Transcripts For CSPAN2 Representative Adam Schiff Discusses Russian Election-Year Hacking 20170125

[inaudible conversations] ready to go . I want to thank you all for coming today, including our panelists and of course representative schiff and his staff for their help including my friend tim who works for the congressmen on the intel committee. I will be presented and have a lot of time and we have a lot to talk about. It is my honor to introduce representatives at an schiff who represents californias 20 Congressional School districts in los angeles county. Representative schiff among other things is the ranking democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on intelligence. He is the leader in all intelligent use and has been particularly outspoken and thoughtful on the issue of russian interference in the recent u. S. President ial election. Give opening remarks in the Panel Discussion blood by the Vice President. No other participation including my old friend whos had a distinguished career of Public Service and his acting secretary of the department of security and dick clark. As the United States marine in vietnam. Jeremy bash, another old friend and colleague from the cia and the pentagon will be on the panel. Jeremy is managing of Global Strategies and was in excellent shape as that for the gun fanatic, one of the best person that worked for the cia and dod. Julie smith will participate. A college as well. She worked at the pentagon for Vice President biden. She now works as jeremy at the center for new American Security. Shes also one of the smartest people in town on europe and russia. Finally, when i started studying the soviet union, the top with focus that over time we then went from the bill to peer into putins eyes, to reset to today. And who knows what price will come up with to describe the nontrump relationship. A line from old apollo spring sun sums it up for the moment for me. Theres something happening here, what it is aint exactly clear, the representative schiff, maybe you can help us get clearance. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you it is a pleasure to join you today a special appreciation for American Progress for the fabulous for the center does an invitation to come and speak with you today. I very much look forward to our panel. There is a lot to talk about. I thought i would focus my brief remarks on the convergence of two trends in the world. The trend affect and russia at this place in the world and the world view of Vladimir Putin as well as the trend of increasing potency of cyberas a weapon. We saw those trends come into uniquely pernicious combination last november, which will bring us to the heart of the topic today. Let me start out by talking about russia with an anecdote from a few years ago when i was introduced to a Russian Oligarch in los angeles and made the observation that it was a shame that medvedev hadnt been given a freer hand, the relations between United States and russia could have been very different, that couldnt seem to have a chip on his shoulder, that anything in the United States interest was High Definition and pathetic to russias interest, and they had put in a lab and it has greater autonomy, they mightve had a different relationship in our countries might have been on a different greek because indeed there were a number of common interest. His answer was very dismissive. Medvedev he said was nothing. Do you know, he asked me, that medvedevs hot at that medvedev added all time someone someone called the pillow carrier . Do you know what the job of the pillow carrier is. When i asked him, it was the job of the pillow carrier to smother the edits in his sleep if he did something but didnt like. I imagine if i had someone following me around i would say very well. I dont know how well she slept, the tragically, i think prudence worldview sharpened after the mass protest in 2011 that weve heard a lot about recently because they played such a wonderful role antipathy to secretary clinton. I think its also an important chapter in modern russian history because the gravest concern for Vladimir Putin is longevity of its regime and the biggest threat that he saw was this mass protest they call revolutions and of course the russians think the revolutions indeed the entire arabs bring were in the cia. I would congratulate them on their omnipotence to be able to produce these world changing event. They have far greater capabilities that im aware of, but nonetheless this is apparently the russian divine things. I used to describe as recently as a year ago the threat emanating from russia as a form of creeping authoritarianism coming from the kremlin. I would no longer say it is creeping. I think we are not in a new cold war, but we are in a highly consequential war of ideas now not between communism and capitalism, but authoritarianism and democracy and representative government. We see that obviously busily in the rush and propagation of its model and its desire to tear down democracies in europe, tear down the american democracy of course. One of the core conclusions of the Intelligence Community and russian interference in our election was the desire to sow discord in the United States. So this is i think a hugely important battle of ideas. Sadly in this battle of ideas, you see at you on the march. Ec countries in europe that are becoming increasingly autocratic, increasing the naturalist in their origin. Easy changes here in the United States where our own new president displays often very authoritarian qualities and i think the weakening of europe, the brexit, all of these factors are greatly endangering the future of democracy and i think this is going to be the struggle of our times. Let me talk briefly about the other trend and that is the explanation of the potency of cyber. I think many countries had a desire to blur distinctions between a different kind of cyberactivity. There is obviously a cyberfor the purpose of fast, of intellectual property. This is a problem we had with many countries, but probably among the foremost china for many years. You have cyberfor the purposes of the gathering of foreign intelligence, which all nations have a safer capability engaging. You have what we saw recently in erin election cyberfor the purposes of affect in political outcomes of meddling in the internal affairs of another country. We have seen this from russia and europe in the past this was the first and most brazen example of cyberbeing utilized in those needs. United states. Cybertragically i think for the United States is a wonderfully if a metric weapon. It is easy and cheap to go on offense. It is phenomenally difficult mx and good to be on defense. They just need to find an opening. One of the illustrations i love to give his target when target was packed. The hackers got into target to the hvac, the airconditioning system because in an internet of things from the you are only as secure as your needs vulnerable port of entry and in that case was apparently the airconditioning. So in the july swear calls to the airconditioning ducts, the thieves were able to go through the hvac system and migrating to the Financial Data and all of a sudden target had a huge problem on its hands. So this is cheap to do. It can be done remotely. It can be done always has some level of deniability. In the context who is doing damage to the United States, whether its north korea attacking a company our russia attacking our democracy, it will always put the administration in the difficult position of proving its case when it makes attribution or deciding it cant do so without giving up important sources than that theyve been making the decision not to attribute conduct. The skit made to the point i would like to conclude on. Our new president who is doing deep damage to himself and to our countries. Hes doing this in many ways. Hes doing it in his willingness to make up facts as he goes along and were in the midto the most recent flareup, the invention that lands of Illegal Immigrants but why is this significant, what is this have to do with russia, National Security or anything else. They will become a time when the president is to be believed by the country. They will become a time of the president is to make a case for what intelligence agencies tell him without revealing what sources of information are. If the president cant be believed by his own people, let alone our allies come that the president has sown. The credibility of intelligence professionals providing the best insights in the world, what hope does he have persuaded his own country let alone our allies to make common cause to do with the thread. This is i think an enormous problem. As you may remember as early as september, senator feinstein and i made the initial decision to go public with attribution of russias involvement before the administration was willing to. Obviously we were lying the administration to make the attribution. My argument was that the administration didnt need to reveal sources and methods, but it did need to make attribution. Certainly, whenever that the case youll have come the people in the public and people in the press stadium where is your proof . It is going to be very much in our National Interest that time to make attribution and not disclose sources and methods. Im sure the kremlin would like Nothing Better than the whole some accounting of how we know just what the russians were doing. Right now russians are reverse engineering everything in the open source report and trying to figure out how we know what we know. I think it is very important president has the confidence of the public to be able to come before the American People and say that either the iranians are cheating or the North Koreans are advanced than on their miniaturization of the new year were ahead on an icbm for whatever the case may be that warrants action. Its going to be important that the president have credibility and i think there is no one doing more to undermine its own credibility and legitimacy than this president had up. We can talk more in the panel, revisiting the creation of black sites or go back to waterboarding or interrogation techniques. The consideration of a ban on immigration or defense to muslims in any form he says are colossal mistake that will cost s. Relationships with allies for many who would depend on in the war in terror. This is a chapter that many of us that have returned the page on. I think it would read a tragic mess they are the country to revisit this and make the same mistakes all over again. Im not optimistic note, i will conclude in the forward to her discussion. Thank you very much. [applause] good morning, everybody. Thanks for being here. Thank you for the kind introduction of the congressmen and all our distinguished panelists. For those of you who dont know, and Julian Jeremy and of course congressman jeff, are in the National Security program here. Im grateful to all of our panel is joining us here today. Theres a lot going on in the news. Im grateful for your taking the time to be here and talk about what might be one of the most important issues weve sorted face of the country. Im going to bounce around the panel a little bit, come back here and try to save some time for questions. We will have a bunch of them at the end. I would like to start with you, jeremy is the former chief of staff at the pentagon and the cia. One of the things we saw this week i may be an attempt by the president to bridge the divide echoing to langley and talking to cias doubts that didnt necessarily play out as we would have expected or liked any of the sort of questionable whether it has the desire to impact. What are the implications to a congressmen schiff was talking about, the dynamic antagonism between the president and his premier Intelligence Agency and what does that sort of mean for us having the intelligence we need in the country. Banks. I was at the agency on december 30, 2009, a day that we sent about a dozen of our best officers out to a post in eastern afghanistan to conduct counterterrorism operations, went tragically wrong when he asked that their officers are supposed to be detonated a suicide vest. On that day he killed darrin, harold, jennifer, lives, scott, dane and an officer named jeremy. The seven cia officers are memorialized in the Memorial Wall in the lobby of the original Headquarters Building at langley along with 100 other members of the agency who lost their lives in service to our country. It was particularly jarring, disturbing and upsetting train number of professionals has spoken to see the president s presentation there on saturday. As they think about it, there are four areas where i think this important relationship between the president and his Intelligence Community will come into some tension and potential conflict for the first is that the congressmen noted on the inception of russia. The Intelligence Community has been clear in warning for many years about threats posed by russia and i dont think thats fundamentally been shared by the president and his team. Second, im counterterrorism, the president vowed on saturday essentially reinvented cases. That is something you said before and we shouldve taken their oil and we may have a Second Chance to take their oil. If you combine that with some of the other misguided counterterrorism needs to start in on such as a hiring freeze for the Intelligence Community for tsa for customs and Border Control for the people who keep our country safe. Combine that with going back to waterboarding, misguided policies that will not prevent terrorist attacks were country. You see an inevitable collision between the president and professional intelligence and will make the job of our Intelligence Officers harder. Third, in an era of alternative fax, what does an Intelligence Officer do . And Intelligence Officers credo is emblazoned in the lobby of the original Headquarters Building is from john. He shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. They have to have truth to power even when its uncomfortable, and what america stands for. When you start from the premise of alternative fax, and undermines the whole premise of intelligence. Designed to put parameters around policy to make sure the policy is guided by. Every meeting begins with a factual predicate of an intelligence picture never throw that out the window, we are going to be destined to make very poor policy. Finally, i do think that theres something very important in the president s world view. During his doctoral address company talked about america first. Fundamentally, the Intelligence Officers i know arent hopeless in the outlook. They believe that American Security depends on our interdependence with other countries. Much of the work that our intelligence professionals he was working with other countries to keep us safe. These are people come in many of whom lived overseas, they like serving overseas. They are more Like State Department professionals than almost anybody else in our government. You have to be involved in the world. If we retreat and having nativist nationalist approach to our security it wont work. So for all of those reasons, i think we are potentially in for more Stormy Weather ahead. I think im going to go to two of germanys fourpoint they are. The first being longstanding Intelligence Community assessment engaged in russias favorite city in the United States. Obviously, the election is getting all the attention, but both acting assistant secretary for Homeland Security and in what you do now, focusing on cyberthreats, what is the spectrum of threats we face . What is beyond the election . What should americans be worried about in a another aspect of our security from cyberwrit large and particularly russia . I would start with a simple declarative statement. Brescia is the greatest threat to the United States in cyberspace in the world today and we have known this for some time. Just looking at the election, just looking at the breech of the ds the other revelation of the email said john podesta and others and looking at the fake news, we see the current manifestations today. But thats not all there is to it. If we look at the whole spectrum of crime that congressman schiff referred to when we know that operate within Russian Space and what we dont have a clear demarcation about is what is the connection between russian organized crime and the russian state. If we cant specifically identify that, we can look at a visible fact that isnt happening and that is russia is not cooperating with the United States in criminal investigations of People Living in their country who have breached particularly databases within this country, whether it be a retail store or other kinds of Economic Activity within this country. Areas of vulnerability, and all of these are susceptible to the standard practices that any cyber criminal or state would use. We know very clearly that the entry into the dnc came to a fishing expedition to somebody outside of the dnc that got out into the dnc database. We know that somebody clicked on a site that opened up John Podestas email when it was a fishing expedition. That is the standard entry point that allows malware to get into systems as in the case of target, to find its way from the hvac vendor into the target database and into the personal identifiable information that was stolen. As a result of that. All of these represent vectors into our country in vulnerable areas that, whether they are manifested today as in the recent effort with respect to the election, or down the road they are vulnerabilities we have to correct. We are going to have to come together in some bipartisan fashion to deal with these. Congress has made some modest steps in this area, but theres a lot more that can be done to allow the government and the private sector to Work Together in a much more concerted fashion with the ability to get companies and people to adopt the kinds of cyber practices that are necessary. The point about the internet of things or industrial systems, both of which have been built primarily without that kind of protections in front and allow individuals or countries to get into those systems and do or potentially be able to do significant damage to the United States, to the economy, the security and the personal safety of americans. So i think this is something we are going to have to face up to. This is a big warning that we saw with respect to the election. In many ways its only the tip of the iceberg, and we are going to have to pay more attention to it. And i know artist when shift is intent upon doing this but its got to them both sides of the aisle and cant be an argument about welcome any regulation is a bad regulation. Lets think about what kinds of authorities need to get to the government and what kinds of Liability Protections we need to give to the private sector. For the kinds of cooperation that is absolutely necessary if were going to have any chance of dealing with this. But as the congressman has said, its a lot easier to do offense and defense, but if you dont do defense at all, shame on you. Thanks. Turning to you, so competent when shift pointed out the sort of breadth of activity ayn rand noted annexes, a political and a criminal nexus. But clearly this has been a bigger, we have seen this as a bigger problem outside of our Intelligence Community, our transatlantic partners. This isnt something that has been field tested and expanded by russia. It seems like. Can you just tell us a little bit about the aims you think russia has against us but also closer to home in europe and its immediate neighborhood . Everything that we talked about here this morning, russian acts of intimidation, russian aggression, russian hacking, cyber attacks. This is in essence old news to our friends in europe. They had been experiencing this for years. They had been warning us about it, and i have been trying very hard to work with the United States to develop new tools, new sets of relationships to address our, and shared vulnerabilities. And the aim of russia and all of this for both sides of the atlantic is crystal clear. The fundamental aim of the russians is to weaken the rulesbased order. All of the institutions that europe and United States have spent 77 years creating, the whole alphabet soup of nato, the osce, the u. N. , the eu, the list goes on and on, russia wants to undermine those institutions. And russia wants to divide europe from within and divide europe from the United States. How is it doing that . First, it tried in if if in the political process in europe and the political process here. It does that by getting involved directly in elections, as weve seen here in the United States, but now germany now that it has an election coming up this year, later in the fall, is now seeing a tremendous spike in the cyber activities of the russians inside the german political system. It had a Major Incident in may 2015, a massive hacking, and ever since then four years now it has seen increased activity. Germany is not alone in that regard that you can travel anywhere in central or Eastern Europe and encounter similar anecdotes by our allies in that neighborhood. The second thing the russians are doing is its using the media to try and create alternative news, alternative narratives to sow doubt, sow discord among our allies, again from within their own political systems, and to discredit the institutions by dan that weve spent so many decades trying to build up and reform and adapt to the new security challenges. It is, rush is buying at the Media Outlets in places like italy, and rome. It is investing billions in things like russia today. Last year invested 1 billion in russia russia today. And, frankly, the ways in which and the tools we have to counter those efforts from a Strategic Communications perspective just are dwarfed by comparison. We are not doing enough, not being innovative enough, not being created enough and the russians are seizing on the fact that many of the bureaucratic institutions that we used to address those challenges are very cumbersome. The state department has tried in recent years for new ways to address these challenges, but, frankly, they failed in many ways. We are going to have to get a lot more creative and innovative and addressing these challenges. I would also mention rush is directly funding some of the populist parties that we see rising across the european continent. The best example of courses paris. Onethird of her budget for the election last time around came from the russians. Its Public Knowledge, Public Information and i can guarantee you that as she prepares for the French Election coming up this spring, one would expect a similar arrangement with the russians would be loaning her fun for her Campaign Going forward. So the question is what do we do about this with our european allies . Again we need to address our common vulnerabilities, bolster and strengthen the institution in which weve invested for many, many decades and we have to develop new tools and capabilities to deal with these challenges. What is our president doing right now . He is moving in the exact opposite direction. President trump is, in fact, tilting towards russia, towards moscow. He speaks very highly of russian leadership, of president putin personally. He has talked about meeting with him to try to have some sort of warming and our bilateral ties. He has said very disparaging things about the european union, about specific european allies, about the nato alliance. And so you can imagine many of you who engage europeans have heard this, this is creating tremendous alarm among our european allies. They are worried about intelligence sharing. They are worried about how far they can trust the United States in protecting them and beating our security commitments across the european continent and, frankly, there were developed and not the u. S. Is going to undermine the institutions in which weve all invested like the eu, like nato. So i think what we have to do right now is continually make the case for some foremost reassure our allies that there are those of us out that the want to see the transatlantic relationship strengthened in the face of all these threats, but also challenge the president as he tries to foster some sort of new kinder gentler relationship with the russians Going Forward and talk about the risks to our european allies of cutting a deal with the russians over the heads of our European Partners, which, frankly, are the strongest allies we have in the world. No other set of alliances and allies do more to help the security and safety of the United States that our friends in europe. And jeopardizing that would be a huge mistake. Thank you. Theres so many areas i can go. Congressman schiff i want to come back to you. You are alone in the scope of having seen both the public and the highly classified intelligence on the whole spectrum of the threats weve been discussing. And i want to ask you a double their question. Given what youve seen, how do you think Free Democratic societies can respond to threats that emanate from a cinch of autocratic societies what you think are just simply playing by slightly different rules than we are playing by mail, or certainly than we are comfortable with . Do we need to stoop to this level . Do we need to go on the offense with some of the same techniques, or are there other ways we can strike back . The second part of my question and others on the panel convinced both of these, the second part is what you make of the fact, i think its fair to say the only entity, person not criticize on twitter by the new president is actually Vladimir Putin and russia. Having seen what you think i just would like to get your reaction to that. They are great questions, and whatever you think Congress Needs to an obviously the Intelligence Community is a key part of this is first do a complete investigation of just what the russians did. Obviously a lot of questions, some which have been partially answered, some of which havent been answered at least publicly yet at all that we need to fully investigate just what did the russians do. What vectors to be used to attack our democracy . Obviously we are very aware of the hacking and the dumping of documents. We are also aware of the degree to which the propagandist machine was involved but are there other vectors that the russians used to influence our political process . Obviously one of those is allegations of a direct connection between the kremlin and the trump campaign. But Congress Needs to investigate every aspect of what the russians did. And we need to look at how they did it. We need to further probe why they did it, and then obviously we need to develop a much better game plan for how we push back against every platform that the russians use. I think julianne is exactly right, one of the most effective things they do is in the propaganda realm. You know, when we think about the voice of america for many people it conjures up the old images of the radio microphones. And thats not a bad image for us to think about because in many respects, we are so far behind the ball in terms of beating the onslaught of russian propaganda. Its as if we are still using oldfashioned broadcast radio to compete with the variety of platforms that the russians are using. Everything from the paid media trolls to the very slick artsy, to the influence they have lined up media platforms elsewhere, insinuating themselves into the propaganda arms of Political Parties in europe. We need to understand just what techniques the russians are using, and then we have to push back against each and every one. That doesnt mean we emulate the russians nefarious misconduct. When the Administration Made attribution of what the russians were doing and questions were first raised about what should our response be, what i was advocating was about we work with our European Partners which have been the subject of the same kind of nefarious action, and that we exact sanctions on russia. This is i think the most painful thing for the kremlin, is something that bites their economy. Because again it all comes back to putin and esters of his longevity. The only thing that really threatens him is the deteriorating russian economy at the ultimate impact that lap on the popularity of his regime. So that is our most significant point of leverage with the russians. I also think that we ought to have a clandestine respond for the russians, but that doesnt mean we want to somehow even further degrade what little they have left of democracy in russia. Thats obviously not in our interest to do, but there are ways we can send a message to the crewmen that they will pay a price in the cyber world also for interfering in our democracy. Getting back to offense defense, yes, we actually have two do far more on offense, but we also have to establish a deterrence and i dont think we have done this really all. I was very vocal at the time of the hacks on sony about because it affected so my constituent of represent hollywood, glenn bank burbank but i thought the lack of a more vigorous respone to the north korean hack would be interpreted not only by north korea but by potentially others as saying that this is a lowcost easily deniable way to attack our enemies. So we have to establish a think a much more potent deterrent. That doesnt mean that its cyber titfortat in the situation with north korea, we could devastate north korea, but we are in many ways even more at risk because of the degree to which we are electronically wired, integrated, even far more rudimentary tools the North Koreans have that could wreak a lot of havoc on us. So in that case what i was advocating was that we do what gets north koreas attention, which is we began an effort to get good information to the north Korean People about just how bad their regime is. So that they know if they mess with us again, they are going to have more of their citizens exposed to how they are starving their own people and just what kind of a terrible bureaucratic desperate autocratic ruler they have. I think we do need to respond. We dont want to respond and december russians are attacking us and our allies, but i also think that its so vitally important that we make common cause with the freedom of people around the world. And i think our title as leader of the free world is at risk when we cozy up to the kremlin, when we tell our friends that we may not have their backs. I think this causes our european allies try to make common cause with the kremlin, try to cut deals perhaps in the arab world with the russians. They get a sense around the world that they cant rely on the United States to do the bulk work of freedom anymore. That would be a terrible turn of events, not just for us but for people all over the world. And you had a second what is your and honestly among your colleagues come you know, not even some modest show of criticism or concerned about the activity from moscow and about Vladimir Putin. For all the reasons weve been discussing, this is a normalcy concerning the democrats and republicans alike. My gop colleagues are not at the point, apart from mccain and graham, of willingness to confront the president. That will only last so long. I dont think that the party of reagan is completely dead. Its just badly injured, and i think after a suitable honeymoon. There will be some republicans who will find their voice and express alarm at our playing any kind of a supporting role to the russian propagation of autocracy around the world. But i do think its part of the broader pathology of this president , and that is, he takes a position, in this case, one of the fawning admiration for Vladimir Putin. And when he is questioned he doubles down on pick and when he is questioned again he quadruples down on it in the same way as doubling down on his assertion that Illegal Immigrants voted by calling for an investigation to i think we are very much the same phenomenon, and you can easily see in the case of china whether its onechina policy when the case of russia where its a fawning admiration, one thing leading to another, leading to another, and unlisted back back down, admit error and this country moving deeply off the rails. To tie together the russian and counterterrorism conversation, fawning admiration will mean that putin will get his way. Leading putin get his way with me outsourcing the fight against isis in syria to russia and effect. Basically, President Trump said this, let russia take on isis. Russia can do what it wants in the name of taking on what the claim to be isis and aquatic, which is really potentially moderate syrians who could take the country back. I think that would be dangerous characters and policy because it would take our eye off the ball of the extra operation elements within isis that are seeking to conduct operations in europe and the United States. And it would also wipe out potentially in the hope of having moderate syrians who could govern syria in the future. I agree with all of that and i think we should keep our eye on syria, but i would just note that we should probably also keep our eye on russias evolving sex relationships with allies, our allies across the middle east. We have been very focused all the right reasons on what russia has done and is doing inside syria. But i think we should watch closely the very positive relationship now between russia and turkey at one of our allies. Russia and egypt, russia and saudi arabia, russia and iran, and look at a rush is trying to go bit by bit, country by country across the middle east and try to undermine some of our existing relationships. And as the congressman pointed out, call into question our reliability and credibility as a partner. So not only is russia trying to undermine corsets of relationships across europe and divide europe from the United States, i would say watch the middle of these because we have seen sites in the last year or so of some very interesting visits and relationships unfolding that frankly are either unprecedented or we have not seen that type of engagement for many, many decades. I would add to that, on julies point, what that means is that President Trumps of you that perhaps america is to engage in the world, and a drawback or a quasilesion is represents an enormous threat to our future position in the world at her current position in the world, and in particular with respect to the middle east, we cannot allow that to happen in terms of our relationship, with our middle eastern allies come and go back to where we started. Each one of those countries is equally vulnerable to Cyber Threats from russia in retaliation for the kinds of positions that they may take that would be in our interest. So we are going to have to work with them, just as we have to work with the europeans in order to ensure that we are in the best position and they are in the best position to defend themselves. And were going to have to be prepared to respond in a much more vigorous fashion than President Trump has given us any indication of doing. Let me throw a little bit of a come what i think would be the view from the white house. The American People are tired of all these commitments overseas, allies dont do enough when we hear from them regularly and in some way something that, a view shared by president bush before them and president obama before him, our allies and partners need to step up. And essentially is calling everybodys bluff and expects he will get a better outcome. That the American Public at least those who voted for President Trump are basically saying focus at home. As important as it is its not working for a lot of us. How do you sort of reinforce the notion that American Leadership on the world stage is good for americans at home . That was designed to strengthen nato. His approach is designed to weaken nato. Thats the bottom line. First, the polling that is a very schizophrenic on what americans want. Clearly we are still feeling the aftermath of iraq and afghanistan, right, synovial to go take over country for 10 years in a 200,000 Ground Troops engage in some sort of longterm military intervention. But at the same time americans seem worried about our standing in the world, about global leadership, about engagement. So youll have to like any pressure to find that sweet spot between over committing the United States and weakening the main institutions that weve invested in. The last thing i would say is the first thing they will discover, they may have discovered this in the last 72 hours, when prices start hitting, the first comment that comes at a summit in the back row is whos calling london, berlin, paris . When a ball hit who helped us the most in combating ebola . Our european allies. Anything could happen, the rights of isil. Look at the countries that are contribute to the counter isil coalition. Its a list of 65 plus some countries but when you pare it down to the countries that are really conducting military operations, its almost exclusively europeans without exception. Let me at on to this. Its always been very popular to attack our involvement around the world, and usually the victim is foreign assistance. In fact democrats and republicans during president ial campaigns when asked what would you cut, to balance the budget can even democrats a foreign assistance. You wouldnt think it was half our budget. By the way, it is maligned. The United Nations has always been a very popular punching bag. This election i think was very unique in that native became a punching bag. The fallacy of all this is that all of our involvement in foreign assistance, United Nations, nato, et cetera, our alliances are something essentially we do for the rest of the world. We do in a completely other interested fashion. We drive, as you say, the most benefit from a rulesbased order around the world from these international institutions. They are a force multiplier for us. We dont want to take on ourselves the obligation of defending the rest of the world alone without allies, without help. Anything to the degree that he is undermining these institutions and particularly nato, its dangerous to us. So the argument, the populist argument we ought to be spending more here, building our own infrastructure here, not in afghanistan, that is always going to be a very popular point to make. And its incumbent upon the rest of us who understand the value for our international alliances, to our security, to our prosperity, to continue to make the case that we cannot withdraw your withdrawal is not the equivalent, is not the equivalent of security. Weve seen just how unfortunately in particular the fight on terror no stone national boundaries, and in the intelligence arena we gain such tremendous value from our intelligence relationships and are allies in keeping our homeland secure company thing that puts that in jeopardy puts the country and jeopardy. If you are not interested in the other Peoples Security and wellbeing as well as your own and Mutual Benefit its hard to see how you get the kind of cooperation you need. You cant fight terrorism without close cooperation by allies in europe and the middle east. Rand . Picking up on the point, thats absolutely true and we all know that nato invoked the defense of all in its charter after 9 11. That was the first time they ever invoked a vat, and yet they stood with us. So how can we say that they are not prepared to commit themselves along with us in these kinds of situations . Im going to go back to a point julie made about Crisis Management and tight together. The standard process, the Crisis Management is, that the first pieces of information are mold most always wrong or inaccurate. And if the respons responses toe first piece of information to go out with a declaration and you double down on the declaration when youve been challenged, how many rattles could we conceivably go down . That occurs in cyberspace also. The nasdaq breach that occurred a number of physical, the First Response on the attribution side was that it was china. We have all kinds of knowledge that is a very easytouse and ip address. It is not your own and it is not in your country as the way to get in to somebodys information. If thats the kind of kneejerk response that you get out of the first cyber incident, thats going to lead us down the same kinds of rattles, unless theres careful thought in Going Forward about how to deal with and think about Crisis Management. We talked about this sort of broad range of threats from side and we focus on the threat to our political system. Congressman, you said Congress Needs to closely investigate and the Senate Select committee on intelligence is going to investigate, has said it will conduct a thorough investigation. That will be mostly classified setting and mostly coastal investigation. We had said at the center for American Progress we believe this kind of thing requires an independent bipartisan commission, something that has the ability to be both inclusive politically and about outside of the daytoday politics that are affecting every debate we have right now. The way rand was saying. And is able to sort of go whatever the evidence leads, has subpoena power. Would you or other panelists, would you guys generally agree with that . I certainly would. What ive been urging that we do, and theyre involved with the own investigation to wear discussions right now with a majority to make sure that the scope of that investigation doesnt want off any areas as out of bounds because we have to follow the evidence wherever it leads. But i think it makes little sense for pepsi and others to be doing investigations of the same issue, calling the same agencies before us multiple times creating separate reports that may have a different take on matters. Well be much better off i think working together and effect after 9 11 was a joint inquiry, and a xmas 28 pages were produced by the congressional joint inquiry, joint house and Senate Intelligence led investigation. I think we should follow that model. I also think that the significance of this, of a fort ever show power interfering in our democracy towards Something Like a 9 11 commission, and i think the public would benefit from the completely apolitical nature of an investigation like that. The 9 11 Commission Report had about as much credibility as anything produced by any commission and we ought to something of that caliber here. Both agree . I have one more, just pulling this back to a broad sort of more theoretical level. What do you anybody can take this question. Why do you think this sort of ideas espoused by what, kind of a new model, and autocracy in a democratic system, you know. So sort of, sort of weather is cooling but even like erdogan in turkey and others. Laser such currency for that right now . Whats going on inside our own country and other democracies that is opening up such a lot of space for ideas and views i think its a few years ago we wouldnt expect to see gather. I noted together a far right parties in germany, sort of publicly celebrating their moves forward but a lot of ideas that were sort of almost out of bounds not very long ago. What do you think is going on . Theres all sorts of reasons for it, and in the top list includes disaffection with globalization, feeling like folks are only feeling the negative consequences, and thats paired with some fairly common in europe and particularly weak economies in many cases, not very dynamic economies that have really struggled since 08 to recover from the prices. But its also a tremendous disconnect between the institutions and the elites and National Capitals across europe. Folks feeling like they dont get to participate in the decisionmaking inside save the european union. And thats paired with another very complex National Security challenges, whether its counterterrorism challenges or in europes case the impact of mass migration and the rising antiimmigrant, antimuslim sentiment that you see which is tied to some longstanding challenges with integration, of muslim minorities in this country. So its really, it stems from lots of different sources. Its really been in essence a perfect storm. But fundamentally folks are calling into question the governments that are no leading them in their own nations, paired with a multilateral institutions that are also weighing down and having an impact on their lives. And so theres a kind of loss of faith in the institutions and loss of faith in the Actual National governments. I commend this alter your reading, but only if you have a strong drink nearby, the National Intelligence council did a report recently that highlight a lot of these global trends, increasing scarcity of resources, demographic changes in certain parts of the world, the globalization affect, automation, the reversion to nativism, and the prediction was this is going to get worse. It made for some pretty gloomy reading, but it is i think as good an explanation for the phenomenon that we are seeing, the not unrelated phenomenon tween brexit, the election of donald trump and a lot of other phenomena around the world, and it is i think a very good cautionary report entrance of the challenges where going to have to meet from a National Security perspective. I would add that it is also the case that it is a lot easier to mobilize people to be against something that it is to mobilize to be for something, particularly when the four have to take a whole bunch of paragraphs to explain. And the against this three words, or however many, and then even if you buy into the proposition, the difficulty of actual implementing the for proposition simply takes time. And it means that people hear the words and they dont see the results or they dont see them in an instant gratification kind of way. That creates the feedback that makes it much easier to be against. Final question before i go to the audience for some q a. You mentioned, congressman, that anybody that has the capabilities uses them for espionage purposes, et cetera, and thered the president himself has said jeremy, could you address the difference between what we are seeing from russia and what we see in the normal course of interstate relations, and why you think its a level of concern that is pretty much greater . Weve seen collection for many countries for both National Security and commercial purposes. We have started to see some disruption, the iranian attacks against American Financial system. A lowtech but effort to disrupt our banking system. What i think is finally different is we havent seen actors try to use cyber tools and Cyber Capabilities to engage in it and please campaign to disrupt a Political Campaign and undermine our democracy. And that i think the difference quality of attack against our country. Jeremy is absolutely right, and one of the aspects that makes this challenging is that over time there had been interest in Different Countries or lyrical players and obscuring the differences between different kinds of cyber activity. By that i mean when china was and is engaged in massive ip theft, and snowden makes his disclosure of america electronic surveillance, the chinese say see, the americans are doing the same thing. They are all hypocrites. The chinese not distinguishing to their interest between the use of foreign intelligence gathering for economic theft to get a competitive advantage for the industries from foreign intelligence gathering. And then we have a situation where asked jeremy pointed out, the russians go beyond the intelligence gathering, and it may very well be this is something i hope the investigation will determine, it may very well be the time when the russian actors entered the dnc, the ic may have anticipated this would be just like any other intelligence gathering operation, it would end there. Not for saying that this would be effectively weaponizing informed of dumping other information, but now we see the president and his team wanting to blur the lines between china and the opm have, which was before intelligence gathering purposes, and rush and their hacking and dumping which was the purpose of affecting the outcome of an election. So when you have actors even within our democracy willing to obscure the differences between foreign intelligence gathering and interference of political affairs, your four actors trying to do the same, i think its incumbent on us to try to develop where we can rules of the road. What is permissible in cyberspace . And i think president obama made some progress with president xi was saying the economic espionage ought to be something to agree on ought to be outside the blanket i dont think were ever going to be able to prevent forest on the role of the road that we can engage in foreign intelligence gathering even if we did, it wasnt in their interest, but we ought to establish a clear red line when it comes to the dumping of information to influence democratic outcomes, and, obviously, we are far from having done that. Thank you. Let me open it up and take some questions. Right here. I have a question. Charlie savage just got hold of a three page executive order, new york times. The draft order would revoke mr. Obama is executive order to close one dynamo, but also his directive given cia black sites and grant the red cross access to the detainees, among other things. What do you think that will do to the u. S. Standing in the world . Jeremy, do you think cia officers want to get back into the business of interrogation . Well, i think it would be a tragic mistake to repopulate the guantanamo or even keep it open, as the president elect suggested on the campaign trail, and maybe this is part of the purpose of executive order. It has been a recruiting magnet for jihad around the world. I think its been a black eye for the United States, and whats more, its unnecessary because we have seen the criminal Justice System worked very effectively and prosecuting, far more effectively than the tribunals prosecuting terrorist. So its an unnecessary black eye as well. The reopening of black sites, the reexamination whether we ought to go back to eits like waterboarding or some other form, all of this i think is deeply disparaging to the country. It costs us relationship with allies who wont want to cooperate with us if they believe that that may lead to the repopulating of guantanamo or someone that may help us in the process of detaining or arresting will be sent to a black cut somewhere. So from a counterterrorism perspective, intelligence cooperation perspective, i think its also deeply damaging to the final point i will make is, i think its corrosive to the morale of the ic should we ever get back in the business of enhanced interrogation techniques. I dont think they can help but have an impact on the people who participate in it, and those who support it, though i think for the benefit of our own personal its not something we should engage in either. We havent engage in waterboarding since 2004 and somehow we managed to keep our country safe. We havent used black sites since president bush into the black sites, and thats not a mistake. It was president bush who emptied the black side, not president obama. President bush did at the time cia director nominee mike kayden was up for confirmation. And was somehow manage to keep our country safe. Weve somehow managed to keep our country safe because weve had smart and effective counterterrorist policies in the previous decade. And i agree with congressman schiff. I dont think we should go back to the states because i think there will be a distraction. I picked up precisely zero appetites are doing that again among Intelligence Officers. If i could just quickly add him as we all know tens of thousands of foreign fighters have poured into syria over the last five or six years. A large portion of those foreign fighters come from europe and hold european passports that enables them to travel freely to the United States. The best defense we have is our very deep counterterrorism cooperation with our european allies, particularly in the area of intelligence sharing and Law Enforcement. If the president pursues what youve outlined and we have a return to waterboarding or black sites or guantanamo, those very strong counterterrorism cooperation initiatives that we share with our closest allies will then be in jeopardy. The predicate of the question was whether cia operative sought to get back in the business of interrogation. They are in the basis of interrogation in an interagency process along with their counterparts in the fbi and the defense Intelligence Community. Thats the appropriate way it should be done as part of team america are going to detainees when omar freak, the individual tried to bomb the flight over detroit on christmas day, when he was detained after the plane landed successfully, an Interagency Team deployed and interrogated him and cut very Important Information that who sent to him and how we got into the country. Thats the model. Thats how we should be doing business. Spirit one last point. That interagency process he is describing has not only that i think very successful but also has done some very Important Research entrance of what works and what doesnt work, and that ought to help inform the Intelligence Community as well as Law Enforcement Going Forward. That is i think the right model, and i hope we will take advantage of the Considerable Research and work product it has produced. That was a very productive question. Im going to go way to the back. The gentleman with the maroon tie way in the back. Congressman, you mention the sony hack and a and in aftermatf that hack it became Public Knowledge that part of the way were able to attribute it to the north korean government was through software that the Intelligence Community had planned in north korean system that alerts and to the fact that hack was going to occur. You mention that in a more recent hack by russia we may not have realized immediately that that information was going to the lebanonized, routine intelligence gathering. How do we make the determination of when an oncoming cyber attack is going, could be lebanonized toward something is massive and influencing the outcome of an election versus moral lowerlevel cyber vandalism or just embarrassing or blackmailing cyber ransom, things like that . Let me start out on that. First of all technologically, i dont think theres a way to say that this particular hack is going to b lebanonized bunch of other source of the fresh about what our adversaries are doing, why they are doing it can sometimes that may tell us the purpose of a cyber intrusion. But offering we may not know until later and i think we have to try to anticipate how any particular hack might be used on how that data could be used. Obviously one of the things that we are going to be looking at in terms of the russian hack is when our agencies understood that the dnc, for example, having penetrated, what kind of steps did they take whacks with a sufficient steps . This has been designated critical infrastructure, but nonetheless it was easily within our imagination or should have been, how that could be used if the russians made a determination to do so. The other thing i do want to bring up with respect to your question and the sony hack and the russian hack, because i think this is something we need to do some introspection about, and that is, the russians and the North Koreans use our own institutions and the media to heighten the effectiveness of their attack. And sometimes the meeting was all too willing to be utilized in this manner. In the case of sony, i remember taking strong issue at the time with the publication of salacious details about celebrities and what producers think about them. Make a copy but it actually quite independent of the North Koreans who wanted to do everything they could to destroy sony. That was deeply damaging to his own and, of course, that Public Policy value of the salacious emails was negligible or nonexistent. Fly forward to the much more important situation flashforward dnc and podesta emails. Emails. I have conversations along with my colleagues editors of major newspapers and the argument that i was trying to make unsuccessfully was not going to say you should never publish something that is the result of a fourth adversarial power hacking and stealing in an attempt to manipulate public opinion. That may be things of such sufficient Public Interest were you feel compelled to publish, but that should never be done without the context. All of your coverage in my view, when you are going to be publishing and russian hack document should begin with in documents hacked by the russians are believed to be hacked by the russians for the purposes of sowing discord in our democracy. It was learned that, so that the readers can evaluate why theyre being given this information. I also think in terms of the congress, we need to think long and hard about something president obama said during his press conference a few weeks ago on the subject of the russian hack. And that is our political process has become so hyper partisan and so while filled that too often we think that anything is acceptable as long as it helps us and hurts of them. And in this context, enough republicans believed that it was okay for the russians to be hacking and dumping documents because it was helping their side. In this respect i keep coming back to something that khrushchev said, when the democracies hang themselves, the capitalists will supply the rope. Unfortunately a lot of our institutions right now are supplying the rope and i think we need to think about what we are doing as facilitating the russian effort to dismantle our own democracy. I cant actually think a better way to end the session and i apologize we ar already a little over time for beats these guys had to get to come so hopefully you can grab them with some additional questions on the backend. This was a terrific gettogether. Thank you all so much for joining us. Thank you all for coming. Give everybody a round of applause. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] many of these issues will be under seven president s. Thank you very much spirit we have a little alumni group, and weve been following this issue very closely. One of our members is former technical director of nsa. Im interested in, one week ago when the president said this, i dont want to misquote them, the conclusions of the Intelligence Community with respect to russian hacking were not conclusive regarding wikileaks. In other words, theres a big gap between alleged russian hacking and wikileaks, the Intelligence Community does not know how or if that information, to the degree it exists, was from wikileaks. Now, you assert as flat fact that russia did this. Do you know more than obama . I would never claim to know more than obama. This is a very serious question. A serious question. I have every confidence in intelligence, russian hacking at both the dnc as well as john podesta. James clapper is a do you want to hear the answer . While i cant go into the classified information, i have full confidence that the russians whether Julianne Assange was a willing participant or the russians would describe [inaudible] that will hopefully find out. But i dont have any question on the conclusion that intelligence you have every confidence but no evidence, is that right . I cant show the evidence with you. Thats bogus. Thats bogus. Spinner would always refer to the Intelligence Community please dont do that. But anyways, what i want to say is that the most effective effective operation on his includes human operations and Technical Cooperation is. Its very you look at the dnc. Its very important. Because the precision by which they targeted Debbie Wasserman schultz are precisely the date of the opening of the conventi convention, the licks, the tech told you, its very important you look in the direction. [inaudible] i wish you all the best. Ill give you my card. I wrote an article in march on Cyber Operations and russian Information Warfare that id like to send to you. Ive got to run. Thank you all. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] wrapping up with this forum. If you missed any of it, it would be available in the cspan Video Library later today. Go to cspan. Org. They help out with an article that says democrats are voicing strong misgivings about President Trump reported decision to keep james comey atop the fbi. Director comey infuriated democrats in october when he announced an extended investigation into president ial nominee Hillary Clintons use of a private email server days before the election. I cant speak for democrats but i can speak for myself i do think james comey needs to fade away into oblivion. That said by congressman g. K. Butterfield, former head of the congressional black caucus. He and bears this page and possibly influence the outcome of a president ial election and he should not hold a position of trust whatsoever in our government. The house and Senate Republicans holding a threeday retreat in philadelphia starting today. Attendees with her from President Trump and also from british Prime Minister theresa may tomorrow. Cathy Mcmorris Rodgers and Sandra John Thune the chair the respective conferences hold a leadoff briefing here that will take live at noon eastern here on cspan2. Also what his press Secretary Sean Spicer will hold a briefing live at 1 p. M. Eastern. That will be on cspan followed by your phone calls. He said let me tell you something. I have done everything i can to protect my country. And if i come im not a pretty and im not afraid of president bush on them not afraid anybody. If i had to give in order to protect my country, i will. He did this mussolini thing with his arms and just like then he just said but i did not give that order. And then we just said wait, just calm down spirit sunday night, former senior cia analyst john nixon talks about his book debriefing the president , the interrogation of saddam hussein. Saddam was a realist in the use of power and the way political power is exercised and in the political power game. I think that he saw that when you are in playing at his level, presidency, the top level in the country, when you when you win big but when you lose, you also lose big. Sunday night on cspans q a. Chinese president xi jinping now on his countries role in the Global Economy are present she is the First Chinese president to address the World Economic forum. Hes introduced by founder and executive chair klaus schwab. Its now my distinct honor and great privilege