Intelligence Committee Chair senator richard burr of North Carolina entering the room and speaking with witnesses before he cuba gavels igavels in. Id like to call this hearing to order. I apologize to our witnesses that we had a vote that was called at 10 00. And most members are in the process of making their way from there to here. This morning, the committee will engage in an activity thats quite rare for us. An open hearing on an ongoing critical intelligence question. The role of russian active measures past and present. As many of you know this committee is conducting a thorough independent and nonpartisan review of the Russian Active Measures Campaign conducted against the 2016 u. S. Elections. Some of the intelligence provided to the committee is extremely sensitive and requires that most of the work be conducted in a secure setting to maintain the integrity of the information and protect and to protect the very sensitive sources and methods that gave us access to that intelligence. However, the vice chairman and i understand the gravity of the issues that were here reviewing and have decided that its crucial that we take the rare step of discussing publicly an ongoing intelligence question. Thats why weve convened this second open hearing on the topic of russian active measures. And i can assure you to the extent possible that the committee will hold additional open hearings on this issue. The American Public indeed all democratic societies need to understand that line actors are using old techniques with new plat fors to undermine our democratic institutions. This hearing entitled disinformation, a primer in active measures and influence campaigns, will consist of two panels. And will provide a foundational understanding of russian active measures and Information Operations campaigns. The first panel will examine the history and characteristics of those campaigns. The second panel will examine the history and characteristics of those campaigns and the role and april capabilities of Cyber Operations in support of these activities. Unfortunately, you will learn today that these efforts by russian to discredit the u. S. And weaken the west are not new. These efforts are in fact at the heart of russian and Previous Soviet Union intelligence efforts. You will learn today that ha our community has been a target of russian Information Warfare propaganda and cybercampaigns. And still is. The efforts our experts will outline today continue unabated. The take away from todays hearing, were all targets of a sophisticated and capable adversary and we must engage in a whole of government approach to combat russian active measures. Today well receive testimony from expert who have in some cases worked directly to respond to active measures who understand the history and the context of active measures and xwhos whose significant experience and knowledge will shed new light on the problem and provide useful context. Doctors good saun and rumer, mr. Watts, were greatsful to you for your appearance here today. This afternoon we will reconvene and welcome witnesses who will discuss the technical side of the question, sip ber operations including Computer Network exploitation, social media and online propaganda activities and how they enable and promote russian influenced campaigns and Information Operations. We have a full day ahead of us and im confident that the testimony you will hear today will help you to establish a foundational understanding of the problem as the community continues its inquiry into russian activities. Finally, id like to commend the vice chairman for his dedication to the goals of the committees inquiry and to the integrity of the process. The vice chairman and i realize that if we politicize this process, our efforts will likely fail. The public deserves to hear the truth about possible russian involvement in our elections. How they came to be involved, how we may have failed to prevent that involvement, what what actions were taken in response if any and what we plan to do to ensure the integrity of future free elections at the heart of our democracy. Gentlemen, thank you again for your willingness to be here and i turn to the vice chairman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I also want to welcome our Witnesses Today. Todays hearing is important to help understand the role russia played in the 2016 president ial elections. As the u. S. Intelligence community unanimously assessed in january of this year, russia sought to hijack our democratic process and that most important part of our democratic process, our president ial elections. As well learn today, russians strategy and tactics are not new. But theyre brazen news certainly was. Hearing is also important because its open as the chairman mentioned. Which is sometimes unusual for this committee. Due to the classified nature of our works we typically work behind closed doors but todays public hearing will help i hope the American Public at large understand how the kremlin made effective use of its hacking skills to steal and weaponenize information and engage in a coordinated effort to damage a particular candidate and to undermine Public Confidence in our democratic process. Our Witnesses Today will help us to understand how russia deployed this deluge of disinformation in a broader attempt to undermine americas strength and leadership throughout the world. We simply must and we will get this right. The chairman and i agree it is vitally important that we do there as a credible bipartisan and transparent manner as possible. As was said yesterday in our press conference, chairman burr and i trust each other and equally important, we trust our colleagues on this committee that we are going to move together and were going to get to the bottom of this and do it right. As this hearing begins, lets take just one moment to review what we already know. Russias president Vladimir Putin ordered a deliberate campaign carefully constructed to undermine our election. First, russia struck at our Political Institutions by electronically breaking flow the headquarters of one of our Political Parties and stealing vast amounts of information. Russian operatives also hacked emails to steal personal messages and other information from individuals ranging from Clinton Campaign manager john podesta to former secretary of state colon powell. This stolen information was then weapon uponized. We know that will russian intelligence used the, quote unquote, guccifer 2 persona and others like wikileaks in seemingly choreographed times that would cause maximum damaging to one candidate. They did this with an unprecedented level of poe fistication about american president ial politics that should be a line of inquiry for us on this be committee and candidly while it helped one candidate had time, they are not favoring one party over another and consequently should be a concern for all of us. Second, russia continually sought to diminish and undermine our trust in the American Media. By blurring our faith in what is true and what is not. Russian propaganda outlegs like rt and sputnik successfully produced and peddled disinformationing to american audiences in pursuit of moscows preferred outcome. This russian propaganda on steroids was designed to poison the National Conversation in america. The russians employed thousands of paid internet trolls and botnets to push out disinformation and fake news at high volume focusing this material on to your twitter and facebook fees and flooding our social media with misinformation. This fake news and disinformation was then hyped by the American Media echo chamber and our own social Media Networks to reach and potentially influence millions of americans. This is not innuendo or false allegations. This is not fake news. This is actually what happened to us. Russia continues these sorts of actions as we speak. Some of our close allies in europe are experiencing exactly the same kind of interference in their political process. Germany has said that its parliament has been hacked. French president ial candidates right now have been the subject of russian propaganda and disinformation. The netherlands, their recent elections, the dutch hand counted their ballots because they feared russian interference in their electoral process. Perhaps most critically for us, there is nothing to stop them from doing this all over again in 2018 for those of you who are up or in 2020 as americans again go back to the polls. In addition to what we already know, any full accounting must also find out what if any contacts, communications, or connections occurred between russia and those associated with the campaigns themselves. I will not prejudge the outcome of our investigation. We are seeking to determine if there is an actual fire but there is clearly a lot of smoke. For instance, an individual associated with the Trump Campaign accurately predicted the release of hacked emails weeks before it happened. This same individual also admits to being in contact with guccifer 2, it the russian intelligence persona, responsible for these Cyber Operations. The platform of one of our two major Political Parties mysteriously watered down in a way which appropriated the interests of president putin. And no one seems to be able to be identify who directed that change in the platform. A Campaign Manager of one campaign who played such a Critical Role in electing the president was forced to step down over his alleged ties to russia and its associates. Since election, weve seen the president S National Security adviser resign and his attorney general recuse himself over previously undisclosed contacts with the russian government. And, of course, in the other body, on march 20th, the director of the fbi publicly acknowledged that the bureau was investigating the nature of any links between individuals government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russian efforts, end of quote. I want to make clear, at least for me, this information is not about whether you have a d or an r next to your name. Its not about relitigating last falls election. It is about clearly understanding and responding to this very real threat. Its also, i believe, about Holding Russia accountable for this unprecedented attack on our democracy. And it is about arming ourselves so we can identify and stop it when it happens again. Trust me, it will happen again if we dont take action. I would hope that the president is as anxious as we are to get to the bottom of what happened. I have to say editorially that the president s recent contact with his wild and uncorroborated accusations about wiretapping and his inappropriate and unjustified attacks on americas hard working intelligence professionals does give me grave concern. This committee has a heavy weight of responsibility to prove that we can continue to put our political labels aside to get us to the truth. I believe we can get there. Ive seen firsthand i say this to our audience how serious members on both sides of this dias have worked on this sense andtive critical issue. As the chairman and i have said repeatedly, the investigation will follow the facts where it leads us. Many times i believe were not going to get those facts and were working together very cooperatively to make sure we get the facts we need from the Intelligence Community. We will get that done. Mr. Chairman, i thank you for your commitment to the serious work and the bipartisan cooperation if not across the hill alive in this committee. Thank you very much. I thank the vice chairman. Members should note they will be recognized by seniority for five minute questions. Well go as expeditiously as we can. Let me introduce our Witnesses Today, if i may, and then we will hear from those witnesses. Dr. Rory godson, professor of Georgetown University. Dr. Godson has specialized in Security Studies in International Relations at Georgetown University for more than four decades. Thank you for that. As a scholar, he helped pioneer Intelligence Studies in american higher education. Editing the seven volume series intelligence requirements for the 1980s, 1990s, and cofounding the consortium for study of intelligence. Hes directed, managed and published with other scholars and practitioners innovative studies on adapting American Security paradigm, intelligence dominance consistent with the rule of law practices and strategies for preventing global organized crime. Dr. Godson has served as a consultant to the United States security council, president s foreign intelligence board and related agencies of the u. S. Government. Thank you for your service and thank you for being here. Dr. Rumor is a senior fellow and director of russian and eurasian programs at carnegie. Endowment for international peace. Prior to joining carnegie, dr. Rumer served as the National Intelligence officer for russia and eurasia at the u. S. National Intelligence Council from 2010 to 2014. Earlier, he held Research Appointments at the National Defense university, the International Institute for strategic studies and the rand corporation. He taught at Georgetown University and George Washington university and published widely. Welcome, dr. Rumer. Clint watts is a robert fox fellow for the Foreign Policy research institute. And a senior fellow at the center for cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington university. Clints a consultant and researcher, modeling and forecasting threat actor behavior and developing countermeasures for disrupting, defeating state and nonstate actors. As a consultant clint designs and implements customized training and Research Programs for the military, intelligence, Law Enforcement organizations at the federal, state and local levels. Clint served as a United StatesArmy Infantry officer, an fbi agent on a joint Terrorism Task force. As the executive officer of the combatting Terrorism Center at west point and as a consultant to the fbis Counterterrorism Division and National Security branch. Clint, welcome, thank you for your service. With that, i will recognize our witnesses from my left to right. And dr. Godson, you are recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman and vice chairman and members of the committee for invitdiing me to this hearing. Id like to begin with a minute or two on the long history of soviet active measures and then talk a little bit about some of the major advantages the soviets and the russians have reaped from their history of using this instrument. Finally, id like to come to what weve done in the past to reduce the effectiveness of soviet behavior. And what we might want to consider for the future. I think if one looks at the history of the last 100 years, youre going to find that the russians and the soviet predecessors had believed that active measures is a major tool for their advancement. They actually believe whatever we think about it that this gives them the possibility of achieving influence well beyond their economic and social status and conditions in their country. I think when you look at what they say now, what they do now, and the way they talk and act and practice about these matters, they take this subject seriously. Sometimes we in the United States have been aware of this. But for many, many decades we did not take this subject seriously. And they were able to take enormous advantages. I think today that they basically believe they can use these techniques rather similarly to many of the ways they did this in the past. I do think that they are repeating many of the same practices that they did in the past. Yes, there may be some new techniques that are being used now. In fact, there are. Some of my colleagues on the panel this afternoon are more expert on those techniques. Particularly the use of the internet and particularly cyber space. But we can sort of more or less be rest assured that the soviets will be looking at other techniques and will be seeking to adapt and make their active measures much more productive for them in the future. Yes, the activities in the United States that youre particularly interested in do seem to be exceptional. We dont have very many other examples of where they interer iffed with interfered with election machinery. What we do have are many examples of where the soviets working together were able with their