Watch live coverage of the Senate Health care debate on cspan two, cspan and our free cspan radio app. Former Homeland Security secretary jeh johnson appeared before our House Intelligence Committee hearing on russian interference in the u. S. 2016 election. He said the russian government and the direction of Vladimir Putin conduct did Cyber Attacks to influence the president ial election. Also discussed his rationale for designating u. S. Election systems as Critical Infrastructure in early january 2017. This hearing is to an half hours. Two and a half hours. Good morning. I have asked Rick Crawford to open with a prayer. Please bow with the. Heavenly father, we are thankful for every blessing. Thank you for the blessing of this nation. Father i just ask that her people would strive to be worthy of that blessing. Pray for humility and temperance and always do we say be pleasing to you. In jesus name, amen. In consultation with adam, i make a motion to give each member seven minutes to question the witnesses. It is their discussion on the motion . Everybody would get seven including adam and i . Good to go . Thank you. The meeting will come to order. I would like to welcome our witness this morning, former secretary of Homeland Security, jeh johnson. Thank you for being here this morning. We are and will remain an open session. This hearing will address only unclassified matters. To our guests of the audience, welcome. We appreciate the interest in the committees informed work and we expect proper decorum to be observed at all times and disruptions to todays proceedings will not be tolerated. At this point in time, would mr. Johnson please rise and take an oath . Do you solemnly swear that what you say will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but godruth so help you . This committee is charged with getting to the bottom of the facts are guarding russias involvement in the 2016 election and what, if any steps were taken by the u. S. Government to prevent such interference. While the investigation seeks to get to the truth of what happened and it seeks to provide recommendation for improvement. One focus of the committees investigation is u. S. Governments response to russian cyber activity during the 2016 election. An unclassified january 17 assessment. Russian intelligent access elements of multiple state or local electoral boards. Dhs also assesses that they were that thankfully they were not involved in vote tallied. However the prospect of any foreign adversary meddling in our election system is extremely disturbing. Our free and open election system is a cornerstone of our democracy. Any actions by a foreign adversary to access Electoral Systems threatens our basic freedoms. You are at the helm in your agency became aware of russian cyber intrusions into state and local election systems. You made the decision to designate election infrastructure as Critical Infrastructure in january of 17. The testimony will provide this committee and the American Public with a better understanding of what happened and what more could be done to prevent the russians from interfering in our elections. I commend you for successfully tallyinging the vote systems. The agencies did not respond more quickly to the russian hacking. We are here to talk about the future. Given all we know, why did our election systems remain so honorable . What more can be done to adjust these vulnerabilities . I hope you will discuss these challenges and assist the committee in identifying these solutions. Five minutes for your Opening Statement. Thank you, mr. Secretary, for your Extraordinary Service. Three months ago, during the committees first open hearing, former fbi director james comey revealed for the first time that he had opened a counterintelligence investigation last july to determine whether persons associated with the had with the Trump Campaign had coordinated or colluded with the russian efforts to interfere in our election. Last month, we heard from john brennan who helped us understand what the russian government did, how they did it, and what motivated them. He testified the information he was seeing concerned him that he feared some americans could be suborned to the russian cause and begin sending counterintelligence leads to the fbi for investigation. Today we will your testimony from former secretary of Homeland Security jeh johnson about how the u. S. Government responded to this unprecedented interference in our political affairs. What threat the russians pose to our elections infrastructure and what steps we took to inform the public what was happening and deter the russians from further meddling. By the middle of last summer, it was apparent that the russians were not merely gathering information for additional intelligence purposes, but intent on weapon i think it by attempting to dump emails into the Public Domain and in no way intended to damage the campaign of hillary clinton. As a Ranking Member and part of the socalled gang of eight, i have been made aware of information concerning the russian hack. As have my counterpart in the senate, Dianne Feinstein and other senior leadership. What we saw, and we believed it was incumbent on the administration to inform the American People what was going on. On the same day donald trump was urging the russians to hack Hillary Clintons emails, the senator and i wrote to president obama urging the administration declassify and release any Intelligence Community assessments related to the dnc hack and develop a swift and powerful response. Over a month later when the Administration Still had made no Public Statement informing the americans about what russians were doing, senator feinstein and i took the extraordinary step of issuing our own Public Statement carefully vetted by the Intelligence Community attributing a hack to russia and senior levels of the kremlin. It would be another month before they would declare russia behind interference in the election. That was issued in our october 7 statement. And it would not be until well after that that the administration would take steps to talk about how significant an action it was. They expelled russian spies and closed facilities used by the russians for espionage against america. I hope, secretary johnson, that you will be able to share a sense of the debate that was ongoing in the executive branch as evidence of the russian involvement and hacked emails piled up through the late summer and early fall. What led to such a long delay of making attribution and why was the most significant step of imposing costs on russia for its interference come only after the election and what are the Lessons Learned . At its heart, our democracy relies on the trust of the American People and their institutions. The events of last year and the potential for worse in the future are a stark warning to all of us that we must guard our democracy jealously and there are powerful adversaries that wish to tear down americas role as its champion. We have our work cut out for us, but the world is counting on us to be up to the challenge. I thank you for your Extraordinary Service once again and your testimony today. I yield back. Secretary johnson, would you like to make an Opening Statement . If so please proceed. , sec. Johnson mr. Chairman, you have my prepared opening remarks. Just briefly in the time permitted me, representative conway, representative shift, members of this committee. You have my prepared statement. I will not repeat it here. In three years as secretary of Homeland Security, i had the privilege of testifying before congress 26 times. Though it is no longer part of my job description, i voluntarily accepted the invitation to be here today as a concerned private citizen. In 2016, the russian government at the direction of Vladimir Putin himself orchestrated Cyber Attacks on our nation for the purpose of influencing our election. That is a fact. Plain and simple. Now the key question for the president and the congress is, what are we going to do to protect the American People and their democracy from this kind of thing in the future . I him pleased that this i am pleased to this committee has undertaken this investigation. I welcome it. My sincere hope is that, in bipartisan fashion, we find answers. Last years very troubling experience highlights cyber boehner abilities in our political process and in our election infrastructure itself. With that experience fresh in our minds and clear in the rearview mirror, we must resolve the further strengthen our Cyber Security generally and the Cyber Security around our democratic process specifically. I am prepared to discuss my own views and recommendations on this topic. I look forward to your questions. Thank you. I recognize myself for seven minutes. Thanks for being here this morning. A lot of questions will be asked and details. We will start with a toplevel conversation about dhss mission with respect to cyber. Particularly how intertwined it is with respect to Voter Registration, voting, vote tallying, all of those things. And if you dont mind for an in what appears to be a delay when the fbi became aware things were going on and when it seems the dhs was informed. How is the relationship to the fbi relative to this infrastructure at the time and maybe Going Forward . If you can weigh in on that, i appreciate it. Sec. Johnson first, i think the roles of the federal agencies in Cyber Security spoke out pretty clearly last year in ppd 41. Basically, the fbi is responsible for threat response. Dhs is responsible for asset response. The crime, Law Enforcement, fbi, patching vulnerabilities, and detecting bad actors in the system. The way i like to explain it publicly is jim comey is the cop and i am the firemen. On a personal level, with jim, we worked very well together. Ive known him for 28 years. From the days we assisted as u. S. Attorneys together in manhattan. And at the top of both agencies, we worked well together. Can i say that down to the field Office Working level, we were always fully coordinated . No. But every morning in my intelligence briefing, there would be someone there with me to give me his assessment and tell me what the feedback on something was. So there is that. I spelled out, in my Opening Statement, my prepared statement, the first time i recall hearing about the hack into the dnc and i recalled that it had been some months before that the fbi and the dnc had been in contact with each other about this. And i was not happy to be learning about this several months later. Very clearly. There are two things going on. The dnc hack was at some point in time. What was the delay between the hacks the fbi was aware of . And the scanning of the attended intrusions . Who discovered that . If it was the fbi then how long was there a delay between that and using your analogy, the flames are going up. We need the firemen their first. Their first. How is that delay . My recollection, is that the fbi first discovered the intrusion. Into the dnc. And i recall very clearly that there was a delay between that initial contact with the dnc and when the report got timmy s got to me as secretary of dhs. It may have been that there were others at the staff level that were privy to this before it filtered up to me in an intelligence report. That is my backup my recollection. Ignore the dnc for the moment and talk about the chance at whatever the russians did. With respect to the election system. When was that discovered . Who discovered it . If it wasnt dhs. My recollection is that the initial scanning and probing was discovered in late august. Couldve been mid july. But late august, in my mind. And my recollection is that once it was discovered, that information came to me and other senior people pretty quickly. Is there enough it is one thing for the director and secretaries to have good working relationships. Institutionalizing that is what we are about. As the system of notification between the fbi and dhs is there any impediments to that not working on its own without the Good Relationship you had at the time with mr. Comey . Sec. Johnson in my observation, it worked pretty well but could stand improvement, very definitely. I think it is incumbent on the leaders of both organizations to instill that in their workforces. I think it worked pretty well together in my three years, but there were glitches. There were instances where we did not communicate as effectively as we could have. We want to reassure the American Public with what we do with respect to the 2016 election and what we do in elections Going Forward. You said in your Opening Statement and your prepared remarks that there was no vote tallying changes. That no ones vote was some way and recorded another way. Is that still your opinion with respect to the election . That the intrusions did not affect the actual voting itself . Based on everything i know, that is correct. Of no evidence that through cyber intrusions, votes were altered or suppressed in some way. The Lessons Learned moving forward, you designated the Voting System as Critical Infrastructure. Can you give us a quick snap as to why that was important in your mind . Sec. Johnson it was important in my mind because Critical Infrastructure receives a priority in terms of the assistance we give on Cyber Security. That is number one. There is a certain level of confidence and confidentiality that goes into the communications of Critical Infrastructure and the department that are guaranteed. And number three, you get the protection of the International Cyber norms. Shalt not attack Critical Infrastructure in another country. Those are the principal reasons for doing this. There are 16 sectors already that are considered Critical Infrastructure. In my view, this was a nobrainer. In fact, it probably should have been done years before. And im pleased secretary kelly has reaffirmed it. Does that include the parties and infrastructure around candidates, or is that just the mechanics of voting itself . Sec. Johnson if you read my statement on january 6, it is pretty much confined to the election process itself. Not the politicians, not the Political Parties. My time expired. Mr. Secretary, in the late summer of last year, it became apparent the russians were doing more than gathering foreign intelligence, that they were dumping it in a way designed to potentially influence outcomes. Not by affecting the vote machines, but by affecting American Public opinion with the dumping of these emails. That is happening in late summer. Why did it take the administration so long to make a Public Statement that a foreign adversary was trying to influence the american election. The statement didnt come until october. Why did we wait from july to october to make that statement . Sec. Johnson i will disagree with your premise that there was some type of delay. This was a big decision and there were a lot of considerations that went into it. This was an unprecedented step. First, as you know well, we have to consider whether declassified the information compromises sources and methods. Second, there was an ongoing election and many would criticize us for, perhaps, taking sides in the election. That had to be carefully considered. One of the candidates was predicting the election was going to be rigged in some way. We were concerned that by making this statement, we might be challenging the integrity of the election process itself. This was a very difficult decision, but in my personal view. Its something we had to do. It got careful consideration and a lot of discussion. My view was we needed to do it and do it well before the election to inform the voters of what we knew and what we saw and it would be unforgivable if we did not. Im glad we did it. Every big national Homeland Security decision ive made in my time, somebody always criticizes you for doing it and somebody else criticizes you for not doing it sooner. Im glad we did, frankly. I think the larger issue is it did not get the public attention that it should have, frankly, because the same day the press was focused on the release of the access hollywood video. It made our news below the fold news that day. There were certain allegations by the Trump Campaign that the process was rigged. Yes. The allegatio