Who told them that the russians had dirt on hillary including thousands of the males. Papadopoulos was also informed that the russian government could assist the Trump Campaign. At the time he was given that information come in the American Public was unaware that the dnc and Clinton Campaign had even been hacked let alone that russia was behind the attack and planned to weaponize the data it stole. In july, 2016, the russian government began dumping the theen emails in precisely same fashion it had previewed before mr. George papadopoulos. It was at this point informed of the russian outreach to papadopoulos and aware that the russians were actively meddling in our elections and the anonymous release of the information that the fbi opened its investigation. As james comey would explain before this committee, the investigation began not as a criminal probe but as a counterintelligence investigation. What does that mean . How does a counterintelligence investigation differ from a criminal investigation . U. S. Does it mean that a person may be acting as a witting or unwitting person of a foreign power . And how could the russians use the compromise in a manner that jeopardizes our National Security . These are the questions we hope to answer today. Ofing the second of a series hearings the committee will hold to explore the disturbing findings in volume one of the report. And examine what steps are necessary to protect the public, our democracy, and our National Security. Hear from senior former fbi executives who oversaw all the Counterintelligence Division of the bureau to help us better understand the counterintelligence implications of the range of contacts between the Donald Trump Campaign and the russians directly or. Ndirectly tied to the kremlin volume one outlines a sweeping thesystemic effort of russians to interfere in the elections. It establishes that the Camp Campaign welcomed the russian interference because it expected to benefit electorally from the information. It shows how the prompt campaign billed through theft and dumping of messages and as the special counsel made clear, it sets out in great detail why this should concern every american. Over 100t details well contacts between the Crown Campaign and agents and officials of russia. Some of this outrage was conducted in public as when the president called on russia to hack his opponents emails and only hours later the g argue attempted to do just that. Attempted to do just that. Other efforts occurred outside of the public seo between a russian delegation and the president s eldest son donald trump, jr. , his soninlaw and Paul Manafort. Part of a plans to secretly receive information from the russian government on Hillary Clinton. Contacts remain shrouded in secrecy such as Paul Manaforts meetings with a russian official. Paul manaforts provision of internal polling data to that individual and a discussion of Campaign Strategy for winning democratic votes in western states. Was americans consider the solicitation of foreign help during a president ial campaign, the offer of foreign assistance and the campaigns eagerness to accept that offer if it is what you say it is, i love it to constitute clear evidence of collusion. Mention the interaction of the chairman of a kimye campaign with foreign officials. Nevertheless and contrary to the president s often repeated mantra , the special counsel reached no conclusion as to whether the Trump Campaigns many russian contacts constituted collusion since that term is not defined in criminal law. For those that have not yet read the Mueller Report, they may be astonished to learn that a finding of no collusion much less a finding of no obstruction is nowhere to be seen on any page or passage of the Mueller Report. Instead, in making its charges, of being able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Could not even as it emphasized that the failure notstablish conspiracy did mean the absence of evidence of conspiracy. Volume one of the Mueller Report is by its very nature and the special counsels mandate a report about the exercise of prosecutorial judgments, who shouldbe judged who be charged and who should not. Theoes not contain counterintelligence findings. With the advancing russian or other foreign interest by virtue of financial incentives are compromised whether or not such actions were a crime. These are the types of concerns that the fbis Counterintelligence Division works to expose, prevent, and investigate. Will hear from our witnesses today, the primary objective of a counterintelligence investigation is not to target an individual for prosecution but to protect the nation by , toloping information thwart them before they can act against us. Efforts to make money from a real estate project in moscow and to conceal the transaction from the public is a quintessential example of a counterintelligence nightmare that may or may not include criminal activity. It may not be a crime to try and enrich yourself while running for president but it is deeply compromising. Not only because of the inducement of hundreds of millions of dollars. That is only part of it. It is also deeply compromising because the russians were on the other end of the transaction and could expose the president s duplicity at any time. The trump organizations efforts to enlist the kremlins help or exposed, Dmitry Peskov told the International Media that the kremlin never responded to Michael Cohens outreach. Thanks to the Mueller Report and our own investigation, we now his statement was a lie. The criminal did followup. He we have a prospect of the kremlin participating in a cover up by the president of the United States. Here is what we know. Ght to makent sou money from a foreign power during the campaign. So did some of his children, so did his Campaign Manager and deputy Campaign Manager. So did his personal lawyer and National Security advisor. Some of these actors have been prosecuted but all the actions are deeply compromise and over are deeply compromising over National Security. Yet mullis report provides no yet the Mueller Report provides no evaluation of the counterintelligence concerns raised by these facts and others, of all the questions ,ueller helped it to answer many were left including what happened to the counterintelligence investigation. Were there other forms of Money Laundering left out. Were individuals granted security clearance that should not have. Are there individuals still operating that lead america vulnerable. We are determined to find out. I yield now to the Ranking Member for any opening remarks he would like to mark he would like to make. Years laterre two more than circumstantial evidence that the Trump Campaign colluded with russia to hack the 2016 election. And more than two years since false allegations on the dossier in an open hearing. After that the American People were subjected to endless and anonymous intelligence leakers. Seemingly everyday the media triumphantly help with this bombshell story. Reporters had not seen. Proved thattedly donald trump or some associate was a treacherous russian agent. Democrats joined the news pundits and denouncing the traiters and eventually the democrats became convinced that the Mueller Report had read them of their sinister president who had the audacity to defeat Hillary Clinton. The entire scheme has imploded and the accusation has become exposed as a hoax. One would think the democrats would apologize and get back to lawmaking and oversight but it is clear they could not step they could not stop this grotesque spectacle. After years of false accusations and mccarthy like smears, the conclusion has helped to find the Democratic Party. The hoax is what they have in place as a constructive vision for our country. The democrats assembled us to analyze the shoddy piece known as the Mueller Report. It is written in the same spirit and the same purpose as the steele dossier which was once championed by the democrats on this committee of which they really mentioned after it was exposed as another democrat created hoax. Unfortunately for the democrats, the mueller dossier as i call it either debunked many of their favorite conspiracy theories are or did not find them worth discussing. Findingclude muellers that Michael Cohen did not travel to prague to conspire with russians. No evidence that carter page conspired with russians, no mention of Paul Manafort visiting Julian Assange in london, no mention of secret communications between the trump tower computer server and russias alfa bank and no mention of former nra lawyer and her supposedly knowledge and is keen to launder russian money through the nra. Insinuations that mitchell originated, these in situations originated with were made public in a document published democrats in this committee. The real purpose of the mueller dossier was to help democrats impeach the president and ask in absence of any evidence of collusion. Aerefore, the report includes long litany if a certain number of contact indicated conspiracy, even if no one discussed conspiracy. Excerpts from a voicemail from john dowd that the mueller team selectively edited to make it seem threatening and nefarious. No comment on the close relationship between democrat operatives and multiple russians who participated in the june nine, 2016 meeting at trump tower. In fact no mention or comment of fusion gps at all. No useful information on key on figures that played key roles in investigations such as or aten maltan diplomat australian diplomat. On the democratic paid operative, former spy, Christopher Steele. No useful information about the irregularities. Furthermore the mueller dossier ofes dozens of articles organizations responsible for perpetuating the russian hoax. Thus mueller produced a perfect feedback loop, intelligence leakers creating a false story for the media. The media publishes the story. Mueller cites the story and then story. The media and democrats fake outrage. Mueller relied on a mass to hack the election. It is false. The democrats spreading hoax claiming trump is a russian agent but it was later discovered the only people who colluded with russians were democrats who paid for the dossier which relied on russian sources. I would like to remind the democrats on this committee that this was created to do important oversight work of our intelligence agencies. This work is even more crucial now since the media has abandoned the traditional watchdog role. And instead has become a mouthpiece of a cabal of speakers. I understand the democrats inability to move past the hoax and get back to business. Nevertheless i suggest they give it a try. I welcome the speakers today and look forward to your testimony. I yield back. Thank you to our witnesses. To ensure that all members are able to ask questions due to competing business of other committees, todays witnesses will be afforded five minutes each which will basically enforced. Which will be strictly enforced. I want to thank our witnesses for joining us for this important open hearing. Stephanie douglas who serves as senior manager and director of guidebook solutions, adjusting highrisk investigations. And compliance matters. Prior to this position, she served for over 23 years at the fbi including as assistant, executive assistant director. Of the National Security branch. Robert anderson is the chief executive officer of Cyber Defense labs. Previously he was a principal at church half group. Mr. Anderson served for many years in the fbi rising to the executive assistant director of the criminal Cyber Response can Services Just response and services branch. I would also like to welcome the minoritys witness andrew , mccarthy. Currently a senior fellow at the National Review institute and contributing editor of the National Review. Ms. Douglas, we will start with you. Ms. Douglas good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to answer questions relative to volume one of the special counsels report regarding russian interference in the 2016 president ial election. As was established and communicated in early 2017, the russian government used a number of intelligence tools to impact the 2016 election. The special counsels report supports these conclusions and provides specific examples which illustrate the message of russian influence. I am happy to answer questions regarding this report but understand that i have no access or investigative details other than that that is provided in the special counsels report. I am proud to have been a special agent in the fbi for 24 years. Most of it focused on counterintelligence and National Security matters that while the fbi has been the subject of much discussion in the press and elsewhere, i support the work of the counterintelligence professionals who work with the special counsel to conduct this investigation. I hope that my presence here and our discussion will lead to further awareness, preparation for what is certain to be another high threat election in 2020. With that, i am happy to answer your questions. Thank you, mr. Anderson. Mr. Anderson thank you members of the committee. Thank you the opportunity to be here today to talk about counterintelligence and Cyber Threats to our nation. I hope my background and where i was responsible for all counterintelligence, espionage in sheddingassist some light on the daily threats our country faces. These threats were highlighted several times by the heads of the Intelligence Committee and also in the report on the investigation into the russian interference in the president ial election which is known now as the Mueller Report. In my current role as the ceo of , i see hundreds of Cyber Breaches every year. In my opinion, these attacks originate from a variety of criminal organizations. In my opinion, in the last three years, these attacks have become more sophisticated, probably more sophisticated and prevalent on a much larger scale than ever before. This is extremely important when we talk about Hostile Intelligence Services and their activities into 21st century. During my career, i worked for three directors. Louis freeh, robert mueller, james comey. The last position i held as a chair was the executive assistant director. Where i managed a number of divisions but i was in charge of highprofile criminal and cyber investigations. The threats to our country have changed remarkably since when i first entered into Law Enforcement in 1987 as a young delaware state trooper. During my career, i have been privileged to work alongside the men and women of the fbi and the United States Intelligence Community who have worked tirelessly to combat this to combat these hostile activities to our great country. As the committee knows, a number of attacks against networks have increased dramatically. I look forward to discussing these issues today and the committee and i stand ready for your questions. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Anderson. Mr. Mccarthy . Mr. Mccarthy thank you, mr. Chairman, Ranking Member nunez, members of the committee. I served as the federal prosecutor for nearly 20 years, almost all of it at the United States Attorneys Office in the Southern District of new york where i retired in 2003. As the chief assistant u. S. Attorney of the Southern District Satellite Office in white plains. Since leaving Government Service i have been a writer, a commentator, i am appearing in my personal capacity as a former Government Official who cares deeply about our National Security and the rule of law. For most of my first several years as a prosecutor, my work focused on international organized crime. After the World Trade Center was bombed on february 26, 1993, i spent much of the last decade of my tenure working on my National Security investigation. I am proud to lead the successful prosecution of Sheikh Rahman and others. I was privileged in that effort to work alongside a superb team of federal prosecutors and investigators assigned to the fbis joint Counterterrorism Task force. It was in connection with that investigation that i became intimately familiar with the fbis Counterintelligence Mission and the powerful tools the constitution and federal law make available for the execution of that mission while it escaped the attention of Many Americans to know the euro as the nations premier lawenforcement agency, the fbi are domestic security service. This is a purposeful arrangement on our governments part to have National Security and Law Enforcement housed in the same bureaucratic roof in the fbi and i believe it is a prudent one and that the fbi does it generally speaking in an exceptional fashion. I look forward to engaging with the committee. I would make a few general points about volume one of the report. It draws three principal conclusions, first put in regime first, the putin regime received advantage in the Trump Victory and conducted its operation accordingly. Secondly, there was evidence the Trump Campaign hoped to benefit from the publication of negative information about the opponent and third, there is no evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and the russian regime. The first of these findings were more in the nature of clinical of political assertions and prosecutorial findings. Insufficient evidence, a prosecutor has no business speculating on the motives in a politically provocative manner. Moreover, i do not believe the assertions is borne out by the evidence. The report shows that agents of putins regime expressed support for trumps candidacy. That is consistent with the motivation to incite division and dissent in the body politic of free western nations which is russias mo. Russias goal is to destabilize western governments which advantages the kremlin by making it more difficult for the governments to pursue their interests in the world. Putin tends to act the candidates he believes will lose. Putin is all about russias interests which is destabilization. It is a mistake to allow him to divide us by portraying him as on one side or the other side. He is against all of us. There was no reason to doubt that the Trump Campaign hoped to benefit from the publication of negative information about secretary clinton. That is what campaigns do. It is not an admirable aspect of our electoral politics that campaigns seek negative information euphemistically known as Opposition Research wherever they can find it. Candidates from this opposition thefto benefit from the of tax information. The Clinton Campaign to help from just took help from elements of the Ukrainian Government took help from elements of the Ukrainian Government. The First Amendment makes it difficult to regulate this sort of thing. Our guiding principle is that good information will always win out against false information we can debate how well that works. We shouldnt pretend that the Trump Campaign was the first or only one to play this game. Finally, i believe this had to have been obvious no later than the end of 2017. In september of 2017, carter fisa werent your time has expired but we will be happy to receive the complete written testimony. I will recognize myself for five minutes. Ms. Douglas, the investigation as james comey revealed when he testified before our committee the first time in open session about the trump investigation began as a counterintelligence probe. The Mueller Report denotes only one paragraph to that counterintelligence investigation. In it mr. Mueller says from its inception the office recognized this investigation could identify foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information relative to the fbis broader National Security mission. Fbi personnel who assisted the procedures to identify and convey such information. It then talks about counterintelligence fbi agents embedded within the mueller team. Sending findings back to headquarters. We have yet to see those findings. Can you tell us the nature of that counterintelligence investigation . Where those findings would go within the fbi . Whether counterintelligence investigations by criminal probes have a formal opening and formal closing . Since the counterintelligence investigation does not result in criminal charges, when does a probe come to an end and where do we need to go to find out answers . Ms. Douglas i do recall reading that paragraph and based on the paragraph, it sounds like there are intelligence components sitting within the mueller investigative team. It is recording of information that may fall out of the purview and scope of the Mueller Investigation. It could be Additional Information that they are developing in the course of the investigation. They need to be looked at independent of the Mueller Investigation. So it could be another contact , with the russian that they dont think falls within the scope of the Mueller Investigation that they will then task down through an intelligence apparatus to an appropriate place, either in a field office or headquarters to run down as a separate investigation. Counterintelligence investigations do have an opening and a closing. They are not unlike criminal investigations. You have to be able to articulate a predication for an investigation. You have to take it through a number of different steps to affirm the allegation in the first place. And then as you gather , information relative to that allegation, you may have an ability to increase the different tools used against it based on the amount of evidence and intelligence you are gathering under that case authority. It could be a preliminary investigation. I know you are familiar with some of that. Tools or itmited could be a full investigation which allows you a much broader set of investigative tools. There can be there are beginnings and ends of these investigations. I hope i explained the intelligence aspect pushing it back to other components that would take the lead and do further work on it outside of the scope of the Mueller Investigation. Thank you. Mr. Anderson, the Mueller Report focuses on two things, the russian hacking dumping operation and on the social media operation and whether the question the u. S. Conspired with either. It doesnt analyze whether financial motivations of the president s desire to build a trump tower in moscow or the Campaign Chairman desire to make money or the National Security advisers effort to make money from turkey or other motivations to secure financing for Trump Properties motivated policy towards russia during the campaign or thereafter. Would those be in the nature of counterintelligence concerns . What might concern the fbi . Mr. Anderson first of all, when it comes to russia and the fsb, number two, one, number three priorities are this country. They will exploit any avenue that they can when it comes to trying to get the end to whatever theyre try to get, whether it is intelligence or it is looking to extort somebody into action. It doesnt surprise me at all that the russian government launched sophisticated Cyber Operations against our country they are some of the best in the world. They will take that information and exploit it in any way they can. When it comes to the actual individuals that have been approached or talk to talked to in and around the Trump Campaign before he became president and even afterwards, it also does not surprise me that they are going after are looking to appear to meet with numerous individuals around and inside the campaign. That is an absolute classic tradecraft of russia. They will never have one point and russian Intelligence Services. Of failure. They are looking to try to obtain or pass information or influence information they to employment information, they will make sure they have numerous aspects or points where they can try to get that done. To answer your question about that, there arent situations where you would have concerns about that. You would either go out depending on what they saw and talk to the individuals that were being approached, or you may open up assessments or some type of investigation. It would be a counterintelligence matter. What is the concern when we have policymakers seeking to make money from that adversary at the same time making policy. That is pretty clear. In the business world, when it comes to National Security, there are specific rules regarding all this. With our clearances and also what we can and cannot do. As a government employee. Those rules the committee knows become more intense the higher you go within government. You always have to look, when youre looking at russia, there is a socalled president that was a former Lieutenant Colonel in the kgb. He absolutely understands how to proactive counterintelligence effort against our country. I think that is a threat that people should be very concerned. Mr. Nunez. Im concerned about anybody in the department of justice or fbi that think it is ok to open up a counterintelligence investigation into Political Campaigns. I think it i think that is the forefront of what we have been facing. Mr. Mccarthy, are you aware that there was ever a time a counterintelligence investigation opened up on any president ial campaign . I am not aware of a specific situation like that. We do have a history of government interference in Political Campaigns. In fact, the fisa law is a vestige of exactly this sort of thing that we are talking about in the 1960s and 1970s political spying and the notion we needed to give americans the modicum it was the creation of this committee to ensure the intelligence agencies stayed out of politics. That is why we provided oversight. We dont have to get into this too much but as you know the trump team never received a briefing. It seemed like at some point they would have gone to the Trump Campaign and explained it to them especially since they had two former u. S. Attorneys on the staff or the team and both governor christie and rudy giuliani. Midfed. Get to joseph he is at the center of the saga. He was someone who knew about emails and spoke to papadopoulos about emails. I only go to what mueller said in his report. He portrays him as having deep ties to russia the telling trip to moscow and contacts with russian officials. Mueller stopped short of calling a russian agent. James comey in the Washington Post calls him a russian agent. Im not sure what he knows that mueller does not know. However, my big concern about him is he was a malta diplomat. He worked closely with the Italian Government and described the press as a western intelligence assets. He worked at the london center. That is affiliated with many operations in the u. K. Has been a guest speaker at policy forumsgn all over the globe. Most concerning to me. Two things one, he was known to , he was going to train with fbi officials in italy. Also, he actually still spoke to the United States congress a few hundred feet away from the house Intelligence Committee. In 2017, this is after he knew all of this supposedly. Yet, he was invited by our own state department. Mr. Mccarthy, my question to you is, if he is what james comey said he is, we have compromises within the state department, the fbi and possibly the department of justice. Jim comey has a lot more information than i do. Ive been out of government for a very long time. I do note that the Mueller Report is very careful about the way he is described. They say that he has the that he has deep connections to russia. They dont say hes get the connections to the russian regime or to russian Intelligence Services. It was interesting that we learned in the Mueller Report that he was interviewed by the fbi and denied having told papadopoulos that they discussed a emails. The reason i found that interesting is if theres anything we learned from the Mueller Investigation is that mr. Mueller was quite good at bringing statements, prosecutions if he thought he could prove the witnesses who they were interviewing have given false information to the fbi. No such prosecution was ever so thatagainst him there was an interesting fact. In one of the footnotes they refer to a media story. Which i outlined in my opening statement. In that same media report, they used to justify where myths it where he worked they left out , the fact that in that same media story, he was described as a western intelligence asset. Why didnt that make it into the Mueller Report. You are asking the wrong guy. A little peculiar. My time is up. Thank you to the panel. The Mueller Report highlights the counterintelligence rift risk posed by the Financial Leverage that the russians may have had over individuals close to President Trump especially Paul Manafort. The report explains that have that manafort had connections to russians. Manafort stated in touch with these contacts through Konstantin Kilimnik. A long time manafort employed who previously ran his office in tf and who the fbi assesses to have ties to russian intelligence. We also know from reporting that manafort road gary pop this substantial amounts of money. Among other things, manafort instructed his deputy on the campaign and a longtime employee mnik to provide polling data. Ing manafort believed in sharing information it could resolve their disagreement. The Ranking Member possible the Ranking Members opening comments and mr. Mccarthy, with due respect, that is not what campaigns do. I am sharing internal polling data with a hostile foreign power is not what campaigns do. I would venture to say not a Single Member of the United States congress ever asked our Campaign Managers to share our internal polling data with a hostile foreign power. Mr. Anderson, let me start with you. How could the kremlin or its Intelligence Services try to exploit manaforts longstanding business and personal relationship with Konstantin Kilimnik who the fbi assesses to have ties with russian intelligence . What counterintelligence risks are posed by such a relationship to the president ial campaign . There is a lot. One they would exploit if they did have leverage on that individual, they would exploit every aspect of that. The one thing i would say about russian Intelligence Services, if you read a book from the 1940s, it was the same. They are inyourface. Not a very polite bunch of means that will use any lockede once they have onto an individual they deem necessary to get to whatever and end they are going after. They would also use that to look at individuals around those Financial Transactions. Not only going at individuals around the Financial Transactions and that for some reason that did not work against him, they would use other avenues. Thank you. Ms. Douglas, let me ask you a variant to the question. How could russias knowledge of manaforts illicit dealings for which he is now a tenant of the United States government would stem from his work with kremlin parties in ukraine be useful as compromising material as the russian government directed at the u. S. Public . How could the russians use what they knew about Paul Manafort to their advantage . I think they did it very effectively. They actually cast him. That is the initial test when you are can you elaborate on that . Can you elaborate . Provide polling data. Like you said, polling data isnt the keys to the kingdom, right . But it is a small step that illustrates his willingness to provide information to someone he knows he is beholding to, financially. Ongoing lawsuit, fees that are owed. He is willing to provide internal Campaign Information to a Foreign Government and to a person who is closely tied to the kremlin. That is a great illustration of how the russians work. Paul manafort was very forward leaning on volunteering all of his abilities, his experience, his connections, he made all that available. I thought that was very interesting that they are tasking him and building upon that. If he wouldve stayed with the campaign im sure they would have continued to task him. So i yield of time back the balance of my time. Mr. Khan light. Connelly. Former fbi director comey testified to this committee in open session that the fbis coordination with the Intelligence Committee has become clear that the u. S. Intelligence community has expended much time and resources to support the investigation into the Trump Campaign regarding the 2016 election. December 2016, president obama finally ordered a review of russian activities targeting the election. Why would the administration by not conduct a review earlier especially given the october the atement by regarding russian cyber activity . Why the timing . Sure. They did take some investigative steps. It is debatable whether they should have taken more. To hear them tell it, they would say they had to weigh the difference, the competing costs between what the reaction would have been if they had appeared to be putting their thumb on the scale in the middle of the campaign in an investigative way versus how do we stop russia from doing what russia was doing . I think you can argue whether they made the right value judgment. Is it appropriate for the Outgoing Administration to use the extensive resources of the cia and others to conduct that assessment but not give the incoming not consult with the Incoming Administration . To my mind the assessment is very peculiar in that having worked in the government for a the long time, ordinarily time of assessment that you are talking about would be something that would take well over a year to do it certainly many months to do, even under circumstances where the information was readily available to investigators who have things like grand jury power a note to grand jury power in order to conduct the investigation. Seems to me that in this instance there was a rush to get that out within a manner of days. Then roll it out while obama was still president. All three of you have extensive careers with the fbi. To telegraph the answer but it is troubling to see relationships within the hierarchy within the fbi and their attitude toward this Trump Administration and conflict of interest that that seems to have have been in place were worried about a commercial transaction openly that trump tower been in moscow in which are like that. Cut out identities. But yet folks at the top of the fbi disdainful of the president. Is that the standard or did they police yourselves better to show those conflict of interest along conflicts of interest among the folks leading the investigations. Sure. In any criminal or counterintelligence period, it should be neutral. You should be looking at a neutral playing field. They should be able to stay on its own so i think that is the way i work to and was involved. Worked it and was involved in cases my entire career. As far as all the stuff that has gone on, it is concerning about the different accusations that are taking place. I think that any of these investigations should have looked at specific facts and let the facts lead to where they go and it should not matter one iota if somebody is a republican or democrat or independent. What was your experience . Ms. Douglas very similar to bobs. We were talking earlier. We dont even know political preferences and we have been friends for two decades. Everybody comes into every position at a certain level how did it fail with respect to several of the top folks involved in the briefings of the campaign . How did that happen . They had clear preferences for trump getting beat, how did the system fail itself . I have no idea. I could tell you and we talked about it earlier, pete was my chief of staff. Never seen that side that was seen in those Text Messages and emails were unbelievably inappropriate. The corrective action taken from that was just it i cannot answer your question because i did not see it. Mr. Quigley . Thank you all for being here today. A story we know all so well beginning in the spring and gru hacked016, the John Podestas gmail, the dnc. They systematically released the hacked emails. They seem, the russians, to have appear to have maximized the effort to harm the Clinton Campaign and maximize the benefits of the Trump Campaign according to the report. We also know theres a lot of evidence the Trump Campaign about the wikileaks release about how to impact the campaign. The message was a part of the campaign. In fact donald trump junior communicated with wikileaks in october 2016 in an effort to use the hacked emails to the campaigns advantage. The report indicates that the president himself knew about the planned dump of emails. Seems like an obvious question. What might this set of facts suggest about the relationship between the campaign and wikileaks . What might you worry about if the u. S. Campaign had foreknowledge of the release . What risk is this what the what risk is this when a campaign uses this information against its political opponent . It troubles me if no one communicated this type of information just because of the facts laid out in the report. I think there needs to be a heightened sense of counterintelligence relationships as administrations move into the white house. In this administration, i didnt see a lot of people within that that even understood counterintelligence or new these threats were real. I think they should be a lot of that. The other point, when russia is releasing information through different cutouts, wikileaks and other platforms, this is not unusual. In a lot of ways, they are starting to sew the web broad and wide, it is hard for us as a group of intelligence organizations to start looking at who got that information, how did they get the information and why are they using it. That is done on purpose. It would not surprise me if theres a lot of other entities, russian Intelligence Services had teed up to displace more information that they never utilized. Going back to the original question, that is why it is so important. Individuals who are giving information or being tasked, that is the initial way you that vet anyyou that asset or person you are targeting for a possible or unwitting asset. Those actions can take anywhere from a few weeks to years depending on how that position goes after that person. Ms. Douglas . I would like to add, if you are a foreign power and you have a campaign or individuals who are willing to entertain receiving information that you are collecting for their benefit, i think that is a tacit approval of that action. That is where we have to be careful of allowing people to communicate to either a Foreign Government, a foreign actor about what they are doing which is illegal by hacking and collecting information and then releasing it. Giving that kind of approval by head knod or suggestion or any kind of inference that it is ok is a tacit approval of that kind of behavior. I think that puts us at greater risk. Mr. Mccarthy, have you read the report in its entirety . I have read all of volume one because i knew that we would be discussing it today. And most of volume two. I appreciate that. You are ahead of most. You read all the context that take place coming from the russian side. At any of those points, putting yourself in the place of those who received those contacts, would you have called the fbi . Would i have called the fbi . Yes. I call the fbi for things less serious than that. I imagine. Thank you. However else you feel about the report, you think someone should call the fbi . Yes. There is no question and my colleagues here have worked counterintelligence and they would tell you, we always want information. Any information that would be helpful to us in apprising the likely intentions tensions of potentially hostile powers are. Where it gets dicey, if you are going to use investigative techniques that require a particular quantum of intelligence, you have to make sure you satisfied that quantum of intelligence before you trigger that technique. That is where you go from the mere collection of information to doing something that is more active. Thank you. Mr. Turner . I yield my five minutes to congressman ratliff. Thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Mccarthy, in volume one, mueller details sweeping and systematic efforts. Those details are set forward in two separate indictments. One identifying 12 Russian Hackers associated with the gru. And another identifying 13 one russian individuals as a part of russias research agency. If that an accurate summary . Yes. Did the special counsel find that the sweeping efforts to influence our election begin before or after Donald Trumps entry into the 2016 president ial field . If im remembering correctly, he takes it back to 2014. Was it also determined that russias sweeping efforts to interfere in the 2016 election not only predated Donald Trumps entry into the campaign but also included some actions by the russian government that were decidedly antitrump in nature . I think towards the end, that in particular was true. Was it based on evidence gathered by a team of nearly 60 fbi agents and prosecutors to prosecutors over a twoyear to to make an evidence evidencedbased decision not to charge any american, much less anyone associated with the Trump Campaign with any complicity, with any collusion related crime in russias election interference . That is my understanding. And yet despite the special counsels finding that neither donald trump nor anyone in his campaign colluded, it is hard to argue that russia was not successful in their ultimate goal of undermining the outcome of our election and sowing the seeds of discord in the American Democratic process. We need to look no further than this very room to see evidence of russias success. Our country endured a two year investigation to see whether or not the president of the United States was part of a treasonous conspiracy with the foreign adversary to steal an american election. The same Democratic Party that started the investigation into that alleged conspiracy that the conclusively and unequivocally established never existed now convenes this hearing to talk about it some more. Lets talk about some of the reasons why the russians but it why the russians might have been so successful in sowing the seeds of discord into the American Publics mind. Let me ask you about factors that may or not have contributed to russias success. First, the Obama Administrations decision not to advise candidate from during a trump defensive briefing in august 2017 about suspicious russian interference into his campaign while simultaneously opening a probe of the Trump Campaign using foreign counterintelligence spying. Do you think that mightve been do using that might have been a factor that contributed to russias success . Russian success in sowing discord into the body politic . I think russia succeeded beyond its wildest dreams is that is what its intentions were. I dont think that that necessarily means that particular entreaties by russians to people who were connected to any campaign is something that is not alarming and should not raise peoples hackles. Let me ask you the Obama Administrations Intelligence Community assessment you referred to earlier which was used to tell the American Public that not only did russia interfere with the 2016 elections but did so because Vladimir Putin was trying to get donald trump elected, do you think that might have been a factor in russias success . The fact that that particular conclusion does not seem to be compelling given what the evidence is and giving what Vladimir Putins general approach to the United States and the west is. I do not think it helps to have people say Vladimir Putin was in froms camp when it appears, if we look at everything Vladimir Putin does everywhere, putin is in the camp of the people he thinks is going to lose because he thinks that is better for him. The Obama Administrations use of warrants based on the unverified steele dossier which the Obama Administration knew to be an encore operated Clinton Campaign Opposition Research document, do you think that was a factor that contributed to russias success. We do not know anything we need to know about the fisa applications, but i think they should have been more forthcoming with the court about the provenance of the dossier. The time has expired. I appreciate the chairmans indulgence. We may have time for one last question. Obviously five minutes have expired and ive run out of time to stop listing all the other things the Obama Administration did or did not do to cause or contribute the success of russia in undermining the 2016 election. Since the purpose of this hearing is to learn lessons from the robert Mueller Report, you think it is fair a lot of the questions is committed to be asking to prevent russias success in undermining future elections ought to be focused on the administration of president obama rather than President Trump . It would be a very good thing for the country if we had a common understanding that Vladimir Putin has it in for us whether this country is being run by republicans or democrats and that what his objective is is to destabilize United States so that we cannot pursue and protect our interests in the world, which is good for russia. I appreciate the chairmans indulgence. I thank you and i yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I had my expression of gratitude to all of the panelists. By now we know the robert Mueller Report included numerous examples of russian interference in the 2016 president ial election and we know the special counsel closed his remarks by suggesting every american should be concerned about this. I know we all are. Instead of addressing what fbi director ray described as an ongoing threat, we have a president who has attacked the special counsels investigation, attacked the fbi, generally tried to undermine the work process of the robert Mueller Investigation, and the president has called russias attacks on our democracy a hoax, and he has literally cited Vladimir Putin over our own intelligence agencies. Considering the past is often prolonged, we are all greatly concerned that similar interference will occur in the future. For my question, which i want to start with mr. Anderson, i had the great privilege to serve as chief of staff to a governor in washington state. One budget cycle we do not have the money to propose as high as Salary Increase for Public Employees as they sought. That difference of opinion became contentious. The governor accepted an invitation to go to work Capitol Rotunda to address the Public Employees. When he went out, there were thousands there and they lined the walls in several levels. It was difficult for him to give his remarks because they were expressing their frustration. Walking back to our office, i turned the governor and asked, i do not understand why you did not more affirmatively defend your point of view. He turned to me and he said that is our workforce. If we are going to accomplish anything, it is going to be with that workforce. Those are our people. We are only able to do what we can do through them. My question, mr. Anderson, as a former senior official at the fbi, despite the public statements of stiff upper lip, we are professionals, we go to work every day, is the bureau and our workforce, those dedicated professionals, completely immune to these attacks by the president of the United States . I know you are not there now, but if you were there, i would be curious as to what your reaction would have been to that and what you think might have been the reaction by the workforce. Do you think they would be concerned about their job or their work in light of unwarranted attacks . Mr. Anderson i have never seen anything like this in my 30 years of Law Enforcement. I think the fbi, for over 100 years has been through ups and downs. I think it has taken a toll. The men and women of the United States Intelligence Community will go to work and give 110 every day. One thing i will tell you, when it comes to russia and many other nationstates. They did not start on this in 2014. They do not go away. I can guarantee you they are still here looking at the next president ial election and figuring out how they can attack it through any other way they can. I think that does taken effect. Thinking more prospectively, because our primary concern is what we can do to avoid this kind of interference in the future, do you believe there would be a net gain or a benefit if we created an affirmative duty to report any time there is this kind of contact with foreign representatives . It would have to be very wellcrafted, given that people come in contact all of the time with Foreign Nationals. I mean official representatives of a president ial campaign . Ms. Douglas i think you would have to be very careful on how you would do that. There is so much interaction in the global world, even here in d. C. So many opportunities to meet people. For the most part they are not malicious, they are not intelligence officers, it is something to consider but it would have to be very wellcrafted that would be appropriate and would be something you can actually do and be able to hold people accountable. My time has expired. We still beg the question as to what your recommendations would be to avoid this kind of interference going forward. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman, thank you all for being here. As a veteran i have tried to put my country first. Through all of this we are talking about, one of the things i most disturbed about is that an American Political Party would hire a Foreign Agent who works with agents of a foreign power to create a fake document to attempt to destroy the american political opponent. Yet many in authority seemingly completely choose to ignore that. That is not part of the conversation. In 2018, the Committee Majority found no evidence of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump Campaign manager and government. We did address russian interference and what people do to try to disseminate that. Two years ago on this committee, things changed. We were very nonpartisan. The division on this committee group. I sat here and i said to the entire committee what is going on is exactly what Vladimir Putin wants. We are giving him everything he has worked for. As you said, beyond his wildest dreams. We have. Here we are. With a team of 19 lawyers, 40 fbi agents, intelligence analysts, forensic accountants and other professional staff, executed nearly 500 search warrant, and made requests of Foreign Governments, concluded that the investigation cannot establish members of the Trump Campaign conspired to ordinate with the russian government in its election interference activity. Do you believe the special counsels office was properly resourced to conduct this investigation . They had more than the resources they needed. And appropriate access to investigative tools. I can only answer these questions as a person analyzing it from the outside. You have experience in this arena. I have no reason to think they do not have everything they needed in terms of access to resources. I would suggest they had more access and tools that any congressional committee. That is on you. I believe that to be the case. With all of these resources, i find it hard to believe the special counsels office, if they had all of these tools, that they likely would have found more than circumstantial evidence of collusion if it had existed in plain sight. Let me ask you this. How are confidential human sources and counterintelligence investigations vetted . The fbi it can vary from person to person. The human dynamic in my experience of dealing with informants never goes away. There are peculiarities and a sanctuary cities you have to deal with. It is often very difficult for the agent. The agent has to take the brunt of some of the more crazy stuff so the prosecutors can focus on the case. Are they vetted once, over and over again, every time . They are vetted regularly, they are tested. There are ways you can test your asset to make sure they are providing credible information. They go through a vetting system on a regular basis. Their files are reviewed at a supervisory levels. They can be audited by headquarters. My time is short but i appreciate your answer. If the fbi were to run a controversial human source into a Political Campaign and against individuals associated with the campaign, with the fbi notified someone associated with the campaign to let them know that would happening, and if not, why not . Mr. Anderson if you are investigating the campaign, you would not notify the campaign. It is not the candidate but someone in the campaign, you have no evidence the candidate is doing this, would you want to let the candidate no the nominee for president of the United States for someone in their campaign may be doing this . I think this goes to what some of the members of the committee mentioned, which is the idea of whether you do a defensive reefing or not. If what you think is you have people in the orbit of the campaign who are problematic, that might be something you give the campaign a heads up in a defensive briefing. If you have decided everything in the steele dossier is true and the candidate is the problem, i do not see why you would notify the campaign because the candidate is the one person the campaign will not get rid of. If someone in my campaign was doing something nefarious, engaging in a hostile foreign entity, i hope i would inform them. My line of questioning has to do with the 14 pages in the robert Mueller Report that deals with papadopouloss meeting. According to the robert Mueller Report, in late april, 2016, papadopoulos was told by a london professor immediately after his return from a trip to moscow that the russian government had obtained dirt on candidate clinton in the form of thousands of emails. One week later, papadopoulos and for that the trump through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging to candidate clinton. Mr. Anderson, it appears to me that Sensitive Information was communicated to George Papadopoulos, who by march 2016 had been publicly named as the Foreign Policy advisor to candidate trump. I would argue he was so engaged with papadopoulos can you give your thoughts about that meeting and what red flags that would raise and how a foreign power would seek to leverage a relationship like that to its own intelligence gathering or policy objectives . Mr. Anderson one of the things people need to realize is that when foreign powers are going at individuals, it is not like you see on tv. A lot of times the people coming yet people, they intentionally, i do not know he was a source of the russian government or not, but they will utilize individuals in academia, they will utilize people in certain social sections, they will utilize people outside of threatening environments where you are meeting with an official of the russian government. For people like me who have worked this for a very long time and seen thousands of these cases, that does raise the level of suspicion. The one thing that troubles me even more is that once the testing starts. As stephanie said, i cannot tell you when it comes to validating, potentially recruiting, or seeing this is someone you should spot and assess for later recruitment, this is a big deal. They will watch to see what the information is given and given back to the eventual. From an academic side, i can tell you the Russian Intelligence Service uses this a lot and they use it in different circles. Ms. Douglas, papadopoulos was told that russia had Clinton Emails and of russias desire to release them anonymously well before that became public. Why might a foreign adversary like russia want to provide Sensitive Information to someone like papadopoulos, a president ial campaign staffer, and what might they seek to gain from having that . Ms. Douglas one of the things i thought was interesting is that papadopoulos said he was of no interest until he told him he was involved in the campaign and all of the sudden reengagement after he returned from moscow. He is one of the areas where they are looking for opportunities and they are looking to establish relationships that maybe are not overly successful on that first once or twice, but they want to establish a relationship for the future. George papadopoulos was a heavy player in the campaign. He was early on with his assignment at the campaign or they started having conversations. The russians know that he is early on with the campaign. He could potentially be with the administration in the future and we want to get in good with him now. Papadopoulos was introduced to members of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He used his relationship with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to push for a secret meeting between donald trump and Vladimir Putin. What sort of countervailing counter Intelligent Risk might a secret meeting between candidate trump and Vladimir Putin generate . Ms. Douglas obviously, in a free election trying to set up a meeting between a candidate and a leader of our most significant adversary, outside normal channels, and papadopoulos putting himself in that position where he can arrange it puts the campaign and even greater jeopardy. Thank you. Ms. Douglas, i appreciate what you said. You said something exactly right. I love the fact that you and mr. Anderson worked sidebyside with each other and were not aware of each others political views. That is how it should be. When i listen to mr. Comey, director of the fbi, the director of the cia, the director of national intelligence, they sound like political hacks. I wonder how can someone so political and so partisan be selected to such a position of leadership. You set a much better example. Im glad we have this hearing. It gives us the chance to tell the American People the truth. It demonstrates that much of what people have heard is not true. To emphasize that the robert Mueller Report clearly found, the special counsel to not find the Trump Campaign or anyone associated with it conspired with the russian government despite multiple efforts of the russian officials to assist the Trump Campaign. I want to share something i feel strongly about. I think the American People feel strongly. It is unfair to make accusations about people without evidence. To destroy lives and the presumption of innocence, to destroy peoples professional lives, to destroy people financially, to destroy them in the media. The American People know this is not fair and the robert Mueller Report gives us a chance to emphasize that. I would like to dive into one of the more troubling aspects of this episode, and that is the pfizer application. Fisa application is an intrusive tool. It essentially allows you to spy on u. S. Citizens. Yet knowing the fisa application was based on the steele dossier should the fbi have taken steps to verify the contents of the steele dossier . I believe they should have. Steele was in the position of not of a source of information but an accumulator. In this equation he is much more like a case agent than a source. Generally speaking, for prosecutors in court and anyone situation, the Source Information are the people who see and hear and make the observation the court is being asked to rely on for purposes of probable cause. It does not matter if your case agent is credible. It is the Source Information. The fbi should verify information before presenting it to the fisa court. To any court. There is no defender of the person presenting information. Im sure the three of you are familiar with the steele dossier. Ms. Douglas i have never read it. Mr. Anderson i have not. Mr. Mccarthy i have read. I would challenge any of you to find anything in the steele dossier we now know is true . There are a number of assertions made which are true but if not great importance. For example, we know carter page did go to moscow in july. What he did there is the subject of a great deal of backandforth. Whether he went there or not, which the steele dossier asserts, is not that is not an accusation, because that is not a crime. When youre doing with counterintelligence, none of it is necessarily a crime. My point being is that this thing which was almost entirely the basis for the fisa application, almost all of the act almost all of the allegations are not true. To your knowledge, has the fbi ever used political Opposition Research funded by u. S. Political campaign and including information from Foreign Agents in a counterintelligence investigation . Mr. Anderson, are you aware of that ever happened before . Mr. Anderson im not aware of anything. It does not mean it has a potentially happen. Im not aware. Ms. Douglas im not familiar with any prior use. Mr. Mccarthy i have taken information from the worst people on the planet. I have taken information from terrorists, from murderers, from swindlers. When you do this kind of work, the people you get information from tend not to be the question is what you do with the information. The more suspect the source of the information is, the higher your obligation is to verify it before you use it in a way that is going to intrude. Thank you. My time has expired. Mr. Castro . Mr. Castro i want to ask you about Michael Flynn and his actions with respect to the Russian Ambassador and his attempt to undermine the Obama Administration sanctions put into place in december 2016. Michael flynn used secret back channel discussions with the Russian Ambassador to undermine the Obama Administrations Foreign Policy. My question is what counterintelligence concern arise from this back channel coordination between incoming president ial organization and a foreign adversary. Why with the fbi be concerned with a incoming National Security advisor conducting Foreign Policy before a new president has taken office and also without informing the state department . One of the things, when it comes to back Channel Communication on political or National Security issues, one of the things russia and other significant nationstates and intelligence organizations tried to have that created. They try to get the current administration, whether it is one in now or whatever, having their public face confused with what the state department is saying or people who are saying stuff for a back channel. This is the exact same thing going on with the case i was the export for with the department of justice. They will do it at different levels. Regardless if it is National Security, regardless if it is the president , once the person moves into office is not unusual for them to be talking to multiple ambassadors. The key is that russia wants to get any administration off balance. What the real political views are and potential back channels. Ms. Douglas i would agree it was immediately the existing administration was immediately put in a conflicted position and they do not know it by a back channel in advance of inauguration. It jeopardized how the u. S. Was viewed by the russians and it probably assured the russians they would get a more favored treatment by the Incoming Administration. Even Michael Flynn says that. When he says i do not putting any of this in an email, and it looked like were undermining the current administration, and that is what he was doing. The robert Mueller Report explains flynn had a preexisting relationship with russia. He went to an event from rt and sat next to Vladimir Putin. He also met with the ambassador on several occasions during the transition. My question is what you make of this relationship, and given Michael Flynns role as the head of the Defense Intelligence agency and the incoming National Security advisor and how might russia exploit this relationship to affect United States policy . I will just for my own personal experience. Obviously, having known and worked with Michael Flynn, it was a surprising position for him to take. Obviously, he had very highlevel access to information. And then, seeing that other close business and personal relationship was concerning. Anyone else . I would just say, going back, and this all goes back to the clearance process and having sustainable clearances above the secret level with very welldefined reporting requirements. I mean i would report yearly , just to maintain your topsecret clearances. Director of counterintelligence traveling around the world, engaging with foreign intelligence agencies hundreds of contacts of eitheriduals that would talk to me, stop by, have a conversation. And i think part of this is when it gets into the aspect of when individuals are not reporting that, the second they start having clandestine im or clandestine or secret meetings, it puts them in a very vulnerable position. Leaves them open to blackmail and it is definitely a vulnerable position because there is no one in the room with you to say this is exactly how the conversation went. These are all tricks of the trade when it comes to hostile adversaries and Intelligence Services. Thank you, chairman. I yield back. Mr. Crawford . Thank you, mr. Chairman. The witnesses for being here today. In 2017, former cia director brennan stated in an open hearing in this committee that russian active measures to impact the u. S. Had been going on for decades. In 2012, thenpresident ial candidate mitt romney said he believed russia posed the greatest threat United States, to which president obama replied, the 1980s called and they want their Foreign Policy back. In 2014, thenchairman, now nunez warnedember all this acknowledgment of russia and their intentions and no response from the Obama Administration. There are a lot of conspiracy theories swirling around about russia pollution. Lets add this one. Russian collusion. Lets add this one. Is it possible that a group of politically motivated individuals at the highest echelons of National Security decided to turn a blind eye to this, feeling it would enhance their candidates chances of winning . I do not expect you to answer that, i expect you could consider it. And with that, i will yield to mr. Radcliffe the battle of my time. The thank jen i thank gentleman for yielding. I would like to follow up on mr. Stuarts line of questioning on the fisa process and the steele dossiers role. According to a sworn testimony given by a former doj associate Deputy Attorney general, he said under of he had advised andy mccabe, Deputy Director of the fbi, and lisa page in early august that Christopher Steele was motivated and desperate to stop trump presidency. A trump presidency. Separately, documents made public indicate a state Department Employee advised the fbi that about concerns over Christopher Steeles credibility based in part on his assertion that this welldeveloped conspiracy with russia was being run out of the russian consulate in miami, where russia does not have a consulate. I want to ask you to tell me what you think about that information and how that information about Christopher Steele should have impacted how this deal and whether this steele dossier should have been presented to the fisa court. And you mentioned it, but i think it is worth mentioning again to also address as part of that whether or not it was appropriate to represent Christopher Steele as a source of information in that application. My overarching problem is that i think it was objectionable to take somebody in the position of a case agent and refer to him and treat him as if he were a source when he did not make the observation that the court was being asked to rely on for purposes of probable cause. If you want to take the position that i am wrong about that, then i think the second thing that has to be said is that the more remote that somebody is from the observations youre asking the court to rely on, the more you have to do in the way of being transparent as far as what that persons biases are, potentially. It is one thing to say somebody who sees something criminal happen brings a lot of baggage to the table. They either saw what they saw or they did not, and the circumstances rounding that can tell you more than their bias. If youre talking about someone who is remote from that, and here we are talking about someone four or five hearsay steps away, i think you have a higher obligation to be straight with the court about what that persons baggage is in terms of bias, motivation, economic motivation, whatever. A rule of thumb, and i think any good federal judge would tell you this, if you need to write a footnote that takes a page and a half in order to avoid running the sentence, and he is connected to the Clinton Campaign, then you should probably disclose he is connected to the Clinton Campaign. Anything about what mr. Mccarthy just related you would disagree with or clarify . Ms. Douglas i will add that on the counterintelligence and counterterrorism side, we take information from sources that are not right there. It has been critically important in a lot of cases, especially in the counterterrorism world, where you have a person who is receiving information or hears of information that you make every effort to validate and cooperate, and is that source trusted . Has that source provided reliable information in the past . Im not defending the steele dossier, i do not think that comes up in the robert Mueller Report, actually, but i would say the fbi did have reliable reporting from steele in the past, and maybe that gave them some assurance. It is important for everyone to know the steele dossier was not stapled to a cover sheet for the fisa application. The fisa application has more information than just the steele dossier. I do think that that is important to know. Mr. Anderson the court needs complete transparency in any fisa degree. The last thing i would say that after fisa title iii is running, if you find out something about the information you supply to the court after it is running and it is inaccurate, it is incumbent upon us to go back to the court and explain that to the court. Thank you. I appreciate the gentleman yielding, and i yield back. Mr. Maloney . Thank the witnesses for being here. Just to return to Paul Manafort and the issue of sharing internal polling data, consider the following. From the Mueller Report because , of questions of the polling data after it was sent, the office cannot assess what he or others did with it. Manafort also briefed him on the Trump Campaign manager for its plan to win, including a discussion of battleground states. What are the counterintelligence concerns about that that the chairman of the president ial campaign would be providing that kind of information . Ms. Douglas Paul Manafort is trying to sell himself. He clearly talks about his time on the campaign being good for his business. His plan was to monetize his expertise after the campaign. Excuse me. Ms. Douglas i think he is providing polling data, he is doing everything he can to put his name out there with all of with oligarchs, which are part of the intelligence apparatus with the russian government. This is the senior person on the Trump Campaign. Im intrigued by your point. Isnt that the magic moment. Youve done all this work and been cultivating people and you tiptoe up to them and use all of these on offensive context to get near them and you give them something to do that is wrong, and they know it is wrong, and they do it. Is that when you have got them . Ms. Douglas yes, of course, and it just continues to increase. That is why i said, the Trump Administration is lucky to have Paul Manafort out of there. He was not going to stop at polling data. It was a test. If they do that, they do the next thing. It is fair to say, had he stayed on as chairman, they wouldve kept asking him. Right . Ms. Douglas i would definitely assumed that. And that is how you get in deeper and deeper and deeper. It would not just be him. There would be others they are attempting and endeavoring to do this with . Ms. Douglas it was very apparent the russians were in communication with a number of trump associates. And trying to establish these relationships. You know. Who knows how far they would have gotten with certain people, but Paul Manafort made himself available, he thought it was good for himself financially, he thought it could get him out of hoc financially with some of the debts already owed as far as lawsuit and he continued to advertise his availability. Is it fair to say that is the counterintelligence nightmare . Mr. Anderson it might not be a nightmare that is something to be extremely concerned about. As we just discussed, that will continue until you say no. That is when the extortion starts. We talked about that several times in this committee. Bob is your best friend until you do not give me what im asking for. Im struck by your answer to mr. Quigleys question that you would hope someone in the position of the Trump Campaign manager would talk to the fbi. One of the reasons you said you wanted that is the fbi always wants more information. Isnt it also the case that the reason that person comes to the fbi is to knock you late themselves against the charge innoculate themselves against the charge their playing footsie with the foreign Intelligence Service . Isnt that right . In fact, sir if they did that, you would not need a counterintelligence investigation because youve be you would be working in partnership with the americans in concert with around government against the foreign interference. Isnt that fair . Mr. Anderson yes, although, on the government side of it, you also have to be very careful theyre not playing both sides. You can get played that way. And that happens more often probably in this case it was true. What youre saying is true. I have read the report. We are skipping a step. I do not think there is evidence that is a russian asset. There is a lot of reason to be concerned. What about the trump tower meeting . The trump tower meeting, any of the context we know are part of this effort by the russian government. My point is if the Trump Campaign at the phone and call the fbi and said were worried about this, it would have gone a long way toward inoculating them to the concern theyre working in concert with the foreign intelligence office. I cannot agree more, and anyone who thinks theyve been approached by a russian asset should notify the fbi. Yield as muche to time as he may consume to Ranking Member nunez. I want to take time to clarify a few things. It is a crime for any american to appear on rt and take money from rt . I am not aware that it is. Now, i am a little confused. I do not want to put words in any of the witness mouths, but ths, but wes mou have numerous foreign Government Officials and current Government Officials that appear on rt all the time and take money. Im alarmed that people would make some type of reference that the former head of the dia who goes to the dia to tell them im going to meet with Vladimir Putin and get paid to go on rt, goes there, does it, then reports back. I do not know other former Government Officials are doing that same thing when they take large sums of money. But to hear people, whether it is i do not want to put words in any of your mouths, but i thought that that is what i heard that was not ok for the , former head of dia to give a speech, like all former politicians and president s do. Did i hear that . Is it ok for general flynn to go to rt or not . I think people do it all the time in private sector and give speeches. As long as that is what it is, it is fine. I mean, i know that general hidden, a friend of mine a , friend of this committee, i do not know he was paid by rt, but he did many appearances on rt. The other thing that is alarming to me is this talk that general flynn, by talking to the Russian Ambassador when he is the incoming National Security advisor, would be somehow targeted by the fbi or any counterintelligence capability in this country when he is talking to the Russian Ambassador, even if he does not agree with the Obama Administration on sanctions, because if that is the case, john kerry should be under a fullblown criminal investigation for violating the logan act. Should john kerry be under investigation right now for violating the logan act . Mr. Anderson i have no idea what john kerry is doing. It has been widely reported that john kerry has had numerous meetings with the Iranian Regime during the Trump Administration. Mr. Anderson i would have to see a lot more about that. As far as going back to your original question, as far as the incoming National Security advisor talking to the Russian Ambassador on its own, that is not something that is going to raise the counterintelligence flag. You have to look at the totality of what is going on. I do not understand anything else out of this report that went on with mike flynn that would trigger any type of National Security fight. Ms. Douglas while it may not trigger an investigation, i think you have to be mindful of how that looks to the russian government. It may not trigger an investigation. It is preposterous for me to think that a threestar general, the architect of killing al qaeda terrorists, is somehow connected to the russian government. For him talking to the Russian Ambassador, that is what we expect. I also do not think, as much as i disagree with john kerry, the former secretary of state, i do not think he should be investigated for violating the logan act. However, someone on the side of the aisle continues to bash general flynn for talking to the Russian Ambassador, at the same time they say nothing about john secretary kerry meeting with the iranians. Ms. Douglas i do not think it was just talking to the Russian Ambassador. I think that is what the difference is here. General flynn reached out in an official position prior to the inauguration of the Trump Administration and decided to do Foreign Policy work in the midst of another administration. That is no different than what john kerry is doing. You would like to investigate john kerry. Ms. Douglas im not saying anybody gets investigated. But i am saying is a counterintelligence concern. It is like we are saying that no criminal charge has been filed relative to Robert Muellers findings. It still does not mean theres not a National Security threat. I do not think i would be putting john under counterintelligence investigation anytime soon. One more question on tasking. You mentioned Paul Manafort was tasked to deliver polling information. Im troubled as to what the difference is between someone asking for polling information versus a Political Campaign hiring a former british spy to go out and meet with what we now know to be, supposedly, reportedly, meeting with highranking former officials in the russian government to get dirt on trump. That is a campaign paying for it. How is that any different . I would say the other is worse. We may not like how Political Campaigns are run but i do not think that is illegal. Any response . I think it is disturbing that the Clinton Campaign used steele. It is disturbing that the russians reached out to the Trump Campaign. Theres a lot of talk about what a terrible guy he is. Steele worked for him. We are in a situation where for 30 years, since the fall of the soviet union, this government, bipartisan, has taken the position that russia is a country we can work with. The Bush Administration used to call them a Strategic Partner in connection with certain things. The Obama Administration wanted to reset relations. Trump wanted to change the panacea of having better relations. If youre going to have that approach, youre going to have to have a lot of people having contact with russians. We have a lot of people having contacts with russians and a lot of it is inappropriate. I yield back. Mr. Welch . Thank you very much. I thank the witnesses. The robert Mueller Report describes efforts by the kremlin to establish a back channel. You spoke about how they are always looking for many points of contact so they do not have a single point of failure. For example, in january 2017, mr. Demetriev, the head of russias Sovereign Wealth Fund later relayed what demetriev told him to Stephen Bannon and begin communicating with a friend of Jared Kushner. Over the next few months, demetriev worked on a plan of reconciliation between russia and the United States which was funneled to Jared Kushner. The Mueller Report suggests this memo, which was drafted by the russian government and was told was approved by Vladimir Putin, may have influenced trumps first phone call as president. Can you explain this concept more of back channel and what sorts of counterintelligence risk can arise from such back channels . The reason i ask is because we are having a backandforth about the political motivations. Campaigns tend to push the limits. What appears to be unique about this is that russians have information which becomes a tool for them to advance their policy interest as opposed to ours. Mr. Anderson . Mr. Anderson you are absolutely right. It is for them to be put in a position to advance whatever theyre looking to gain from the United States. It is also there to cause confusion and discord. As different opposing policies are back channel started look through the different channels, it causes discord within those organizations, eventually whoevers trying to get the official policy through, whether it is the state department or the white house. The one thing you will see, and i have seen it in this report is with russia, going back to the point of looking at different channels to try to make those things happen, you start putting people against each other inside the same office. They do not understand that what is the official channel versus what we are hearing from the back channels. When you say within an office, you mean the fbi or the cia . Mr. Anderson bigger. The office of the president , the state department, other areas within our country. They will do it, not necessarily right around the individuals making the policies, but also outside of that. The last point i will make is one thing i think we need to do is look larger when it comes to russia attacking our political infrastructure than what were looking at right here. I can guarantee you a reference to one trial. That is identical to what we are talking about. Ms. Douglas, thank you. The focus for me is not campaigns pushing the limits, but candidates becoming compromised by some of the actions. Having a business with multimillion dollar potential profit creates an incentive to detect that. Do you want to comment . Ms. Douglas i think the report lays out how well Vladimir Putin puts to work these russian billionaires with outreach and connections to a number of associates and friends of family and friends of friends. That is a good example. The reconciliation plan is a strategy document by dimitriev, who is closely aligned with Vladimir Putin. Putting those people together to work on this plan, which they then present to be used for this cause. Let me follow up. It is my understanding that it was policy during the Obama Administration to oppose the expansion into the ukraine at an ongoing debate that started in this administration about whether to provide significant for the ukraine fighting the russians, so the two seem to be in conflict. Ms. Douglas having that kind of external input into a very early stage administrative strategy appears to be very unusual. I yield back. Mr. Carson . Mr. Carson when the 2016 meeting at trump tower was proposed to donald trump jr. , he was told it was all to provide the Trump Campaign manager official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary Clinton and her dealings with russia as part of the russian Government Support from mr. Trump. His response is if it is what you said, i love it. He accepted information from a foreign power what intelligence risks does this pose and what would russias intelligence be offering such damaging information on a political opponent and what similar techniques were used and might be effective . Mr. Anderson so, first, as we said before, i think its the ability to get access to the administration. Thats where it starts, right . Youre talking to people that are around the president or potential president of the United States. From that point on, you have a voice inside that you can filter information to. The second point is i think russia looked at this way in advance on how to potentially target these different Incoming Administrations. In the current president s administration, the people that were around him were not savvy at all, in my opinion, to counterintelligence threat to National Security issues. They are coming from the private sector and corporations and i think they took that. In a lot of these senses, i do not think the russians in any way needed to recruit anybody. They needed to be able to get in front of somebody and supply information so that information would be conveyed to the president. Mr. Mccarthy i would just add i think, by taking the meeting and , i dont think you need a lot of training for this by taking , the meeting, you made yourself beholden to putin in terms of however he wants to characterize it down the road so that even if nothing inappropriate happens at the meeting, you have that vulnerability as well. Mrs. Douglas it tells a great story how the russians work. It shows the prior relationship that the trumps had, basically, worked with another prior relationship to reach out directly to donald trump jr. And dangle this potential piece of information. Now, the meeting resulted in nothing, but the fact they used connections that they knew that trump had in moscow through business dealings to basically weave their way to get in front of very, very senior level people in the campaign, manafort, trump jr. , and jerry kushner, kind of shows how they work. They use personal relationships, business relationships, and then they try to piece it together. And like bob said, i think the one thing thats illustrated is the fact they were able to access such a high level. Thank you. One of the topics of the discussion at the june 9 meeting were the u. S. Sanctions imposed under the magnitsky act. How might russia have leveraged Trump Campaigns acceptance of help to attack Hillary Clinton as an opening to and influence trump and his associates in order to affect u. S. Policy regarding sanctions . That is morert of of the same. I think the biggest is access. The biggest part of these situations, the acceleration of access to someone as high as these people were, as stephanie just said, does not happen as quickly. A lot of what you are seeing here is, as i said before, i think will are not looking at it as a counterintelligence threat, a National Security threat. The reason i am saying this is because i think that accelerates the process. How this usually works, it takes months to years to get access to individuals who will eventually get into a level where someone can relay information. I think one of the biggest things about this is the acceleration of this process because they were able to get so high so quick. I yield back. Miss radcliff mr. Radcliff . Mr. Anderson, i both appreciated and agreed with your comments during my last round of questioning about the need to update and correct the ongoing fisa applications. I want to ask you about the obligations as it relates to exculpatory information. As you know, in the criminal case we have what is called the brady rule, where the government has an obligation upon request to provide any exculpatory information to a defendant that the government may have. Obviously in counterintelligence, it is a different proceeding. But we know in this case, the underlyingerted the predicate for this counterintelligence investigation was George Papadopoulos and the conversation he had allegedly with an australian diplomat. If the fbi had exculpatory information or contradictory information, information that contradicted that underlying predicate, would you agree with me that the fbi had an obligation not to withhold that and provide that to the pfizer to the fisa court . Mr. Anderson i think the fbi vetted the information as best as they could. I think there should have been a conversation about that information. What if there was no discussion with the doj about that information . Would that have been improper . Mr. Anderson i dont know if it would have been improper, but i dont think that would have been the true transparency that though types that those types of hearings need. This is a significant power when you are looking at fisa for title iii authority. What is your take on that . Then our world, i am in same world you were in, which is criminal investigations. There is some laxity involved how much you disclose with exculpatory information, for example in the grand jury. But i think the big difference the criminal process has a way of keeping people honest that unfortunately that counterintelligence process doesnt. Even though when you get to ge go to get a search warrant from a judge in a regular to see inase, you get that they are sealed and there is no one representing the defendants. But everyone assumes in the equation that there will be a prosecution in which case everything will be revealed, the defense is going to get complete discovery of what you represented to the court, and they will be able to go to work on it. In the pfizer process in the fisa process, the only due process and american suspected of being an agent of a foreign power ever gets is if the fbi complies with its rules and procedures, and the fisa court holds them to it in that setting. I should not confine it to that the fbi, to the Justice Department as well. My mind, and to i think this is reflective of what most people think and what fisa judges seem to think, there is a higher obligation to be thatparent knowing that process you get in the criminal thicket where everybody is going to get discovery of what you did in the court is not going to is not going to happen. You have had a number of questions about the need or the desire or whether or not it was appropriate to advise donald trump about russian efforts to interfere in this campaign. We know that the defensive briefing took place and was conducted by the fbi on august 17 of 2016. Mrs. Douglas if i may, i have heard mr. Mccarthy if i may, i have heard that before. They were going over to get a briefing that candidates get. Targetedt the defensive briefing they were talking about in this ynchittees report that l and kobe call me and mccabe were talking about. Time candidate trump may not have received a briefing about russian interference efforts would be if they had already determined that the steele dossier was true or that he was a subject of a criminal investigation. But we know that was not the case because we know that the fbi director told the president , President Trump, well into 2017 that he was not the subject of a criminal investigation, that he was not under investigation. So what reason would the fbi had had in 2016, what legitimate reason would they have had in 2016 to not advise candidate trump or president elect trump about russian interference threats . Mr. Mccarthy i dont think they had a good reason. I think it would have been preferable if they had done the defensive briefing. I am familiar with former director comeys testimony about this, and i would point out that he pointed out in testimony to this committee that not everybody on his Advisory Team agreed with his idea of telling the president or the president because in a technical sense his name was not in any file. Him,oint that was made to which he ultimately rejected as i understand it, was the way the investigation was structured, they were looking at the campaign and they were taking evidence about the campaign. Since it was trumps campaign, obviously he was a subject of what they were looking into. To tell him that he was not a subject seemed like it could be misleading. I think they should have been more forthcoming with him about his status in the investigation, and i think it would have been preferable if they had done a defensive briefing. Ms. Dememings ings. Thank you to the witnesses today. Report of the mueller says the special counsels office learned some of the individuals they investigated whose ms. Misconduct they theyated were som investigated communicated using applications that featured encryption or that do not provide for longterm retention of data or communication record. In such cases, the office was unable to cooperate corroborate statements or fully question witnesses about a statement that appears in with other facts. Given these gaps, the office was unable to rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed or cast in aght on new light the events described in the report. The special counsel could not have necessarily known that the person on the others of communication likely in a foreign country might have saved those messages. And coming from a Law Enforcement background, this is particularly concerning to me. How might a foreign power like russia leverage knowledge of a u. S. Person deleting communications with an agent or other individual working on behalf of the government . Mr. Anderson i think this is a huge part of the new world we live in. There is numerous different encrypted apps that people use in the private sector. There are hundreds of millions of people who use those apps. I think from a counterintelligence and adversary view, any time is transmitted to someone who could have access to or deliver an Intelligence Service, there is an issue because that person is not going to delete the information. That person is going to keep the information and most likely put it into a pool of information that is correlated and they can use it. Unfortunately, in my career, in the last six to seven years between counterintelligence and the assistant director, this has become a much bigger issue because you cannot go back whether it is a person in a criminal investigation, a drug case, up to a serious espionage investigation. The last point i will make is when we look at fisa the safety of our country when it comes to people in certain political positions, we need to have more standards about what communications they can actually use for this matter. You talked a little about this earlier. But in its heyday, the kgb collected information on its surveillance targets. Do you believe the kgbs successors, such as fsb or fdr, or the gru continue these practices . Mr. Anderson yes, and i will tell you from my experience. When i started in Law Enforcement, the only way you could find out about somebody was hardfought work, knocking on doors and physically talking to them. Nowadays with social media and cyber techniques and artificial intelligences available to not only the open public but more sophisticated versions of that to Hostile Intelligence Services, they have a pretty good idea of what you like, what you dont like, who you want to hang out with, where are you going to go for coffee. It makes them much easier of a target. I would tell you that the modern day version of what some of us have done 25, 30 years ago provides much more available information to target somebody. Thank you. And finally, we discussed the concept of blackmail at several points today. But can you explain how the use of blackmail or leverage including Financial Leverage over Government Officials by foreign powers can pose a counterintelligence danger . And i believe that should be of importance to all of us in this room. Mr. Anderson it is very much so. Russia and a few other service that use it extensively. Theyll use financial blackmail, personal relationship blackmail, blackmail about potential criminal violations that nobody knew about that they know about. As i said earlier in the hearing, the one thing you will notice with all of these type of progressions, first it starts off almost nonincidental, asking, tasking, access, phone books, whatever. It will move through that continuum. The blackmail historically doesnt start until you say no. Once you say no, defending what they have, they will use any means possible to include possible, including destroying your life. They could care less about anybody in this rooms life because we are an american. They will use those points to target their subjects to get them to do what they want to do. Thank you very much. I yield back. Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, chairman shift. Chairman schiff. I want to ask a few questions of mr. Mccarthy regarding the opening of the counterintelligence investigation and protocols of notifying congress. Protocols that were not followed. We know now that the f. B. I. Opened its counterintelligence investigation into the Trump Campaign in july, 2016. But they did not brief the gang of eight until march 2017, just days before former f. B. I. Director comey publicly announced the investigation during a march 20, 2017 opening hearing before this committee. My question to you is, conveying Sensitive Information such as the opening of a counterintelligence investigation into a Political Campaign is exactly what quarterly briefings from the fbi to the gang of eight are intended for, is that correct . Mr. Anderson mr. Mccarthy i believe so. I dont see what would be the point of having the gang of eight. I agree. Do you think the fbi director, in this case director comey, should have been allowed to decide when a c. I. Investigation is quoteunquote, too sensitive for the gang of eight . Mr. Mccarthy i dont think the the f. B. I. Director should do that because otherwise you cant have congressional oversight. I agree with that as well. Would you agree when i say that the fbi should not get to pick and choose which investigations, particularly those focused in the u. S. Political campaign, are briefed to congress . Mr. Mccarthy i think thats true. And i think from what i understand from director brennan , he thought he was obliged to comply with this gang of eight disclosure requirement. Is it appropriate for the fbi in your opinion to publicly announce the subject of an ongoing counterintelligence investigation in an open setting before fully Briefing Congress on the matter . Mr. Mccarthy no. I dont think counterintelligence investigations are classified. I dont think the fbi, when it can, should ever confirm the existence of an investigation. Counterintelligence investigations classified. Thats like a double nono. There is no reason i can think of to announce publicly the subject of such an investigation. Or to say that there would be an assessment at the end of crimes being committed. We know now that director comey failed to follow established d. O. J. Procedures during the conduct of this investigation. In your opinion, why do you believe director comey decided to publicly announce the investigation in march 2017, instead of following the protocol and immediately briefing the gang of eight during his quarterly briefings . Mr. Mccarthy i know director comey for 30 years. I have a lot of respect for him. I think he goes about in my experience, he went about his business in good faith. I am sure if he had a reason, if he did something, he probably thought he had a good reason for it. I dont agree with whatever the reason was. But i can only assess what he did. I cant get into his head. I want to highlight that i have introduced legislation requiring the briefings to the gang of eight to congressional leadership when there is an opening on a counterintelligence investigation of a federal campaign. We deserve to know this. It is clear that in this case in 2016 the process and procedures were circumvented. This should have been briefed to the gang of eight. And i think thats one of the critical questions that we need to continue asking in our oversight capacity. With that, i yield back. Before i yield to mr. Krishnamoorthi, i do want to mentioned, and this is through no fault of ms. Stefanik, while i cant comment on the gang of eight briefings, the content, the timeline you have set is not correct. But i can tell you that once james comey was fired, we no longer continued to get gang of eight briefings on this constellation of counterintelligence investigations. And we have not had one sense, oneh is we have not had since, which is a real problem. To this date we have requested from the fbi and from the director a briefing on the status of the counterintelligence investigations. We do not know to this date whether they are ongoing. We do not know whether any of them have been closed. We do not know what those findings are, but we are determined to find out. Would the chairman yield . Yes. Regarding the timeline, it was clear in the opening hearing in front of this committee that director comey testified that he chose not to brief the gang of eight on the opening of the counterintelligence investigations. This has been widely reported. This was an open hearing. And we have worked across the aisle on language to be included in the intel authorization act to ensure that any counterintelligence investigation into president ial campaigns is briefed. So i hope you would agree based upon the testimony of director comey that he circumvented the process. And in our oversight capacity, i agree with you. We need an update to make sure they are following those procedures. I think we need to strengthen not just the typical way of doing things, but put it in law so that they are required to brief us. Ms. Stefanik, i would only say that that was not his testimony. The first time he was briefing the counterintelligence investigation to us was contemporaneous with him disclosing it to the public. I did not say that in my statement. Would the gentleman yelled . With the gentleman y dashwood the gentleman yield . I said days before. The representative is not accurate. I cannot go into the timeline. I can say thats not accurate. I hope members of the public would go back to director comeys testimony and follow the fact and look at his direct testimony to this committee which stated that he did not follow the proper protocols and procedures of Briefing Congressional leadership on the opening of the counterintelligence investigation. I yield back. Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Thank you for your service. Thank you for being here today. Thank you, chairman. I want to focus on security clearances. This is an issue that comes before the Oversight Committee and im shuttling back and forth this morning between these two committees. Id like to ask you about this particular topic. In order for any person working for the president to obtain access to the nations most sensitive secrets, that person must undergo an fbi Background Investigation and obtain a security clearance. One of the things that the fbi investigates is the candidates contacts with Foreign Nationals and whether those relationships pose any risk that the candidate may be compromised by a foreign power. It has been widely reported that Jared Kushners security clearance was initially denied last year because of serious concerns about foreign influence, private business interests, and personal conduct. There has also been reporting that Jared Kushner did not report all of his or in all of his foreign contacts on the forms, fs86 forms. He completed related to his security clearance application. What counterintelligence risks arise when an applicant is not fully forthcoming or honest in his or her security clearance applications . Mr. Anderson . Thank you, sir. I think its important to validate the document information before issuing any security clearance, especially when you get above the he secret level and top secret sci information. Thats almost every major meeting in the National Security realm in the white house. I think that is very important. I also think coupled were that coupled with that the information required every five years, in some cases in the fbis organization there is a polygraph. I have had six in my career. To just make sure that the individual trusted with the ability to see that information is safe for our country. Ok, but what if they dont let me ask, mrs. Douglas, what if they are not forthcoming or honest . And how can a foreign power take advantage of that particular situation . I dont know all the specifics around mr. Kushners clearance issues. But i think there is potential if you are trying to hide or be deceptive about your contacts that that could be something foreign Intelligence Agency could take advantage of. Right . Those forms are incredibly detailed. Its a global world. So people have many, many foreign contacts these days. Especially somebody like mr. Kushner, who has Global Businesses, right . Can you walk us through give us a specific example. What would a russian agent try to do if he or she knew that mr. Kushner did not report a certain foreign contact . Any kind of information you are not being truly honest with, if you can be compromised based on your dishonesty about something, thats something a foreign Intelligence Agency can take advantage of. What is the impact of that if the individual you are trying to manipulate has access to top secret materials . Right. You could potentially say that then if that persons compromiseable are they in a position where since they have access to very Sensitive Information are they willing to provide information to you in order not to be disclosed as 86ing dishonest with the fs or something. Have you seen this in your career where such a situation ever developed where a russian entity, or even any other foreign entity tried to take advantage of someone in that type of situation . Mrs. Douglas i have seen instances where people have not disclosed sensitive Foreign National contacts, but i have not seen an instance where the foreign actor has taken advantage that have fact, because they dont want it disclosed, either. They are not going to jeopardize that. There are usually already in a relationship. I am not seeing your description of it. But i have seen individuals in certain former espionage case s i briefed to this Committee Years ago that they were looking at aspects on ways to get towards around their clearance issues. I have not seen them follow through with different aspects of it, as stephanie said. What type of reform would you make in that type of situation to prevent that type of situation from arising . Mrs. Douglas i mean, it is kind of hard to force someone to tell you something if you dont know the it exists. Know that it exists. Its hard to hold somebody accountable to something you dont even know about. I just think that there has to be very significant diligence on it. It has to be explained very forthrightly up front so people understand that they could be in jeopardy. And i think that thats clearly articulated, actually, that you could be in jeopardy of even getting a clearance if for some reason are you not disclosing a personal or ongoing and continuing relationship. That should absolutely be a consequence. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Some followup questions. On the fisa application, mr. Mccarthy, what was the time of the first fisa application . When was that first sought before the court . Mr. Mccarthy my recollection is, i think october 21, which i think comes from a document from this committee, october 21, 2016. At that point, the counterintelligence investigation had been opened for several months. Is not correct . Is that correct . Mr. Mccarthy the fbi investigation formally opened at the end of july. That investigation certainly was open for over two months. The fbi counterintelligence investigation was opened irrespective of having nothing to do with the fisa application. It had to do with George Papadopoulos receiving information about russian possession of stolen Clinton Emails. Of mccarthy in the parlance the Justice Department and the fbi, we sometimes refer to title iii investigations or fisa investigations as if they were their own separate entity, but they actually tend to be part of a larger investigation. But in this case, the theory that the counterintelligence investigation of those around the president is flawed from its inception is in itself flawed because the fisa application didnt take place until months after the investigation was opened, correct . Mr. Mccarthy i dont understand your question. Some argue we should ignore everything bob mueller has to say. We should ignore everything the russians did because they have problems with aspects of the fisa application. But the fisa application was opened months after the investigation began, correct . Mr. Mccarthy correct. It didnt initiate the investigation, correct . Mr. Mccarthy also correct. In fact, carter page was not with the Trump Campaign any more at the time the application was filed, is that correct . Mr. Mccarthy i dont think thats relevant but that is as i understand they had formally separated. I assume you know you can go backwards. Mr. Mccarthy it is it is certainly relevant if you are making an accusation of spying on the Trump Campaign that a fisa application of carter page didnt begin until carter page was no longer with that campaign, isnt that accurate . Mr. Mccarthy no. I think that if you are getting access to somebodys communications under circumstances where that access will afford you the opportunity to go backwards so that you can read their communications while they are in the campaign do do you know that to be a fact or are you speculating . Mr. Mccarthy i know it to be a fact when you get authorization you get to go backwards. Do you know whether thats the case here . Mr. Mccarthy i dont have any direct knowledge of the investigation. You are quite correct. Im speculating from the outside. Do you think the Justice Department officials not that had a signed off on the application were acting in bad faith . No, i think they made a mistake. Do you think mr. Rosenstein, who signed off, was acting in bad faith . Mr. Mccarthy no, i think he made a mistake. Do you think the judges who signed off, i believe there were three or four, who signed off on the applications were they acting in bad faith . Mr. Mccarthy i dont think anyone was acting in bad faith on the fisa court. All of them just made mistakes. Thats right. That happens. The steele dossier, how does mr. Mueller rely on the steele dossier in his report . Mr. Mccarthy you know, its 200 pages. Off the top of my head i cant think of anything that he relied on in terms of any kind of important conclusion. So your answer is he does not . Mr. Mccarthy i dont think so. I dont want to give you a sloppy answer off the top of my head. Mr. Mccarthy, when did you learn that there was a counterintelligence investigation of the Trump Campaign . Mr. Mccarthy i dont know. I would have to again, i learned as a member of the public. I dont have any inside personal information, so i would have to go back over things that i had written and read over time to try to pin it down. When did the public learn about the existence of the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump Campaign . Mr. Mccarthy i know director comey testified here or before this committee on march 20 of 2017. It seemed to me at that point in time that he was what he was directing his remarks to, at least in part, was evident from the Intelligence Community assessment that came out in january. It seemed clear to me reading the public version of the Intelligence Community assessment that the Intelligence Community had not stopped investigating russias interference in the election. Correct,thy you are mr. Mccarthy. The first Public Disclosure of the Counter Intelligence investigation took place in mr. Comeys open testimony in march of 2017. That would have been months after the president ial election, correct . Yes. If the personal animus reflected in the private emails between mr. Strzok and miss page reflected official actions to scuttle the Trump Campaign, wouldnt the trump investigation have been disclosed before the election, not after . Mr. Mccarthy i dont know that the bias you detect from the emails would have had anything to do with when the investigation the emails if fbi agents were determined to scuttle, act unprofessionally and scuttle the Trump Campaign, would they not have disclosed the fact that they were investigating the campaign of a president ial candidate for links with a foreign adversary . Chairman, immr. Not trying to be difficult. I never have said that they were trying to scuttle the Trump Campaign. I dont know that theres evidence they were trying to scuttle the Trump Campaign. I dont want to be in a position of agreeing that that is my position, because its not. The fbi was very open in the investigation of one of the candidates, secretary clinton, correct . Mr. Mccarthy that was a public it was a criminal investigation that couldnt help but be public because of the way it was referred to the fbi and the other investigations, the Counter Intelligence investigation, which is classified and they are not allowed to talk about it. They are two different things. They are not supposed to talk about a pending criminal investigation either, are they . Mr. Mccarthy no. Youre right. If there is no charges, the government should not speak until the government speaks in court. You are not supposed to talk about investigations until you formally charge someone. Then they have the full array of constitutional protection that they get to defend themselves. In terms of the public actions taken by the bureau during the president ial campaign, they had the effect of disclosing and discussing the investigation involving Hillary Clinton, but not donald trump, correct . Mr. Mccarthy no. I wouldnt go that far because beginning in i think its september, you start to get these public reports that steele and fusion gps are putting out. I am thinking of in particular, i think is like september 23, refers not only to information from Law Enforcement people and counterintelligence people, but i think it quotes a letter i dont know if it quotes it as a letter, but it quotes remarks from then senator reid with respect to the investigation and pushing the fbi to get on with the investigation. There is no public acknowledgement by the fbi of any investigation of donald trump or his Campaign Prior to the election, isnt that true . Mr. Mccarthy you mean a formal as opposed to leaked information, a formal public announcement there was an investigation . No. Correct. Mr. Mccarthy no. Mr. Mccarthy, you also said that putin doesnt have a preference for candidates except for those who expects are going to lose. What other examples do you have for that declaration, apart from the last campaign . Whatrthy i think in i try to direct my remarks to, mr. Chairman, was russias current activities in the west. I wasnt trying to be just specific to our elections. I think that putin does have a pattern, particularly in western europe, of giving support to upstart, populous parties, which are unlikely to win but could make life very difficult for the its not just they are likely to lose. If mr. Obadan had a challenge, do you think he would support the opponent . Mr. Mccarthy i dont know what putin would do. Really, mr. Mccarthy . Mr. Mccarthy really. You dont think mr. Putin would have a reference for a candidate who talked disparagingly of nato or wanted to see nato, the United States leave nato . Mr. Mccarthy i dont want again im not trying to be difficult here. I think putin would be very happy to have the support of a candidate who would do whatever russia wanted. And if he was going to be fortunate enough to get that kind of candidate into power, sure, i think you would be i think he would be delighted by that. He would be delighted by a candidate or a u. S. Candidate who would remove the sanctions over russias invasion of its neighbor, correct . Mr. Mccarthy i would think so. He would be interested in a candidate doing business in russia during the campaign. Mr. Mccarthy it would depend whether that was the one issue that would come up. I imagine in the totality of it, if it turned out the candidate was going to be very difficult for him in other areas, if for example our military spending were to be ratcheted up so we were more after a threat to russian interest, he would have to weigh that like anyone else has to weigh the good and bad. But a candidate that has all of these attributes, wants to undermine nato, wants to undermine sanction, wants to make money in moscow, that would be a candidate the kremlin would be very eager to support, would it not . Mr. Mccarthy yeah. You would think if that was the only part of the ledger we were talking about, and on the other side there wasnt another side of the ledger where there was going to be an increase in military spending, an increase in support of actors who were opposed to russias interests, he would have to weigh everything. I dont think putin, as i understand it, is a very sophisticated actor. I dont think he acts on one particular aspect or one particular item on a menu. I think he looks at the totality of the circumstances. Mrs. Douglas, do you have any quarrel with the special counsels conclusion through the social Media Campaign and hacking and dumping of stolen clinton and d. N. C. Emails that putin and the kremlin were attempting to help the Trump Campaign and hurt the Clinton Campaign . Mrs. Douglas i think that was very clear from the very beginning. I agree with mr. Mccarthy, this started back in 2014. The reason it probably even before then, because they were so intent on not having Hillary Clinton as the president. I think they did it ended up being very much to the benefit of the Trump Campaign. Mr. Anderson, do you concur that the both the assessment of the Intelligence Community as well as mr. Muellers report that the russians had a clear reference for mr. Trump borne out by the evidence . Mr. Anderson yes. Let me ask you about what i started out with, the issue of moscow trump tower. Here candidate trump was attempting to consummate a deal, special counsel estimates, would have made hundreds of millions of dollars for his family business. While claiming no business dealings with the russians. When that transaction was revealed, when the fact that the business deal went on through the middle of the president ial campaign was disclosed, and emails were produced showing Michael Cohen reaching out to dmitry pescov, someone close to president putin, he would later issue a statement denying that there was any russian followup on that outreach that. On that outreach. That turned out to be false. The russians did followup on the trump business outreach. What does it mean that the kremlin how do you interpret the kremlin issuing a false statement in support of the president s own false statements about the deal . Mrs. Douglas i think probably the kremlin issues a lot of false statements. But why would the kremlin have an interest covering up the president of the United States in concealing efforts by the president and his business to seek kremlin help during the campaign to make that deal happen . Why would the kremlin be interested in covering that up . Mrs. Douglas i think that they very much want a Good Relationship with donald trump. To them, that means supporting him and the deception that was undertaken on the part of Michael Cohen when he lied about the length of time that those negotiations were under way. Mr. Anderson, the report outlines a lengthy conversation mr. Cohen had with someone in the kremlin to try to make the deal happen. Would it be your expectation that the kremlin would be recording that conversation . Mr. Anderson absolutely. During the campaign and after mr. Trump became president , if the kremlin had a tape recorded conversation with the president s lawyer in which the president s lawyer is exploring making this deal during the campaign, at a time when the president is denying any business dealings with the russians come was the russians with theition russians, would the russians have the position to publish that tape if they had it to embarrass the president of the United States . Mr. Anderson i think if it behooved putin and russia they would do almost anything. The answer would be yes, if they had it and use it to exploit some type of weakness. Is that what the russians mean when they talk about had compromising information . Mr. Anderson any time you are talking about compromising information, it goes back to what we said before, it could be financial, conversation, a compromising position to use whatever they can. Would it be compromising if a foreign power had recordings of the president s associates engaged in the business deal that the president was denying . Mr. Anderson potentially. I have to know more about the deal. Potentially if they had conversations they could exploit. How do the russians exploit the use of that kind of information . Mr. Anderson it depends. In the past i have seen where russias mailed audiotapes or agents of russia mailed auto tapes for pictures or financial documents to individuals that we have investigated in other either counterintelligence or espionage investigations, letting them know they have this information. And potentially can could use them against them. Sometimes they dont. They just do it anyway. In a circumstance like this could the russians make the president or his people aware they had such recordings and were prepared to use them if necessary . Mr. Anderson i dont know if they would do that right off the bat. Usually thats towards the end of a spectrum of trying to obtain what they want. The answer is potentially, but i dont think they would do it necessarily right off the bat. How do the russians use Financial Leverage to compromise people . Mr. Anderson a variety of ways. A lot of times theyll either give individuals payment in a variety doesnt necessarily mean cash. It could be other valuables. In some instances, theyll try to get them to live beyond their means. So if they cut off those payments, that individual then is in jeopardy of losing whatevers dear to them. Marks does the existence of the does the existence of the financial relationship itself become a form of compromise . Mr. Anderson i would have to know a lot more about that. As was brought up earlier by stephanie, i think in the Global Business marketplace you have to look at the totality. I have to know more. There are any number of facts in the Mueller Report about efforts to establish back channels with the russians, discussions about using russian diplomatic facilities for secret back channels. Were those serious issues in any kind of security clearance process . Mr. Anderson the up salute they absolutely could, depending on what was being discussed and what the individuals were doing with the information that they were pushing. And obviously depending on the level of the information, what i mean level, classification level of information that they are talking to individuals from a foreign country. Finally, with respect to mr. Flynn, if a National Security advisor or advisor designate is having a conversation with a foreign adversary, and they look to undermine u. S. Policy and then is dishonest about that, what are the counterintelligence implications of that . Mrs. Douglas obviously the key here is the deception. The deception makes the person vulnerable. Its not even the act. The fact that somebody has a multimillion dollar business in russia doesnt compromise them. The fact that they are trying to hide it or be deceptive about the extent of their relationship could possibly make them vulnerable. Just like the case with mike flynn, its not the fact that he had that conversation. Whether it was appropriate or not appropriate. Its the fact that he chose to be deceptive about it. That could make him vulnerable. If the National Security advisor is talking with the Russian Ambassador or anyone else for that matter, lets say the Russian Ambassador, would you have to presume that the russians might be recording conversation on the russian end . Mrs. Douglas of course. So if u. S. Officials are like like the Vice President are representing certain things that are not true, and the russians know they are not true, and the russians possess a recording of that, are the russians in a position to compromise the administration . Mrs. Douglas yes, they are, if somebody is not telling the truth about the conversation. If you come out and are honest about the conversation, its hard to blackmail someone if you are being honest about what you have done. But if are you not being honest about what you have done, thats what makes you vulnerable. Nunr. Newness, any cash mr. Nunes, any final questions . Thank you, mr. Chairman. One of the things we go back to the beginning theres been talk about when did this investigation begin. Thats an openended question because we can say that this investigation could have begun in 2015. Because we know some of the same players were having runins with individuals that have questionable ties to either a western intelligence or possibly Political Campaign operative. But officially, he they said it started at the end of july. When the public became aware of it, i guess it depends on whether or not you believe the Washington Post and new york times, or yahoo news. Because you had Christopher Steele, an fbi paid informant, not only briefing multiple news agencies. But if you are to believe those same news agencies, they also have sources within the fbi and department of justice. You all work there. Is this normal to have an fbi informant Christopher Steele who has been hired to investigate the Trump Campaign by the fbi, hired by the Clinton Campaign to investigate the Clinton Campaign to investigate the Trump Campaign, then talking to media, talking to people within the state department. Is that normal activity by the fbi or department of justice . Mr. Anderson i think steele was ultimately the reason that was given for his termination as an informant was his contacts with the press. Because that was a violation of his understanding with the fbi. But we should not just leave it at steele because in those same articles, there are multiple sources within the department of justice, fbi, or Senior Intelligence officials. Mrs. Douglas mr. Mccarthy i thought you were asking me about informants. Officials should not be talking about investigations to the media. If the stories are believed, i got you with that, we have an fbi informant who is both working for the Clinton Campaign and the fbi investigating trump leaking to multiple news outlets. We have multiple people within the fbi and d. O. J. Leaking to news outlets. At some point here im just shocked there is not more former d. O. J. And fbi officials who arent out there saying, look, this is wrong. I dont know how any i republican, unless Something Like ms. Stefaniks bill passes, this Counterintelligence Department over at the fbi is in big trouble. The fact that you guys are sitting here, former fbi officials, and not saying that it basically making the case its ok to use these very special powers to target a Political Campaign, it really troubles me. I will just leave it at that. I want to just finish up on the trump tower, moscow. There was a little talk about trump tower moscow. What it concern you that fusion gps, who is the Democrat Campaign operative arm, dirty operations arm, they were also working for russians. Were you familiar with that . Mr. Mccarthy, are you familiar with fusion gps was working with the russians . Mrs. Douglas mr. Mccarthy they were working in connection with the previson application. Which was brought by the department of justice in connection with the killing and fraud that flowed from that. For any of you familiar with the fact that fusion gps was working with these . Mrs. Douglas i was focused on the Mueller Report for this discussion. Now that you know that fusion gps is working for russians, the other thing that needs to be put on the record here is that not only was fusion gps hired to ct, to the magnitsky a dirty up a friend of magnitsky, smear him, when simpson admitted the time he would he testify before this committee that he met with the group that met at a trump tower, back to the trump tower meeting, he met him the day before, day of, and day after. You have glen simpson working not only for the Clinton Campaign to dirty up trump, hes also working for the russians to dirty up anybody who doesnt oppose the magnitsky act. Hes meeting with all those individuals now. U. S. Counterintelligence, former intelligence people would that raise any flags to you that a Clinton Campaign operative arm, who is working for these same russians, happened to be the same russians that are meeting with at trump tower offering supposed dirt . Mr. Anderson i think its not in a vacuum. Its not just about President Trumps campaign or secretary clintons campaign. Its about the context of americans with information. Regardless Whose Campaign it was, if there was significant concerns or things that we thought that could raise to that, i think it absolutely would be worth looking at. One of the things i stated in my opening, mueller doesnt talk about fusion gps at all, even though it involved their questionable contacts with the russians, including the fact, and i will just close with this for the record, after we discovered all of this, we brought glen simpson back and numerous other fusion gps employees, and they pled the fifth before this committee and refused to answer the questions. If that doesnt raise questions, i dont know what does. With that, i want to thank the witnesses for appearing today. I yield back. Thank you. Just remind my colleagues that fusion gps was originally hired in the president ial campaign by the conservative Washington Free beacon. This concludes our hearing. I want to thank the witnesses again for their participation. And the committee is adjourned. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] for 40 years, cspan has been providing america with unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events from washington dc and around the country so you can make up your own mind, created by cable in 1979. Cspan is brought to you by your local cable and satellite provider. View ofyour unfiltered government. Kardashian west give brief remarks at the Second Chance event at the white house. She talked about wanting to go to law school after being inspired by the First Step Act and the lack of support for those reentering communities after serving time in is in serving time in prison. [applause]