This meeting will come to order. At the outset on behalf of my colleagues i want to thank special counsel mueller for a lifetime of service to your country. It tells the story of a foreign adversary sweeping and systemic intervention in a close u. S. Election. That should be enough to deserve the attention of every american as you well point out. But your report tells another story as well. The story of the 2016 election is also a story about disloyalty to country. About greed, and about lies. Your investigation determined the Trump Campaign including donald trump himself knew that a foreign power was intervening in our election and welcomed it, built russian meddling into their strategy and used it. Disloyalty to country. Those are strong words but how else are we to describe a president ial campaign which did not inform the authorities of a foreign offer of dirt on their opponent which did not publicly shun it or turn it away but which instead invited it, encouraged it and made full
The committee will come to order. That objection, the chairs authorized to declare recess at any time. We welcome everyone to todays hearing and lessons from the Mueller Report part two bipartisan perspective. I will not recognize myself in Opening Statements. Last week we heard from two former United States attorneys who described President Trumps repeated efforts to undermine special counsel muellers investigation of russias interference in the 2016 election. We also heard from president nixons former white House Counsel who told us that the actions by this administration were substantially similar to the measures that nixon and the admin efficient took to undermine the watergate administration. There is one important difference. The special counselor mueller was investigating a different kind of break in. The target was similar to that in watergate. The burglar was a hostile foreign nation. The crime was carried out through a hacking operation that still hundreds of thousands of doc
The committee will come to order. That objection, the chairs authorized to declare recess at any time. We welcome everyone to todays hearing and lessons from the Mueller Report part two bipartisan perspective. I will not recognize myself in Opening Statements. Last week we heard from two former United States attorneys who described President Trumps repeated efforts to undermine special counsel muellers investigation of russias interference in the 2016 election. We also heard from president nixons former white House Counsel who told us that the actions by this administration were substantially similar to the measures that nixon and the admin efficient took to undermine the watergate administration. There is one important difference. The special counselor mueller was investigating a different kind of break in. The target was similar to that in watergate. The burglar was a hostile foreign nation. The crime was carried out through a hacking operation that still hundreds of thousands of doc
Of 2016 as the u. S. President ial race was getting underway, an individual was linked to the russian government reached out to the Truck Campaign for mr. Trump. In july of 2016 the russians began dumping the emails in the same fannish fashion. It was at this point informed of the russian outreach to patent jobless and aware that the russians were meddling in our elections through the anonymous release of information that the fbi opened up this investigation. As james comey would explain in his first public testimony in march 2017 and before this committee, the investigation began not as a criminal probe but as a counterintelligence investigation. What does that mean . How does the counterintelligence investigation differ from a criminal investigation . What does it mean that he u. S. Power . May be acting as a how could the russians use the compromise of u. S. Persons to influence u. S. Policy in a manner that jeopardizes our National Security . These are the questions we hope to answ
Links to the russian government reached out to the Trump Campaign to telegraph the kremlins preference for mr. Trump. Joseph masud a london based malt east professor told george pap pop dops topz who told him the russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton including thousands of emails. Papadopoulos was informed that the russian government could assist the campaign through the anonymous release of stole be material. At the time mr. Papadopoulos was given this extraordinary information, the American Public was unaware that the dnc and Clinton Campaign had been hacked, let alone russia was behind the attack and planned to weaponize the data it stole. In july of 2016, the russian government began dumping the stolen emails in precisely the same fashion it had previewed for mr. Papadopoulos. It was informed of the russian outreach to papadopoulos and ware wire eaware that the russians medding through the aanonymous release of information gnat fbi opened up its investigation. But as james comey wou