Last night, Vice President elect mike pence took a break from the president ial Transition Team to attend a performance of Broadway Musical hamilton. When that show was over, one of the cast members addressed the Vice President elect in from of the audience. A portion of those remarks were then posted on twitter. [cheers and applause] you know, we have a guest in the audience this evening. Vice president elect pence, i out, but i walking hope you will stay for a few more moments. There is no need for booing, no need for booing. [indiscernible] vince, wedentelect welcome you, and we truly thank you for joining us here at hamilton an american musical. We, sir, are the diverse america who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us [cheers and applause] ourefend us and uphold inalienable rights, but we truly hope that the show has inspired you to uphold our American Values and work on behalf of all of us. [cheers and applause] a wonderful american story told by a Diverse Group of men, women of different races, cultures, creeds, and orientations. Morning president elect donald trump responded to that incident with a tweet saying our wonderful future Vice President mike pence was arrested last night by the theater of by the cast of hamilton, cameras blazing. The should not happen. He went on to add the theater should always be a safe and special place. Because of hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, mike pence. Apologize tweeting, gerry connolly, the irony of them jumped amid an apology isnt lost on me or 62 million americans who opposed his campaign run on eight and division. Elected asald trump the next president , Melania Trump becomes the second foreignborn first lady since louisa adams. Learn more about the influence of president ial spouses with it is a first ladys. Companion to cspans wellregarded biography tv series and features interviews with 54 of the nations leading historians, biographies, and archival photos from their lives. Availableies is wherever you buy books, and now available in paperback. Testifying on capitol hill this week, James Clapper formally announced his resignation. And toified alongside gone officials about the collaboration between the Intelligence Community and the defense department. This is about an hour and 45 minutes. Mr. Nunes the committee will come to order. I would like to remind our members and our staff we are at the unclassified level for todays hearings. I am also to remind that concealing information from the committee is a crime punishable by law. Today we welcome the director of National IntelligenceJames Clapper, deputy secretary robert work, who will discuss the support that our Intelligence Community provides to our war fighters and the department of defense. Thank you for being here today. The United States faces grave security threats from terrorist threats to cyberattacks. The Intelligence Community provides our military with critical information across the full spectrum of conflict. When they do not integrate effectively we risk intelligence failures that put our war fighters lives at risk. They have failed to respond to the concerns on a range of Critical NationalSecurity Issues including those raised by the committee during the worldwide threats hearing this past february. The committee is alarmed at the threats of National Security as we documented in our august report. Investigation has found that the d. O. D. And the Facilities Planning has been plagued by significant flaws including disregard for coasteffective alternatives. The committee has not seen any meaningful corrective actions by the d. O. D. Or i. C. I thank the department of defense for their ongoing investigations into both of these issues. Once they are complete, i will invite the i. G. To present their findings in open session. If necessary, we may ask the three of you to return following the conclusion of those investigations. I also commend the work of the Government Accountability office which recently released a report finding that the department of defense did not follow best practices when conducting its joint intelligence analysis complex consolidation analysis of alternative processes. I would like to recognize the Ranking Member for any opening comments he would like to make. Mr. Schiff. Mr. Schiff thank you, mr. Chairman. Im trying to get used to this new committee and lap of luxury here in the ways of means. I thank your many years of service to the country. Director clapper, in particular, i want to thank you for honorably serving us since the 1960s first as an air force officer as director and undersecretary of defense and the last six years. You took a position that was still very much in the process of formation and gave it very substantive and effective content and we are very grateful for all you have done. You have exhibited sober judgment and put the fate of the nation first. I hope as you look back on your career, you dont lament your many appearances before us. We certainly dont. And there was a rumor out there that you might be asked to stay on a little bit longer than the transition and i hope you stay on four years longer, but thats probably the last thing you want to hear. \[laughter] deputy secretary work and deputy secretary, i want to thank you for your Extraordinary Service to the country and grateful to both of you and look forward to our continued Work Together and whatever plans come to you both down the road. As we near the end of the congress, now is an appropriate time to reflect on the values that save our work and how those manifest in the National Security domain. Our country is best served when we conduct ourselves worthy of the American People. This requires the commitment to intellectual honesty and respect for the rule of law and accept accountability for the mistakes and what we learned from them and avoid repeating them. We must all Work Together to solve problems on a nonpartisan basis. The Intelligence Community and at times the military operate in the shadows but no way diminishes our responsibility to assure that we act according to these principles and in fact the responsibility is very greater. At home we rely to be objective and honest about the challenges we face and that candor is what allows the most Senior Leaders to make hard choices about how to protect americans. Abroad as we engage in war fare to protect ourselves and allies and world stability, we expect you to comport with the rule of law. Even in the shadows, we must all act as if you are in the spotlight because you are. The world often sees what we are doing. The intelligence committees do our best to shine a light in a constructive way. The people expect that is responsive and transparency and open to the oversight committees. The committees act as a critical check on the most secret committees of the i. C. And d. O. D. And provide oversight and we hope sound judgment and either authorization or disapproval. Each of us must strike the right balance between protecting privacy and Civil Liberties and ensuring National Security. It is never clear and never a bright line. But it must be our goal in the i. C. And department of defense and here in congress. I look forward to a discussion about how the i. C. Can and does support the dipt of defense. We pursue our bipartisan oversight of the critical work you do now and into the future. I thank you, mr. Chairman and i yield back. Mr. Nunes we do have your Opening Statements for the record. I want to keep your Opening Statements to no more than five minutes because we have a lot of questions and we will have a series of votes and i want to get through those questions as possible. Who is going to start off. Director clapper. You are recognized for five minutes. Mr. Clapper chairman nunes, Ranking Member schiff, members of the committee and thanks to the Ranking Member for your very gracious comments. I submitted my letter of resignation last night which felt pretty good and i got 64 days left and i would have a hard time with my wife with anything past that. Thanks for having us to discuss the Intelligence Communitys support to the department of defense. Im joined by my friend and colleague, bob work and my partner undersecretary of defense for intelligence. To the two men whom i greatly admire. Well do our best to discuss as much as the i. C. Support to the department in this unclassified environment obviously noting some details may need to be followed up in a classified setting. I included a brief update of the challenges this committee knows well. In the interest of time, i think i will skip by those. You are well familiar with them. Just to as a stage setter for constant challenges that we face. As i said before this Committee Many times, our nation is facing a most diverse array of threats than i have seen in the 63 years and that is what makes this topic so important. Never before the tension community and the department of defense needs to work closely. We have a shared responsibility to keep our nation safe and secure. I have a long history of serving in the department and intelligence roles to include as the director of intelligence for three of the combatant commands for both d. I. A. And n. G. A. For nine years as deputy secretary of defense and Technical Intelligence centers and i served two combat tours during the Southeast Asia conflict. I experienced the department and n. I. C. s collaboration. Since the standup, the relationship has grown closer. When i first took over in 2007, i established a dual hat relationship with usdi. Its called the director of Defense Intelligence. And this position serves as a bridge to serve collaboration and information sharing between the intelligence sharing and d. O. D. And march sell, i must say has taken this arrangement to the level. Adopted the same approach. We learned the hard way and insular approaches to intelligence are not the way to operate. To penetrate those stove pipes one of the tools is joint duty where officers serve outside of their home agencies. This is integration at the most basic level persontoperson. The i. C. s policies not only mandates but seeks those who want to become a senior officer. 5,000 officers have completed joint duty assignments. This is stark contrast to my war where you saw civilian employees in the war zone. The members are serving shouldertoshoulder sharing the same risks and enduring the same circumstances. And more recent graphic example of that in my visit to kuwait last week. Assigned joint duty is one of the many ways we build strong bridges. I want to take note of the fact that secretary carter presented me with the department of defense Public Service award, the highest such award he can give. The award was not for me. I accepted it on behalf of the men and women of the Intelligence Community who work to support our missions. And award is a symbol of that commitment to mission and i thank the secretary for honoring us, the Intelligence Community. And mr. Chairman, if i may, i did want to comment specifically on the issue of integrity at centcom. Recent information that i thought would be useful to share with you. Since we have 2016 results of our survey within which reflected the 22 of centcom and analysts objective issues, this represents a decrease from 41 in 2015 and comparable to 16 who reported issues in 2014. Centcom j2 objectivity numbers are on par and slightly higher than 2016 i. C. Wide average of 17 . Also indicate that centcom j2 were more likely to seek assistance to resolve incidents. 60 experienced objectivity issues and sought assistance up from 42 . Those seeking assistance, 67 rated seniors centcom as satisfactory in protecting analytic products from deliberate distortion. I mention this only to make this this is a oneyear period but it does show a positive trend. And i would also comment that there has been a change in both the commander and the j2 and centcom and im not casting aspersions but i think a change has been a positive development. With that, ill stop and turn to secretary work. Mr. Nunes you are recognized for five minutes. Chairman nunes and Ranking Member schiff, its an honor to appear before you to discuss the support the department of defense has received from the Intelligence Community. As the chairman said, this is the unclassified hearing so it precludes me from getting into any specific details, so let me just state that the support we receive from the i. C. Community has been absolutely superb. Great to be here with the director of National Intelligence, jim clapper. Nobody no more qualified. March sell has been tasked by me to find your letter of resignation and lose it because we would like to see you stay as long as possible. But as jim gets ready to hang up his spurs, the secretary and i are exceedingly grateful to his tremendous contributions to the Intelligence Community and intelligence support to d. O. D. He knows better than anyone, the value of the d. O. D. s eight members that the i. C. Brings to the intelligence arena. And march sell is my battle body, the primary intelligence adviser to the secretary and me and responsible to jim in the role of the director for Defense Intelligence. This dualhat role was established and institutionalized when jim was the undersecretary of defense for intelligence and has been a smashing success in our opinion. I cant overstate the team that understands the war fighting experience is plugged in and appreciates the entire capabilities the i. C. Can bring to bear. We all understand and understand the importance of these relationships which is why i comment on them. Thanks to jim and march sell and the directors of the combat support agencies, the relationship in our view and the rest of the throo of the intelligence communities and d. O. D. Have never been better. I have worked in this business now for a little bit of 2 1 2 years and had the opportunity to work with jim and his principal deppies. Stephanie is one of the members along with the chairman of the joints joint chiefs of staff. These relationships and cooperation are absolutely crucial as we seek to allocate our intelligence sources to meet the challenges that jim spoke about around the world in fighting isil and other extremist groups and monitoring iraqs programs and ensuring iran does not develop further capability and keeping an eye on russia in the ukraine and scrutinizing chinas activities in the south china sea. The demands on the Intelligence Community are formidable and the i. C. Is working as best as they can and we would consider their job to be outstanding to try to apply scares intelligence resources across all of these challenges. Usdi and d. I. Rely on several joint forums where the fedges chiefs and the combatant support agencies, c. I. A. And d. N. I. Convene and these are include regular visits to our regional combatant commands. Participation in the afghan which we call the war fighting cig and all of these are designed to address the operational needs. We have 10 combatant commands and representatives on them. That is another indication of how close our relationship is and their robust presence and even in afghanistan, iraq, syria and other places worldwide especially in this zerosum budgeting environment speaks highly of the orientation of the entire i. C. So im very grateful to be here today and im grateful for the committees interest in this area and i look forward to your questions. Mr. Nunes deputy secretary, do you have an Opening Statement . I do not have a formal Opening Statement and would like to make two points. First as director clapper and deputy secretary work have indicated, i essentially have two reporting changes i look forward to touching on that in the questions and answers. And its just to echo the thanks that have been provided thanks to the team that i have been able to serve with on this side, the director and also to this committee. I suspect this will be my last opportunity to appear before you before the transitioning government in january. I at an early point in my career to serve as a staff member on this committee for three years, which was an opportunity to learn about the importance of oversight and the critical driver that oversight can be in ensuring that government functions effectively and i thank the committee to be able to do that and have a productive relationship. Mr. Nunes first, im going to start with you, and this is for all of you, are you familiar with the free online encyclopedia . Mr. Clapper in general i am. Mr. Nunes does the department of defense or the Intelligence Community edit pages on behalf of the u. S. Government . I cant speak on that. I know i personally never edited a page. Mr. Clapper i dont know off my head. I dont think so. But i dont know. I have no knowledge whether or not it happens or not, sir. Mr. Nunes does the d. O. D. Or the i. C. Use it as an official source of information . I dont know, congressman. Mr. Clapper i would have to look into that. I dont know off hand if it has ever been. I dont know. I know that the department and i. C. Community uses a lot of open source information. I dont know whether or not it is one of those open sources. Mr. Nunes on march 212, you and director clapper met with chairman thornberry and representative fleeling to analyze regarding the joint intelligence analysis complex slated to be built in the u. K. Do you recall that meeting . I do. Mr. Nunes director clapper, do you recall that meeting . Mr. Clapper yes. You informed that the department of defense did not intend to reevaluate lower cost sites for the Intelligence Center. As justification for your decision, you provided the committee with two documents regarding Communications Infrastructure supporting the field in azores island. I ask the clerk to distribute one and two which is one of the documents provided for justification for the departments decision. Mr. Nunes everybody has the documents now . Secretary work, are you aware mr. Nunes everybody has the documents now . Secretary work, are you aware the sict portions of this document that you passed to three Committee Chairmen to meet public law or plagiarize from wikipedia. I did not provide exhibit 2. I have never seen exhibit 2. I can explain. Mr. Nunes exhibit two are the pages that were i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america rised that were met. I did not know that the information in that document came from there. Mr. Nunes all of the graphics in which you provided us, everything is highlighted, that was all taken directly out of what we have in exhibit 2 to provide to three Committee Chairmen to fulfill the requirements of the National Defense authorization act. If i may, sir, i would like to clarify. What i did in that meeting, i was required by the National Defense authorization act to make a determination that our movement was operationally the right call to make and i made that determination and communicated my intent to do that. The second thing i needed to do is certify there were no d. O. D. Missions that could be transferred and i certified that we were not intending to do so. At that meeting, you asked me two questions. You said what about the housing costs on the base and you questioned me on the communications information. I provided you a one document that was provided to me, i think it was by disa and i committed to you to make a deep dive, which i did. Mr. Nunes im just alarmed that we would rely on a free online wikipedia known for students i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America Rising their homework and that the department of defense would use it to provide any information to congress to put in any report. Again, mr. Chairman, this had no bearing on my determination or certification which was required by law. Mr. Nunes you are not bothered that the department of defense, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars that anyone in your department would be providing you information to give to the congress that was i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america rised and it was every single graph in the documents taken from wikipedia. The cost for the cables mr. Nunes secretary work, you are not answering the question here. We need to know whether or not is it appropriate to take information from that site and provide it to the congress . I would say im surprised this comes from a wikipedia page. Are you aware this committee asked for the bandwidth requirements in early august 2015 . Yes, sir, i am. Mr. Nunes are you aware the committee requested the requirements again . Yes, sir, i am. Thatunes are you aware the committee requested the requirements again. Im not certain of the exact dates but we have been in communication. Mr. Nunes the Committee Received this information on the Intelligence Center requirements earlier this week . I am. Mr. Nunes on tuesday, the department of twe defense chief information testified before this committee that the department of defense leadership decided not to brief Committee Staff because of the tone of a letter sent from the committee to the department of defense. Did you direct the department of defense c. I. O. Not to provide the requested information because of the tone of the letter . No, i did not. I would like to explain it. You called me in september of 2015 as the chief operating officer as the department of defense, i oversee developing a Defense Program for the secretary in accordance with his strategic guidance. Im responsible for every single aspect of that program. As you can imagine certain items do not rise to my level of attention and certain do. In september of 2015, you called me and asked me to personally get involved in reviewing the information that was being provided. And i committed to you that i would. We briefed you and the two other chairmen in march. At that point, you brought up new information that was new to me and said i dont believe you are being served rite in the information on the communications and i dont think you are being served right by the information on housing. I committed you to do a deep dive. That was done in may. Since may, we have getting that information to you. From the beginning, mr. Chairman, i thought this was a communication between you and me and you asked me to do this personally. All of the interactions i had was with you and the chairman. We were told you did not want to receive it. We had a hearing scheduled in september which was postponed. I regret that this information was not communicated but we have had the information since may and we have been trying to communicate it to you. Mr. Nunes so the issue with this is, your chief Information Officer refused to or the department, i shouldnt say you, or the chief Information Officer said the reason that you would not brief the Committee Staff because of the tone of the letter. But you did remind me of one thing and i do remember that phone call and i just for the record, i informed you that the congress had been given false or misleading information. I understood that was your opinion, yes, sir. Mr. Nunes you were informed by this committee that we were provided false and misleading information. I have no indication that that was true. Mr. Nunes i want to pass out the email, exhibit 3, that went from our staff to the department of defense because i would just like to ask you what is the problem with the tone of this letter that would lead the department of defense not to send us the requirements for an Intelligence Center. I havent seen this particular one. All i can tell you you asked me in march to do a deep dive and i got the best experts in the department of defense. Mr. Nunes this is legislative branch of government. We asked in august of 2015 and your chief Information Officer said he was told by superiors not to provide information because of the tone of the letter. To me it seems like a very nice letter. It says thank you for the quick reply and it says thanks for the help. Is there a problem with the tone of this letter . I dont know what letter what he was talking about. What i can say is, ever since our first meeting, i said it is very important to the three chairmen that we provide this information to them. I want to deal directly with the chairmen and provide them with the best information that we have. Everything that you asked or any of the chairmen asked mr. Nunes i appreciate that. But your department decided not to send information to this committee because of the tone of a letter and this is the letter and i dont see anything wrong with the tone of the letter. Mr. Chairman, you mentioned at the early part of the hour there are two investigations ongoing, one by this committee and one by the d. O. D. I. G. When an i. G. Investigation occurs we stop all interactions with the committees but we said we will continue the interaction with the chairman and we will be careful and deliberate on the way we come forward. I regret that he used the term tone. I have instructed everyone that we need to be very deliberate because of the close attention and i have emphasized everyone in the chain of command that our all of our analysis has to be unimpeachable. Mr. Nunes deputy secretary, i understand there are two investigations ongoing, but just so you know, this was in august this was august 3 of 2015. The letter to the d. O. D. I. G. Requesting an investigation was not requested until nine months later. Why for nine months did your department decide not to provide what is really basic information to this committee . Again, sir, when you asked me to get involved in this, i did. I ordered the deep dive. I have absolute confidence that the j6 on the staff, and d. I. A. Have now come together to work the information you requested. Mr. Nunes clearly, deputy secretary, you are not responsible for providing the information but someone in your department the told the c. I. O. That. Who would have instructed the c. I. O. Not to provide the information because of the tone of the letter. I dont believe anyone did and i dont believe that he was trying to make any aspersions. We believe congressional oversight is extraordinarily important. Since the meeting with you in march, we have had six separate letters. We have provided over 1,000 pages of documents. We have provided 11 people to testify before the committee. There are people being testified. We believe we have been extraordinarily responsible. And if you look at the g. A. O. Report mr. Nunes i would like to talk about the responsiveness. This committee has uncovered instances where the department of defense has provided information to other committees, particularly the Senate Armed Services committee months before providing the same information to this committee. Is its the d. O. D. s policy to provide information to the senate before providing it to the house . No, sir, it is not. Mr. Nunes why did it happen . Again, sir, we have offered to brief this information to you since may mr. Nunes has nothing to do with that. But information we asked for a year and a andahalf ago that we did not receive. On monday, the department of defense provided the committee with the communications requirement. I understand that the infrastructures it is configured does not have the desired band width, did the d. O. D. Ask the providers to update its infrastructures to support its requirements. I would defer to the experts in the j6. However i have been briefed it is not normal policy for us to go out and say what is possible in the future. We do all our analysis is what is available today. Mr. Nunes when they testified before us two days ago, he did indicate that they did not ask the local provider. So now i have this is the same question i asked the other day when the bases around the world need extra band width do we not just ask or do we ask the local provider can we increase our bandwidth . You have to put this in the context about what this question was about. There is no comparison. Mr. Nunes the question is, could the Communications Infrastructure meet the requirements or not. That was the question. The question you posed to me was whether or not the movement to krauten mr. Nunes how do you know the answer if you never asked the provider if the local infrastructure would work . I know the answer because cape who is the best analysis took a look at the onetime costing factors and looked at seven and all of them, there was never an instance where cape was able to close the business case. Mr. Nunes we were briefed on the cape study. It was quite entertaining. On september 1, 2016, you sent a letter to the committee saying you released funding to phase two. When did you release the funding . Soon after that letter, i assume. Mr. Nunes soon after the letter that was dated on september 1. I cant tell you the exact date that money transferred but that was the date. Mr. Nunes there would be no reason for this notification to have been delayed . I cant imagine one sir. It might have been delayed because of the staffing process of the letter coming up to through me. I go through hundreds and hundreds of pages. Perhaps it was delayed slightly. Mr. Nunes was there an active g. A. O. Location into the analysis of this location . There was an a. O. A. , yes. Mr. Nunes at the time of your decision, was there an active investigation into d. O. D. Staff passing false information . How does it set locations for facilities. We asked you this session earlier in closed session. Does the department of defense choose locations or facilities based upon where personnel want to live . We do not. We have a range of factors that go into the decisions about where to base facilities and particularly when it comes to intelligence facilities. The Operational Mission orientation and criteria associated with that are the greatest of the factors. Mr. Nunes we chose locations based upon Mission Requirements . Thats one of a range of criteria that factor in. For me wearing my intelligence hat and intelligence responsibilities, the Mission Relevance and the ability of that location to service the Intelligence Mission tends to rise to the top of the list, yes. Mr. Nunes im going to stop here and come back later. But im going to yield to the Ranking Member. Mr. Schiff thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Clapper, i wanted to ask you about your parting thoughts on russia and the threats posed by russia. You and the secretary of Homeland Security acknowledged about a month ago that russia had been hacking into our Political Institutions and interfering with our election and this was coming from the highest levels of our kremlin. What is your assessment that is likely to continue into the next administration if president elect trump, if there is a situation between he and mr. Putin dont materialize, would you participate that the russians will hack and dump what is your assessment that is likely to continue into the next administration if president elect trump, if there is a situation between he and mr. Putin dont materialize, would you participate that the russians will hack and dump documents that might be damaging to a Trump Administration . Would that be consistent with what you know of their playbook . Mr. Clapper thanks for the question, sir. I dont anticipate a significant change in russian behavior. We gave considerable thought to diming out russia with that statement. We waited until we felt we had sufficient basis for it and we did and both from a forensic as well as other sources of intelligence led us to that statement. It may have had the desired effects since after that after the issuance of this statement and the communication that i know took place between our government and russian government, it seemed to occur have curtailed the cyberactivity that the russians were previously engaged in. The russians have a very active and aggressive capability to conduct operations, socalled hybrid warfare and has been a practice of theirs going back to the soviet era and i anticipate that it will continue. Mr. Schiff i want to drill down a little further into your comment that russian activity curtailed after the issuance of the statement. The dumping of documents didnt end with the issuance of a statement. Are you implying by this that we know whether the documents provided to either cutouts or wikileaks have all been provided to the statement that was should or is it entirely possible that the dumping of documents continued after the statement and what may have been avoided was a further escalation of the interference in the form of trying to monkey around on election day or thereafter . Mr. Clapper i was referring to the cyber reconseans that we had observed that state entities had observed prior to the statement. And that sort of activity seemed to have curtailed. As far as the wikileaks connection, the evidence there is not as strong and we dont have good insight into the sequencing of the releases or when the data may have been provided. We dont have as good insight into that. I think your microphone is off. I cannot say what they will do and i cannot forecast what the impact of our new administration might have on russian behavior. That is kind of speculative. I just dont know. Visavisntentions accords,rual courts do you see any intensification of russian efforts to disrupt the ukraine or deep stabilize the ukraine government that destabilize the ukraine destabilize the ukraine government . We continue to see firing along theexchanged line of contact and recently what yet another reaffirmation of the ceasefire, the number of incidents has increased. I think both countries will probably engage in actions and counteractions to try to promote instability. And clearly the russians want to sustain influence in a traditional part of a greater russia, which is ukraine. So i suspect that sort of pressure will continue. I dont see much prospect for resolution or compliance with the accords. I think we just continue the stale mate we are in. Mr. Schiff do you ascribe any significance to the timing of that resumption of that Campaign Following the discussion with the president elect . Mr. Clapper i cant speculate on what impacts any discussions with the new administration would have but i can tell you right now that the russians are sustaining their behavior. They are increasingly putting more pressure on opposition on in aleppo and indiscriminately bombing women, children and hospitals and that will continue. That is having a negative effect on the oppositionists on morale and willingness to fight. Of course, this plays to assads objective, achieving a military victory. That is the position he is in. He is probably less interested in any form of negotiations. Mr. Schiff do you foresee any change in the increasing russian visavis nato countries, their acts in the air and the sea . Do you see any changes in that in light of a potential different relationship between the president elect and the kremlin . Mr. Clapper no, i dont. The russians have recently deployed their lone carrier and conducting some operations. They have sustained the presence of their artillery and deployment of very advanced air defense systems. And so at least i think that what that indicates that clearly the russians are there to stay and they want to maintain the presence and the base in syria as their only base outside the former soviet union. The Permanent Base they maintain and i expect they are planning on expanding their operations. Mr. Schiff one last question on russia, 30,000 foot question, and that is one aspect of the putin doctrine has been to enhance his own stature at home by provoking confrontation with the west, by framing for his people at home, the United States as the russian equivalent to the great satan. How will he square that with his comments or overtures to the president elect . In other words, does the kremlin need the american booingey man to maintain popularity at home and how will they deal with that conflict if there is a different lip between the president elect and the kremlin . Different relationship between the president elect and the kremlin . Mr. Clapper all i can say here is putin has played to this spirit of nationalism, if you want to call it that in russia, by appealing to the citizenry and i think somewhat as a distraction for or at least offer compensation that the russian population continues to suffer because of the economic straits they are in and the continued contraction of their economy. He does appeal to the patriotic spirit of the russian people and to conjure up his standing up to opponents in the west, notably the United States. And as a way of reaffirming in their minds russian greatness. Mr. Schiff let me ask one last question about isis and the campaign in syria. There have been a number of statements from the pentagon about the timing of the campaign against rocca. I have had concerns about whether we have the forces to undertake that. Whether it is premature. But there have been Public Comment about two imperatives of accelerating that campaign. One is an intensification of plotting by isis against the United States and the need to move quickly. The need to diminish that threat. And the other is the fear of people, isis figures, leaving mosul and reinforcing efforts in rocca. How much are those two concerns driving that campaign and how do you ascribe that threat to the United States rum isis at the moment in terms of external Operations Planning . And the military tradeoff of moving more quickly than the forces are prepared but the necessity of cutting off people that are fleeing mosul . Director clapper the Campaign Design which was settled on a year ago today is generally going on along the lines of which we expected. It always was to isolate mosul and rocca and then to reduce them. We are further ahead on the Mosul Campaign because we have reliable partners on the ground. The Iraqi Security forces, especially their Counterterrorism Service have really been getting after the bad guys. Throughout this time, we have been providing a lot of support in going after the external operations leaders, both in iraq and syria. That is the president s and that secretarys number one concern , going after the external ops guys and we have had a lot of success. The campaign to isolate rocca was always number two in the queue. The Syrian Democratic forces are the isolation force and they are in the process of isolating rocca and the force that will ultimately reduce rocca is now being determined among all of the actors in the region. Meanwhile, we continue to hit every single external ops guy, either on the front or al qaeda in syria or isil. I dont think we can make a direct correlation between as the pressure increases on the caliphate and it shrinks, that we can relate that directly or we dont have evidence to raising the threat to the homeland. That has been a constant with isil and i dont think there is a direct relationship between the diminishment of their territory and the magnitude of that threat. It is still a concern of ours. We have had a lot of success in taking out both leaders of the external operations and some of their lesser lowerlevel people. I yield back. Russia today the propaganda arm of putin is wellfunded. They have a scheme, a playbook that says, if we can force the americans to question one another, how does the line of questioning relative to trying to create some sort of a sinister link between whatever mr. Trump may have done how does that play into the playbook . As trained professionals, intelligence professionals, is that in fact exactly what they are trying to get us to do . Dir. Clapper they have incurred some budget cuts on their network and have not been all that successful in conveying messages here in the u. S. They do broadcast elsewhere and that is exactly what they tried to do particularly in europe. Having traveled there and watched rt, they are focusing much more on europe then the United States. It is in their playbook. If you look at what they did in ukraine and elsewhere, they get the citizens to turn on themselves. That line of questioning you will hear all dated eight will all day today will be playing directly into the rt playbook and they are quite successful in europe. Turning from that though, we have been fighting in afghanistan and iraq for a long time. Can you give us a couple of examples where we are better today than when we first started Lessons Learned that are now part of the norm versus dir. Clapper in terms of sharing intelligence with dod . Gathering and sharing. Are you better now than you were in 2003 . Dir. Clapper i think so. Can you give us some examples . Dir. Clapper i cannot go into specifics in this setting. I visited kuwait, the Task Force Command there last week. And was briefed on some very graphic examples of the contributions the agencies have made, specifically nsa and dia. General townsend was very high and his praise regarding what the Intelligence Community is doing on his behalf. I think this is emblematic of the relationship because these are combat support agencies in dod as well as well as being parts of the Intelligence Community. I am happy to give you specific examples that would be classified to illustrate that. You mentioned joint duty and the successes early on. I had questions regarding the impact it would have on the personnel and their career paths if they left their home agency and went somewhere else. Can you talk about the impact that has had on Career Development . Are commanders willing to give up their best and brightest to go to the intel agencies . Is this joint duty working the way you intended . Congressman, i will take a first crack at this great in my experience, the joint duty program for Intelligence Officers has soft to model the is sought to model the successes of the joint tours of duty on the military side under Goldwater Nichols which had been successful in driving that integration in the last 30 years for the military. The same is starting to play out in the intelligence joint duty program. My observation is that in almost all cases, individuals who serve a joint duty gain experiences that make them far more valuable and developed as leaders for the Intelligence Community upon completion of that joint duty tour. That said, one of the things we need to continue to work on in the years ahead is how to make that return back to the Home Organization even more effective so that in a seamless way, they are able to come back to their Home Organization, to the right kind of job that fully leverages that kind of assignment. We have had to go to school on this a bit on how to manage this arrangement. It is easier and more convenient when you manage a workforce that is selfcontained within a particular agency. In my own headquarters, where we have maintained 40 of our workforce, our detail ease from other components and you do need to Pay Attention to that and manage their assignments, interim they get appropriate sure they get en appropriate ratings and bonuses where appropriate. And i think though the enrichment of the force, and the professional capability of the force is far better. There has been a profound sociological change in the Intelligence Community. There are thousands of employees have deployed multiple times since 9 11. And that has had i think of profound change in the a profound change in the professionalism and the identification with the mission of our civilian employees. Your time has expired. Thank you, chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, for your service. Mr. Clapper, a word of advice when you talk about retirement. You mentioned your wife. A friend of mine retired and his wife said i married you for better or for worse but i did not marry you for lunch. Good luck with that. In the time we have, would you give us a little of your thoughts concerning the homeland and security what are your priorities or chief concerns besides Cyber Attacks . To me, it is a concern that the attacks could be more could be generated from the outside but also less sophisticated and harder to stop or even know about. Dir. Clapper you have touched on what is of great concern to us not so much the massive complex attack that we suffered on 9 11 but rather those caused by individuals or small cells of people. That is a tremendous challenge for us. One of the things i have tried to work in my time as dni is promoting not only the horizontal integration across our agencies but also vertically with these date, local, and the state, local, and private sector. I think we have made a lot of improvement there. I will be meeting with my Homeland Security and Law EnforcementAdvisor Group tonight which is an Outstanding Group of chiefs of police and Law Enforcement intelligence representatives who do great work. I think the creation and operation of the Fusion CenterNetwork Across the country which are increasingly becoming more netted is a great bulwark against foreign attacks. But i will leave this job concerned about the impact of socalled lone wolves or homegrown extremism. That is a very complex problem that requires i think first and foremost community involvement. Intelligence and Law Enforcement can do so much to help clarify the picture of what that threat is. Congressman, may i say that in addition to counterterrorism and Cyber Threats that the director mentioned, on the military side, we also think about threats to the homeland in terms of more traditional military capabilities involving missiles. One of the main projects we have underway is to look at how to improve our intelligence indications and warning to better be able to respond to those types of contingencies as well. I think it is important to think about the full spectrum of threats to the homeland that we face. I have heard several talk about the affects of sequestration on our protection of the homeland. What concerns me is if you could add a thought and i note this does not come out of this committee but Homeland Security grants to local governments cut by 50 roughly in the last five years transportation security grants 75 . Infrastructure was zeroed out. Your thoughts . Dir. Clapper sequestration the specter of sequestration which runs through 2021 continues and potentially has impact across the board. That is something we struggle with every program year and of course the uncertainty that creates and the painful trades we have to make they are a fact of life. Programmatically it has become the new norm having lived with it for five years. Mr. Pompeo i sit on a joint task force along with others looking into the manipulation of intelligence at Central Command. Have you had a chance to read the interim report filed by the task force . Dir. Clapper i have read that. Mr. Pompeo there are clear cases of intelligence manipulation. What accountability for any Person Associated with that has been held . What we have been waiting for is the completion of the ig investigation. Mr. Pompeo we have soldiers in the field and we had intelligence not getting to the right place. To tell a soldier that they are waiting for an ig report is unacceptable. Tell me who has been held accountable. I would have to ask if any particular people have been held accountable. What the secretary and i have said over and over again is we expect the highest standards in the intelligence been a day. Mr. Pompeo did we get that . Director clapper spoke to the overall assessment and we are improving. Congressman, i will add that we are not able to take authoritative personnel related actions on these instances and allegations until the ig investigation is completed. It has taken quite a while. We are as eager as this committee is to get the result of that id investigation and be ig investigation and be able to take action on those. In the interim, there are some systemic and management actions we have taken on the dod side working closely with director clapper and his team. As director clapper mentioned, in the natural changeover of duties at Central Command with the commander and the j2, we both have along with the director of dia strongly emphasized the need for the j2 to look at the situation. We have also taken a number of initiatives. We are in the process of ensuring that there is an ombudsman in place. Someone analysts can come to anonymously. And report concerns they may have and have an advocate i am glad you are doing those things. They sound great to me. I have to tell you that the American People and our soldiers deserve not to wait to hold accountable those folks responsible for putting that in the field. There are indications that information was withheld from the president ial daily briefing. Are those reports accurate . Dir. Clapper i am aware of the reports and the examination done by our analytic integrity officers found no substantiation of that. There are also press reports that say you had conversations with great frequency circumventing the chain of command. And yet, you testified that they come to the National Level only through the dia. How do you square conversations you are having with the j2 add t one command with that testimony . Dir. Clapper the conversations i had with the j2 was only for tactical updates. Not to discuss a broad assessment. And i would also comment that in every one of these it was a split screen and the j2 was always represented in these dialogues. The reference to a assessment finding their way into National Intelligence estimates or pdb articles is done through the Defense Intelligence agency, not direct from centcom or any other command. Director clapper, president obama removed irans designation as a proliferator. Did iran change its activities in any way to prompt this removal . Dir. Clapper i believe, if i am correct, iran is still a statesponsor of terrorism. I dont think we have reclassified iran. The designation was removed as a proliferator of wmd. Can you tell me if irans behavior has changed to justify such a removal . Dir. Clapper i cannot say that irans behavior has changed. It has continued its aggressive Missile Development and missile fielding. In terms of its proliferating to other countries, i cannot i would have to research that and provide on a classified basis if we have information on that. Thank you mr. Clapper. Thank you mr. Chairman. I want to devote my five minutes to the topic of Cyber Security. And in particular let me start with you director clapper and thank you for your service. We really appreciate all you have done over the length of your long career. I would like to start with you. Let me give you the bulk of the time. What i am interested in is not achievements and the progress we have made because clearly we have with integration system but as you think about withdrawing on the field, what would you identify as the most specific weaknesses, unaddressed vulnerabilities, areas of focus for both the ic and this committee in terms of our defense against Cyber Threats . Dir. Clapper we need i think we make a healthy investment in the National Intelligence program on intelligence to support Cyber Threats. Obviously, it is always good to have more money but i think as a proportion of Everything Else we have to look at, i think we are in reasonably good shape. But the challenge for us is always going to be the fundamental fact that the internet is insecure and any time you have a dependency on the internet, we are going to be playing catchup in reaction to defending our networks. The other issue i would mention is the creation of both the substance and the psychology of deterrence in the cyber realm. That has been a challenge. The issue there is whether you react on a binary basis or asymmetrical basis via cyber us assaults and you react in the cyber context or do you retaliate some other way . I think that is going to be a challenge for the country is the challenge as you identify it one of the development of the doctrine or is it a technical issue . Dir. Clapper i think it is more a development of a doctrine and policy. And developing a body of law through experience. It took hundreds of years to develop the law of the state which may be a rough analog to where we are with cyber. And we have not had enough time yet to develop that body of law. And until such time as there are some norms developed and we have a firm definition of what deterrence means and that is recognized by both state and nonstate actors, were going to have a problem with cyber defense. One specific question on that topic. The committee has spent a great deal of time in the Cyber Security information sharing act. How are we doing with respect to the private sector, working with security agencies to address the cyber threat . Is there enough communication, or is there more that can be done . Dir. Clapper i think there is. Is a shared responsibility a cross the ic. Fbi is involved. And very importantly the department of Homeland Security. When you say engagement with the private sector, that is as big as all outdoors. And finding the right and keeping active the right conduits so that we can share and by the way the sharing needs to be two ways, down to us and from us to them. I think there is a lot of improvement that have been made. The department of Homeland Security has made huge strides here. But that is not to say that there is not more to do. I yield back. In terms of Cyber Security, the number one thing we are trying to do is secure our networks. We have made progress on this. We are building of our cyber that holding up that we are also building up we are also building up our cyber workforce. We should have all of the Cyber Mission teams in fy 17 and making sure that we have the right people. The other thing we are really worried about and we are looking at heart is the internet of dod things. All of our Weapons Systems that we generally operate today were designed in an era where Cyber Security threats were not that stressing. So going through all of the different systems that we have, identifying cyber vulnerabilities and prioritizing them has been a big focus of the department. We have a cyber scorecard briefed every month to six weeks and we are looking at all of these different factors on trying to improve our Cyber Security. We have a long way to go but we have made a lot of progress. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I would like to get back into this centcom discussion. The reason why we investigated this and the first place. As you remember, general jim mattis left abruptly in 2013. The director of intelligence remained in place for the first part of 2014. Under general austin. And around june, that changed. There was turnover of people over at centcom. Intelligence started coming out regarding mosul which was inaccurate. I think everyone can look back at that now and say mosul did fall. It did not have the capabilities that some people thought. But the intelligence since then has been in dispute. As you know, 40 of the workforce, twice the number of typical commands felt that the final product had been somewhat distorted. And through our review, many of those employees to this day believe that the culture at centcom has been somewhat toxic to use a word that came up time and time again. Right now, we are back in mosul again. We have people there. How do we know that the intelligence coming out of centcom today is anymore reliable then it was coming out than it wasreliable two years ago . Dir. Clapper we do not depend only on centcom for intelligence reporting. In fact, one of the reasons i do consult with them is to ensure that we are on the same page. So, we have other National Assets that tell us whether what we are seeing operationally or what we are hearing reported operationally comports with what we are seeing through intelligence. And my observations through the Current Campaign are that they do. As you know, we have the largest number of folks working in intelligence at centcom than at any of the commands. We spend quite a bit of money to make sure that these folks are wellequipped and well manned to make sure that they provide the best intelligence to the were dutch war to the war fighter and the Combatant Commander as possible. Are you confident that is occurring today . That the intelligence coming out of centcom has improved . I think it is beyond dispute that we had a problem to years ago. Has that been cleared up . Dir. Clapper i am somewhat removed from the command but from what i have observed, that is the case. I dont know if you were here earlier when i quoted the latest statistic from our analytic survey which reflects a positive trend. The number of respondents reflecting analytic integrity issues has declined. And importantly, their comments on management response when they did have issues has increased. The behavior the reflections of this at centcom are beginning to level out and comport with all of the other combatant commands. I do think by virtue of the change in commanders and the change in the j2, that that has been a change in the atmosphere there. I have been encouraged by the trends, particularly this year. Thank you. I am going to tell members that we have three votes now with a motion to recommit. I will try to keep this open so members can come back. At the end of the motion to recommit, we will have to end the hearing. Mr. Murphy is recognized. Mr. Murphy how important is it that we have rules of engagement with cyber to let adversaries know, statesponsored or not, that they know that there will be a response . Dir. Clapper this gets to the point about developing a body of law. And conveying those messages is much easier with nationstates because everyone recognizes that there are mutual vulnerabilities. The greater challenge for my part is the nonnation state entities which over time are going to develop more capabilities in the cyber realm to commit to render attacks. So i think the notion of building a sense of deterrence, the psychology of deterrence is going to be difficult. I think there are is certainly progress with the chinese as a result of the agreement struck in september of 2015. And we will have to see whether that is continued. But i think the greater challenge is nonnation state entities. With things moving as quickly as they do with technology and cyber, how has your experience been for recruiting the best talent in the world to make sure we are a step ahead . Dir. Clapper we have sustained a level of recruitment and we continue to be able to bring great, young people into the community. The greater challenge is retention. They will come to us either as young civilians or as military and then they become very attractive and appealing to the commercial sector. So then, we have a challenge with retaining people in the face of some pretty appealing compensation packages that a lot of our people have had experience in the Intelligence Community get and that makes them very attractive. I think we would be remiss if we did not pick your brain briefly in what you think and based on your experience over the next 510 years, the greatest threats we face as a nation. What we are doing to address that and what we should be doing especially with a new administration coming in. What is your advice big picture to them . Dir. Clapper are you speaking only of cyber . In general. Dir. Clapper that is a hard question to answer because from an intelligence perspective, we have to be a alert to all of these threats. I wish i could rank them and pick and choose which ones to worry about but unfortunately, they are all a problem for us. So whether it is the nationstate challenges posed by the likes of russia, china, north korea, and iran or transnational concerns like counterterrorism, like proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, which is personally a growing concern for me. The challenges posed in the cyber dimension. We have to, and our approach has been to try to maintain a balance so that we can protect and to address the full range of threats. So i am hesitant to try to pick one and say this is the one that is going to confront us or say this will be the worst in the next 510 years. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I am pleased to hear that things are better at centcom. I served on that investigation and clearly we have concerns about what went on in 2050. In 2015. I know that has been addressed to some degree. What are the root causes in your opinion of the unacceptable command climate that was existing at centcom at the time . This is something that secretary carter and i have discussed. We want to know what happened and why it happened. We have been looking to director clapper and the undersecretary of defense to say this is what we think the problems were. We have tried to get after it. The thing that the secretary and i, trying to stay above the ig investigation is simply to say, we expect, we expect all of our intelligence analysts to have full freedom to say what they need to say, to speak truth to power, we expect the chain of command to pass that information up the chain. Every decision we make on the campaign is based on the assumption of good intelligence. So, it is very important to us and we are waiting the judgments of the intelligence professionals on how we can improve. When do you expect that we will get that . We have gotten a lot of information on our committee and our investigation. Open source news has provided much information. When do you expect we will get Something Back . It is hard to right a wrong if you keep playing with that. How do you avoid it happening again when we are taking far too long to figure out what happened and why it happened. We have honed it down to the j. Why is it taking so long and we have gathered so much information . One of the largest jobs is to be patient when these type of investigations are ongoing. I cannot tell you when it will be finished. I dont know that you should be patient actually. I think it is time we come forward and let the American People know what was taking place. At least let this committee know what had been taking place. Hopefully, it is corrected. Frankly, i am surprised you are content with 25 in this survey as being acceptable. I would be shooting for a lot less than that. And you are free to comment, director clapper, if you would like to. Dir. Clapper i think it is important to bear in mind that we are having this is a debate about subjective subjects. Where there can be room for honest analytic disagreements because we are always operating from incomplete or lessthanperfect facts. And so, people who are experts in this can have and do have honest disagreements. So i do not find the figure, again given the subjectivity of the subject matter, i do not find that alarming and that is pretty much on a par with the behavior. I would be more concerned if it was zero. If there were no disagreements no dissent anywhere at anytime. That would be disturbing to me. I would want to know why that is so. I can understand that argument for the 25 that i sure cannot for the 40 . That does not fly in the face of what is going on at the other commands and that is unacceptable. The fact that we have had so many whistleblowers come forward speaks volumes. We have an obligation here to have oversight. Lives depend on this as you well know. Lives depend on the type of reporting that is going up. So, we have had plenty of testimony on our side. There should be something that the ig should come forward with and very soon. Not just try to run out the clock. I would think that before you go, this would be something you would want to have resolved and taking care of. Thats taken care of. Dir. Clapper yes it is. Your report took me and the rest of the Intelligence Community to task for seemingly sitting on our hands and not doing anything and not taking corrective action about this which we were enjoined not to. I would like to get this resolved. In the interest of general ve, who has moved onto another assignment, exactly what the ig finds will be important and it would be great if it happened before i leave. And if i may, i do need to clarify my statement about resignation. It is not effective until noon on january 20. Thats january 2017. I appreciate your time and service to the country and i hope this is wrapped up and rectified so that we can move forward in a positive way before you leave. Thank you. Mr. Castro is recognized. Mr. Castro director clapper, thank you for your service to the nation in this role and so many others before it. We appreciate it very much. We have just come off of unprecedented intrusion from a Foreign Government in our democratic process in an election that just finished last week and also unprecedented intrusion in a director of our by a director of our Intelligence Community. Based on those two things, i have a few questions. The first is, do we know whether the russian government or those responsible for the hacking of the democratic committee, share any information with americans during the last year or year and a half . Dir. Clapper i would rather not respond off the top of my head. In any event, this would probably be best left to a classified session. Representative castro ok. I will be sure to follow up with you on that. The second session is as head of the u. S. Intelligence community, do you believe that the fbi director breached any protocol in his actions during the last month . Dir. Clapper i have no reason to question the director. I have i think extremely highly of him. So, whatever actions he took, he did so with what he thought was best. I have no basis to question him. Thank you, mr. Castro. I am going to get back to the remaining questions that i have. I will just try to get through them quickly. Secretary work, are you familiar with the decision by eucom in 2011 . The requirement for the new Intelligence Center was to be one hour outside of london. I do know that an aoa conducted by the european command suggested that we should consolidate. But the requirement was specifically to be an hour outside of london. Are you aware of this requirement . I am not aware of a specific requirement. Andow of the a away aoa the analysis that was done to support the move. Director clapper, are you aware of this . Dir. Clapper no, i am not. This committee has learned through an investigation that the decision was made before an aoa was ever completed. Found despite dods claims that they looked at 16 locations, 15 of the 16 alternatives there is no documentation on 15 of the 16 other alternatives. Do you know what happened to this documentation . Dir. Clapper no, sir. I do know that the investigation occurred approximately six years after that was done. One of the things they did say that we were lacking documentation that the most important conclusion that they made was that our actions were sufficiently reliable for the purpose of describing the ods dods rationale for choosing the location. That, to me, is a slamdunk. Except for the fact that this committee cannot find any documentation of any work done on 15 of the 16 sites that you supposedly looked at. Sir, all i can say is that three different secretaries of defense, two undersecretaries of defense for intelligence, we have had three successive aoas. They were looked at in an audit by the gao and they said our conclusions were sufficiently reliable for the purpose of making our decision. So, in my view, we have looked at this three different times. Congress itself has agreed with our finding by funding phase one of the project. And they also approved phase two subject to my determination and certification that we spoke to earlier. So, you think it is ok that there is no evidence that shows you ever looked at 15 of the 16 sites . I will have to go back and look it was described by gao as the dod body of evidence. Another finding. Straight out of the report was that dod provided the required information in response to committee direction and statutory provision. We have evidence that a commanders brief was done in 2011 where the requirement was an hour outside of london and we have had people testify to that fact. After the fact, it appears that there is no information. You can do all the studies you want, but if you have people come to this committee and say , well, we are not going to give congress the answers because we do not like the tone of the letter. You delay those answers. I am sorry, there is no evidence here that shows essentially someone just wanted to go there in 2011 and that was the decision made then and everything since then there is no documentation to document why that decision was made. Let me go back to the director on july 27, 2015, i visited you in your office and informed you that a whistleblower had approached the committee and indicated false information had been provided to the Committee Regarding the Intelligence Center. Do you remember that meeting . Dir. Clapper yes. On march 21 this year, you told the chairman and myself if we moved to the Intelligence Center outside of the london suburbs from independent contractors would not move to the new location. Can you explain why that is the case . Dir. Clapper i dont think i said that. I think i said that based on briefings i had received at Jac Molesworth that the civilians probably would not move. That was the specific reference. A general statement that they would not go anywhere else i do not believe i said that. They would go other places. But not lodges. Dir. Clapper i dont know. The specific issue that i was briefed on was reaction to the possibility of a move to the air base in the azores. This was a briefing by dod civilians . Director clapper this was a briefing from the commander when i visited there i am not sure when. The commander of the jac. The civilians would not move there. Dir. Clapper yes, these are older people that have children in schools, particularly of high school age. I do not think that the general reaction to that, to move to an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean was not very positive. That has been compounded by the section 414 of the intelligence authorization act, taking away their Housing Allowance which is discriminatory and has had a negative impact, not only on dia civilians but ic employees in general. We are makingike decisions based on where people want to live. Dir. Clapper this whole moving was a wash to me. I did not get involved until there was the potential of expense. As i got into this, and discovered that it would have potential morale impacts and the fact that people would probably not take their families to that airbase. In light of the facilities that they knew were not there. Are you aware that the azores islands are a popular vacation spot and have daily flights . No, im not. Do we have trouble getting people to move to hawaii . Actually, we do, because there are issues there with compensation for the very high cost of living, so thats problematic as well. Both are vacation spots