Transcripts For CSPAN2 White House Was Warned General Flynn Could Be Compromised 20170512

This week she warned the white house that former National Security adviser Michael Flynn had lied about his communications with russian officials and put at risk for blackmail. Miss gates served as acting attorney general in the opening days of the Trump Administration before she was fired to refusing the president S Immigration band. At a judiciary hearing monday she testified alongside director of National Intelligence james clapper. [inaudible conversation]. [inaudible conversation] just a gal. Thank you katie. Testing here. Here we come to order, thank you all for coming, heres the order of the day, a brief Opening Statement along with senator white house and then we will have senator grassley and feinstein follow some questioning and the seven minute rounds initially, we will try to put a second round of five minutes, both of those witnesses, thank you for coming. Will try to make this as short as possible and if you need a break, please let us know. So people,what are we doing and where are we trying to accomplish . January the Intelligence Community unanimously said that russians through their Intelligence Services tried to interfere in the 2016 american president ial election. That was the russians who had possessed email, it was the russians who broke into the Democratic National committee and it was the russians who helped empower wikileaks. No evidence that the russians changed the voting tallies, how people were influenced by what happened, only they know and god knows but i think every american should be concerned about what therussians did. From my point of view, theres no doubt in my mind it was the russians involve and all the things i just described. Some 400 pound guy sitting on the bed or any other country. Russia is up to no good when it comes to democracies over the world. This family in the ukraine, the baltics are always under siege by russian interference so why . If you want to learn what the russians did, we want to find a way to stop them because theyre apparently not going to stop until somebody makes them. The hearing that was held last week with director comey asked the question is it per se that the russian government is still involved in american politics and he said yes. I want house members and senators to know that the president ial campaign in 2016, it could be our campaigns next area i dont know what happened in france but somebody leaped into mister mccones account and we will see who that may have been but this is sort of what russia does to kind of undermine the democracy. So what are we trying to accomplish here. To validate the findings of the Intelligence Committee as much as possible. And to come up with a course of action as a nation bipartisan in nature, while it was the democraticparty of 2016 were the victims , it could be the Republican Party of the future and one parties attacked all of us should fill in the blanks. It should be in article 5 agreement between both major parties, all major parties that when a foreign power interferes in our election, it doesnt matter who they targeted, were all in the same boat. Currently, the unmasking of the 702 program. Frankly when i got involved in this investigation i didnt know much about it. Director comey said 702 program which allows warrants for intelligence gathering and vital intelligence tools, i learned a bit about the maxing and what ive learned isdisturbing. I dont know exactly all the details , what goes into unmasking an american citizen but insert at placerville when they involve with a Foreign Agent, id like to know more and i want to make sure that unmasking can never be used as a political weapon in our democracy so im all for getting the enemies before they head off, and intelligence gathering is essential but i believe we need to take a look at the procedures involved in 702, particularly how unmasking is requested, who can request it and what limitations exist if any on how the information can be used so thats why were here. To find out all things russia, and the witnesses are determined by the evidence and nothing else. And the 702 , the reauthorization will come before the Congress Soon and i for one have a lot of questions i didnt have before. I enjoy doing this with senator white house, senator feinstein and grassley have been terrific terrific but let me salvage Ranking Member of the subcommittee have allowed us to do our job. And powerless and have been handson and its much appreciated and with that ill recognize senator white house. Chairman for the important work the subcommittee is doing. Investigating the threat of russian interference. In january, americas Intelligence Committee said that the russian government engaged in an election influence campaign throughout 2016. In march, fbi director comey confirmed that and i quote him, the fbi as part of its Counterintelligence Mission is investigate the russian governments efforts to interfere in the 2016 election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russias government. The fbi and intelligence communities work is appropriately placed outside the public eye. Our expertise serves broader aims, to give a thorough Public Accounting of the known facts, those questions of answers, to help us determine how best to protect the integrity of our government. The subcommittees first hearing on march 15 we heard from Expert Witnesses about the russian toolbox for interfering in the politics of other countries. Now we can ask which of these tools were used against us by the russians in 2016 . Heres a checklist. Propaganda, fake news, trolls and box. what told the committee on intelligence in march, russian statesponsored Media Outlets in the lead up to the election quote, turned out manipulated truths, news reason conspiracies. Providing a weapon eyes fake news ever openly supporting Donald Trumps candidacy, quoting again while consistently offering negative coverage of secretary clinton. Is was to quote watts a deliberate, well organized, well resourced, wellfunded wideranging effort and by russia. Using trolls and bots to amplify its messages particularly across social media. These facts are not disputed by any serious person so this is a yes on the checklist. Packing staff and political information, around 2015 and 16 russian intelligence purposes and statesponsored hackers conducted Cyber Operations against us political targets including state and local election boards, penetrating networks, probing for vulnerabilities and stealing information and email. Attribution of these crimes to russian actors was confirmed in our last hearing and by many other sources. This is another yes. Find leaks of damaging material. Russian intelligence fronts put out and sympathetic organizations like lynchburg 2. 0, dizzy leaks and wikileaks then tied the recent release of stolen data to maximize its political effects, manipulate Public Opinion and influence the outcome of an election. Longtime trump associate rusk stone admits having interaction with 2. 0 and foreshadowed releases of data in october 2016. Huntington matter. October 7, hours after the damaging access Hollywood Tape was made public, wikileaks began publishing emails stolen from Clinton Campaign manager john pedesta so Political Violence last october, Russian Military intelligence conspired to assassinate the then Prime Minister of montenegro as part of a coup attempt. In 2004 ukrainian Prime Minister viktor you schenkel was disfigured when he was poisoned in a suspected assassination attempt by russian agents. Russian opposition figures are routinely the subjects of Political Violence, carlos has survived two recent poisonings while boris was murdered near the kremlin in 2015. Thankfully we have no evidence of that happening here. Investment control and key economic sectors, we learn from heather conleys testimony in our last hearing that the russian kremlin playbook is to manipulate other countries do through economic penetration, investing in sectors of the countrys economy to create political leverage. Putins electoral politics uses russias control of natural gas to create political pressure but so as to that tactic here so far. Shady business and financial ties. Russia exploits the dark shadows of economic and political systems. Fbi director comey testified last week the United States is becoming the last big haven for shell corporations where the okay city of the corporate form allows the concealment of criminal funds and can allow foreign money to indirectly influence our political system. Since the Citizens United decision we see money flowing our directions from 501 c four organizations. We dont know whos behind that dark money or what theyre demanding in return. Using shell corporations and other devices, russia establishes illicit Financial Relationships to develop leverage against prime prominent figures. Through the continued bribery, for the fix of threatened disclosure. How about here . We know that President Trump has long pursued deals in russia, isreported to have done business there since the mid1990s. As e. G. Deals in russia through the 2000, he deputized a character named felix later to develop real estate projects under the trump name. His family has links to russian organized crime and felix himself has had difficulties with the law. In a 2008 definition he said he would pitch Business Ideas to trump and his team on a constant basis. As recently as 2010 eight or how to Trump Organization Business Card and an office in trump tower. Donald trump junior said in september 2008 that he made half a dozen trips to russia in the preceding 18 months. Noting that russian investors were heavily involved in from your real estate projects. We see a lot of money pouring in from russia, he said. One from property in midtown had become within a few years of opening a Prominent Department of russian money according to a report bloomberg businessweek. So here there are still big questions. Of course, President Trump could clarify these questions by releasing his business and personal tax returns. Corrupting and compromising politicians. In testimony before the Judiciary Committee last wednesday, colbys knowledge that Financial Leverage has been exploited by russian intelligence over many decades. Back to the days of joseph olson, they use compromise or compromising material, pressure and manipulate targeted individuals with the prospect of damaging disclosures. As has russia compromised, corrupted or cultivated or exerted improper influence on individuals associated with trump, his administration, his transition team, his campaign or businesses . Another big . We know that President Trump has had in his orbit a number of russia friendly figures. In august thousand 15, trump met informally with Michael Flynn who is director of the Defense Intelligence agency and all strong relationships with the Russian Military intelligence. In december of that year, flynn traveled to moscow for a paid taking appearance at Anniversary Gala for rt where he was deeply connected with Vladimir Putin. Before he retired as an american general. A few months after that flynn was serving as an informal National Security advisor. Trump identified a littleknown Energy Investor named carter page as one of his Foreign Policy advisers. In march 2016, page told Bloomberg Politics friends and associates had been hurt by us sanctions against russia and that theres a lot of excitement in terms of the possibilities for creating a better situation. April 27, 2016, trump and several of his advisers including Jeff Sessions and surrogates his lien, russias ambassador for a campaign speech. The speech hosted by the center for National Interest had been arranged by from sonic jared kushner. At the Republican Convention he told the Washington Post had multiple contacts with the Trump Campaign both before and after the election. The days after the november election, Russias Deputy confirmed his government had communicated with the trunking during the campaign. And we know Michael Flynn put ambassador kislyak on december 9, the same day obama announced sanctions against russia for its interference in the 2016 election. Transition and Administration Officials thereafter made. Statements to the media and public about the content of flynns conversations with kislyak, apparently as a result of flynn having misled. This eventually led President Trump to ask for flynns resignation. Something im hoping miss yates can shed some light on today. The president and his administration have yet to take responsibility for or explain these and other troubling russia links , dismissing facts as fake news and downplaying the significance of individuals involved. More than 100 days in the Trump Administration and nearly 2 years since he declared his candidacy , only one person has been held accountable for improper contact with russia. Michael flynn. Even then, the Trump Administration maintained flynns communications with the ambassador were not improper. He simply lost the confidence of the president. We need a more thorough accounting of the facts area many years ago and 18 minute gap transfixed the country and got everybodys attention in another investigation. These days we have an 18 day gap between the notification of the white house that senior official had potentially been compromised and action taken against that senior officials roll. Its at best the Trump Administration has displayed errors of judgment, at worst these irregularities may reflect efforts that compromise or corruption at the hands of russian intelligence. My sincere hope is his hearing and those to come will help us out. Banking chairman. Are two witnesses. They are well known and that will be sworn in but mister clapper, the former director of National Intelligence has served this country for decades in uniform and dedicate his life to intelligence gathering and we appreciate that. Miss yates was the former attorney general, wellrespected in her legal profession, thank you both for coming and if you will please rise. Raise your right hand. Do you testify that you give the subcommittee the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth . Mister clapper. Center grant, Ranking Member white house and members of the subcommittee, i didnt expect to be before this committee or any other committee that congress again assumes, i thought i was all done with this when i left the government and this is only my first of two hearings this week but understandably concerned about the egregious russian interference in our election process is critically serious as to make be the focus ultimately bipartisan focus by the congress and the American People. Last year the Intelligence Community conducted an exhaustive review of russian interference into our president ial election process, resulting in a special Intelligence Community assessment or ica as we call it. Im here to provide whatever information i can now as a private citizen on how the Intelligence Community conducted its analysis, came up with its findings and communicated them to the Obama Administration, to the congress and in an unclassified form to the American Public. Traditionally ill briefly address for related topics that have emerged since the ica was produced. Because of both classification and some executive privilege, the picture is requested by the white house, there are limits to what i can discuss. And of course my direct official knowledge of any of this that stopped on january 20 when my term of office was over. As you know, the ica was a coordinated product from cia, nsa and fbi, not all 17 components of the Intelligence Community. Those three. Under the ages of my former office, only a sense of Intelligence Reporting about many russian efforts to collect on and influence the president ial election, president obama asked us to do this in december and have it completed before the end of his term. The two dozen or so analysts for this task were handpicked seasoned experts from each of the contributing agencies. They were givencomplete , unfettered mutual access to all sensitive raw Intelligence Data and importantly, complete independence to reach their findings. They found the russian government pursued a multifaceted influence campaign in the runup to the election including aggressive use of cyber capabilities. The russians include Cyber Operations against both Political Parties including acting in the servers used by the Democratic National committee and releasing stolen data to wikileaks and other Media Outlets. Russia also collected on certain Republican Party affiliated targets but did not release any republican related data. The toes community concluded first that president clinton directed and influence campaign to erode the faith, confidence of the American People and our process. Second, that he did so did you mean secretary clinton and third, he sought to advantage mister trump. These conclusions were reached based on the richness of the information gathered and analyzed and were thoroughly vetted by the directors of the three agencies and me. These russian activities result in assessments were briefed first to president obama on 5 january, then to trump and trump tower on the sixth. Congress by a series of five briefings from the six through 13 january. Classified version was profusely educated with no strong from thousands of pages of supporting material. The judgments in the unclassified version published on 6 january were identical to the classified version. Its been over four months since the instance of this assessment as director comey testified before the committee on 20 march, the conclusions reached at the time still stand. I think thats a statement to the quality and professional eddie of the Intelligence Community people who produce such a compelling Intelligence Report during a tumult to us and controversial time. And under intense scrutiny with a very tight deadline. Throughout the public dialogue about the issue over these past few months, for related topics have been raised that could use clarification and i like to take a few moments to provide that clarification. First i want to address the meaning of quote unmasking which is an unofficial term that appeared frequently in the media in recent months as often as we think misused and misunderstood. So what frequently happens that in the course of conducting lawfully authorized and trying to balance on validated started collecting agencies picks up communications involving us persons. Either their direct interface with a validated Foreign Intelligence Department or whether there is discussion about those us persons abiding by validated intelligence sources. Under Intelligence Community minimization procedures the identities of these us persons are typically mass. And reports that throughout the intelligence consumers never referred to each report time as us person one, us person to, etc. , there are cases when we fully understand the context of the communication has been obtained or the correct disclosed and this year that collective intelligence may ask the identity of the us person be revealed. We request and explain why the unmasking is necessary and that explanation is conveyed back to the agency that collected the information. It is then up to that agency whether to improve the request and to provide the identity. And if us persons identity is revealed, that identity is provided only to the person properly requested it, not to a broader audience. This process is subject to oversight reporting and in the interest of transparency my former office publishes a report on the statistics, on how many us persons identity are unmasked based on collection that occurred under section 702 of the amendment. And in 2016 that number was 1934. On several occasions during my 6 and a half years, i requested the identity of us persons to be revealed. In each such instance, i made these requests so i can fully understand the context of the communications and the potential threats being posed. At no time have i ever been a request for personal and political purposes or voyeuristic we look at raw intelligence nor am i aware of any instance of such abuse by anyone else. Second is the issue of leaks, leaks have been conflated with unmasking and some of the Public Discourse but they are two very different things. And unmasking is a legitimate process that consists of the request and approval by authorities as i briefly described. A leak is an unauthorized disclosure of classified information that is improper under any circumstances. Ive long maintained during my 50 year career in intelligence that leaks endanger National Security, compromised sources, methods and trade and can put assets at risk. And for the record in my long career ive never knowingly exposed classified information in an inappropriate manner. Here it is the issue of counterintelligence investigations conducted by the federal bureau of investigation. While i cant comment in this setting on a particular counterintelligence investigation, its important to understand how such investigations into and relate to the Intelligence Community and at least the general practice i followed during my time with respect to fbi counterintelligence investigations. When the Intelligence Community obtained information suggesting a us person is acting on behalf of foreign power, the standard procedure is to share that information with lead investigatory bodies which of course is the fbi. We then decide whether to link into that information and handle any ensuing investigation if there is one. But insensitivity, given the existence of counterintelligence investigation at its highest levels. My tenure as dni it was my practice to revert to the fbi director, both director mueller and subsequently director comey on whether, when and to what extent they would inform me about such investigations. This stems from the unique position of the fbi which travels both intelligence and law enforcement. And as a consequence i was not aware of the counterintelligence investigation , director comey referred to during his testimony before the direct committee on intelligence. That reports with my public statements. Finally, comment on section 702 of the surveillance act amendment. What it governs and why its vital. This provision authorizes the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to improve surveillance of nonus persons, let me, nonus persons, foreign intelligence targets outside the United States. 702 has been a tremendously effective tool in identifying terrorists and other press and at the same time protecting the privacy and civilities of us persons. And as the chairman, karen indicated, section 702 is due to reauthorization by congress this year and it was renewed in 2012 for five years and expires in 31 in december of this year. So many misconceptions flying around it would be tragic for section 702 to become a casualty of misinformation and for us to lose a tool so vital to the safety of this nation. In conclusion, russias influence activities in the runup to the 2016 election constituted a High Water Mark of the longrunning efforts since the 1960s to disrupt and influence our elections. It must be congratulating themselves for having exceeded their wildest expectations with a minimal expenditure of resources. And i believe they are now emboldened to continue such activities in the future, both here and around the world and to do so more intensely. If there has ever been a clarion call for vigilance action, against a threat to the very foundation of our Democratic Political system, this episode is. I hope the American People recognize the severity of this press and we collectively alter before trigger roads as a fabric of our democracy. However my former colleague acting attorney general sally yates for any remarks she has to make. Microphone. Thank you. Chairman graham, Ranking Member white house and establish members of the subcommittee, im pleased to appear before you this afternoon, on this critically important topic of russian interference in our last president ial election and one of the latest topics this committee is investigating. For 27 years, i was honored to represent the people of the United States with the department of justice. I began as an assistant United States attorney in atlanta in the fall of 1989 and like all prosecutors, i investigated and tried cases and work hard to ensure the safety of our community and with those who violated our loss were held accountable. Over time, through five republican and democratic administrations, i assumed greater leadership positions within the department and the Us Attorneys Office in atlanta, i served as of the broken section, as First Assistant United States attorney and then was appointed United States attorney and then i had the privilege of serving as Deputy Attorney general for a little over two years and finally, the Current Administration asked me to stay on as acting attorney general. Throughout my time at the department i was incredibly fortunate to be able to work with a talented, career men and women at the department of justice to follow the facts and uphold the law with tremendous dedication and who are in fact the backbone of the department of justice. And in every step, in every position, from ausa to acting attorney general, i always tried to carry out our responsibilities in a way that would engender trust and the confidence of the people whom i serve. I want to thank the subcommittee conducting an impartial and thorough investigation of this vitally important topic. The efforts by foreign adversaries interfere and undermine our democratic processes and those of our allies , pose a serious threat to all americans. This hearing and others this subcommittee has conducted and will be conducting in the future are an important bipartisan step in understanding the threat and the best ways to confront going forward. The Intelligence Community assessed in its january 2017 report that russia will continue to develop the abilities to use against the United States and we need to be ready to meet those threats. I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to take part in todays discussion. I want to note that in my answers today i tend to be as focused and as comprehensive as possible while respecting my legal and ethical boundaries. As the subcommittee understands, many of the topics of interest today concerned classified information that i cannot address in this public setting. My duty to protect classified information applies just as much as a former official as it did when i left the department. In addition, on obviously no longer with the department of justice and i am not authorized to generally discuss deliberations within doj or more broadly within the executive branch, particularly on matters that may be the subject of Ongoing Investigations. I take those obligations very seriously and i appreciate the subcommittees shared interest in the protecting classified information and preserving the integrity of any Investigations Department of justice maybe can conducting. I look forward to answering our questions, thank you. Senator grassley, would you like to make a statement . Okay. All right. You can ask senator feinstein. Thank you very much. Mister chairman, ill be very brief. You have prepared or the committee and id like to ask the staff to distribute it, a background and a timeline on Lieutenant General Michael Flynn and some of the dates involved which may be of help to the subcommittee and i would just like to take this opportunity to thank the subcommittee. Chairman graham and Ranking Member white house, i think youve done a good job at your whole subcommittee has so thank you very much. I just like to make a few comments if i might and put all the remarks in the record. I think it is a foregone conclusion about russias involvement and we see it replicated even in the french election. Perhaps not to the extent or in the way but certainly replicated. On february 9, 2017, the Washington Post reported that either flynn had misled the Vice President or that pens had misspoken. Lieutenant general flynn resigned on february 13, four days after the post broke the story. There are still many Unanswered Questions about general flynn and including who knew what, who knew what and when. For example the press is now reporting that in addition to a warning from sally yates, concerns were raised by former president obama rectally to then resident electron. 95 days beforeflynn resigned. So the question, what role did flynn play in communications with the russians, both after the first warning by president obama and then after the warning by sally yates . And i hope to answer that today. What role did flynn play in high level National Security decisions . Again, both during the 95 days and the 18 days when the white house was on notice. I look forward to hearing more about this. From you, acting attorney general yates, you had stated that you warn the white house on january 26, nearly 3 weeks before flynn resigned that he had not been truthful and might be vulnerable to russian blackmail. Finally, there are other troubling questions regarding russias relationship and connections with troubled advisors and associates. And there are questions about whether anyone was the target of russian intelligence, either to be exploited or cultivated. So i will put my old remarks in the record, mister chairman and i hope to ask some questions around these few comments, thank you very much for this opportunity. Mister chairman, may i also put into the record a letter dated november 18, 2016, from the Ranking Member on the House Committee on oversight and government reform, Elijah Cummings getting then Vice President elect s notice about certain what he called apparent conflicts of interest regarding general flynn. Without objection. General clapper, on march 5 2017 you said the following questions, does intelligence exist that can definitely answer the following question . Whether they were in proper context between the Trump Campaign and russian officials, you said we did not include any evidence in our report and i say our, that the nsa, fda and cia with my office, the director of National Intelligence that anything that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump Campaign and the russians. There was no evidence of that in our report. Then as i understand that, but does it exist, hed say no, not to my knowledge, so that the last. Here is miss yates, do you have any evidence, are you aware of any evidence that in the 2016 campaign, anybody in the Trump Campaign colluded with the russian government intelligence offices in an improper fashion. Senator, my answer to that question would require me to reveal classified information i cant answer that. Well, i dont get that because he just said he issued the report. And he said you know of any. So what would you know thats not in the report . Are you asking me . I think director clapper also said he was unaware of the fbi counterintelligence investigation. Be fair to say counterintelligence investigation was not mature enough to come to his, to get in a report about fairness . Thats a possibility. What i dont get is how the fbi counterintelligence investigation suggesting collusion and us director of National Intelligence not know about it and the fbi silent role report that basically said there was no collusion. I can only speculate why that is so. There wasnt, the evidence that there was any do reach the evidentiary bar in terms of the level of confidence we were striving for in the Intelligence Community assessment. That makes perfect sense to me. A followup, are you familiar with the series about mister trump, some guy in england . I am. You find that to be a credible report . We did make a judgment on that one reason why we did not included in the body of our Intelligence Community assessment. You didnt find a credible enough. We couldnt corroborate sourcing, particularly the second and third order sources. Are you familiar with the dossier . If i could try to clarify one answer, i think senator graham you may have misunderstood. You asked me whether i was aware of any evidence of collusion and i declined to answer because answering would reveal classified information. I believe that the same answer that director comey gave to this committee when he was asked the question and he made clear and id like to make clear that because i say i cant answer it, you should not often that an assumption that that means the answer is yes. Are enough. I think if i may this illustrates what i was trying to get out in my statement about the unique position the fbi straddles between intelligence and law enforcement. I want the country to know that whatever theyre doing on the counterintelligence side, mister clapper didnt know about it, and make it in the report and will see what comes from it. Miss yates. What did you tell the white house about mister flynn . I had to in person meetings and one phone call with the council about mister flynn. The first meeting occurred on january 25 area i called don mcgann first thing that morning and told him that i had a very sensitive matter i needed to discuss soon that i couldnt talk about on the phone and that i needed to come see him and he agreed to meet with me later that afternoon. I took a Senior Member of the National Security division who was over seeing this matter with me to meet with mister dan who met in his office at the white house inches we could discuss classified information in his office. We began our meeting telling them that there had been accounts of statements from the Vice President and others that related conduct that mister flynn had been involved in that we knew not to be the truth. And i tell you what happened here again, im going to be very careful not to reveal classified. The reason it wasnt true is you had collected intelligence from an incidental collection system. I cant answer that because again, it would call for me to reveal classified. Did anybody ever make the request to unmask the conversation between the Russian Ambassador and mister flynn . Again senator, i cant answer a question like that. Okay. Is there a way to find that out . In another setting it could be discussed. But there is a record somewhere that would make a request to unmask the conversation with russian mister flynn and the Russian Ambassador. The point was made at the record. I cant this specific case but i can generally comment that in the case of 702 request, yes. Those are all documents. I dont mean to interrupt but this is important to me, how did the conversation between the Russian Ambassador and mister flynn make it to the Washington Post . Which one are you asking . Thats a great question. All of a sudden. I like to know that, i dont know the answer. Nor do i know the answer. Is it fair to say that if somebody did make and unmasking request, we would know who they were and we could find out from them who they share the information with, is that fair to say . The system would allow us to do what i just described. These requests are not made to the department of justice. But to the agency that does the collection. Is my understanding. Should be a record somewhere to access and whether or not, im asking whether a request was made the conversation between mister flynn and the Russian Ambassador with which he should be able to determine if it was made, who made it and who we can ask for debating information, is that a fair statement . Yes. Okay, now, would you tell the white house. I told him again that there were a number of accounts of statements that had been made by the Vice President and other highranking white house officials about general flynns conduct that we knew to be untrue. And we told them how we knew that this, how we had this information, how we had acquired it and how we knew that it was untrue and we, the white House Counsel who had an associate there with him, they threw general flynn underlying conduct. Contents of which i cannot go through with you today because its classified so we took them through a fair amount of detail in the underlying conduct what general flynn had done and then we walked through the press accounts of how it had been falsely reported. We also told the white House Counsel general flynn had been interviewed by the fbi on february 24. Mister mcgann asked me how he did and i declined to give him an answer to that. And we didnt walk through with Mister Mcgann essentially why we were telling them about this. X and the first thing we did was to explain to Mister Mcgann that the underlying conduct general flynn had engaged in was problematic in and of itself. Secondly, we told him we felt like the Vice President and others were entitled to know some information that they were conveying to the American People wasnt good. And we wanted to make it really clear right out of the gate we were not accusing Vice President pants of knowingly providing false information to the American People and in fact, Mister Mcgann responded , letting me know that anything general flynn would have said was based, anything Vice President pants wouldve been said wouldve been based on what general flynn and told him. He told him the third reason was because we were concerned that the American People have been misled about the underlying conduct and what mister flynn had done. And additionally, that we were the only ones that realize this. The russians also knew about what general flynn had done and the russians also knew what general flynn had misled Vice President and others. From media accounts it was clear from the Vice President and others that they were repeating what general flynn had told them and that this was a problem because not only did we believe the russians knew this but that they likely had proof of this information. And that created a compromised situation, a situation where the National Security advisor essentially could be blackmailed by the russians. Finally, we told them we were giving them all this information so that they could take action, the action that they deemed appropriate. I remember Mister Mcgann asked me whether or not general flynn could be fired and i told him that really wasnt our call, that was up to them but we were giving them this information so they can take action and that was the first meeting. Thank you and ill go with a very quick question. Either one of you were aware of incidental collection by intelligence communities of any president ial candidate, staff or campaign in the december 2016 election cycle . Say that again . Was there any incidental collection by Intelligence Community collects information involving a president ial candidate from either side of the aisle during 2015 or 2016 . No, not to my knowledge. I believe director comey was also asked this question and declined to answer it soi need to follow the same lines the doj has drawn. You should not draw from that that my answer is yes but rather that the answer would require me to reveal classified information. My response as always is foreign intelligence is not the domestic. [inaudible] following the comey line, the director testified a few days ago the full committee that the fbi had interviewed mister flynn a day before or two days before your meeting at the white house and you just testified that you had told the white House Counsel that the fbi had reviewed flynn and he had asked how did he do . Did you have the 302 with you when you were in the white house . Did you show it to white House Counsel and have you seen it at the time you went up to the white house . Know, the fbi had conducted the interview on the 24th. We got a readout on the 25th, a detailed readout pacifically from the agents conducted the interview but we didnt want to wait for the 302 because we thought it was important to get this information to the white house as quickly as possible and we had from the Security Division we spent a lot of time with the agents not only finding out how the interview went but how this impacted their investigation. So did you take that summary with you . Do you have any document with you that describes the fbi interview of general flynn . At the time i was there i had mostly described the interview as well as the individual that was with me, the senior career official from the National Security division had been part of those discussions with the fbi. Did you discuss criminal prosecution of mister flynn. General flynn. No recollection, but that did not, much in the first meeting. It did come up in the second meeting when Mister Mcgann called me back the next morning and asked the morning after, this was the morning of the 27 and asked me if i could come back so i went back with the officials and there were essentially four topics you wanted to discuss in one of those is precisely that, yes about the applicability of certain statutes, certain criminal statutes and more specifically. Was there a second meeting at the white house in his office again . In his office again. With the same two individuals on the following day. Right. And he went back to a phone call request or. The morning of the 27th after our meeting had occurred on the afternoon of the 25th, the morning of the 27th after mcgann called me and asked if i could come back to the white house to discuss this further and we set up a time and i wentover there this afternoon. Following again the same career official with me from the National Security division overseeing this investigation. He had the same associates from the office and we talked through 4 to 54 issues. Good perhaps you have waited until you had seen the agents 302 from the interview of general flynn, why go ahead of that . Why not wait . Because this was a matter of some urgency. Described. In making the determination about about notification we had to balance a variety of interests or the reasons i described a few minutes ago, we felt like it was critical we get this information to the white house because in part because the Vice President was unknowingly making false statements to the public and we believe general flynn was compromised with respect to the russians. We were battling this balancing this against the fbis investigation and take into account the investigating agency desires and concerns about how a notification might act that Ongoing Investigation. Once general flynn was interviewed there was no longer a concern about an impact on the investigation are you aware that interview took place or under what circumstances. I believe it took place at the white house. The flynn interview. Yes. Flynnwas represented by counsel. I dont believe he was. The scenario you are concerned about what you were seeing all the statements from the white house thatwere inconsistent with what you knew. You presumed the white house was being truthful which meant that flynn was misleading them. Which meant that it was vulnerable to manipulation by the russians who knowing what has actually taken place, could call up the National Security advisor to the president and say you got to do this for us or were going to help you with all your folks and your career is done. That was one of the questions Mister Mcgann asked me when i went back over the second day was essentially, why does it matter to doj if one white house official lies to another white house official . So we explained to him was a whole lot more than that. We went back over the same concern we had raised within the prior day, that with inserts first about the underlying conduct itself that he had lied to the Vice President and others in the American Public and the mislaid and importantly, that every time this line was repeated, and the misrepresentations were getting more and more specific as they were coming out, every time that happened, it increase the compromise and to state the obvious, you dont want your National Security advisor lies with the russians. Were there any takeaways from the first meeting or action items that you left with . There was an action item in the second meeting because i guess we talked about several issues. To get the order right, you said earlier that there were two meetings in the phone call. Was the phone call the phone call is a second meeting . There was a third phone call. Sorry about that. One of the issues Mister Mcgann raised with me in this staff meeting that was on the 27th, the day after the first meeting was his concern because we had told him before we were getting him this information so that they can take action. And he said that they were concerned that taking action might interfere with the fbi investigation. And we told him both of the senior career official and i that he should not be concerned with it, that general flynn had been interviewed, that their action would not interfere with anyinvestigation and in fact , for members specifically said it wouldnt be fair of us to tell you this, and then expect you to sit on your hands. Was the interview with general flynn accelerated once you became aware of information you felt you needed to get to his statement quickly . We had wanted to tell the white house as quickly as possible and were working with the fbi in the course of the investigation but certainlywe did. The first thing you know is that you have information that one thing was said and the white house is saying something different. And you know that that information was irrespective of who is involved needs to get the white house quickly. And so at that point, the decision was made to do the interview so that that would lockdown before you went out to white House Counsel . That would not have a negative impact on the fbi investigation. And there was a request made by Mister Mcgann in the second meeting. As to whether or not they would be given to look at the underlying evidence we had that we had described for them of general flynns conduct. And we told them we were inclined to allow them to look at that underlying conduct that we wanted to doj and were able to make a logistical arrangement for that. Second meeting on the 27th occurred late in the afternoon, this is friday the 27th so we told them we would work with the fbi over the weekend on this issue. And get back with him monday morning. And i called him first thing monday morning to let him know that we would allow them to come over and to review the underlying evidence. Was that a phone call or was there a separate phone call . It was the phone call initially to let him know at the coliseum, two meetings and a phone call at the end to let him know. That the material was available. He had to call me back, he was not available then and i did not hear back until that afternoon. Of monday the 30th x that was the end of this episode, nobody came over to look at the material. I dont know what happened after that. Got it, okay. Senator grassley. Mister clapper, you said that you never expose classified information in an inappropriate manner. I asked director comey these questions last week so for both of you, i yes, sir no, as far as you know, have any classified information relating to mister trump or his associates been declassified and shared with the media . Mr. Clapper not to my knowledge. Ms. Yates not to my knowledge. Senator grassley next question, have either of you ever been an anonymous source in matters relating to mr. Trump or rush yabs attempts to medical in the election . Did either of you ever authorize someone else at someone else at your respective organizations to be an anonymous source in a news report about mr. Trump or his associates . No. No. No. As far as either of you knowt had any Government Agencies referred any of the leaks over the past several months to the Justice Department for potential criminal investigation . I dont know. As you know, senator, there is a process for that, for doing that. I dont know if that, thats happened. Ms. Yates . Im not at doj anymore so i i dont know whats been referred. Spirit so then i guess kind of sum up, neither one of you know whether the department authorized a criminal investigation of the leaks . I do not, sir. No, sir. Okay. Have any of you been questionedn mark the fbi about any leaks . I have not been. No. Want to discuss on masking. Mr. Clapper and mr. Gates committed either of you ever request the unmasking of mr. Trump come his associates or need member of congress . Yes. In one case i did. I can specifically call but i cant discuss it any further than that. You cant, so if i asked you for details you said you cant discuss that. Is that what you said . Not here. Okay. Ms. Yates, can you answer that question . Did you ever request unmasking of mr. Trump, his associates or any member of congress . No. Did either of you ever review classified documents in which mr. Trump come his associates or members of congress had been unmasked . Well, yes. You have to can you give us details here . No, i cant. Ms. Yates, have you . Yes, i have. And no, i cant give details. Did either of you ever share information about unmasked Trump Associates are members of congress with anyone else . Well, im thinking about back over six and half years. I could have discussed it with either my deputy or my general counsel. Okay. Ms. Yates . In the course of the flynn matter i discussion with other members of the Intel Community. Im not sure if that is responsive to your question. And in both cases you can do details here . No. O. No. The fbi notified the Democratic National committee of the russians intrusion into their systems in august of 2015, but the dnc turned down the fbis offered to get the russians out and refuse the fbi access to their servers. Instead, it evidently eventually hired a private firm and a spring of 2016. Wikileaks began releasening the emails last july and took 27,500 7,000 of the d. N. C. Emails it released or sent after the f. B. I. Notified the d. N. K. Of the breach. Would you agree one of the lessons is that people should cooperate with the f. B. I. Instead of stonewalling . Mr. Clapper yes, sir. I think that is good idea. Senator grassley mr. Clapper, you sent the russians or you said the rush yaps did not release any negative information on republican candidates. I believe that that is not quite right. On june on june 15, 2016, gaza for 2. 0 released the smoking gun more than 200 pages of the dnc Opposition Research on mr. Trumps hundreds of pages of what i would call dirt. This happened just two days after the wall street journal published a plan for Republican Convention delegates to revolt to prevent mr. Trump from securing the nomination. Nomi why wasnt, why wasnt the russian release of harmful information about mr. Trump addressed in the russia report . S and was this even evaluated during the review . I would have to consult with the analysts that were involved in the report to definitive answer that. I dont know personally whether they considered that or not. Can you submit that as anat answer in writing . Well, either a private citizen now. I dont know what the rules are on my obtaining classified can potentially class of information so i will look into it. Okay. Mr. Clapper, you testified that Intelligence Community conductet an exhaustive review of russian interference and the analysts involved that complete unfettered access to all sensitive, raw Intelligence Data. Do you have any reason to believe that an agency withheld any relevant information . Y i dont believe so, with one potential caveat, which is that there is the possibility i can acknowledging this role that the fbi plays in straddling both intelligence and law enforcement, that for whatever reason they made chosen to withhold investigatory Sensitive Information from the report. I dont know that to be a fact. I was not a price of that. Im just suggesting that as a possibility. My time is up, mr. Chairman, thank you. Senator feinstein. Thanks very much, mr. Chairman. Ms. Yates come unloc undocking k anything that deserves a confidential or secure answer, but after your second in person meeting with mr. Mcgahn, you said there were four topics he wanted to discuss. Would you list those four topics . Sure. The first topic in the second meeting was essentially why doesnt matter to doj if one white house official lies to another . The second topic related to the applicability of criminal statutes and the likelihood that department of justice would pursue a criminal case. The third topic was his concern that they are taking action might interfere with an investigation of mr. Flynn. And the fourth topic was hisis request to see the underlying evidence. Were all those topics satisfied with respect to your t impression after the second meeting . Yes. It only thing was really left open was the logistics, for us to be able to make arrangements for them to look at the underlying evidence. And he did make those arrangements . We did, but again i dont know whether that ever happened to them whether ever looked at that evidence were not. There enough. Idence there enough. Apparently Lieutenant General f flynn remained National Security advisor for 18 days come after you raise the Justice Departments concern. In your view during those 18w, days, did the risk that flynn had been or could be compromised diminish at all . You know i dont know im in a position to really have an answer for that. I know we were really concerned about the compromise and that was the reason why we were encouraging them to act. T i dont know what steps that may have taken, if any, during the 18 days to minimize. Did you discuss this with other doj career professionals . Certainly leading up to our notification on the 26th. It was whole lot of discussion in doj and with other news oflle Intel Community, and we discussed it at great length but after the 30th, again i wasnt at doj anymore cited have any further discussion after that point about what was being done with respect to that. Did you consult with other career prosecutors . Absolute. We had with experts within the National Strip division as we were navigating this situation, theyre working with the fbi on the investigation and wereto trying to make a determination about how best to make this notification so that we could get the information to the white house that they needed to be able to act. Whats the point youre trying to make, yes or no willyo be fine, that general flynn had seriously compromised the security of the United States and possibly the government by what he had done, whatever that was . Our point was is that logic would tell you that you dont want the National Securityto advisor to be in a position where the russians have leverage over him. In terms of what impact that may have had or could add, i cant speak to that but we knew that was not a good situation, which is why we wanted to let theat white house know about it. The guardian has reported that britains Intelligence Service first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious interactions between trump advisors and russian intelligence agents. This information was passed on to use intelligence agents, agencies. In over the spring of 2016, multiple european allies passed Additional Information to the United States about contacts between the Trump Campaign and i russians. Is this accurate . I cant answer that. General clapper, is that accurate . Yes, it is and its also quite sensitive. Okay. Let me ask you this. The specifics are quite sensitive. Quite when did components of the Intelligence Community open investigations into the interactions between trumpga advisors and russians . Mr. Cl im sorry . What was a question again . When did components of the Intelligence Community open the investigations into the interactions between trump advisors and russians . Well, i referred to director comeys statement before the house Intelligence Committee on the 20th of march is when he advised that they had opened an investigation in july of 2016. And what was the reaction when you advise that the investigation be opened as early as july 15 . Im sorry . I thought you said that you advised on july no. Director comey did before the house Intelligence Committee, announced that the fbi had initiated investigation into july 2016. Well, what did the intelligence agencies do with the findings that i just spoke s about at the guardian wrote about . Im not sure about the accuracy of that article, so clearly over, actually going back to 2015 there was evidence of soviet, russian, excuse me, freudian slip, russian activity mainly in an information gathering or reconnoitering mode when they were investigating Voter Registration rolls and the like. A that activity started early. So we were monitoring this as it progressed and certainly as it picked up comics overrated in the spring, summer and fall 2016. Okay. So let me go back to you, ms. Yates. Take i take it you are very concerned. What was your primary during all of this . Now, you were worried that general flynn would be compromised. What did you think would happen if he were, and how do you believe he would have been compromised . We had two concerns. Compromise was the number one concern, and the russians can use compromised material, information in a variety of ways. Im sometimes overtly and sometimes subtly. And again our concern was thatd you have a very sensitive position, like the National Security adviser and you dont want the person to be in a position where against the russians have leverage over him. But i will also say another motivating factor is that we felt like the Vice President was entitled to know that the information he had been given and that he was relating to the American Public wasnt true. So what you are saying is that general flynn lie to the Vice President . Tes thats certainly how it appeared, yes, because the Vice President went out and made statement about general flynns conducts studies at the base of what general flynn i told him. And we knew that that just wasnt flat true. Well, as the days went on, what was your view of the situation . Because the reich as two weeks before, was the 18 days, before director flynn was dismissed . Again i was to look with doj after the 30t 30th, and so i wasnt having interaction or any involvement in this issue after that day. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator cornyn. Thank you, chairman graham, senator whitehouse for todays hearing. This is important. The American People have any right to know as much as possible about russian interference in our elections. Might as a thing as the directors told us before many times, this is not anything new, although perhaps the level and intensity and the sophistication of both russian overt and covert operations is really unprecedented. D i and i thank the Intelligence Community for the assessment. I do regret that while these two witnesses are certainly welcome and very glad to have them here, that former nationals could advisor susan rice has refused to testify in front of the committee. It seems to me there are a lot of questions that she needs to answer. I would point out though that, mr. Chairman, both senator feinstein and i are fortunate enough to be on the senate Intelligence Committee, which is also conducting a bipartisan investigation into the leadership of chairman burr and vice chairman warner. One of the benefits of that Additional Investigation is that weve been given access to the raw intelligence collected byin the Intelligence Community, which i think completes what i understand its an incomplete picture when you can only talk in a public setting about part of the evidence, but it is important for the americanan people to understand whats happening. I think this subcommittee hearing is playing an Important Role in that. I want to ask director clapper, because i think, unfortunately, some of the discussion aboutis unmasking is casting suspicion on the Intelligence Community in a way that a think is franklyncg concerning, particularly when were looking at reauthorizing section 702 of the patriot act by the end of next year because as many have said, i cant recall your specific words but i know director comey has called that the crown jewels of Intelligence Community. I am very concerned that some of the information thats been discussed about unmasking, for example, might cause some people to worry about their legitimate privacy concerns. When it comes to incidental collection on an american person, and that is unmasked at the request of some appropriatee authority, can you describe briefly the paper trail and the approval process that is required in order to allow that to happen . Thats not a trivial matter, is it . The process is that, first of all, the judgment as to whether or not to unmask or reveal the identity is rendered by the original collection agency. So normally thats going to be, in the case at 702, going to be nsa. I know for my part, as indicated my statement over my six and half years at dni, i occasionally asked for identities to be unmasked to understand the context. What i was concerned about, and those of us in the Intelligence Community are concerned about is the behavior of the validated for intelligence target, is that target trying to coopt, recruit, bribe, penetrate or what . Editor difficult to understand that context by the labels u. S. Person one, u. S. Person number two. And as well i should point out doing that on anecdotal basis on one report at a time in which you need to look at is is there a pattern here likes and so i tried on my part to be very, very judicious about that. Its a very sensitive thing here but but i did feel an obligatios dni that i should attempt to understand the context and who this person was here because that that a huge bearing on how important or critical it was that what threat might be posed by virtue of the, again, the behavior of the validated for intelligence target pixel our focus was on the target, not as much as the u. S. Person only to understand the context. The fact that some appropriate authority might request and receive the unmasking of the name of the u. S. Person does not then authorize the release of that information. That classified information into the public domain. Th there remains a crime, does it not . Yes. Yes, again thats why attemp too clarify in my statement pushed the button. Thats why in my statement i attempted to make that distinction between unmasking an authorized legitimate process with approval by the appropriate authorities and leaking, which is an unauthorized process under any circumstance. Mr. Chairman, i think its really important that in ordere to determine who actually requested the unmasking and in order to establish whether appropriate procedures were undertaken under both legislative oversight and judicial oversight, that we determine what that paper trail is and follow it if i may come and have to be very careful here about how i phrase this, but i would just repeat to you the definition of what 702 issues for. For collection against a nonuso person overseas. I dont think you could say that enough, director clapper. Support because people need to understand that be happy to say it again. We are both to keep the American People safe but also respecting the privacy rights and Constitutional Rights of american citizens. Absolutely. Ms. Yates, this is the first time that you have appeared before Congress Since you left the department of justice. And i just wanted to ask you a question about your decision to refuse to defend the president s executive order. In the letter that you sent to congress you point out that executive order itself was drafted in consultation with the office of Legal Counsel, and you point out that the office of Legal Counsel reviewed it to determine whether in its view the proposed executive order was lawful on its face and properlyt drafted. Is it true that the office of Legal Counsel did conclude that it was lawful on its face and properly drafted . Yes, they did. The office and you overruled and . I did. The office of what is your authority to overrule the office of Legal Counsel when it comes to legal determination . The office of Legal Counsel has a narrow function, and that is to look at the face of an executive order and determined purely on its face whether there is some set of circumstances under which at least some part of the executive order may be lawful. Importantly, they do not look beyond the face of the executivr order, for example, statements at a may content writers at or prior to the execution of the io that may bear on its intent and purpose. That office does not look atng those factors and to determine the constitution alley houses now become that was an important analysis to engage in and one that i get. Ms. Yates, i thought the department of justice had a longstanding tradition of defending a president ial action in court if there are reasonable arguments in its favor, regardless of whether thoseov might prove to be persuasive which of course is up to the courts to decide and not you, correct . It is correct that often times but not always the Civil Division of the department of justice will defend an action of the present or an action of congress if there is a reasonable argument to be made. But in this instance, allecause arguments have to be based on truth. Because we are the department of justice to we are not just a law firm. We are the department of justi justice. You have to distinguish the truth from lawful . Yes. Because in this instance is looking at what the intent was of the executive order, which was derived in part from an analysis of facts outside the face of the order, that is part of what made to our conclusion that it was not lawful, yes. You had a distinguished career for 27 years at the department of justice, and i voted for your confirmation because i believed that you had a distinguished career. But have to tell you that i find it enormously disappointing that you somehow vetoed the decision of the office of Legal Counsel with regard to the lawfulness of the president order and decided instead that you would order countermand executive order of the president because you happen i disagree with it as a policy matter. I just have to say that. I appreciate that, senator, and let me make one thing clear. It was not purely as a policy matter. In fact, i remember my an ex confirmation hearing, in an exchange that ahead with you, and others of your colleagues where you specifically asked me in that hearing that if the president asked me to do something that was unlawful or unconstitutional, and one of your colleagues, or even that would reflect poorly on the department of justice, would i say no . And i looked at this. I made a determination that it believed that it was unlawful. I also thought that it was inconsistent with the principles of the department of justice, and i said no and thats what ih promise you i would do. Thats what i get. I dont know how you can sayy that it was lawful and say that it was within your prerogative to refuse to defend in a court of law and leave it to the court to decide. Senator, i did not say it was lawful. Lawfu i said it was unlawful. D senator burr in his next but i for one quick commute dont mind, senator durbin, how 702 works. You said something, general clapper, i dont quite understand. Is it unlawful to surveillancean with a fisa warrant a Foreign Agent in the United States . No its not. But thats another provision. I want to make sure there is a procedure to do that. There is. Okay. Senator durbin, going up. Just to put you said the word overseas. Ambassador kislyak was not o overseas on december 29 . Thats correct. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Let me say at the outset inn response to senator cornyn, in your conclusion about the unlawful nature of the muslim travel ban was, of course, a position which was supported by three different federal courts that stop the enforcement of that man and ultimately led to the president with the drawing that particular travel ban . Thats correct. I went to making at the outset that this is a critically important hearing. I want to thank senator graham and senator whitehouse for the bipartisan nature andd cooperation in this hearing. I think the testament we receive from these witnesses and the presence of some of my other colleagues is an indication of how we view the severity and gravity of the issue before us. I am troubled that this greatmme committee with its great chairman and all its members does not have professional staff assigned to this investigation. Its the ordinary staff of the subcommittee who are working itm i think that what weve seen with this situation calls for the appointment of an independent commission, president ial commission or Congressional Commission can one that is clearly independent, transparent and can get to the bottom of the russian involvement in our last electios process and the threat that we face in the future because of it. Short of that we will continue to do our best on a Committee Level with meager resources in both the Intelligence Committee and here. This is i think the issue that makes her so much more. I would also say i am starting to you from the republican site of the table some real concern about section 702, which senatol lee, republican member, and myself, have been calling for reform on for several years. Unfortunately we did not have the support from other side of the table when we did. I hope that we can get it now. 702 and protecting the rights of individuals in america. Ms. Yates, let me ask you about his meeting on january 26. With white House Counsel. You showed the Justice Departments concern shared the Justice Departments concerns about russia, and his vulnerability to blackmail, is that correct . Ms. Yates that is correct. Senator durbin was there anything else other than his representation that he had in conversations that you warned so it didnt go back to his trip to moscow, money received and so forth. No, it did not. Strictly on that question. Yes, then, you had a second meeting the next day. Thats right. At his request. And at that second meeting did mr. Mcgann Say Something i about whether he had taken the information you had given him the previous day to the onesident. No. You aware that seasonim spitesser said immediately after the department of justice notified the white house counse of the situation the who is counsel briefed in the president and small goop of senior aid individual years. Ive seen media reports for that effect but that all i knowa so 0 no indication from mr. Mac mcgann he had woken with with the president. The didnt advise is anyone he may have discussed this with. This question keeping gnawing at me, mr. Mcgann asked now, anything wrong with one white house official lying toot white house facial . O to be fair to mr. Mcgann here, wouldnt say he said there is anything wrong. His question was more essentially what is it to the Justice Department if one white house official is lying to another . Ho in other words, what is this something that doj would be concern about. And that is why we went back through the list of issues and reasons why this was troubling to us. Did you think there was legal reason to be concern if one white house official lied to another white house official . We didnt go into that, and to the extent you may be talking about, like a 1001 violation that is not something we were we alludedded to or discussing. His point when he made that point to me was that he wasnt sure why the department ofti justice would care about one lying to another. Not to be discussing whether that was in fact a crime. The reason you told him what what . Again, it was whole lot more than one white house official lying to another. First of all it was the Vice President of the United States. E un and the Vice President had been gone out and then provided that information to the American People who had been misled and the russians knew all of this, making mike flynn compromised now. You said earlier that mr. Mcgann asked you if you thought they should fire general flynn with that point. Right. What was your response. I tome him it was not our called. We were giving him this information so they could take action, they action they believed was appropriate. On fer 14 after general flynn resigned sean spicer said, and s quite, theres nothing in what general flynn did in terms off conducting himself that was an issue. E. Do you have any idea what he went by those words . Im not sure all i can sac is he didnt reach that conclusion from his conversation with us. S i cant speak to how he arrived at that,. There was a period of time day 18 days during the course of a this and during that period, a number of thing owes cured. General flynn continued to serve as the National Security adviser for 18 days after you briefed the white house about the counterintelligence risk he exposed during those 18 days general flynn continued to hire key senior staff on the National Security council, announce newnc sanctions on irans Ballistic Missile program, met with japanese Prime Minister abe along with President Trump and par tase it in discussion about responding to a north Korean Missile lawyer and spoke to the press about his communications with the Russian Ambassador. In your view, were there National Security concerns in these decisions being made after the information you shared with the white house . I was no longer with doj after january 30th so i was not aware of any actions that general flynn was taking, couldnt opine on that. General clapper would you care to comment, if you had the warning from the department of justice to the white house abouy general flynn possibly being compromised here and then these important National Security decisions followed would you have concern about that . Well, i would. Hypothetically, yes. Ou i mean, was gone from the government as well. You have had quite a career in intelligence and National Security. Here you have a man that has been told the white house has been told, he could be compromised and blackmailed by the russians, continuing to macthe highest level decisions of our government. Well, thats certainly a potential vulnerability, no question about it. I would say so. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you to the witnesses forin being here today. R, mr. Clapper, you testified as to the harms that come from leaks. The harms that can come to our National Security some also testified about the importance of protecting classified information and keeping it classified. During your many years in intelligence and the dni, haveve you ever knowingly forwarded classified information to a nongovernment employee on a nongovernment computer who did not have authorization to ari eceive that information . Not to my recollection, no, sir. Director clapper, what would you do the dni if you discovered an employee of yours had forwarded hundreds or even thousands of emails to a nongovernment individual, their spouse, on a nongovernment computer . Well, im not a investigator or prosecutorial element, but if i were aware of it i would certainly make known to the appropriate officials that was going on. Would that strike you as anything ordinary . Hopefully not. What concerns would that raise for you . Well, it raises all kinds of potential security concerns. Again, depending on the content of the email, what the intent was. Theres a whole butch of variables here that have to be considered. But potentially, again, this is a hypothetical scenario, could be quite concerning. What would you expect toto happen if you made a revel of an individual d referral of an individual who forwardedou hundreds or thousands of classified information to a nongovernment employee hatever whatever the transgression was, if there were sufficient evidence of a compromise, we would file a crimes report. Thats standard procedure that we use when theres a potential for investigating and prosecuting someone. Last week i asked similar the fbi director comey, and he said an individual who did that would be subject to, quote, significant administrative discipline. But that he was highly confident they wouldnt be prosecuted. Do you share that assessment . Well, i dont know. I think the track record is that the prior administration, i think, prosecuted more people for leaking than anyone in any other administration in the past. Ti so, its difficult to do that. And there are many cases we could not prosecute or even seek a crimes report because the potential audience of people that could have been the perpetrator of these insecurities could not be identified. It is true that other individuals who were not the direct employ of the democraticf nominee for president were prosecuted for that conduct. Let me shift to a different topic. Director clapper, you also testified that youre not aware of any intercepted communications of any president ial candidates or campaigns other than the Trump Campaign thats been discussed here. Is that correct . Yes. But thats to my knowledge, but prior administrations, prior campaigns, there wouldnt have been visible to me so i cant say but in 2016 youre not aware of any other campaigns or candidates. No. And miss yates, same question to you. Im not aware of any interceptions of the Trump Campaign. And are you aware of any intercepted communications of any other candidates or campaigns . No. Okay, because earlier when chairman graham asked you that i thought you declined to answer, perhaps i misflood that. I may hey mr. Fastfood the question. Thought the question i declined to answer was a different one than that. Jo have no information of any interceptions of the Bernie Sanders campaign, Hillary Clinton or in other candidate in 2016 or campaigns. No. Okay. Lets revisit the topic, miss yates, that you and senator corn anyone were talking about, is it correct that the constitution vest the executive authority in the president . Yes. And if an attorney general disagrees with a policy decision of the president , a policy decision that is lawful, does the attorney general have the authority to direct the department of justice to defy the president s order . Dont know whether the attorney general has the authority to do that or not but i dont think it would be a good idea and thats not what did in this case. Well, are you familiar with 8us csection 1182. Not off the top of my head, t no injury well, the binding Statutory Authority for theor executive order you rereduced implement and led to your termination. So it certainly is relevant and not a terrible whether i obscure statement by the express text of the statute it says, quote whenever the president finds that the entry of any alien orf any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interest of the United States he may by pro claimation and for such period as he shall deem number spent alienses as immigrants or knopp nonimmigrants or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem appropriate. Would you agree that it broad statutory authorization. I would and im familiar with that and also fatherinlaw with an additional profiles that to the northwestern a shall receive present preference orte discriminated against in issuance of a visa because of race, nationality or place of birth. That i believe was promulgated after the statute you just quoted and thats been part of the discussion with the courts with respect to ina, whether this more specific statute trumps the first one that you just described. Host the. My concern was not an ina concern here. It was a constitutional concernr whether or not this the executive order here violated the constitution specifically with the establishment clause and equal protection and due process. There is no doubt the argument you laid it or argument wed can expect litigants to bring that disagree with the policy of the president. Note on january 27, 2017, the department of justice issued a determines by the office over Legal Counsel that the executive order and i quote from theer opinion the proposed order is approved with respect to form and legality. That is a department fro llc on january 27th it was legal three days later you determined, using your own words, that although llc had opined on legality it ahead not dressed whether it was, quote, wise or just. I also in that same directive said i was not convinced it was lawful. Also made the point that the office of llc looks purely thehe face of the document and, again, makes a determination as too whether there is some set of circumstances under which some portion of that 0oe would be enforce age, would be lawful. They importantly do not look outside the fails of the document. And in this particular instance, particular my walking about aa fundmental issue of religious freedom north the interpretation of some arcane statute but religious freedom, it was appropriate for us to look at the intent behind the president s actions and the intent is laid out final very brief question. In the over 200 years of the department of justice history, are you aware of any instance in which the department of justice has formally approved the legality of a policy and three days later the attorney general has directed the department not to follow that policy and to defy that policy . Im not but im also not aware of a situation where the office of Legal Counsel was advised not to tell the attorney general about it until after it was over. Thank you, miss yates. Would note that smooth be the case if theres reason to suspect partisanship. Senator klobuchar. Thank you. I want to thank you very much for your service, miss yates, from beginning to end your distinguished career as a prosecutor. And i just was putting this timetable together and i realized that your second meeting when you went over to w the white house to warn them of general flynns lying, and his connections with russia, was the same day that the refugee order came out and it was the same day that you had to leave the Justice Department. So, you when did you meet with the white House Counsel on that day . I met with white House Counsel, best i can recall, 3 00 in the afternoon on the 30th. And during that meeting, did they mention anyone mention this refugee order was about to come out. No. Did the acting attorney o general as he United States. No. That was a concern to us, not only was Department Leadership not consulted here, and beyondd Department Leadership the subject matter experts, the National Security experts, not only was the department not consulted, we werent even told about it. I learned about this from media reports. You learn about it after the meeting at the white House Counsel from the media. Right. Then its true that during your hearing, then senator sessions, now the attorney general, actually asked you if the views of the president wants to excuse or unlawful should the attorney general or Deputy Attorney general say no . I said,ey, the attorneyat general should. And then, moving forward here, as was mening bid senator durbin, this order was after a lawsuit from the state of washington and minnesota, the court basically challenged it was a constitutionality of the order, the order has not taken effect, and then the administration withdrew the request for an appeal of the court ruling block immigrantld policemen addition implementation of the order and then there were a number of distinctions between travel bun one and travel ban two. At the time i had to may mick decision the executive order still applied to green card holder, lawful permanent residents and nose who had visas. A number of other distinctions as well. N and let me say one thing i want to get oar. Ry sire. Go ahead. Understand that people of good will and who are good folks can make different decisions about this. Understand that. But all i can say is that i did my job the best way i knew how. I looked at this eo, look ted law, talk to the folk tuesday department of yates and got their view and input, and i didm my job. Okay. I appreciate that. Lets go to russia. Ce december 29, this is the date that actually senator graham and i were with senator mccain, hearing below russian interference, leadle with leaderred in ball kicks anda, georgia and ukrainian, the day the president expanded sanctionh against russia and the day that Michael Flynn reportedly talked to the russians, perhaps several times, about sanctions him then went on to not tell the truth to the Vice President. And one of the white house officials has described the notification that you provided warning them of this as a heads up. How would you describe a heads up . Well, the risk of trying to characterized we were there to tell the white house about something we were vern concerned about very concerned about so they can take action. Minute more than formal than a simple, hey, this is hang. Michael flynn did not resign this position as National Security adviser until februarys february 13th. 18 todays after you went over there with the formal warning. And in particular, after they knew about this on january 28th, flynn was allowed to join President Trump on an hourlong telephone call with russian president Vladimir Putin. Do you have any doubt that the information that you conveyed to the white house on january 26th should have been made clear that flynn had been potentially compromised by russia . This information was clear . Well, the purpose in our telling them was so they could act and convey that information. So i hope they did. If a high ranking National Security official is caught on tape with a foreign official saying one thing in private and then caught in public saying another thing to the Vice President , is that material for blackmail . Certainly. Do you want to add anything to that, director clap center. No. Okay. I think its pretty clear, and i thick its pretty clear why we have had this hearing today. Want to ask you, director clapper, a few things just in general, the russian influence. When director comey was here last week he said, i think that one of the lessons that the russians may have drawn from this talking about the election influence is that this works. Those were comeys words. Do you agree. Absolutely. Also i said in my statement, the russians have to be celebrating the success of what they for what they set out to do with rather minimal resupport expenditure. The first is to sew discourse and dissense which they did. In addition to the hacking into in the dnc and odeads im podestas emails and the wave they fake news, 200 million is all they spent in the scheme of things. Yes. If that. Which doesnt include the Government Support to subsidies to rt. And how does rt work when you look rt is essentially propaganda mouthpiece for the government since the prom freedom nabs of the funding cop come from the government and the imagine iscl close to putin. Its i think a governmental russian governmental mouthpiece. Miss yates, im asking you in your capacity as the former attorney general and Deputy Attorney general, id ask this of director comey about the use of shell corporations. Now Something Like 50 of real estate deals, over 5 million, are now done with shell corporations. Were trying to push so that the Treasury Department puts more transparency, something that the european countries, working on right now and im concerned this is another vehicle where money is laundered, turned about loopholes in our Campaign Finance laws as well. Would would you address these from ore experience. Were actually lagging behind other countries in the world, and we dont want to become a haven, then, where you can have shell corporations that can be used for all sort of the nefarious purposes with National Security implications. Director clapper . This is why i believe an independent commission in addition to the great work that is being done by this subcommittee and Senate Intelligence commitey committee. Ant commission would allow a panel of experts to go into the next election, 2020, where director comey had said i expect to see them become in 2018 and especially 2020. Those are his words. Do you agree with that . Absolutely. Thats why an independent commission would allow to us come up with some ideas on how we can stop this from happening again, whether its how the media handle these things, campaigns, intelligentsias, when happy to find out handle these things, because we cannot allow Foreign Countries to influence our democracy. To do you agree, director clapper . I certainly do. I understand how critical leaks are and unmasking and all thesei ancillary issues, but to me, the transcendent issue here is the russian interference in our elect election process and what that means to the erosion of the fundamental fabric of our democracy and that is a huge deal, and theyre going to continue to do it and why not . Its proved successful. Thank you. Until they pay a price. Hopefully they will soon pay. Senator sass. Thank you for being here. Director clapper, hauck likely is it that foreign Intelligence Services are trying to a compromise congressional it systems . Well, i think thats congressional i. T. Systems are a target and have been and certainly i saw examples of that during my time as dni and then the this is one case where we expect expected dishesly informed the congress when we saw evidence of that. Thats not just russians there oars out there doing the same thing. And what intel value would it provide to them . Well, depending on the nature of the material they purloin, it could be quite sensitive. That is hard to make a general statement but just as a general rule, it could be quite damaging. B could you talk a little bit about the relationship between that particular intel gathering on legislators and the interface with propaganda campaigns as you have said russias activity among the near neighbors, the proposition between propaganda and district intel gathering. You many on the part of the russians in. Yes. Well, they would certainly use that as they have in the examples of that in places like georgia and he baltics where they will turn evidence that or what theyve gathered and use that as leverage or if they can, to use compromise the russian acronym for compromising materials selfall kinds ofs nefarious things to do if they gather information like that. One of the unhemful unhelp physical ways we talked about in d. C. s polearized con ten its about our election in 2016 and so it devolves into a sirtes and skinser and ice what candidate you allegedly supported. Director comey said he expected as senator lobe jar just choateed them, expected the risk to be bag in 2018 and back with a vengeance in 2020. Its important for the American People to understand what russia does amongst its near neighborhood. Can you unpack that. If anything in many ways, particularly those country in the former soviet orbit which they still feel, shall i say, paternals and places like moldova or baltics, georgia, theyre aggressive using thehe multitude of tolls on the check liftthey can, however they can, to influence the outcome of elections towards candidates for whatever office whom they think will be more reply plant with them and that aggressiveness is spreading into western europe. We have seen in france and will in germany. And their success at dying this in their mind will reinforce so all the tools available to them, active propaganda, financing, candidates sympathetic to their cause, trolls, hacking, revelations of confidential emails, whatever, theyll use that to a fair the well. Could you give us some sense of that without revealing classified information the order of magnitude of their Financial Investment inside your a near neighbor of russia and you might have your military a little Intel Community and a little biu of a intel ops, info opsellige Campaign Going to buy whats russian investment i cant give you a figure but in comparison to a classical military expenditures its a bargain for them. Of course, what theyre looking for particularly in europe is sew dissension, split the unity, and of course, end sanctions, and if they can drive wedges between and among the european nations by particularly by their manipulating and influencing elections, theyre going to do it. Director do you sand by the ic january assessment that wickty leak is a known propaganda platformor russia. Absolutely, and i am in agreement with the director pompeos characterization of wilk can i leaks as a non wikileaks as a nonnation state Intelligence Service. Youre saying that Julian Assange is not a journalist . Youre asking the wrong guy a question like that. Absolutely not. I mean, reasonable people in the american debate are worried when they hear people on the ic talk about something that sounds like its just information. Im obviously highly skeptical of mr. Aexpansion i have been aexpanding have been pushing thp yates department to find out why we have not taken steps to prosecutor him overcrams that have endangered american tell generals asset its. Cross the continuum of journal justs who are joined and trying to get information to help the American People be fully informed about the operations of their government there are people in the Journalistic Community who will lean on ic resources to say, we want to w know all that youre able to tell us and the burden of proof, the burden is on the intelligence official, not to leak classified information. The burden is not on the journalist to not ask hard questions. Absolutely correct. Its usele for the American People to explain why is assange other than an american journalist asking hard questions. Theres obviously judgment here. And when a journalist does harm to the country, harmsunder National Security, compromises sensitive sources and methods and tradecraft, and puts the company the country deliberately puts the country in jeopardy, i think that is the line the line is crossed. Thats a red line to use a phrase. That i think is unacceptable. Have the any unauthorized disclosure ofs assange and wikileaks endangered americans . Yes. Absolutely. I want to ask you a comb of questions but im almost at my time so ill limit it to one. Could you please explain the buryat crick process in which concerning inflammation about political eye pointees would be brought to the attention of the attorney general . Give us a few steps how that. When you say concerning information. Im trying to elicit an related to minimum its useful for the public to understand how information about a political appointee would be brought to the attorney general from the fbi and other aspects of the Intelligence Community. Generally if we discovered information, lets say an Investigative Agency like fbi, discovered information about a political appointee they would first get in contact with the relevant division of the department of justice that would have jurisdiction over it. Whether its the criminal division, National Security division, whatever it might be. They would report that information. They are then depend ago on the seriousness of that information it would make its way to me when i was Deputy Attorney general or then acting attorney general. Thank you. Thank you, senator graham. I want to thank both of you for your decades of dedicated service in intelligence and law enforcement, and for your testimony here today. The question before us is one of really grave consequence, as you suggest in your Opening Statement. Really an existential threat to our democracy which if not faced appropriately will simply encourage increased aggressive action. The reality is a foreign adversary intentionally influenced our 2016 president ial election and our president mayio not want to confront this but it as reality and one that our u. S. Intelligence community agreed about with very high confidence. Greatly appreciate senators graham and whitehouse in convening this their and treating if the threat to our t democracy with the seriousness it deserves. Ticket record clap you dishe russians are emboldened because the succeeded beyond their wildest dreams and at minimal cost and likely to continue. In the French National electionn there was a stunning dump of hacked emails the last moment in an attempt, i at least believe to influence the outcome of that eflex a way designed to happen advance a candidate favored by the kremlin. There was a significant amounthe of fake news, manufactured articles, mixed in with seemingly actual emailed that were hacked and there are h allegations there waswas Co Coordination between altright news sides trying to forward this information and get it out around france and the world. Is that your understand what just happened in france and more importantly, was there any evidence that you saw of comparable cores nation between altright news sites and released information in the attempt to influence the 2016 american president ial election . Sir, i honestly all i know is what i read in the media and i dont have access to any intelligence information thatce would help me cast any light or could answer your question. All i know is what is in the media. But during the period when you did have regular access to intelligence did you see any evidence to suggest that the longstanding russian practice of spreading misinformation and fake news was being amply identified by news sites in the United States and any reason to believe that might have beenha coordinated or intentional . I dont know about the lattea but i think some news outlets were probably unwitting of that. It certainly but i cant say to what extend that was coordinated with certain news outlets. Thats a kind of in the domestic realm. You said the russians wilbekin is to behavior until we impose significant costs. Could you speak briefly to what actions we might take that would deter them . Thats a little over my labo grade as intelligence guy. Thought the sanctions we did impose and i was part of that, as part of the former administration were a great first step. Well, simply say i agree with you and a bipartisan bill led by my colleague, senator graham, and cor spot by 20 senators, republican and democrat would be a terrific next step. Missates we established that on december 27th and 29th, former National Security adviser general flynn discussions sanction with the Russian Ambassador. So when the Trump Transition Team told the Washington Post on january 13th that sanctions were not discussed, was that false . I understand there have been news reports to that account but i cant confirm whether to the conversations regarding sanctions would occur. What to require me to reveal classified information. Understood. I have a whole series of questions of things that would have been untrue were that the case. Wont be age to answer that. Not to the extent it goes general flynns underlying conduct. Let me november that. On january 24th National Security adviser flip was interviewed by the fbi about his underlying conduct and that underlying conduct was problematic because it led to the conclusion the Vice President was relying of falls falsehoods. What was the underlying conduct and are you convinced the former National Security adviser was truth inflame his testimony to the fbi on january 24. Inhate to frustrate you again but i have to because my knowledge of this underlying conduct is based on classified information, and so i cant reveal what that underlying conduct is. Thats why i hawed to do an artificial description here of events without revealing thatsco conduct. N t i understand. On january 27th, you just testified that you discussed we out who counsel for different topics and one of them included the possibility of criminal prosecution of the form aress National Security adviser and what would the applicable statute wood. What applicable statutes dud you discuss. Im going strike out here. Ifafied the statute than that would be insight into what the conduct was and im not trying be hypertechnical here. Im trying to be really careful that i observe my responsibilities to protectpo classified information, and iut. Cant identify the statute. Host goo you believe the administration took your warnings seriously when you made this extraordinary effort to go to the white house and in person brief the white House Counsel on the 26th and 27th . Do you think they took appropriate steps with regards to general flynn as the National Security adviser given he remained a frequent participant in very high level National Security matters for two weeks . Certainly in course of the meetings, both on the 26th and 27th, mr. Mcgann demonstrated he understood that this was serious so he did seem to bebe taking it seriously. Dont have any way of knowing what if anything they did. If nothing was done, then certainly that would be concerning. You dont know whether they took any steps to restrict this access to classified information to investigate him further, up in and until the Washington Post published information that made it clear that he had been lying to the Vice President. No, again, i was gone after the 30th and its i wouldnt know if any steps had been communicated to the department of justice but i was not aware of any no. Had you not been summarily fired would you have recommend told the white House Counselyo they begin further investigations into the National Security adviser or that they restrict his access to sensitive and classified information. Its a bet of a hypothetical. Had i remained the department of justice and if i were under thea impression nothing would have been done, then, yes, would have raid that again with the white house. Thank you. Miss yates, dr. Clapper, thank you both for your years of service to the American People. Miss yates i want to start with you. You declined to support to defend President Trumps executive order because you thought it was unsuspensional. Is that correct . Thats correct, yes. You believe there was no that no reasonable argument could be made in this defense. Is that correct . Well, i dont know i would put it in that way, senator. This was the analysis that we went through. Na let me stop you because ive got a whole bunch of questions. Okay. I just want to understand your thinking from my perspective. Did you believe there were reasonable arguments that could be made in its defense . I believed that any argue. That we would have to make in its defense would not be grounded in the truth. De because to make an argue. In itself defense we would have to argue that the executive order had nothing to do with religion; that it was not then with an intent to discriminate against muslims and based on a variety of factor you were looking at intent. Yes blink thats the appropriate analysis and thats been born out in several Court Decisions since that time. Op thats the appropriate analysis when youre doing a constitutional analysis to look to see what are you trying to accomplish here . Okay supposed stain over an executive order this has been an act of congress would you have refused to defend it . If itself were the same act, yes. F in fact the department of justice has done that in the past. For example with doma, the defense of major major act. That was a political decision. I wasnt at main justice at that time so i cant speak that but that was another example of when doj did not defend the constitutionality of the statute. But in your opinion the executive order is unconstitutional. I certainly was not convincessed it was constitutional when given that it wasnt and the import of this. I couldnt in good consciousn send department of justice lawyers in to defend it. Host do you believe its constitutional or unconstitutional . I believed i was noton convinced it was constitutional. I believed that it was unconstitutional, in the sense that i there was no way any world could i send folks in there to argue something that we didnt believe to be the truth. You believe itsli unconstitutional. Yes. Okay. I dont me dirk. If can say dish can understand why you mug be president u frustrate offed with the language. Im not frustrated oomph aim happy as a clam. Let me give you the idea of let me stop you. Dont have much time and a lot of ground to cover. Okay. I dont mean to wax to metaphysical here but at what point does an act of congress or an executive order become unconstitutional . Well. All depends on what the act does. At what point is it i look at a statute and say i think thats unconstitutional. Does that make unconstitutional. The issue we failings the department of justice is to defend the executive order would require lawyers to go in and argue that this has nothing to do with religion. At what point does a statute or executive order become a unconstitutional . Is it some determination let me tell you what im getting at. Not only this respect. Who appointed you to the United States Supreme Court . I was that determined isnt its court a final jurisdiction that decide what is constitutional and not . In fact arent most acts of congress grouped to be constitutional. Theyre bankrupt not always constitutional and of course i was not on the Supreme Court and i can tell you, senator, we really wrestled over this decision. Personally wrestled over this decision. And it was not one that i took lightly at all. But it was because i took my responsibility seriously i understand that. K i believe you believed what youre saying. Yes, die. Trying to forward this is likely to come up in the future. At what point is an exec tv order or statute become unsuspensional . When i think its unconstitutional . Or you think its unsuspensional . Co or a court of final jurisdiction says its unconstitutional . I believe that it is the responsibility of the attorney general, if the president asks him ortho do him or her to do something that he or she believe is is stungal to say no and thats what i did. Tu i get it. At left me ask you both a couple of questions. Can we both agree, director and counselor that are the russianed attempted to influence the outcome of the election . Yes, sir, absolutely. Yes. Did you believe that the russians did in fact influence the outcome of the elect . Director . In our Intelligence Community assessment we made the point that we could not make that call. The Intelligence Community has neither the authority, the expertise or resources to make that judgment. The only thing we said was wema saw no evidence of influencing voter tallies at any of the 50 states but we were not in the position to judge whether what actual outcome won the election. How. You. Dont know the answer to that. Thats the problem well never know. The russians have been trying to do this for year. Thats true. At i messenger net my Opening Statements or the theyvened been doing this since the 60s. The difference, however, was this is unprecedented in terms of its aggressiveness and the campaign they mounted. Isnt a fact that in 1968 the kremlin actually served tempt to subdies ocampaign of hubert humphrey. I dont know the specifics of that. Again, that certainly comport its with what the russian tactics would be. Isnt in a fact nat in 1984 the kremlin tried to stop Ronald Reagan from being reelected . Again, id have to do some research to verify that but again, its certainly comported with what they chose a candidate for whatever reason they had an aversion to they would do that. Okay. General clapper, have you ever leaked information, classified or unclassified, to a member of the press . Not wittingly or nothingly, as i said in hi statement. Classified or unclassified . Dy well, unclassified is not leaking. Unclassified, thats somewhat of a nonsecond we for. Ever nonsector. Diyou give information to a report you didnt want your name connected to but want told see it paper. I have not. Ive had men encounters with the media im sorry about that. How about you, miss yates . Other than situations where the department of justice would arrange for me to talk onth background with reporters about a particular issue, to educate them about that, no, i certainly never provided classified information and thats the only kind of background ive done the same thing but certainly not that doesnt include sharing classified information. Do you know anybody else at justice who has ever leaped classified or unclassified information to the press. No. Miss yates. No. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I went over. Apologize. Senator lee. Thank you, mr. Chairman. General clapper, ms. Yates, good to see you again good to have you back here. Miss yates, i remember so well your confirmation hearing. I remember one senator just bearing in on you. Tensely bearing in on you, saying, would you stand up to the president of the United States if you thought he was asking you to do something unlawful . He is demanding under oath for you to say, yes, you would stand up. And you told then senator Jeff Sessions of alabama, thats what you would do. And appears to me that you kept your word. Apparently its okay to keep your word depending on who the administration is. But im proud of you for keeping your record. The president tried to set a religious test for entrance into this country, something most first area law students would say is unconstitutional. You said you werent going to oppose it. I wish that mr. Sessions and others kept it consistent in this administration as they did in the last. Thats my editorial judgment. Now, you wrote to the Justice Department, im responsible fore ensuring the position wes nick court remain consistent withing this institutions solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right, and president im not convinced that the defense of the exec tv orders consist of these responsibilities and nor am i convincessed the executive order is lawful. Is that an accurate statement. Yes, it is. You still feel that way today. Yes, i do. The white house claimed you betrayed the department of justice do you feel you bee trade the department of justicey no, i feel to have donene anything else would be a betrayal of my solemn obligation to represent the people and to uphold the law and constitution. Was the white house trying to tell the Justice Department how to carry out the becktive order i didnt have a lot of discussion with the white house about this executive order. They im sorry. I dont entirely understand the question. Did anybody from the white house try to direct the Justice Department how they should respond to that executive order . Well, certainly there was discussion with the white house about litigation strategy, but that occurred to my knowledge over the weekend, but after the 30th, when i issued my directive i was gone that evening around 9 00 so i i dont know what other discussions occurred after that. Well, i applaud you for keeping your word to then senator sessions who apparently has a different standard as attorney general. Fbi director comey testified before this committee, told why he appointed a special counsel to investigate the Valerie Plame leak in. He was attorney general, general ashcroft refused himself. The the senior officials in the campaign or administration ticketed to the russian investigation, the attorney general was force told recuse himself. Do you think this is the kind of situation where we could should do what thenDeputy Attorney general combis acting attorney general did in theey plame investigation and appoint a special counsel . Senator, think miss successor has a big job ahead of him and i wont be giving him advice from the cheap seat house to cheap seats how to do it. Let me ask you this. We know that about general flynns vulnerability to russian blackmail. Attorney general sessions misled this committee about his testacts and then had to change his the president alsod failed too crow contact on security clearance forms. Did you have any concerns about the attorney general, about mr. Er kushner. Did you have fern that jeanine mitt vulnerable to blackmail. Yes, and expressed those to in the white house. You save why you feel hi may have been vulnerable to blackmail and if somebody else fell into the same category might they be vulnerable to blackmail . Certainly anytime the russians have compromising information on you, then you are certainly vulnerable to blackmail. Si let me ask general clapper this. You looked at a lot of these. The other case, a senior government officials. If they had hidden financial g information, things that normally disclosed, would it take a senior official position, is that an area where they could be blackmailed . If its discovered. Oh, yes, it is, of course. And is it your experience that the russians search for that kind of thing . Absolutely. January the Intelligence Community the fbi,i cia, nsa, concluded high confidence that russia entered feared in theit 2016 election to denigrateen secretary clinton and helped elect donald trump. Last week President Trump contradicted that consensus and said, it could have been china or a lot of different groups. Do you feel russia was responsible . Absolut absolutely. And regretly, although the conclusions that we rendered were the same as in the highly classified report as in thee unclassified, unfortunately a lot of the substantiation for that could not be put in the unclassified report because of the sensitivity of it. To me the evidence was overwhelming and very compelling that the russians were that did this. Does it serve any purpose for high officials like the president to say, well, could have been somebody else could have been china . Does that really does that help us or help russia . Well, i guess it could be you could rationalize that helps the russians by obfuscating who was actually responsible. Thank you. Thank you very much, general. V thank you, miss yates. Good to have you both here. Senator franken. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank both you and the Ranking Member for the hearing these hearings. I want to thank general clapperk and the attorney general yates for appearing today. We have the intelligent communities have concluded, all 17 of them, that russian interfered with this election. And we all know how thats right. Senator, is a pointed out in my statement, senator franking, there were only three agencies that directly involved in this assessment, plus my office but all 17 signed on to that. We dont go through that process. This was a special situation because of the time limits and my i knew to be who could really contribute to this and the sensitivity of the information we decided it was a conscious judgment to restrict it to those three. Rict to im not aanyone who dissented or disagreed when it came out. I think anyone who has looked at even the unclassified report is convinced this is what happe happened. And one question is why they favored donald trump. There are a number of contacts and communications that between Trump Campaign officials and soviets, members of the Trump Administration, jeffff sessions, senator leahy mentioned, carter page, 0 former campaign adviser, paul manafort, a former campaign manage and chief strategist, rex tillerson, secretary of state, friend of russia award, roger stone, and of course, jared kushner, white house senior adviser, simon law, and Michael Flynn, all thats a lot. In my mind. Now, going to flynn, he appeared during the campaign on russia today. Russia today is the propaganda arm one of the propaganda arm have you appeared onir russia today since you retired. Not wittingly, no. Okay. And general flynn received 37,000 for sitting next to putin at the tenth anniversary of russia today. Annivers it seems all this seems very odd to me and raises a lot ofof questions. Was struck that mr. Mcgann did e not asked you in the second meeting why doj, generates, would have concerns that the doj that the National Security adviser had lied to the Vice President. In the first meeting did you mention that . He might be compromised . Certainly. We went through all of our children inside the firstns in h meeting concerns in the first meeting and the second meeting he raced the question, why this is an issue nor department of justice if one white house official lies to another. Okay. I dont understand why he didnt understand that. Im not sure i can hundred you with that, senator. This is general flynn after that, for 18 todays, trade there and was in one classified thing at another. There are policieses that deal with who gets clearance, security clearance and not. Executive order 96 vase when theres a credible allegation that raises concern about someones fitness to access classified information, that persons clearance be suspended. Pending investigations. Is that correct . The exec tv order also stayed clearance holders must alwaysate demonstrate, quote, throughoutworthyness, hospital, reliability honest, reliability, disdiscretion and sound judgment as well as freedom from allegiances and potential for coercion. Is that right . And yet the white House Counsel did not understand why the department of justice was concerned . Well to be fair to mr. Mcgann, the issue he raised he wasnt clear on was why we cared that Michael Flynn had lied to the Vice President and others. Why that was a matter of concern. I think thats clear. I think thats so clear i and the president had told president obama told the incomingngobama president elect that two days of the election dont hire this guy. , i dont know anything about that. Thats what we have heard. And we have mcgann doesnt under what is wrong with this . S and then we have spicer, the press secretary, saying the president was told about this. The president was told about this in late january, according to the press secretary. So now hes got a guy who has the former president , dont hire this guy. He is clearly compromised. Lied to the Vice President. And he keeps him on. And he lets him be in all these classified lets him talk wit putin, president of the United States, and the National Security advisedder in ovalan office and discuss this with putin. Is it possible that the reason that he didnt fire him then was that well, if i fire him for talking to the russians about sanctions, and if i fire what about all the other people on my team . Who coordinated . Isnt it possible that the reason how ask yourself why wouldnt you fire a guy who did this . And all i can think of is that he would say, well, weve got all these other people on the administration who have had contacts. We have all these other people in the administration who coordinated. Who were talking. Maybe this im just trying to put trying to put a puzzle together here, everybody. And maybe, just maybe, he didnt get rid of a guy who lied to the Vice President , who got paid by the russians, who went on russia today, because there are other people in his administration who met secretly with the russians and didnt reveal it until later, until they were caught. That may be why it took him 18 days until it became public to get rid of mike flynn who was a danger to this republic. Care to comment . I dont think im going to touch that, senator. Senator blumenthal. N. Thank you are mr. Chairman and i want to thank you, senator graham and senator whitehouse for conduct this hearing in a bipartisan way and prioritizing this issue. Want to thank you for your long and distinguished service and also for the conscience and conviction that you have brought to your jobs, whether we agree or disagree with you. I hope that there are young prosecutors around the country and young members of our Intelligence Committee who will watch this hearing and say, that is the kind of professional i want to be. Not just expert but also people of deep conviction and conscience. And i agree with my colleagues there ought to be an independenn commission that can have public hearings, produce recommendations and a report, but i also believe that there has to be a special prosecutor because what i hear from people in connecticut and from my colleagues in their town halls and meetings, is that people want the truth uncovered about how the russians sought to interfere and undermine our democracy and electoral system and also want accountability. They want not only the russians to pay a price. They want anybody who colluded with the russians or aided and abetted them to pay a price as well and there are criminal statutes that prohibit that kind of collusion and impose serious criminal fines and imprisonment for people who might have done that. They are investigating te potential collusion of Trump Associates and Trump Campaign manager ministration officials with the russians, as director comey has told us and made public. There is no to classify classified information here. The meeting that the fbi preceded on january 24 it was conducted on january 24, preceded by one day, your first meeting with Donald Mcgann. Isnt it a fact that Michael Flynn lied to the fbi . I cant reveal the internald fbi investigation. Even though that part would not technically be classified, its an Ongoing Investigation. Did you tell Donald Mcgann that then National Security advisor flynn told the truth to the fbi . He asked me how he had done in the interview and i specifically declined to answer that. Because it was part of an investigation. Thats right. Was i intended to indicate to him that Michael Flynn had a problem in that interview . No, i was intending to let him know that Michael Flynn had a problem on a lot of levels, but it wasnt necessarily with respect to how he performed in the interview. Al i was intentionally not letting him know how the interview had gone. Lying to the fbi is a crime, cracked. Yi it is. Violation of code punishable by five years in prison. Yes it is. So if Michael Flynn lied to the fbi, he had a ton of legal time. He could face prosecution, yes. If he became a foreignnalec agent for another country, for turkey, which he was a Foreign Agent fo for, without getting permission from the department of defense, he face criminalfa penalties for that and still faces them, cracked. Yes, it is certainly fair of violations to be prosecuted. In fact, its a violation of code 18 to 19 and thats punishable by two years in prison. Yes. His failure to disclose payments from foreign sources, which also he had done before you went to Donald Mcgann is also criminal punishable. Is it not. That was not a topic i discussed with mr. Mcgann and not something i can discuss today. It is in fact, from your knowledge, violation of criminal law. Yes, but im not speaking to his conduct, but generally it is. If Michael Flynn is prosecuted for any of these crimes, is it possible the Vice President of the United States might be a witness. I guess it would depend on the crime. If it was her false h statement to the fbi about his conversations with the russians, would the Vice President potentially be called as a witness to corroborate that false statement. I would certainly is possible but i would speculate how it would come together. Were im going is, the need for a special prosecutor is because officials at the highest level, who are responsible for appointing the Deputy Attorney general, the United States attorney general, theyre all potentially witnesses and they are even targets, correct. Potentially. And so special counsel, in order to hold those officials responsible really has to be independent, correct. Well, department of justice lawyers pride themselves in being able to be independent regardless of whether or not there appointed as special counsel. The ultimate decision on whether or not to prosecute for the sake of adherence as well is in reality should be made by someone who is unquestionably independent, objective, and impartial. Senator, i absolutely understand your concerns, butut the fact the matter is, particularly of someone who just departed the department of justice, im not going to wade into whether or not they should have a special counsel or independent counsel in this matter. El i dont really think they need u the formers telling them how too do their job. I will be very unfair to you and just ask you as a private citizen, wouldnt you like to see a special counsel appointed under these circumstances. Im not going to go there either. As an Expert Witness for our committee, i will qualify you as an expert if judge graham allows me to do it. [laughter] let me just close by asking you, my collie, senator franken made warning given by president obama to then president elect trump about hiring Michael Flynn. That is a public report from the new york times. In fact as of today, i ask it be entered into the record and i also asked be entered into the record the february 9 report from the Washington Post. I believe theres been a reference to it. Without that published report, and without the free press telling us a lot of what went on, Michael Flynn might still be sitting in the white housee as National Security advisor because, by january 30, you were forced to resign. You were fired. Yes i was fired. Though nobody was around tell the white house, as you said, that our National Security was in danger. Ec there were still officials in the National Security division who had been working with me on this matter that were there and certainly conversing in the backs. But the decision to go to the white house was you are. If it was. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. C in spite of the Trump Administrations ongoing efforts to convince all of us that there is nothing to see here with regard to russian interference with our 2016 election, and the trump teams connections to these efforts, we need to get to the bottom of this. I think chair graham and the Ranking Member for these hearings. In fact i just had a number of town Hall Meetings in hawaii this weekend and hundreds of people came and believe me, they care we get to the bottomn of this. The Trump Administration blames president obama for failing to suspend general flynns clearance. In a press Conference Today sean spicer said everyone in the government goes through the same process. He also said there is no difference of the security clearance once its issued and basically as far as this administration is concerned, nothing more needed to be done by them regarding general flynns clearance. Clearance isnt it true that the cia has a separate vetting process for National Security council appointees, and in fact the president is reporting today that general flynn never completed the process. Can you enlighten us. Te i cant speak to specifics of how it was done with general flynn. I know what i went through as a political appointee twice in an republican and democratic administration, and the vetting process for either a political appointee or someone working in the white house is far far more invasive and far more thorough than a standard clearance process. I dont know what process was used in general flynns case, nor did i have access to his complete file so its difficult for me to speculate what wasnt it and what action, if any was taken by the white house. According to sean spicer he had a clearance from the Obama Administration and that was it. This administration had no further responsibilities. Es. Let me go on. Other of my colleagues have mentioned, and you yourself mr. Clapper said rt is a Russian Group to spread propaganda and we know general flynn attended a gala for rt in december 2015 for he sat next to Vladimir Putin and get paid over 33000 for that. Given the information provided to the white house regarding, during the january 26 and 27 timeframe, regarding general flynn, should he have sat in on the following discussions . On january 28 he participated in an hourlong call with President Trump to Vladimir Putin and on february 11 he d participated in a discussion with Prime Minister to discuss north korea missile test. Given the information that had already been provided by ms. Yates, should he have participated in these very specific instances . Thats difficult for me to answer because i was out. Will lets say you were in. As just a standard comment, a general, i dont think it was good practice. E. Lets put that way. So i think this addresses some of the concerns that were raised about the appropriateness or adequacy of the Trump Administration vetting process with regard to various disclosures by other members of administration. As i mentioned continuing efforts to downplay russias interference in our election. Ynn after general flynn resignedfl february 13, on february 15 President Trump tweeted that he is a wonderful man and very unfair what happened toed general flynn. Mr. Clapper, is this the kind of statement that would be made of a president aware of serious security concerns about his former National Security advisor . I dont want to comment on the tweets. I suppose thats an honest expression of how he felt. Does it seemed like someoneve he knew had security threats would say it was unfair and he was a wonderful man . Maybe i should just leave it there so people can draw their own conclusions. I dont know what information was conveyed to the president. I have no insight. I dont know to the extent t which he had an understanding, what the acting attorney general conveyed. I dont know how much of that made its way to the president. Precisely, that is the concern i would have thought it sounds like perhaps the president was not aware, and going on in march, the president tweeted that flynn should be given immunity. He resigned february 13 and the fbi investigation is a witchhunt so, i would like to ask both of you, should these tweets, these tweets and similar assertions by the president have any influence at all on the fbis Ongoing Investigation into the russian interference in our elections and team trumps connections to these efforts. It shouldnt, and im confident it wont. I hope so. I have a question about the Foreign Agents registration act. A number of Trump Administration officials are disclosing and registering their work on behalf of Foreign Governments under the Foreign Agents registration act. Some of it has raised serious counterintelligence concerns. I asked rector call me about these concerns last week. Ms. Yates, what are the consequences for white house staffers who reveal to disclose their foreign contacts on their security clearance forms . E. There can be a variety of ramifications. You can lose your security clearance, you can lose your job or you can be criminally prosecuted. Is up to the department of justice or the fbi to pursue these allegations against staffers who do not disclose appropriately . It would depend on the circumstances of the nondisclosure. Whether it was willful and what the circumstances were of the conduct underlying that. It will be very fact specific. I agree it should be fact specific but considering the allegations, i hope either the fbi or department of justice is pursuing an investigation into these matters. Again, under what circumstances was the department of justice decidingnc to bring charges against someone. You said it would defen depend on the facts of the situation. Lose if a president or someone close to him knew a white house official failed to disclose work on behalf of a Foreign Government and covered it up, can you reiterate the t possible reek percussions. To the individual . But say they are proven true. That they failed to disclose their activity and the president covered it up or the individual did. Lets say the president knew or the administration knew and the individual covered it up. Coverups are bad. Thats usually evidence of intent so we would look aten that in making a determinatione. Of whether something should be criminally prosecuted. It will be very fact specific. Th its hard to give you a hard fast answer. I thank you very much. Ch we will do a second round but we will do it quickly with fourminute rounds. We have a vote at 530 so i promise you you will get out here pretty quick general clapper, during the investigation of all things russia, did you find a situation where a trump business interest in russia gave you concern . Not in the course of the appropriation of the Intelligence Community assessment. At all, anytime . Sessment i cant comment on that because that impacts the investigation. It wasnt enough to put into the report. Thats correct. Okay. The rule of law, you cannot allow people to leak classified information because they want a particular outcome. Thats not the rule of law. Absolutely. I think you both agree withqu that concept. Did mr. Mccann, in your view ask reasonable questions about your concerns . I didnt really have a judgment about whether they were reasonable or unreasonable but i think he was trying to get to the bottom of what had happened with general flynn. Ed he wanted to actually see the information you were talking about. He indicated he did. I dont have any way of knowing. He said he wanted to and you tried to set that up. Thats right. About surveillance, this is very important. An american citizen cannot be surveilled in the united y states for colluding with a Foreign Government unless you have a warrant. Is that a true statement of the law. Thats right. Is it fair to say incidental collection occurs even in the United States. Say t thats correct as well. So theres two situations that we would find out what general flynn said to the Russian Ambassador. There was a fisa warranter focused on him, was there . Again, i think you know i wont answer whether there was a pfizer worn and weathered general flynn was talking to the russians. Ing obviously i will go along with that. What they were talking to the russians weve had a hearing for no good reason. Clearly hes talking to the russians and we know about it so if there is no warrant, im going to find out about this, by the way. The other way we know what he was talking about the russians was that he was incidentally surveilled. Those are the two options. We know who unmasked the conversation between the Russian Ambassador and general flynn . Was there and unmasking in this situation. Are you looking at me. Yes, sir. I dont know. Miss yates . I cant speak to the specific situation. Can i clarify one point on this unmasking thing. Very quickly. Okay. As a consumer of intelligence,es i would receive Intelligence Reports from various agencies. I get that. Often times that the namesng are already unmasked by the intelligence agency. The bottom line is i want to know how it got to the Washington Post. Somebody had to have access to the information and they gave it to the Washington Post. Is that a fair statement. Thats right. Thats what it looks like to me. Is that right general clapper. Yes. And neither one of you did it. Thats right. Thats right. Calmly people can request unmasking of american citizens in our government . I dont have an exact number. Its fairly limited, of because its normally highlevel official. How did you know that general flynn was talking to the russians. Who told you . I cant reveal that in an open setting. Er but what i was trying to say wa was, oftentimes we receive Intelligence Reports where the name of the american citizen is already unmasked and its unmasked by the intel agency because, not based on anyones request, but because the name of that citizen. Is that the situation here. I cant. Thank you, my four minutes is up but i want to know the answers to these questions. Senator whitehouse. Thanks again chairman. Two things. There are multiple levels of security clearances and they are issued by different agencies, correct so having one from dod doesnt necessarily make you good for. All positions in all places. It does not. Indeed, dod operates clearances at multiple levels, correct. Right. I think the key point is, as i indicated earlier, the requirements for it tsc i versus requirements for occupying a position in the white house as part of the National Security council. Way higher for a general. Exactly, and much more invasive and aggressive. In terms of compromise tradecraft, if you have somebod somebody, and you have them compromised, its pretty standard tradecraft to ask them to do some little thing for you under the threat of having the compromising information disclosed, and if you succeed, you now have two things on them and you work it that way to get somebody more and more enmeshed in compromise until they are more or less owned by the intelligence agency. Is not a fair description of how you can develop compromise regular tradecraft. Yes. Okay just want to make that clear. Last thing, i went through the list and it looks like t propaganda, fake news, trolls and we can all agree those were in fact used in the 2016 election. Hacking and theft of political information, the hacking of the dnc and the podesta emails, we can agree that the yes. Time to leaks of damaging material, that appears very strongly to be a yes because of the timing of the releaselywr smack after the access hollywood release. I believe the answers werein correct no, as to in country assassination and Political Violence by the russian here in the United States, wouldte you both agree to that. I dont think we turned up any evidence of that. Controlling investment in key economic sectors for leverage, it seems that our economy is probably a little too big for that and theres no evidence of that in the report either. Thats correct. The question of shady business and financial ties that not only start out as bribery or as highly favorable secret deals with russians, but that in turn can turn into compromise. It could. Its not just the carrot of im continuing to bribe you but its the stick over them that says i will out the deal unless you continue to doar that. That is classic. We do not yet know the extent to which that has played a role in the 2016 Russian Election hack, correct. I dont. In terms of correctin corrupting politicians, we dont know the full extent of whether or not politicians have been corrupted either. I did not and dont. So if we were to go down this, yes, yes, yes, no, no . . Would be our tally at the end. We agree on that . Yes. Anything else. Not for me, sir. Thank you. I yield back my nine seconds. You are a trendsetter. Senator grassley. Mr. Clapper, you said yes when i asked you if you othe ever unmasked a trump associate or member of congress, but i forgot to ask which was it. Was it a trump associate, a member of congress or both. Over my time as the ni, i think the answer was on rare occasion, both. Again senator, just to make a point, my focus was on the foreign target and the foreign targets behavior in relation to the u. S. Person. How many instances wereas there, or was there just one . I can only recall one. It could have been more in the best accounting of this would be in accordance with the procedure, the collecting agenc agency, and that would be a better source of records than the top of my head. Okay. Could you provide us more details in a classified setting . I could. Miss yates, the same questio question, you said, i dont know what you said to answer my question about if you were involved in any unmasking. Were you involved . No ive never asked forer anyone to be unmasked. Okay. Settin senator graham, both you and i and other people have said we need a classified setting to get some answers. I assume youre going to pursue that. T. Yes or. R. Co okay. Ive got time for a couple more questions. Regardless of any disagreements that we have about allegations of collusion, the fact that russia tried to meddle in our democracy is obviously an affront to all americans. That h we have to punish russia and deter all nations from these shenanigans. Do you to believe that the governments response, so far has been enough to deter future attacks of this kind, and if not, what else would you think we should be doing. Miss yates, would you start out please. I think they are comingto back and i think we have to do a whole lot more both to harden our election systems our state election systems to ensure folks out there know when they are looking atre newsfeeds that it may not be real news that they are reading. I think we have to do more to deter the russians and he wouldnt hurt to prosecute a few folks but i dont think we should kid ourselves that will be able to prosecute our way out of this problem. Mr. Clapper. As much as i love a congressional hearing, i think there is a useful purpose served because i think the most important thing that needs to be done is to educate the electorate as to what the russians objective is and the tactics and techniques and procedures they have employed and will continue to employemply and, i predict it will be against all parties. I think education of the public is the most important thing we can do in this hearing, grudgingly, though i admit it, serves that purpose to the extent that this can be shared openly. I do think there needs to beti more done in a way of sanctions to the russians or i any other government that attempts to interfere in our election process. Im done. Senator clovis are. Thank you both for being her here. He asked if you wanted to come back mr. Clapper and we are very glad that you are here. Before i ask my questions about the general fact that this ranking official is caught on tape with a foreign official saying one thing inrr private and another in public, its different and if thats material for blackmail, andse you both said it was, can you give me examples from your experience, director clapper of when russians have used sex, live lies and videotape as blackmail. I dont have a lot of direct knowledge external to russia. This is a classical technique that they would use to coopt compromise political opponents and of course the Current Administration was more aggressive than that where they just bought out people i have read and seen it during the soviet era. What about our election infrastructure. One major thing we need to do is educate the public, and i am very concerned that we have different states in different election equipment and ranking and rules and we are working on the bill. How important is it to protect the l integrity of our election. Its quite important, and speaking now has a private citizen, not my former capacity, i do think our election apparatus should be considered Critical Infrastructure and should have the protections that are attended to that. A lot of states push back. When jay johnson, secretary of Homeland Security engaged with state Election Officials about having that designation and having the federal government interfere in their election process. As a citizen, i would be concerned with doing all we w can to secure that apparatus. Part of the assessment we put out, they put out a paper on best practices on how to secure election apparatuses at the state and local level. Very good. Our citi do you think we are doing aa good enough job in educating our citizens about this. No we are not. The other thing we dont do well enough is a counter messaging. How would you suggest weeanat improve that. Ive been an advocate for u. S. [inaudible] on steroids. I felt that way countering the message from isis who is very sophisticated that conveying messages and recruiting people. Our effort to counter Matthew George fragmented in my own opinion. I would seriously consider the notion of a usia on steroids. What would that mean exactly. Someone that we could message or counter message, and our efforts to counter violent extremist ideology, particularly that from isis. I dont think we do a good t enough job as a nation. Counter messaging the russians, giving them some of their own medicine, more aggressively than weve done now. I would hasten to add that should not be tacked onto the Intelligence Community. It needs to be a separate entity. Something i see would support but separate than that. One must question. You brought a career player with you to meeting at the white house about when youou were giving these warnings about them knowledge you had on general plan. Is that normal practice. This was a career lawyer who is supervising the message and we thought it was important, she was the one most intimately familiar with that but secondly, we knew my tenure was going to be short and wanted to be sure there is continuity there. He just didnt know what was going to be that short. I didnt know. You think the voters on so i hate to change, lets to three minutes. I can be very quick. Mr. Clapper, are there any assets in the United States held by the russian. I dont know the answer to the question. Who would know that. [inaudible] the fbi might know it but i dont know. Nd you know if any of Vladimir Putins friends might have assets in the United States that are being held for him. Thats a possibility. Who would know that . Same person . I would guess the fbi. If the Intelligence Community and the attorney general knew all this information about him, how did flynn get security clearance . Knew what about mr. Flynn. That he had had a conversation about the Russian Ambassador about sanctions. That was the 29th ofe december or whenever that was reported in the media when that took place. He was sworn in on the 17t 17th. How did he get a security clearance. He had security clearance and had one for a long time. He was a career military intelligence officer. I dont know the specifics of when he fell do. The Current System is every five years you have to get a periodic reinvestigation. I dont know the details of that. It would probably be done by his old agencies. Then you to get some additional double secret security clearance to serve in the white house. If you do. As i indicated before could ask you ok. I dont know how its done in this administration, but my own knowledge of how it was done when i served in the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration, there was extensive vetting by the fbi. And want to stop you because i only have a few seconds. De misuse, are there anyiv reasonable arguments that can be made in defense of President Trumps executive arder. I dont believe there are reasonable, legal arguments that are grounded in truth. They can be made in defense of his argument that the travel ban was not intended to have an impact to disfavor moslems. N, you believe the arguments made by the lawyers who areiv now defending the executive order are now unreasonable. I believe the department of justice has a responsibility to uphold the law and always speak the truth, particularly about something as fundamental as this executive order was. Let me say this. I have tremendous respect for the career men and women at the department of justice, but their obligation was different than mine. They must make an argument if they can make a reasonable legal argument. As acting attorney general, my responsibility was broader than that and i had to look beyond the confines of the face of the eo to look at statements and other factors to determine what was the actual intent. That was the basis of my decision. For the record, different travel ban. The first order was withdrawn and there is a second one out there. Senator blumenthal. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, mrs. Yates, so for the concerns you addressed about the constitutionality have been upheld by the court. T thats correct. Second, director clapper, on the issue of possible use of the far right website by the russians, you are asked earlier other you have any knowledge about that potential cooperation or involvement. Do you have independent knowledge of the use of those far right websites. I do not. T connec at least off the top of my head, i do not have specificd knowledge or insight into that connection. It couldve been, i just dont know that directly. But you made reference to published reports. You said i think you know about it from what you read in the newspaper. Has a specific reference to what happened in france. Correct, and the same tactics that were used most recently in france were also used or reportedly used in c this country. Correct. I would like to put in the record one public report thatt probably others, a report from much 20th which begins with the lead, federalin investigators are examiningg whether far right news sites played a role in a russian Cyber Operation not dramatically widen the reach of new stories, some fictional that favored Donald Trumps election bid. Two people familiar with the inquiry are quoted and goes on to mention among those sites, Breitbart News and info wars. If this could please be entered into the record. You have knowledge this yates of that federal investigation . I do not and if i did, ill couldnt tell you about it. Hougt i thought that my. Answer. Finally you said ms. Yates, we are not going to prosecute our way out of the russian continued attack on this country. But, putting americans in prison if they cooperate, collude, aid and abet or otherwise assist in that illegality might send a very strong deterrent message, correct. I expect it would, yes. There are criminal penalties existing on the books but we dont need new laws which involve criminality and potential prosecution for those acts. Thats correct. Thank you very much mr. Chairman. Thank you all. We are at the end of the day and you been great. I think the public is better educated about what russia did. There seems to be bipartisan consensus that they attempted to interfere with our election. You will provide to the committee, the pool of people who can request unmasking, we would appreciate it. When it comes to collection on 2016 campaigns, im a little confused but i think we found at least one occasion where did happen. Do we know of any others off the top of their head or any other candidate on either side of the aisle. La there could have been other requests, unmasking requests. But theres a way to find that out. Another way would be with the agency finally the current Deputy Attorney general, do you have confidence in him ms. Yates . If they do. Thank you all. E kremli final comments . Absolutely. During the last hearing we had the author of the kremlin playbook as one of our witnesses and we had the very wellregarded Kenneth Weinstein as one of our and esses and they both agreed that the United States is leaving itself vulnerable to this kind of influence if we continue to allow shell corporations to proliferate without a way to find out who the owners are. Mention that because we are working on a piece of legislation to help solve that but i think its important in this area and i wanted to flag it and addressed to chairman grassley my appreciation for his bipartisan cooperation on that front and my appreciation to chairman graham to make this a success and so meaningful. Thank you both. The hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation]