that happen . Is there no checks and balances in the fisa pros . Is there no duty to be candid with the court when you find something exculpatory . How do you presbyterio yo you p full of information, there is no consulate, russian consulate of miami. You had information that the whole sexual escapade thing was russian disinformation and it never made it to the court. How are we supposed to trust the system without fundamentally changing it and Holding People accountable . One last question to you, director comey. I turn it over to senator lee. Knowing then what you know now about all of the things we have come to find, would you have still signed the warrant application against carter page in october and january and april . No, i would want a much more complete understanding of what we thank you very much. Senator lee. You know, mr. Chairman, its a technical thing, but when you speak over the witness, your voice blocks out what the witness said, so we dont know what the wince said. Okay, im sorry. I think it would be helpful if you allowed the witness to complete his answer. In a regular hearing with the wince he witness here, we can hear what theyre saying. Fair enough. You block him out as soon as you talk him over. Im sorry. Repeat your answer. Nigh answer was no, not without a much fuller discussion of how they were thinking about their disclosure obligations to the court. Thank you very much. Thank you, senator whitehouse. Thank you, mr. Chairman. This is an issue thats concerned me for a long time. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has some problems. Those problems have been on live display today. They have been on live display over the last few years. Have been working over the last decade to try to reform them. I have forced a number of bipartisan proposals to do precisely that. Most recently with the lee leahy amendment that would have passed the senate and house, but the vote for it was canceled. I hope still to get that passed. It is a dangerous thing to provide enormous investigative power of the United States government with as much authority as it has and then to put that in a private secret set of proceedings. These have worried me for a long time. We have got to reform them. I remember, mr. Comey, when you were first nominated to be the fbi director. I had been in the senate for a few years by then. I hadnt had a lot of previous interactions with you. But i knew you. And i felt i knew you well. I remembered fondly some interaction i had with you as a young prosecutor. You visited the u. S. Attorneys office in salt lake city. And you gave us a really encouraging speech in which you gave your heartfelt sentiments about what it means to be an assistant United States attorney. I remember specifically your admonition that its important in a job like that where you have to see things that as you pointed, people shouldnt have to see, its important to love someone. Its important to dot your is and cross your ts. And i remember something inspiring you said. You said if somebody woke me up, at the time, you were serving either as the Deputy Attorney general or the head of the Criminal Division of the department of justice, im not sure which. You said in the middle of the night, if someone woke me up and they would say who are you, i would identify myself as an assistant United States attorney because deep down, thats who i am. That inspired in me for many years a level of commitment when representing the United States government to make sure that i was thorough, and you inspired me. For that reason, when you were nominated to the position of fbi direct director, even though i had grave concerns with the fbi and how it was administering fisa at the time, i trusted you. I believed you would act in good faith. When i asked you in my office and later in committee hearings, first in your confirmation hearing and then in all of our subsequent oversight hearings, what you would do to help make sure that the fisa process was respected and not manipulated. You gave me your word. Having established that brief relationship with you, i trusted you. I have to say today, im very disappointed to see that those promises announced to me seem very insincere. With all due respect, you dont seem to know anything about an investigation that you ran. So how can you now as a private citizen and former fbi director show up and then speculate freely regarding any alleged ties between president putin and President Trump . I heard you say just a moment ago, now i hope i misunderstood you. Please correct me if i did. I think i heard you say you still speculate they might have something on President Trump because of how President Trump refers or doesnt refer to president putin in public. This, of course, takes into account nothing about the fact that sources you have relied on in the past have turned out not to be accurate. You didnt identify the inaccuracies subquently to the fisa court. It acknowledges nothing about the fact that there are perfectly reasonable explanations as to why one leader would refer to a foreign leader in a certain tone. Or the fact this is the same tone he uses in referring to other World Leaders, particularly those World Leaders in parts of the country where we have had some issues. So honestly, how can you as a private citizen now come to us and in your capacity as former fbi director and speculate so freely regarding these alleged ties . When you dont seem to know anything about this investigation that you ran. Im sorry, senator. I cant as a private citizen because i have eyes and ears. And as i said in response to the question, thats how it struck me watching the president in helsinki take putins side against his own Intelligence Community and lots of stuff like that. I separate the two. I agree with you, there are serious reasons to worry about the fisa process when the Inspector General found errors in every fisa application, and thats a really important thing to dig into it, and i respect this committee looking at it. Thats what i think about those two things. Glad to hear we share that in common. Fantastic. Why do you not think you had a duty to provide all of the information to the foreign Intelligence Surveillance court . You signed the renewal application, did you not . I signed the certification, which is very narrow. Got it. What does that mean . What the heck does the certification mean if you werent required to know, and in fact did not know, what was in there . And if it didnt have any duty to provide all of the thiefr to the court, what does that certification mean . I was trying to say, senator, when you started speaking again, the certification is narrow that the fbi director has to sign, but that doesnt change the fact the fbi has a duty of candor, of heightened candor to the fisa court, and it wasnt met according to the Inspector General here. Thats a separate question from whether the fbi director should have been briefed on the individual portions of the carter page investigation. I know people care about that. Much more important, why were there material omissions, not just in this application but in all of the applications that the Inspector General looked at . So i think thats a really important question. Okay. We have to remember that the only reason, the people who did this, im confident, number one, the circumstantial evidence suggests that there likely was a political motive. One of the reasons we know that is in various documents we obtained we could see political motives coming into consideration, but in many instances, those individuals didnt believe they had any chance of getting caught. They believed Hillary Clinton was going to win. Had she won, in all probability, none of this would have come to light. How should this strike the American People . The average american citizen . Knowing that any american citizen could get caught into the same type of trap, could become the subject of an investigation rooted in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, it would never come to light. If in this circumstance where there was always a possibility it would come to light and it did come to light because the individual who was connected to the investigation became elected president of the United States despite the best efforts or perhaps the expectations of those conducting the investigation. How should they have any confidence in the fisa process when stoifscertifications were provided but the full information wasnt . When the duty of candor to the court wasnt met, when no one seems to take accountability for anything in this entire process is handled in secret with a malleable standard leaving it almost without accountability . Should the americans people have any confidence in the foreign Intelligence Surveillance court or in those government lawyers appearing before it . Im not going to address your long preamble which i have significant disagreement with. The American People should always want to know how the governments power is being used, especially when its being used in secret. How is it checked, how is it overseen, how is it balanced . We know because you have been around a long time, too, that periodically, we discover problems in any ex parte process. The American People should have confidence in the oversight of the Inspector General, especially, and of this committee and counterparts in the house to demand those answers. I think thats totally appropriate. Mr. Chairman, i see my time is expired. You dont install a wasp nest in your childrens bedroom and express surprise when a child gets bitten by wasps. You dont adopt an ex parte process and then express surprise and outrage when it goes completely unsupervised and off the rails. This is an issue thats neither republican or democratic. Its neither liberal nor conservative. This is a constitutional issue, a moral issue, and we have big problems. We need to pass the lee leahy amendment and we need to reform or eliminate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Thank you. Senator whitehouse. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, i am particularly sensitive to the problem of selectivedeclassification because i had to go through being on the receiver end during the Intelligence Committees investigation of the torture program, and i will tell you its extremely frustrating to have information declassified in that case out of the white house that you know can be exploded, completely blown up by other information but that other information hasnt been declassified so you cant answer the false implication from selectively declassified information. So from that background, i am really concerned that we are treating this ratcliffe letter as something at all serious or credible. And mr. Chairman, i hope very much that nobody from this committee had any hand in generating this letter. We are recipients only, i hope, because if we had any hand in this, thats a real problem. I will point out that with respect to bullet one talking about tying trump to putin and the russians hacking of the Democratic National committee, thats actually an established fact. With respect to the point about a proposal from a Foreign Policy adviser claiming interference by Russian Security services, that is an established fact. And the u. S. President ial candidate donald trump and Russian Hackers hampering u. S. Elections is also an established fact. So what else do you have around here is what looks like just something that got spun up by a political appointee and is now being offered through this committee as having any credibility. And i think that its this rings just enumerable bells about the dangers of selective declassification. Theres topic one. I have a problem with selective decloin declassification here. Second, i have a big problem with access to documentess. You and i have talked about this. I have made public statements about how the fbi appears to have a policy, for damn sure a pattern of refusing to answer questions and qfrs, and many cases to rn senators, but for sure, to democrat senators. You took that claim seriously enough that you organized a meeting for me with the Deputy Attorney to explain this policy or this pattern of not answering questions. That was on june 15th, as i recall, and here we are nearly into october, and you know how many answers i have gotten since that meeting . Zero. None. Not a single one. So when it comes to our questions, it looks like its a total stonewall. In this case, on this matter, the doj has given the chairman unprecedented access to information, including deliberative documents, stuff that they wouldnt give us even if they were answering our questions, and classified information which usually is a nest to get through. 18 separate productions of highly sensitive documents totaling 1,550 pages. So this particular question seems to be getting highspeed special treatment out of the doj when in other areas we get a complete wall of silence and shutdown. And the last is im told there were even private briefings to republicans only on this matter in which democrats were not invited to participate. Again, if that is true, a combination of selective declassification, dishonorable and unfair access to documents, and partisan private briefings does not get us off to a good start going back to my letter to you of june 4th about the hazards of this investigation. So i just needed to say that. I agree with you, mr. Chairman, that it is worth looking into the question of what is wrong with the fisa process that allowed these repeated errors to happen across a whole array of cases. But its also interesting to read the gleason brief, where a retired federal judge on behalf of a federal judge accused the department of justice under attorney general barr of running political errands for the president in order to protect a political supporter and friend of his, mr. Flynn. And we have exactly zero attention being pay today that. That is a fairly serious matter of interest, i think equivalent to the matter of interest in fisa, but nothing. The current fbi director is talking about present russian interference in this election right now as we speak to try to get President Trump reelected. Where is the hearing on that . Where are the documents on that . Where is the declassified material on that . None of it. And, you know, ill go back to what i consider, because i dont have any information because the fbi has given me none, what appears to have been a bogus tip line in the kavanaugh investigation. Maybe it was, maybe it wasnt, but a question about whether that was a bogus tip line, i think, is something that is worth answering. And yes, it is important that the fisa process was abused. But if an fbi investigation was abused in the kavanaugh hearings, thats also an important matter. I dont want to deprecate the porn importance of what were doing here, but it stand in sharp contrast with other issues with the fbi that are continually swept under the rug and continually stonewalled. The question that i have is something i have raised before and ill ask director comey because hes done a lot of investigations. You and i have done investigations as well, chairman. You have been a prosecutor. If you have an investigation and if you determine in your oversight as a supervisor that there is a flaw or an omission or a false statement in a warrant application, obviously, you should not file that warrant application with the court. The problem is that the committees questions on the republican side have always ended there. You would not sign the warrant if you knew that was the case. The problem with that is that you then go on to the next step. And that is just because there was a flaw in a proposed warrant doesnt mean you end the investigation. Youre nodding your head. We both agree. At the end of the day, what you then do is you go back and you look at whether the investigation was otherwise predicated with all of the falsity or whatever removed, and everything accurate that needs to be in there done, and if then the investigation was otherwise predicated and if then there was otherwise probable cause to continue, director comey, do you not then proceed with the investigation with a cleaned up warrant rather than let somebody get off scot free because of an error that never reached the court . You would certainly want to go through, i think thats called the franks process to understand whether you still have sufficient basis to establish probable cause with mistakes and omissions corrected. And that standards . Standard. Across the board. Thank you. Okay. Respond and turn over to senator cruz. Number one, senator whitehouse has reason to be concerned about some testimony given into the house by a department of justice official about environmental policy. And we will keep plugging away with me and you and senator lee because this is a legitimate inquiry. Just to be clear, chairman, yes, im very concerned about the antitrust investigation. Right. And who was behind it and why it seemed to violate so many rules and norms. Yes. When we get around to senator lee and senator klobuchars antitrust investigation which was supposed to be today but i gather is indefinitely postponed i would hope we have those documents, but the list i gave to the Deputy Attorney general of all of the qfrs i have not had answers to and all of the questions and letters i have not have answers to goes well beyond that issue of the one investigation of fake investigation, it would seem, but well see, of the auto companies. Yeah. And just to make it clear to the public at large, because the carter page warrant application was incredibly flawed, doesnt mean you cant look at other things. The question for me has always been, okay. Lets look at all things trump. And the dossier, the accused carter page is having a relationship with manafort, and thats where hes passing all this information. Carter page never talked to manafort. Things that the court should know. Allegations being made. We now know that the dossier was a result, at least in part, of russian disinformation. That the fbi took russian disinformation from a political party, paid for by a political party, and got a warrant against an american citizen. Thats pretty stunning. And we got to do something somebody needs to go to jail or get fired over that. Now, the question has always been, did the fbi have the same zeal looking at trump. Lets put it this way, everything trump got looked at, peoples lives were turned upside down, 25 million was spent, and nobody has ever been charged with colluding with the russians on the trump side. Was there any suggestion maybe the other side was involved in trying to create a russian trump problem for political purposes . We know that Christopher Steele was on the pay roll of the Democratic Party. We know that he was working for fusion gps. We know that his primary subsource was igor, the russian spy. If they were willing to do that, would they be willing to do more . We know in july theres an intercept out there from russian intelligence analysts that the Clinton Campaign is concocting a strategy to tie trump to russia. All im suggesting is, did they look at that . And director comey has told me he doesnt remember getting an inquiry from the Intelligence Community about a september concern about the Clinton Campaign trying to change the subject from the server to trump russia. He doesnt remember that. So what kind of system do we have . We look at all things trump all the time, and when we get exculpatory evidence, we keep tooking. When were told its not reliable, we keep using it. When theres suggestions that the other side may be up to no good, we just ignore it. Thats why the ratcliffe information is important to me. I havent been privately briefed by anybody, but im beginning to understand there was a twotiered system here. When it came to trump, there were no rules. Plow ahead. Ignore everything. Lie if you need to. Alter documents. When it came to clinton, seems to be a completely different standard, knowing that the campaign had on its pay roll a Foreign Agent who hired a russian spy to get dirt on trump. That is the concern i have. And we cant live in a world where you turn the world upside down against one campaign and give the other campaign pretty much a complete pass regarding russia. Since you have responded to me, may i have a moment back to you . Yes, you may. Ill be brief. If you look at the ratcliffe letter, the only thing that it really says is that if its to be believed at all there was a plan within the Clinton Campaign to point out that trump and the russians were scheming in the election. Or the Trump Campaign and the russians were scheming in the election. Okay, great. So that predicated fact seems actually to be established truth if you believe the report and if you believe what director wray is saying right now and what the fbi has said all along. So its really hard to call a campaigns effort to blow the whistle on the other sides communications with russia and russias efforts to support that candidate with the actual efforts to do that. I mean, theyre not the same thing. Thank you y have a completely different view. But you had a chance to say yours. You gave me a chance to say mine. Im and i thank you for that courtesy. No, all i know is that the cia felt obama needed to know about this and i take it completely different that this was an effort by the Clinton Campaign to try trump russia, not because of anything they found, because that is part of their political strategy. Senator lee, you want to say something. Yes i wanted to respond to that point. Senator whitehouse we scheduled the oversight hearing today because of the conflict with this hearing today that couldnt occur. Ive been in Constant Contact with assist and attorney general macon dell raheem who is an outstanding lawyer and one i who i have known for 20 years and you and i perhaps see that differently. Making del raheem is set to come and testify and set the record straight on those issues. If you have respond the response, i believe there are more documents that hes either just sent you or about to send you. I would like to know, instead of just smearing him by saying that hes been evasive, tell me what questions youve asked that he hasnt answered because to my knowledge he has responded to you. Ill get you the list. You may not like his responses. I gave a list to the chairman sometime ago. And i support senator whitehouse. And i dont want to be in a situation in which he comes in and i dont have the chance to do the preparation for a meaningful hearing. I get that. Mr. Chair, maybe you could help us get that hearing being the ranking on that Sub Committee because i was be willing to do it tomorrow or any day next week. Well be back. Both senator whitehouse and i are back the week after that for the Supreme Court hearing. I think it is important that we go forward. There is major tech investigations going on and were going to have the head of the ftc and the head of the antitrust division. So i hope we could schedule this. I thought it was unfortunate this got canceled because of this hearing. Well i think this hearing is important and agree your warning is important and well get there. Somehow well get there. Senator cruz. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Returning to mr. Comey. You have concerned whenever the fbi doesnt operate in a quote, competent and honest way. In your judgment was the way pa the fbi handled the russia investigation, the surveillance of the Trump Campaign, the carter page fisa application, the michael Flynn Investigation, was that handled in a competent and honest way . First, senator cruz, there was no to my knowledge surveillance of the Trump Campaign. I think the overall investigation of the russian interference and whether americans were associated with it was conducted in a competent and honest way. Im sure you found the report that found 17 significant errors in the carter page fisa application so in your view 17 mistakes lying to the court is competent and honest. I read the report. I dont believe he concluded there were lies to the court but there were significant and failings in the way the fisa was prepared and renewed. Lets go directly to lies. The Inspector General report concluded that mr. Klein smith, a attorney that worked for you in the fbi, deliberately altered an email to ask if carter page was a source. The cia came back and said yes, he was a source and mr. Klein smith, your lawyer, altered that email to add the words not a source to make the email say precisely the opposite of what the cia said and that fraudulent document was then used as a basis for a fraudulent to the fisa court. You believe that is honest and competent, mr. Comey . Dont believe youve offered an accurate summary of the horowitz findings. I have the report in front of me. Page 254 describes how the lawyer specifically how the words had been inserted in the response directly reversing what the cia says. Was it practice in your fbi to fraudulently alter evidence that you submit to federal courts . It was not the practice in the fbi to fraudulently alter anything presented to federal courts. Well it is difficult to say that an investigation that featured fraudulent evidence is competent and honest. But lets move on to something else. The predicate of much of this investigation was the steele dossier which is discredited as garbage. When did you learn that the steele dossier was being funded by the Democrat National convention and the hillary Clinton Campaign. I believe your predicate is inaccurate. But i first learned of the steele dossier in late december of 2016 and understood that it was funded by political opposition to President Trump, or candidate trump. I didnt know the specifics of which part of the opposition, but i knew that it was political Opposition Research funding. When . When did you learn that. I think about the time i was briefed on it, so about the same time. Probably third week of september. So you were personally aware that the political opposition, whether the dnc or Hillary Clinton or whatever Campaign Bucket it was coming from, it was the opposing Party Funding it and you were aware of it in september. Why didnt you tell the fisa court and omit that over and over and over again on applications you submitted. Didnt the court deserve to know that. My recollection is the fisa court was alerted to the possibility it was a politically biased reporting. It is not funded by the dnc, that is one of the omission that your fbi did repeatedly to the fbi court. Go ahead. That is not what i just said. What did you just say . I said my recollection is the court was alerted there was political bias in this reporting. Political bias is different from saying it was funded by the hillary Clinton Campaign. You just testified to this committee you were aware of and yet you repeatedly did not inform the court of it when you were getting an order to semly weaponize the democratic Opposition Research. All right. Next question. When did you learn that the primary subsource, so the basis for the garbage steele dossier was a suspected russian asset . I dont remember ever being informed of any prior investigation of any of steele sources including the primary sub source. So youre not aware of it today . Im aware of it today because i read it in the public sphere and ive read a summary memo that the department of justice sent to the judiciary committee. I would note the primary subsource was subject to fbi investigation, a Counter Intelligence investigation from 2009 to 2011 and i will read some of what the investigation was. The primary sub source approach, two individuals who about to enter the Obama Administration and indicated that if, quote, the two individuals at the table did get a job in the government and had access to classified information and wanted to make a little extra money, the primary subsource knew some people to whom they could speak. Hes trying to recruit spies against the u. S. Government. You have a russian agent that is the basis for an fbi investigation and the fbi is the one who investigated them. Your testimony is you didnt know. Did it occur to you to ask . Did you ask any questions or do any Due Diligence on this at all . I dont remember anything about the facts that have been revealed recently about the subsource. And as i said earlier, i think that cuts both ways but i dont know how the people running the investigation thought about it. Well, you didnt tell the fisa court that either and i suspect the fisa court would have had a very different assessment if you had told them that the basis for your application was what you were being told from a suspected russian asset. Lets shift to another topic. On may 3rd, 2017, in this committee, chairman grassley asked you point blank, quote, have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters related to the trump investigation or the clinton investigation. You responded under oath, quote, never. He then asked you, quote, have you ever authorized someone else at fbi to be an anonymous source in news reports about the trump investigation or the Clinton Administration . You responded again under oath no. Now, as you know mr. Mccabe, who works for you, has publicly and repeatedly stated that he leaked information to the wall street journal and that you were directly aware of it and that you directly authorized it. Now, what mr. Mccabe is saying and what you testified to this committee cannot both be true. One or the other is false. Who is telling the truth . I can only speak to my testimony. I stand by the testimony you summarized that i gave in may of 2017. So your testimony is youve never authorized anyone to leak and mr. Mccabe, if he said contrary, is not telling the truth, is that correct. Im not going to characterize andys testimony but mine is the same today. And im going to make a final point because my time is expired. This investigation of the president was corrupt, the fbi and the department of justice were politicized and weaponized and in my opinion there are only two possibilities. That you were deliberately corrupt or woefully incompetent and i dont believe you were incompetent. This is done Severe Damage to the professionals and the honorable men and women at the fbi because Law Enforcement should not be used as a political weapon. And that the legacy youve left. Senator blumenthal. Im sorry, senator klobuchar, i didnt see you. Apologize. Thank you very much, mr. Chair. Thank you very much director comey for being here once again. I think a lot of people are wondering why we are having this hearing right now. And i think most people would think we should be talking about other things, except make President Trump. And i understand the chairs statements about wanting to move on fisa reform, i will point out the republicans have been running the senate for the last four years. They have their own internal disagreements on fisa. The president has been president for the last four years and i havent heard him talking about fisa reform repeatedly as one of his major priorities. Im sure if he wanted to make this a major priority, within your party, it could have gotten done. But instead we are having this hearing right now. And i will get to mr. Comey in a while. Ill note that he has appeared before this Committee Many times. If you look at all of these reports, about what he did and his time in office, i dont agree with everything that he did. But i do know as being his classmate in law school, i could call him any time and ask him things but i also know that he had the respect of a lot of people that worked for him. And so if i look at legacies, we all have mixed legacies, things that we regret, things that were proud of. But i know that one of his legacies is that he did have support for Law Enforcement. I know it from people in minnesota. And i would note that he was fired. Were you fired, mr. Comey. May 9th of 2017. And where were you when you found out you were fired by the president . In los angeles for a diversity recruiting event. I found out on television. And i know that you went all orn the country talking to Law Enforcement, is that right, during your time as head of the fbi . Yes. And are you proud of the work that the people did in the fbi . Enormously. It is one of the highlights of my entire life to be associated with them. Thank you. So what im thinking as people watch this, not that many people are, but if they are, what theyre thinking is what are you guys doing. First of all, there is an election coming up in a few weeks and as senator durbin has pointed out there are a lot of concerns right now about russia. Not about what mr. Comey was involved in, that investigation years ago. But what is happening right now. We have director wray himself, the current fbi director appointed by President Trump, saying russia is very active in the 2020 election. Primarily through what we would call malign foreign influence in an attempt to undermine joe biden. To denig rate Vice President biden. That is a quote. Mueller, we know this, the russian government interfered in the 2016 election and the Trump Campaign knew about it. We know that we have director coats saying that russia is the form the most aggressive foreign actor, quote from coats, the warning lights are blinking red again. And then we have the cia World Intelligence review, we assess that president Vladimir Putin and the senior most russian officials are aware of and probably directing russia influences and operations aimed at denigrating the u. S. Vice president and supporting the u. S. President and fuelling public discord ahead of the u. S. Election in november. So that is the hearing that we should be having right now. Or, as was pointed out by senator whitehouse, we could be having the hearing we were supposed to be having now which is the head of the antitrust division of the Justice Department and the head of the ftc, when we have fraud going on during this pandemic, we could be ask them about innocent people being hurt and asking them as senator whitehouse pointed out what in the world is going on over at the antitrust division and why they devoted money to marijuana mergers and tech investigations which is now 20 of the stock market. Those are pretty important things. Or we could instead of being here rehashing this, of someone who is asking someone who is fired from their job by the president along with so many other people, we could be trying to figure out what we should be doing for the American People during this pandemic. 850 people a day, 850 people a day dying from the coronavirus. 800 businesses close every single day. But here we are rehashing this. So to me if anyone watched that debate last night, since i believe that is why were having this hearing because were just a few weeks out, we may as well be blatant about it. If anybody watched the debate last night and saw the president in all of his heckling glory, i think what they saw was someone who is trying to undermine our elections. Spreading falsehoods about voting by mail when, in fact, so many people in this building and republican governors across this country have said it is perfectly safe to vote by mail. Refusing to condemn White Supremacy in front of the entire nation. That is not something you clean up the next day. All of this is done to wreak havoc right before an election. So, that is what i think we should be talking about today. But instead were here with you, director comey so ill ask you some quick questions. When you were fbi director did you become aware at some point prior to the 2016 president ial election that russia launched a sophisticated effort to disrupt and interfere in the u. S. Election . Yes. And as the fbi and intelligence agencies were learning about this threat, did you also become aware of effort by the russians to pass information to the Trump Campaign that they believed would be helpful . Yes. Is it true that there were more than 120 contacts between the Trump Campaign and individuals linked to russia . I think that is a number that i recall from the senator intel report and the Mueller Report, somewhere in that area. Do you agree with the Trump Administration intelligence officials that i just quoted, including your successor at the fbi, that President Trump appointed that russia is emboldened and trying it again . Yes, i accept what chris wray the fbi director said. Hes a person of integrity which makes his life difficult now but the American People could trust him. And as part of a foreign campaign, especially like a foreign adversary like russia pose a significant threat to our National Security. Yes. And why do you think, since again we have chosen to have this hearing, literally weeks before the election, throwing aside all other subjects so we could be devoted to it at the time, why do you think that nearly 500 National Security experts, including former military leaders have said that the current president has demonstrated that he is not equal to the enormous responsibilities of his office. Why do you think that republicans, democrats and independents have said this . Because those are people whose spine is a commitment to integrity and they see an absolute absence of that with the current commanderinchief and it concerns all of them without regard to their politics, as it should. Thank you, mr. Comey. Well go to senator sass and give mr. Comey about a tenminute break and restroom break. Is that okay, mr. Comey . Yes, sir. And just one response to senator klobuchar who i consider a friend. Ill be honest with you, you wouldnt be having this hearing and everybody in the world knows it. The horowitz report which is damning was never, never appeared before the house judiciary committee. Yall you dont care. As a party you seem to only be worried about trump and russia and when there is evidence coming out of over corner of the world that the russians played the fbi through a dnc operative, thats just of no consequence. Let the American People know, if you were in charge, we wouldnt know of this. Senator sasse. Thank you, chairman. Director comey, i think that the horowitz report is not just saddening and infuriating, it is also really embarrassing. As somebody who cares deeply about the fbi, and its culture and workers, we have a whole bunch of american patriotic heroes who work in that institution and they have lost standing and respect in the eyes of the American People, a lot of trust has evaporated. Ive fought hard to defend the fbi and its culture and he was embarrassed to read the horowitz report. When you read it, what are the top two or three things that youre embarrassed by. I think i share your reaction senator sass. The failure of omissions, to communicate between the team trying to figure out what is true and not true with the material and the Team Investigating carter page is embarrassing. It is sloppy. It is ive run out of words. There is no indication, and the Inspector General would say it if he found it, that people were doing bad things on purpose. But that doesnt make it any less concerning and embarrassing. But doesnt that point at you. You and i have spoken multiple times over my five and a half years here, or from arriving here in january of 2015 through your departure in 2017, you and i have many, many discussions about the future of cyber and Information Operations not just against the United States government but against institutions more broadly that wouldm . oqc g7 isnt the horowitz report chiefly an indictment of you personally. Two things are true. I hope you dont hear me to say im not responsible. Im the leader of that institution and this reflects on me and my responsibility. That is a separate question on whether i was briefed on a particular investigation. But no, im not looking to shirk responsibility. The director is responsible. I appreciate that. That is a real answer. But my question wasnt just about the particular investigation that is the headline of todays hearing, it is that the ig horowitz report talked about a fisa process that is riddled with errors. Every single place they look it was crap. You were in charge. How is it possible that the fisa process is that bad . Ive defended the fisa process, and fought against many of the particular reforms that some of my colleagues have wanted to advantage because i believed the checks and balances in the system were real. You were responsible for those checks and balances. Where were you . That is a great question. I think all of us, me in particular, took comfort in the complexity of the layer and layers of review and over sight associated with fisa and given that they found problems in everia application that what we thought was a good thing was actually a bad thing. And i hope theyre looking at returning the model to one closer to criminal wiretaps, were a single agent and a single lawyer are responsible and they feel the squeeze of signing their name. What happened to us, i think, through creating over sight, the responsibility was diffuse instead of concentrating on human beings. I hoping that some the Inspector General and others are looking at. But it is a really important question. I think that is insufficient. I have a lot of neighbors in nebraska who believe there is a massive deep state conspiracy. I dont believe most of those conspiracy theories. But it is really hard to understand how that many special agents, and i want to be clear, vast majority of special agents are wonderful hard working individuals who have more opportunity and if they were doing something else, the fbi is filled with men and women who do great stuff for the American People. So i want to fight hard to defend against impugning so many of them but it appears at the top of your organization there was a culture where many of the people who should be doing the hard work to make sure the checks and balances were carried out didnt think there was any chance they could get caught and so they could be sloppy to malicious. A lot of people in this room and watching at home or who read the horowitz report, but somewhere on that continuum there is a lot of people at the top of your organization who didnt ever think they were going to be held accountable. What did you do to manage the fi fisa process so you dont have the passive voice weve heard in a majority of the answers today. I was unaware, this happened and this is a individual particular error but it didnt supreme systemically but the truth is you are responsible for systemically and systematically manage that order. What did you do to make sure the fisa process would work. The notion of a deep state, i hope people who think that would take a look at the fact that the Inspector General found mistakes in fisa applications across counterintelligence and counterterrorism, all manner of cases, very difficult to reconcile that with the notion it was a deep state. But it does indicate there is a problem with the tension to the requirement of preparing an adequate fisa. I clearly didnt do enough. I believe that our process, which i kept myself closely informed about was robust, well staffed, had great manuals and all of those sorts of things. I was clearly wrong about that and had too much confidence in the oversight regime and i think based on my experience that the problem may well be deceptively simple instead of focused the way it is in a criminal case. But the leadership in your office didnt have oversight of the dozens people who would sign off on the most important investigations. The bureau has done Amazing Things and there have been a lot of highprofile investigations but this is one of the most highprofile investigations every conducted and the people at the top didnt think they would actually have their work checked. Mr. Chairman, i continue to believe that we have to explain to the American People why the fisa process is important. The russia challenges that we faced in 2016 and that we clearly are facing again in 2020 are a big deal. But the much bigger deal is the chinese kplunist party attacked on the American Election coming over the next decade. Putin is clunky as heck in how he does everything he does. When the ccp does all they are capable of doing it will make russia interference look like childs play and the fbi and the broader Intelligence Community have vitally Important Role to play in protecting the American People and we have to explain to the American Public why the fisa process is important. And im a big Amy Klobuchar fan but i disagree with the line of organization that this broad hearing topic isnt important. Were headed toward a world where if we dont fix the National Security branch and the Counter Intelligence pieces of the fbi, were not going to have an Intelligence Community that will have the trust of the American People when theyre going to have to employ bigger and more farreaching Digital Tools in the future. Thank you. And i think you have questions before we break. Could i just respond since my name was invoked . Sure. Pretty positively. I appreciate it. I have no issue with having this hearing and i think it is something many people up here agree. My only point was there has been years to fix it since this happened and we werent running the senate. That is my point. So ill turn it over to senator coons and then well take a 10 minute break. An fbi lawyer altered a document in a fashion to be damning to an american citizen. That is not sloppy. That is a crime. And when does it become obvious to anybody that the people in charge of cross hire hurricane have a deepseated bias against trump. They thought he was an idiot. They thought his supporters were smelly. The person who altered the email claimed to be part of the resiptance. When it becomes obvious the reason this thing was so screwed up, the reason every stop sign was run because they didnt want to take no for the answer. That is obvious to me. That is not in every other fisa application. The there were problems with the woods investigation and the information was withheld from the court. And what kind of system is it that the fbi director has no clue about the most important investigation maybe in the history of the fbi. If you want to believe that, and just write this off, i think you do as your own peril. And mr. Chairman, just to underscore your point, every one of the 17 material omissions was against President Trump and against the campaign. They werent random. They were all politically oriented against the president. They were trying to take down. Senator coons. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank you mr. Comey for your testify today and for engaging with us in this vigorous and thorough review of matters that occurred four and five years ago but remain relevant and important. But i want to remind all of us this context in which this hearing has taken place. We have 34 days to our president ial election, more than half of the states have already started voting. Were in the middle of a pandemic and economic crisis, a time of heightened racial tension and concern about criminal justice and instead of dedicating the next week or two to finalizing a next round of covid relief, were going to be spending our time at least here not looking at Election Security for 2020, not dedicating our time to a next round of pandemic relief, but participating in a rushed and partisan process to confirm a next Supreme Court justice. It is important to remind folks that our elections are being attacked at this very moment. That we know from recent testimony by the current fbi director that there continues to be foreign interference in our elections and so i think that at some level there is irony in light of the fact that last night we had a president ial debate in which our currently serving president said and did things to undermine some of the legitimacy of our upcoming election. Let me start with a few questions about that, if i might, mr. Comey. Current fbi director wray has said the fbi has not seen evidence of any coordinated voter fraud effort over 30 Million People voted by mail or absentee four years ago in 2016. In your time as fbi director, did you see any evidence of widespread or coordinated voter fraud . No. And last night, repeated allegations were made by President Trump of mailin voting being subject to widespread fraud. Do comments like this work to undermine democratic legitimacy and in any way serve the interests of our opponents who are seeking to spread disinformation and attack mailin voting . Well, im not going dont think im qualified to respond on the particular comment. Obviously our adversaries, especially russia, has as their primary goal dividing us and dirtying up the democratic enterprise. Let me say to the core issues that have been discussed and debated here, ive joined senators leahy and lee in an amendment to try to promote fisa reform. I agree we need our fisa process to be sound and transparent and something that the American People could believe in. And i think the Inspector Generals recommendations address some of these key issues and give us a road map for a number of things that have to be addressed. But i also frankly am concerned about the way in which the way the current fbi director has been under recently criticism and assault and there seems to me to be from our president , a politicization, a backward looking and let me ask you about that if i might. President trump refers to something he calls obama gate. He said it is worse than watergate. Are you aware of any evidence that president obama or former Vice President biden has committed any federal crime . No. Did you ever see any evidence that president obama or Vice President biden targeted any individual for investigation based on politics or their political views . Never. There was a january 5th, 2017 meeting at the white house. Was peter strzok at that meeting in the oval office . No. And at the meeting did president obama or Vice President biden want to prosecute nor the logan act. Would you remember that . I would remember that because it would be highly inappropriate to suggest prosecution of anyone and it did not happen. At that meeting, on january 5th at the white house, and this is in 2017, did president obama give any indication that he wanted to direct the course of a criminal investigation into general flynns conduct . No. And when you left the meeting, did you believe politics would play a role in the flynn case . No, i knew it would play no role. So during your time at the fbi, under the previousvation, were you ever pressured to take a step or support a conclusion that was not based on the facts and the law . No. But only weeks after his inauguration, my recollection is President Trump asked to you drop the investigation into Lieutenant General flynn and to let this go. Is that accurate . Yes. February 14th. So my concern broadly speaking is that we have seen politics inject into our Justice System countless times over the last four years. Is there any doubt in your mind that Lieutenant General flynn lied to the fbi about his conversations with the russians . None. I mean, i saw publicly he pled guilty to it twice. You could explain why lying to the fbi strikes at the heart of our criminal Justice System . Because the fbis ability to figure out what is going on in a criminal investigation or counterintelligence investigation is at the core of our ability to protect the American People. If we dont hear the truth, see the truth, gather the truth, we cant achieve the mission. There has been a lot of discussion today about the socalled steele dossier. Did the cross fire Hurricane Team rely on information from that dossier in its decision to open the investigation . No. Not at all. Was the team even aware of the information when they opened the investigation . No. It was i think it was two months later that the steele information came to the cross fire Hurricane Team. When you said this was an appropriately predicated open investigation because of the difference in time and sources and the basis on which those discussions were made . Correct. Because the Inspector General found in opening it we complied with the policies and regulations that governor the opening of a counterintelligence investigation. We should have been fired. There ought have been fired given the evidence we were given by a friendly Foreign Government. And last, when he testified to this committee in june, Rod Rosenstein suggested did he not believe that any of the 199 criminal counts that resulted from the Mueller Investigation relied on information provided by steele. Do you have any reason to doubt that assessment . I have no reason to doubt that. I want to thank you for your appearance before us today. There are many urgent things we could and should be working on together. It is my hope we will get back to them. I do agree that the fisa process requires transparency and improvement. But frankly i think there is a connect the dots game going on here that doesnt connect. And im gravely concerned about ongoing efforts to denigrate and politicize the fbi today. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony today. Were going to take about a come back at 12 45 and give the witness a break and see you at 12 45. Senator hawley will be next. The Senate Judiciary committee is taking a break. James comey has been answering questions from the economy on the fbi investigation into possible links between Trump Campaign associates and russian officials during the 2016 election. Mr. Comey is being asked about how the counter trillion dollin effort began and continued to move forward. Lindsey graham chairs the committee and the top democrat is senator dianne feinstein. Thank you very much for being with us. You could raise your right hand, please. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give the committee is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god. I do