Hearing but at an anything but routine time. What are we expecting here . Reporter youre absolutely right. The first testimony from fbi director james comey since the march hearing when he did divulge very carefully without giving statement beyond the simple statement that the fbi was investigating alleged russian meddling into the 2016 president ial election. There are going to be a lot of questions about that from both sides of the aisle. Youre right. Im here outside the senate room. The Judiciary Committee with a Standard Oversight Committee raerg. Very auspicious given everything thats happened, given the fact that Hillary Clinton spoke yesterday and laid much of the blame for her defeat at the feet of the fbi director. He just walked into the room. Didnt have a comment. Its all against the backdrop. Continuing to tweet is donald trump, the president tweeting this morning, fbi director comey was the best thing that happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds. As r perhaps trump just ran a great campaign. So close questioning going to be expected from democrats on the political issues and from both sides on the question of rush hand m russian meddling in the election. Especially at Hillary Clinton giving her analysis yesterday about what happened in the election and laying a a lot of it at the feet of james comey. Chuck grassley recently wrote a letter to the fbi director because he wants information about the document that reportedly suggests or raises questions about the attorney general loretta lunch. What can you tell us about it . Its an email apparently, a democratic staffer saying dont sweat it, loretta is not going to push it that hard and the question is was the fbi aware of it. If it leaked, if the russians got their hands on it as a stolen or hacked email, would it make the fbis job more complicated. My understanding is that that didnt play much of a role in this. And of course we have to remember i dont know how much mr. Comey is going to be expansive about his discussion of the Hillary Clinton investigation for this reason. The Justice DepartmentInspector General has an investigation going of the entire handling by the fbi of the clinton email investigation. So theres not a lot he can say because of that iq investigation. He has talked about this some in recent weeks say it was a difficult time if are the fbi but it has to be nonpartisan. Cant be viewed as a partisan tool or playing favorites 37 but in terms of getting into the weeds im not sure how much hell go there because of iig investigation. Once Loretta Lynch had the meeting on the tar mac with big clinton before the fbi announced its conclusion of the investigation, thats what really concerned them most of all. You can see the crush of cameras there. Pete has watched a lot of these hearings. I would suggest that even for the confirmation of the Supreme Court justice which was also before the committee we did not see this kind of crush that were seeing today. A lot of hydra ma there. R i want to pick up on the point that pete was making. How much does that limit or give an opportunity for comey not to answer questions and to the basic question of why did you confirm the clinton investigation before the election but not the russiatrump investigation until after the election. Is that a question he can legitimately answer . I think hes going to be able to answer the question. To petes point, he will be circumspect in this conversation with congress today. What the fbi will from time to time do is acknowledge the obvious lip we knew, you, i, the American Public knew there was an Ongoing Investigation of hillarys email that had been going on for months. For comey to acknowledge that during the runup to the election is not momentous. Whats more momentous is what he said last july and what he committed to last october. But today hell be circumspect. He will be guarded in his comments. He will narrowly define and perhaps restate what hes already said, which is there is an Ongoing Investigation. The fbi wants to do its work out of your gaze, out of my gaze. They want to be left to do their work quietly, professionally, find the facts, bring the facts to the prosecutor who will determine whether there should be a prosecution or not. And in those cases where there should not, youre not trying to tar or stain or scar the subject of the investigation. I want to let people know what exactly is going to be going on. Youre going to have the chairman of this committee, chuck grassley, a republican from iowa, the Ranking Member on the democratic side, long time senator from california, Dianne Feinstein, they will be making Opening Statement and then we will hear from director comey himself. And malcolm nance, somebody who has been following this closely, i want to pick up on something that ron talked about, ideally you want to do Something Like that out of the gaze or the prying eyes something that has not been happening nor will it happen when it comes to the investigation of russian meddling into the 2016 campaign and maybe what the Trump Campaign may have known about it. So given the restrictions that there may be on comey for what he can and cannot say, whats the key question you would want to ask as someone who has followed this very very closely . Well, as you know, theres going to be two entirely different sets of questions that are going to be asked today. From the republican side they are no interest in the russian meddling. Thats relatively clear. Theyre going to place their emphasis on what kind of poli c politics were involved with Hillary Clinton and Loretta Lynch. On the democratic side, theyre going straight to what director comey and the Counter Intelligence division has been looking into, and that is this counter espionage investigation, an investigation to see what Trump Administration officials are involved with moscow. So i dont think hes going to answer clearly on anything other that basic acknowledgmenacknowl. If i could ask any one question, the question would be what does the fbi think would be the end result coming out of american citizens cooperating or collaborating with a foreign intelligence agency. And his not answering that question or even touching around the fringes of it will give us a better idea of where they are. In the meantime all of this has been given new drama by Hillary Clintons interview yesterday where she said, her book is coming out, shell take blame but clearly laid the blame for what happened to her on all of this going on in the last two weeks of the campaign. Let me play a little clip of Hillary Clinton yesterday. It wasnt a perfect campaign. There is no such thing. But i was on the way to winning until the combination of jim comeys letter on october 28th and russia wikileaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me but not scared off. To the extent, karen, that democrats believe what she just said, democrats in particular on this committee believe what she just said, is there value in them relitigating it via james comey . What do they gain from it and is there a legitimate reason for asking those question . First of all, this is a counter fak chuct chul. Theres no way of proving the Hillary Clinton presidency. And i think the fact that both sides, that everybody has been unable to get past the 2016 election has meant that there havent been enough questions asked about the implications going forward. How were the russians able to accomplish this and what can we do to prevent this from happening in the future. And i really think that for most americans that those are the two big important questions. And are americans depending on who you voted for looking at this in profoundly different ways, the importance you give it, sabrina on very Different Levels . Absolutely. I think that democrats in particular will point to a lot of the polling that did show Hillary Clinton having a much higher probability of winning the election. And then there was certainly and its supported by data, a shift after the release of that letter. When you look at some of the exit polls. Again as karen said, can you definitively say that that she absolutely would have won the election had it not been for the release of the comey letter, thats where it gets complicated. Sandra Richard Blumenthal of connecticut wants to focus on comeys decision to release that letter but then to not at all comment on the fact that there was an Ongoing Investigation into contacts between associates or aides on the Trump Campaign and russia. Now as ron said it could be that they did not have anything sufficient to share with the American Public at that time. I think youre going to see comey again rely on the Ongoing Investigation into russian interference to try and avoid getting too much into what they knew and when they knew it. Is there anything that you think that he can say today thats going to kind of answer some of the questions or calm some of the concerns that people have . You know, i really dont see it. I agree with karen and sabrina. I hope that his focus is in how russia intruded, how they tried to influence, what are those attack vectors was it people, was it electronic through cyberattacks and intrusions and tactical releases of information. Whats the connection when russia and wikileaks. Those are important questions for us going forward. My fear is, to sabrinas point, that this country is so polarized, so divided that if you didnt want hillary in the white house, you put on those lenses and judge by that and pick up the pieces that comey says that may agree with your theory. If you were for her or against her, thats how you view this. And my hope is that comey can push aside all of that, tell the American Public and the Judiciary Committee that theyre committing to running a thorough investigation. This wont happen fast. Do you think he can do that . I dont think hes going to be able to satisfy those that are so partisan that their minds were made up last fall. Some of those positions were reinforced yesterday. I dont think hes going to appeal or connect with those people. I wonder about the wisdom of continuing to litigate this election. Youve got the budget, health care. Were going to talk about those coming up. But obviously people across america are heavily engaged in or care about and then you have the president you and i have covered any number of president s and its hard to fathom them stepping in in the middle of an investigation. But you have the president saying that james comey is soft going into this hearing. Whats the where does this go is it better for both sides to just step back and say, let the investigation one its course . Im not suggesting that will happen but what do they get out of it . Certainly Hillary Clinton got a lot of attention yesterday. It is a human feeling to want to you know, shes got a lot to work through here having just lost an election that most people thought she was going to win. And when she did win the popular vote. But it is donald trump who has more on the line here in moving forward. Hes got an agenda to get through. And with regard to this, he keep relitigating the 2016 election when it would seem to make more sense for him to get out in front of it and for him to say, look, you know, something bad happened here with the russians and we need to get to the bottom of this and get ahead of it and in the im going to let the investigation go forward. And in the meantime i have an agenda here to push. I might suggest another line, sabri sabrina, which would be i dont believe there was anything that changed the outcome of this election. I won the election. But having said that we cant have any questions about it. For the next president ial election we want to be sure that weve done everything we can to ensure its legitimacy. But the problem is trump is he takes this as an attack on the legitimacy of the election. Weve observed him for more than a year and a half and now that he does not necessarily approach these issues with a rational mind. I will admit i was watching Hillary Clinton and she did the little aside that i won the popular vote. In donald trump was catwatching that hes going to tweet. Its not unusual for him to have been tweeting about james comey last night when you think about it, the president of the United States is taking to twitter to attack the sitting direct of the fbi who is currently overseeing the investigation over russian interference into the election. Thats the problem with trump. He gets so easily distracted and he hasnt been able to build goo will on capitol hill and enact his agenda despite having republican majorities in the house and the senate. And you could see him continue to be distracted by what james comey says or doesnt say. Speaking of distractions, pete williams, i just wonder, the human aspect of this, how much this is a distraction for james comey and is it a distraction for the department in general . Yes, it is on both counts. Hes kept a low profile since this came out. He used to meet with a group of us that cover the fbi fairly regularly, at least once a quarter. We havent had one of those meetings since before the election. Hes its sort of changed his sort of whole approach. There are a lot of things he wants to talk about and hes been doing this to some extent in private gatherings and other speeches to groups. He wants to talk about the fbis access to encrypted material on phones. The growing dark problem. He wants to talk about the growing problem of cyberattacks, get a public discussion going about that. His attempt to do that are overshadowed by this Russian Investigation which from everything i can gather from talking to folks involved in it is going to be going on for several months at least. Let me just play a little bit more of what Hillary Clinton had to say. She talked specifically about vladimir putin. Heres her take on it. He certainly interfered in our election and it was clear he interfered to hurt me and to help me opponent. And if you chart my opponent and his campaigns statements, they quite coordinated with the goals that that leader who shall remain nameless had. So we talked about its impact on u. S. Politics. But international politics, i think karen weve stepped away from looking at this and the impact on the u. S. And russia. Although i must say the word coordinated is not a word i would have i mean, donald trump, during the campaign was just all over the place. So it is really, you know, hard to see, you know, that he could have had the discipline to have run some sort of signaling back and forth. Again, i understand her frustration and its a very human thing to feel and there is certainly a lot of questions to be asked about contacts between People Associated with donald trump and the russians. But at least from what weve seen of this president , i would not think that a sort of carefully orchestrated anything would be kind of in his wheel house. In the meantime, take us inside this investigation. Were watching the public part of it. Whats going on privately . The fbi is running it as a Counter Intelligence investigation. Theyre issuing National Security letters to get documents relevant to the investigation. Theyre trying to interview both potential subjects and those around them who are in a position to know to secure their cooperation, to really affirmatively prove that there was some sort of coordination or that there wasnt. That they cant see it. And i think importantly, did somebody break the law in material significant ways. Weve heard reports that mike flynn, Paul Manafort and others should have filed as agents of a foreign power or as registered foreign agents and they failed to. Is that significant enough . Whats the history of those sorts of investigation and prosecutions. Ult matimately the fbi is an Investigative Agency and Counter Terrorism agency. Theyre not doing this solely to paint on intelligence picture. Theyre looking to see if somebody needs to be prosecuted for violations of federal law sfl were watching as Dianne Feinstein is giving her Opening Statement. Pete, is there a sense where you are and from the contacts that you have made what the chances are for some sort of charges against somebody in this or is it just way too early in this investigation to even have a sense of it . A little of both, chris. Ive seen nothing, no indication yet that theyve contemplated criminal charges against anybody. And as ron pointed out, this is being run by the Counter Intelligence organization. That is how this started. What were the russians up to. The initial thinking was theyre gathering information to use themselves, information to leverage either russian government policy or Vladimir Putins personal information. But when they began to go public with it, thats when the thinking changed a enyou saw the assessment of the intelligence agencies evolve over the months. Lets listen in to Dianne Feinstein. She is now talking about the 2016 election. And investigation. On july 5th, 2016, two months before the election, director comey publicly announced that the fbi had concluded its investigation. And determined that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against secretary clinton. That should have been the end of the story. But it wasnt. 11 days before the election, october 28th, 2016, director comey then announced that the fbi was reopening the clinton investigation because of emails on Anthony Weiners computer. This explosive announcement, and it was, came unprompted and without knowing whether a single email warranted a new investigation. It was in fact a big october surprise. But in fact as it turned out, not one email on the laptop changed the fbis original conclusion that no prosecution was warranted. And only two days before the next the fbi sent another public letter to congress affirming its original conclusion. This was extraordinary, plain and simple. I join those who believe that the actions taken by the fbi did in fact have an impact on the election. Whats worse is that while all of this was going on in the public spotlight, while the fbi was discussing its investigation into senator clintons email server in detail, i cannot help but note that it was noticeably silent about the investigation into the Trump Campaign and russian interference int the election. In june 2016 the presseported that Russian Hackers had infiltrated the Computer System of the Democratic National committee. In response, then candidate trump and his Campaign Began goading the russian government into racking secretary clinton. Two months later, in august, on twitter, roger stone declared, trust me, it will soon be podestas time in the barrel, end quote. He then bragged that he was in communication with wikileaks, and this was during a campaign the campaign in florida. He told a group of Florida Republicans that founder Julian Assange said that founder Julian Assange and that there would be no telling what the october surprise might be, end quote. Clearly he knew what he was talking about. Two months later, on october 7, thousands of emails from John Podestas account were published on wikileaks. We now know that through the fall election the fbi was actively investigating russias efforts to interfere with the president ial campaign and possible involvement of Trump Campaign officials in those efforts. Yet, the fbi remained silent. In fact, the fbi summarily refused to acknowledge the investigation. Its still very unclear, and i hope director that you will clear this up, why the fbis treatment of these two investigations was so dramatically different. With the clinton email investigation it has been said that, quote, exceptional circumstances, end quote, including the high interest in the matter and the need to reassure the public required Public Comment from the fbi. However, i cant imagine how an unprecedented big and bold hacking interference in our election by the russian government did not also present exceptional circumstances. As i said at the beginning, were in a unique time. A foreign adversary actively interfered with a president ial election. The fbi was investigation not just that interference but whether Campaign Officials associated with the president were connected to this interference. And the attorney general has recused himself from any involvement in this investigation. At the same time, the fbi must continue to work with its state and local Law Enforcement partners and the Intelligence Committee as well to investigate crime of all types, violent crime, increased traffic, human trafficking, terrorism, child exploitation, public corruption and yesterday this committee had a very important hearing on hate and crimes against specific religions and races which are off the charts. In order to do all of that, i firmly believe it is of the utmost importance that the American People have faith in the agency. We must be ashierd that all of the fbis decisions are made in the interest of justice, not in the interest of any political agenda or reputation of any one agency or individual. So, mr. Director, today we need to hear how the fbi will regain that faith and trust. We need straightforward answers to our questions and we want to hear how youre going to lead the fbi going forward. We never ever want anything like this to happen again. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Director comey i would like to swear you in at this point. You are affirm that the testimony youre about to give before the committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . I do. Thank you very much. As the old saying goes for somebody as famous as you, you dont need any introductions. Im going to introduce you as the director of the federal bureau of investigation. We look forward to your testimony and answer to our questions. You may begin. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator feinstein, members of the committee. Thank you for having this annual oversight hearing about the fbi. I know that sounds a little bit like someone saying theyre looking forward to going to dentist, but i really do mean it. I think oversight of the fbi, of all parts of government but especially the one im lucky to lead is essential. The way you guard against it is having people ask hard questions and i promise you ill give you that kind of answer today. I also appreciate the conversation i know were going to have today and over the next few months about reauthorizing section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that you mentioned, mr. Chairman. This is a tool that is essential to the safety of this country. I did not say the same thing about the collection of telephone dialing information by the nsa. Thats a useful tool. 702 is an essential tool and if it goes away we will be less safe as a country. I mean that and happy to talk more about that. Thank you for engaging on that so we can tell the American People why that this matters and why it cant go away. The magic of the fbi that you oversee is its people and we talk as we should a lot about our Counter Terrorism work, counter intelligent work. But i thought i would give you some idea of the work thats being done by those people all over the country, all over the world, every day, every night, all of the time. I pulled three cases that happened that were finished in the last month to illustrate it. The first is something you followed closely. The plague of threats against Jewish Community centers in the first few months of this years. Children frightened, old people frightened. The entire fbi surged in response to that threat, working across all programs, all divisions. Our technical wizards using our vital International Presence and using our partnerships, especially with the Israeli National police, we made that case and the israelis locked up the person behind those threats and stopped that terrifying plague against the Jewish Community centers. All of you know what a bot nut is. The zombie armies of computers taken over by criminals lashed together to do tremendous harm to people. Last month the fbi working with our partners at the Spanish Police took one down anlocked up the russian hacker behind that who made a mistake that russian criminals sometimes make of leaving russia and visiting barcelona and hes now in jail in spain. And the good peoples computers have been freed of it. And the last one ill mention is this past week for the First Time SinceCongress Passed a statute making it a crime in the United States to engage in female genital mutilation, a felony in the states, we made the first case last week against doctors in michigan for doing this terrifying thing to young girls all across the country with our partners in the department of homeland security, we brought a case against two doctors for doing this to children. This is among the most important work we do, protecting kids especially and it was done by great work that you dont hear about a whole lot all across the country by the fbi. It is the honor of my life. I know you look at me like im crazy but i love this work, i love this job and i love it for the mission and the people that i get to work with. Some of the work i just illustrated by pulling these three cases from last month. It goes on all around the country and were safer for it. I love representing these people, speaking on their behalf and i look forward to you questions today. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for your Opening Statement. Im going to start out probably with a couple of subjects you wish i didnt bring up and then a third one that i think Everybody Needs to hear your opinion on, a policy issue. It is frustrating when the fbi refuses to answer this committees questions. But leaks relevant information to the media. In other words they tonigdont to us but somebody talks to the media. Director comey, have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the trump investigation or the clinton investigation . Never. Question two on relatively related. Have you ever authorized someone else at the fbi to be an anonymous source in news reports about the trump investigation or the clinton investigation . No. Has any classified information relating to President Trump or his associates been declassified and shared with the media . Not to my knowledge. You testified before the house Intelligence Committee that a lot of classified matters have ended up in the media recently. Without getting into any particular article, i want to emphasize that, without getting into any particular article, is there any investigation of any leaks of classified information relating to mr. Trump or his associates . I dont want to answer that question senator for reasons i think you know. There have been a variety of leaks, leaks are always a problem but especially in the last three to six months and where there is a leak of classified information, the fbi, if its our information, make as referral to the department of justice or if its another agencys information, they do the same and doj authorizes the opening of an investigation. I dont want to confirm in an open setting whether there are any investigations open. I want to challenge you on that because the government regularly acknowledges when its investigating leaks. You did that in the valerie plain case. Whats the difference here . I dont have authorization from the department to confirm any investigation theyve authorize nd authorizeed. And we may can get that at some point. You can expect me to follow up on that offer. Sure. There are senior senior fbi officials who would have had access to the classified information that was leaked, including yourself and the deputy director. So how can the Justice Department guarantee the integrity of the investigations without designating an agency other than the fbi to gather the facts and eliminate senior fbi officials as suspects . Well, im not going to answer about any particular investigation but i know of situations in the past where if you think the fbi or its leadership are suspects, you have another Investigative Agency support the investigation by federal prosecutors. It can be done and has been done in the past. Moving on to another subject. The the New York Times recently reported that the fbi had found a troubling email among the ones the russians hacked from democrat operatives. The email reportedly provided assurances that attorney general lynch would protect secretary clinton by making sure the fbi investigation quote unquote didnt go too far. How and when did you first learn of this document . Also, who sent it and who received it . Thats not a question i can answer in this forum because it would call for a classified response. I have briefed leadership of the Intelligence Committees on that particular issue but i cant talk about it here. You can expect me to follow up with you on that point. Sure. What steps did the fbi take to determine whether attorney general lynch had given assurances that the Political Fix was in no matter what . Did the fbi interview the person who wrote the email . If not, why not. I have to give you the same answer. I cant talk about that in an unclassified setting. Then you can expect me to follow up on that. I asked the fbi to provide this email to the committee before todays hearing. Why havent you done so and will you provide it we the end of this week . Again, to react to that i have to give a classified answer and i cant give it sitting here. So that means you cant give me the email . Im not confirming there was an email. The subject is classified. In an appropriate forum i would be happy to brief you about it but i cant do it in a an open hearing. I assume that other members of the committee could have access to that briefing if they wanted. I want to talk about going dark. Director comey a few years ago you testified before the committee about going dark problem anthe inability of Law Enforcement to access encrypted data despite the existence of a lawfully issued court order. You continue to raise this issue in your public speeches, most recently boston college. My question, you mentioned it again in your testimony briefly but can you provide the committee with a more detail update on the status of going dark problem and how has it affected the fbis ability to access encrypted data . Has there. Any progress collaborating with the Technology Sector to overcome any problems . At our hearing in 2015 you said you didnt think edge las vegas was necessary at that time. Is that still your view . Thank you, mr. Chairman. The shadow created by the problem we call growing dark continues to fall across more an more of our work. Take devices for example. The ubiquitous default encryption on devices is affecting now about half of our work. First six months of this fiscal year fbi examiners were presented with over 6,000 devices for which we had lawful authority, search warrant or court order to open. And in 46 of the cases we could not open the devices with any techniq technique. That means half of the devices that we encounter in terrorism cases, counter intelligent cases, child pornography cases cannot be opened with any techniq technique. That is a big problem. So the shadow continues to fall. Im determined to continue to make sure that the American People and Congress Know about it. I know this is important to the president and the new attorney general. I dont know yet how the new administration intends to approach it but its something we have to talk about. Like you i care a lot about privacy. I also care an awful lot about public safety. There continues to be a huge collision between those two things that we care about. I look forward to continuing that conversation, mr. Chairman. You didnt respond to the part about do you still have the view that legislation is not needed . I dont know the answer yet. I hope i said the last time we talked about it this may require a legislative solution at some point. The Obama Administration was not in a point where they were seeking legislation. I dont know how President Trump intends to approach this. He spoik about it during the campaign and he cares about it but its premature for me to say. Senator feinstein. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Director, i have one question regarding my opening comment and i view it as a most important question and i hope you will answer it. Why was it necessary to announce 11 days before a president ial election that you were opening an investigation on a new computer without any knowledge of what was in that computer . Why didnt you just do the investigation as you would normally with no public announcement . Great question, senator. Thank you. October 27th the Investigative Team thatted that finished the investigation in july focused on secretary clintons emails asked to meet with me. They laid out for me what they could see from the metadata on Anthony Weiners laptop. That was seized from another case. What they could see from the metadata is there were thousands of secretary clintons emails on that device, including what might have been the missing emails from her first three months of secretary of state. He was using a verizon blackberry then and that was important. If tluz with evidence she was acting with bad intent but they werent there. Can i fin sh my answer . Yes. They came in and said we can see thousands of emails including many many many from the verizon clinton domain. The department of justice agreed we had to get a search warrant. I agreed. I authorize ds them to seek a search warrant. And then i faced a choice. Ive lived my entire career by the tradition that you can avoid it, you avoid any action in the runup to the election that might have an impact. But i sat there that morning and i could not see a door labeled no action here. I could see two doors and they were both actions. One was labeled speak, the other was labeled concealed. Because heres how i thought about it. I want you to know my thinking. Having repeatedly told this congress were done, theres no nothing there, no case there, no case there. To restart in a hugely sig quantity way potentially finding the emails that would inflect on her intent from the beginning and not speak about it would require an act of concealment in my view. So i stared at speak and conceal. Speak would be very bad. Concealing in my bad would be catastrophic. Not just to the fbi but well beyond. And honestly, as between really bad and catastrophic, i said to my team, we got to walk into the world of really bad. Ive got to Tell Congress that were restarting this, in a hugely significant way. And the team told me we cannot finish this work before the election. Enthen they worked night after night and they found thousands of new emails, they found classified information on anthony weiner. Somehow her emails are being forwarded to anthony weiner, including classified information by her as is tant wu h assistan. They called me and said thanks to the wasrdry of our technology, weve only had to personally read 6,000. We think we can finish tomorrow morning. And i met with them, they said we found a lot of new stuff. We did not find anything that changes our view of her intent. Were in the same place as we were in july. I asked them lots of questions. I said okay if thats where you are, then i also have to Tell Congress that were done. Look this was terrible. It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election. But honestly it wouldnt change the decision. Everybody who disagrees with me has to come back to october 28 with me and stare at this tell me what you would do, would you speak or would you conceal. I could be wrong wu behonestly made a decision between those two choices that even in hindsight this has been one of the worlds most painful experiences. I would make the same decision. I would not conceal that on october 28th from the congress. And i sent a let eter to congress. I didnt make a public announcement. I sent a private let tore the chairs and the rankings of the oversight committees. I know its a distinction without a difference in the world of leaks but it was very important that i tell them instead of concealing. And reasonable people can disagree. But thats the reason i made at choice. And it was a hard choice. I still believe in retrospect the right choice, as painful as this has been. Im sorry for the long answer. Let me respond. On the letter it was just a matter of minutes before the world knew about it. Secondly, my understanding, and stuff has just said to me that you didnt get a search warrant before making the announcement. I think thats right. I think i authorized and the department of justice agreed we were going to seek a search warrant. I didnt see it as a meaningful distinction. Well, it very its very hard it would have been you took an enormous gamble, the gamble was that there was something there that would invalidate her candidacy and there wasnt. So one has to look at that action and say did it affect the campaign. And i think most people who have looked at this say yes, it did affect the campaign. Why would he do it. And was there any conflict among your staff, people saying do it, people saying dont do it, as has been reported . No. There was a great debate. I have a fabulous staff at all levels and one of my junior lawyers said, should you consider that what youre about to do may help elect donald trump president. And i said, thank you for raising that. Not for a moment. Because down that path lies the death of the fbi as an independent institution in america. I cant consider for a second whose political fortunes will be affected in what way. We have to ask ourselves what is the right thing to do and do that. At the end of the day everyone on my team agreed we have to Tell Congress that we are restarting this in a hugely significant way. Well, theres a way to do that. I dont know whether it would work or not, but certainly in a class fieds way carrying out our tradition of not announcing investigations. And, you know, i look at this exactly the opposite way you do. Everybody knew it would influence the investigation before, that there was a very large percentage of chance that it would. And yet that percentage of chance was taken and there was no information and the election was lost. So it seems to me that before your department does Something Like this, you really ought to because senator leahy began to talk about other investigations. And i think this theory does not hold up when you look at other investigations. But let me go on to 702, because you began your comment saying how important it is. Yes, it is important. Weve got, i think, a problem, and the issue that were going to need to address is the fbis practice of searching 702 data using u. S. Person identifiers and query terms. And some have called this an unconstitutional back door search. Others say such queries are essential to ensure that potential terrorists dont slip through the cracks as they did before. So could you give us your views on that and how it might be handled to avoid the charge which may bring down 702 . Thank you, senator. A really important issue. The way 702 works is under that provision of the statute the pfizer court, federal judges authorize us as u. S. Agencies to collect the communications of nonu. S. People that we believe to be overseas if theyre using american infrastructure. The criticism the fbi has gotten and the feedback weve gotten consistently since 9 11 is you have to make sure youre in a position to connect the dots. You cant have stove piped information. Weve responded to that over the last ten years, mostly to the great work of my predecessor. So if we collect information around 702, it doesnt sit in a separate stove pipe. It sits in a single cloud type environment so if im opening an investigation in the United States and i have a name of the suspect and their telephone number and thaeir emails addresses, i search the fbi databases. That search necessarily will also touch the information that was collected under 702 so that we dont miss a dot. But nobody gets access to this information that sits in the 702 database unless theyve been trained correctly. If there is lets imagine that terrorists overseas were talking about a suspect in the United States or somebodys email was in touch with the terrorists. We open the case in the United States and put in that name and email address, it will touch that data and tell us theres information in the 702 database thats relevant. If the agent doing the query is properly trained on how to handle he or she will be able to see that information. If theyre not properly trained, theyll be alerted that there is information. Then they have to go get the appropriate training and appropriate oversight to be able to see it. But to do it otherwise is to risk us, where it matters most, in the United States, failing to connect dots. So my view is, the information thats in the 702 database has been lawfully collected, carefully overseen and checked, and our use of it is also appropriate and carefully overseen and checked. So you are not masking the data . Unmasking the data. Im not sure what that means. In this context, what we do is we combine information collected from any lawful source in a single fbi database so we dont miss a dot when were conducting investigations in the United States. What we make sure though is nobody gets to see fisa information of any kind unless theyve had the appropriate training and have the appropriate oversight. My time is up. Thank you. Director comey, in january, i introduced the s139, the rapid dna act. It is bipartisan, corespo hspo include feinstein and more. Mr. Chairman, i want to thank you for putting this bill on the agenda for tomorrows business meeting. This is the same bill that the Senate Unanimously passed last year. This Technology Allows developing a dna profile and performing database comparisons in less than two hours. Following standards and procedures approved by the fbi, it would allow Law Enforcement to solve crimes and innocent advocates to exonerate the wrongfully accused. Mr. Director, you came before this committee in december 2015 and i asked you then about this legislation. You said it would, help, quote us change the world in a very, very exciting way. End quote. Is that still your view of the value of this legislation, and do you believe that congress should enact it on its own without getting tangled up in other criminal Justice Reform issues . I agree, senator hatch. The rapid dna will advance the safety of the United States. So if a Police Officer somewhere in the United States has in his or her custody someone who is a rapist, before letting them go on a lesser offense, theyll be able to quickly check the dna database and get a hit. Thatll save lives. Thatll protect all kinds of people from pain. I think it is a great thing. Thank you. Your prepared statement touches on what the fbi is doing to protect children from predators. Personnel and youth serving organizations such as employees, coaches or volunteers often work with unsupervised or with youth unsupervised. That magnifies the need for thorough evaluating and vetting at the time they join such organizations. Along with other senators, i introduced the Child Protection improvement act, giving youth serving organizations greater access to the nationwide fbi fingerprint background check system. Now, do you believe that providing organizations like the ymca and girl scouts of america greater access to the fbi fingerprint background checks is an important step in keeping child predators and keeping criminals away from our children . I do, senator. I dont know enough about the legislation, but the more information you can put in the hands of the people vetting who will be around children, the better. We have a exciting, new feature of the fbis fingerprint program. Once you check someones identification, check them to see if they have no record, if they later develop one, you can be alerted to it if it happens thereafter, which i think makes a difference. Thank you. Youve spoken at length about the socalled going dark program, whereby strong Encryption Technology hinders the ability of Law Enforcement to Access Communication and other personal data on smartphones and similar devices. Your prepared testimony for todays hearing at dresses this i addresses this, as well. I have proposals that would require device or Software Manufacturers to build a back door into their programming to allow Law Enforcement to access encrypted data in the course of an investigation. I remain convinced that such back doors can be created without seriously compromising the security of encrypted devices. I believe this is an issue, where Law Enforcement and stakeholders need to Work Together to find Solutions Rather than coming to congress with one size fits all legislative fixes. What are you doing to engage with stakeholders on this issue, and what kind of progress are you making, if you could tell us . Thank you, senator. I think theres good news on that projefront. Weve had good, open, productive conversations with the private sector over the last 18 months about this issue. Because everybody realizes we care about the same things. We all love privacy and care about private safety, and none of us, at least people i hang around, dont want back doors. We dont want access to devices built in in some way. What we want to work with the manufacturers on is to figure out how can we accommodate both interests . How can we optimize the privacy, security features of their devices and allow courtorders to be complied with . Were having some good conversations. I dont know where theyre going to end up, frankly. I could imagine a world that ends up with legislation saying, if youre going to make devices in the United States, you figure out how to comply with court orders, or maybe we dont go there. But we are having productive conversations right now. Section 702 of the fisa amendments act is up for reausization threau reauthorization this year. We have almost a decade of experience using this statute. We have much more to go on than simply speculation or theory. Now, the intelligence value of section 702 is well documented. It has never been intentionally misused or abused. Every federal court, including the fisa court, that has addressed the issue concluded section 702 is lawsuit. Mr administrations of both mpartie supported it. 702, how are the agencies subject to oversight within the executive branch . Thank you, senator. As i said in my opening, 702 is a critical tool to protect this country. The way it works is we are allowed to conduct surveillance, again, under the supervision of the foreign Intelligence Surveillance court, on nonu. S. Persons who are outside the United States if theyre using american infrastructure. Email system in the United States. A phone system in the United States. So it doesnt involve u. S. Persons, and it doesnt involve activity in the United States. Each agency, as you said, has detailed procedures for how we will handle this information that are approved by the fisa court and so become court orders that govern us. But not only are we overseen by the fisa court, were overseen by our inspectors general and by congress, checking on our work. And youre correct. There have been no abuses. Every court that has looked at this has said this is appropriate under the fourth amendment. This is appropriate under the statute. It was an act passed by a democratically controlled congress for a republican president and renewed by a republican controlled coness for a democratic president and upheld by every court that looked at it. We need this to protect the country. This should be an easy conversation to have, but often, people get confused about the details and mix it up with other things. It is our job to make sure we explain it clearly. Thank you. My time is up. Senator leahy, turn to you. Thank you. Welcome back, director comey. You mentioned you like these annual meetings. Of course, we didnt have an annual meeting last year. Its been, i think, last year was the first time in 15 years that the fbi did not testify before this committee. But a lot has happened in the last year and a half, as noted. Senator feinstein noted that americans across the country have been confused and disappointed by your judgment in handling the investigation into secretary clintons emails. In a number of occasions, you chose to comment directly and extensively on the investigation. You even released internal fbi memos and interview notes. I may have missed this, but my 42 years here, ive never seen anything like that. But you said absolutely nothing regarding the investigation into the Trump Campaigns connections to russias illegal efforts to help elect donald trump. Was it appropriate for you to comment on one investigation repeatedly, not say anything about the other . I think so. Can i explain, senator . I only have so much time. Ill be quick. The department i think i treated both investigations consistently under the same principles. People forget, we would not confirm the existence of the Hillary Clinton email investigation until three months after it began, even though it began with a public referral and the candidate herself talked about it. October of 2015, we confirmed it existed and then said not another word, not a peep about it until we were finished. At the most critical time possible, a couple weeks before the election. And i think there are other things involved in that election. Ill grant that. But theres no question that that had a great effect. Historians can debate what kind of an effect it was. But you did do it. The in october, the fbi was investigating the Trump Campaigns connection to russia. You seaid in the house you were reviewing additional emails that could be relevant to this. Both investigations were open but you still only commented on one. I commented, as i explained earlier, on october 28th in a letter that i sent to the chair