>> so i want to emphasize the difference between election interference and influence, so we know the election infrastructure was secure from interference, i want to turn to the issue of foreign influence campaigns. in your view does adversary proceeding the false succession that it was fraudulent, and can you explain how domestic actors amplify foreign disinformation campaigns and how that undermines confidence in our democratic process? >> so i think what we saw, i believe october 22nd, we did see some iranian efforts. i've talked about this before where there were some emails that popped up on that day claiming to be reportedly from at least the proud boys that were talking about specifically to democratic voters it said, you need to change your registration to vote for president trump, if you don't, we will find you and take care of business, i guess. the issue is the ballot secrecy, so we identify that issue and isolates it and put up a rumor control debunker, and you know, in the meantime in the ensuing 27 hours we overturned that that was in fact an iranian operation, and i think what was one of the true success stories of the protect 202020 effort in defending democracy this time around was the fact that rather than four months. in 27 hours we went from detection to sharing that information with the american people. there is one element that does not get a lot of play is that prior to making that assessment, following up on my commitment to our partners in the state and local election community, we held a call with the election services and said, this is what we are seeing. you need to know this, and then we went to the public. >> mr. krebs, i just have about two and a half minutes left, so i would like to yield the rest of my time to you, because he did take an oath to uphold the constitution when you are sworn as director of cisa, so i want you to address anything that you feel we have not already asked and give you an opportunity to speak in the last two and a half minutes please. >> thank you for that courtesy. look, i could not be more proud of the -- my team at cisa for the work they did, not just protecting the 2020 election, but in getting through with the last nine months of all the stresses that covid placed on the workforce and coming to work each day whether they are sitting at home, out in the field, or the limited folks that came into the office. .2 is i firmly believe that to this protect 2020 effort, working with our partners in the federal government, whether it is the intelligence community or the department of defense was the single best representation of a unified government effort. everybody got it. there were no turf wars. there is no -- everybody was on the same page, so we were defending democracy. to the last thing i will say is that the real heroes here are the state and local election workers out there throughout the country. the hundreds of thousands of election workers that risked their lives, and that is not a joke, right, there is a global pandemic, there is covid spreading across the country, they went to work so that you and i can go vote and cast our decision, contribute to this process. they had to deal with incredible adversity, and then at the end of it, risking their lives, they get death threats. for doing their jobs. for standing up and speaking truth to power in putting country over party. that's got to end. we are going to have to move past this somehow, and you know, i've said before that democracy, yeah, we survived it, i think. it was strong enough to survive, but democracy is struggling. it requires commitment and involves both sides of the party, if they fail to participate in the process and instead undermine the process, we risk losing that democracy. we have to come back together for a country. >> again, i thank you for being here. i think you to you and your team around the country for keeping us safe and working so hard in this past election. thank you. >> thank you, senator rosen, senator scott is not back yet, senator portman, are you on webex? senator hawley, are you on web webex? i will try senator sinema? well, then i will pick up the slack. i want to explore a little bit further and one access you did not have to verify. i value the paper backups, i value the controls, but they are only as good as they are actually used, and the only provide confidence to the extent that it is a transparent process, so just speak a little bit to what you had access to, what you did not have access to, what you were denied, and then go ahead. >> thank you, mr. chairman, the very sad fact is that we were denied access to almost anything meaningful that would allow us to verify -- >> can you be specific? >> absolutely, senator. let's talk about the paper backups on the electronic machines. we were denied any access to those except for her from one machine in the entire state of nevada. we were denied that access -- i wish i could have quoted mr. krebs when we were fighting our discovery fight at -- in nevada saying how important it was to get access to these. we did not see any paper backups, and on top of that, the printers on the machine were malfunctioning at such a high rate. the paper backups were actually not giving us anything of use anyhow. so the paper backups that are supposed to provide such transparency, we cannot use them. we cannot see them, we cannot use -- they provided us zero transparency at all except for one machine and the entire state of nevada. another example is the fact that we were denied any meaningful discovery in the case in order to go and examine the full extent of the voter fraud. for instance, we were -- even when we were able to subpoena the records that led us to discover the 4,000 noncitizens who voted, we could not put that into evidence, because we did not get them until the end of the discovery period and the court said at that point it's too late. the discovery. mack essentially three days. and we were denied any meaningful opportunity to even use in our case the information that we got. and the court did not consider those things, unfortunately. we were denied -- we try to understand the code of these machines to find out as the chairman pointed out, whether the machines were hooked up to the internet, whether any of that happen. to be able to do a forensic review. we brought forensic experts all the way to nevada. people that could have discovered the information, people that could have told us what happened with these machines, and we weren't allowed any forensic audit of it, nothing that could have given us any transparency, because transparency is not political. that's what we are talking about here, that's what we were denied in nevada is any attempt to actually find out what happened. here's the troubling thing is one of the reasons that they said that we could not get transparency on the machines was because they were proprietary. the information was proprietary. but we are talking about the accountings of boats and they are not going to let us see the code for how they actually coded the vote? you have to pick one, it is either open-source an end we exactly know the way that these machines are counting the votes, or you have to go back to a verifiable system to make sure that the results that are being reported are the results that we get from actual voters, because that is where democracy breaks down. that is really the fear that we have of losing democracy is one it is not to the people's votes that are being counted, but fraud that is being counted, and we can't just pretend that the emperor has any clothes, when he doesn't. we can't pretend that we have a clean election when there is evidence to the contrary. in the way that we get that is through transparency, and we were denied that in nevada at every single turn. we had a clerk who -- a register of voters who literally dodged our subpoenas. we had the holiday over thanksgiving in order to serve subpoenas and they lock the doors of the offices, locked himself in his house and he refused to accept a subpoena, that same register of voters, we have a whistle-blower that says he was wearing a biden/harris pin to instruct voters at sites. we have to make sure that it is nonpartisan and we make sure that there is transparency and you can't deny transparency at every turn. >> mr. krebs, really quick, mindful that all of the testimony is under oath, so what you heard from mr. binnall's testimony under oath, does that trouble you? this is -- i'm all for paper backups and all for those controls, i think that if used it works. we have a system of advocacy in terms of a legal system, and advocate for one side and it is -- it is competitive system. but both sides have to have information, does that trouble you in transparency that mr. binnall is testifying under oath? >> i think and commissioner palmer's opening statement he talked about the certification process and the voting systems guides, the certifications that have been at the front level and the accuracy of these machines, the parallel testing during the election process, the sampling of forensic audits. we saw georgia do that with the number of their machines to make sure that it matched what they expected. i do think that, yes, we need to make sure that working with these vendors that we have the appropriate insight and transparency through the process certainly. i would -- i think we need to have a conversation on what the appropriate auditing process looks like. i've seen some auditing that is not up to this snuff. but we are talking about paper backups, but also paper ballots. >> but he just said they did not have access to the ballots. all i am asking, does that trouble you that there was not that kind of transparency, or are you challenging his testimony? >> oh, of course not. >> this system is -- we only have confidence if it is completely transparent and somebody who is challenging the results has access to the information, the paper ballot backup and can have their forensic experts look at the computer systems, and i was not afforded. does that concern you? >> i think that there are multiple controls in place throughout the system, and if there is a legal mechanism at the back end that allows for independent third-party auditing -- >> that's the problem, the legal system did not allow for the transparency. you talk about all these controls upfront, but in the end, where there are affidavits signed and people are making charges, when you can look at the evidence to try it in court and your evidence is denied in court, you understand how that frustrates people and that is again the problem. that's why there is such suspicions, because this was not in so many cases the transparent process. with that i will turn to senator scott. >> thank you chairman johnson, i want to thank chairman johnson for taking the heat for hosting a hearing like this. i think it is the right thing to do to give people a feeling that our elections are free and fair and if this one wasn't, the next one will be. two years ago i got elected, and won of election night by 54,000 votes, and chuck schumer sent to a lawyer down and basically said, i don't care what the votes are, we are going to win through the court and we went through unbelievable number of lawsuits, we had i think something like 1,000 lawyers working with us, we went through two recounts, and he did not care what the votes were, chuck schumer's goal was to win and his lawyer was just a win to the voice. did not let me come to orientation, and so when i watch the stuff now, i do not remember one democrat in this entire country who said, that's not right, you should not be doing it that way, they were all in on this. and nobody complained. so we have to figure out how to do this where people feel comfortable. i can tell you, i live in naples, florida, every time i go out, people come up to me and then are frustrated with the unfairness of the system. these are people that wanted trump to win, they think he lost unfairly, but they are mad, because they hear about what happened in wisconsin, they hear about what happens in other states, and then they -- and then they are furious that they think that the whole system is rigged. so one thing i did was in september, i put out a bill called the voter i.d. we do absentee ballots in florida, you have to be a registered voter, your signatures have to match, you have to get your vote in early. you have to get your vote in on time. it's your problem if you don't, not somebody else's. you don't get to vote after the fact, your vote does not come in after the fact and somebody counts it, although two years ago, the democrat lawyer tried to do that. and we know that we have done it on time, we did it this time. so it seems to me that if we want people to feel comfortable in this country, that these elections are fair, you have to show your i.d. you can be doing save day registration, because how can you know if somebody is legal, illegal, do they live in that state? how would you know? you have to let people be able to watch ballot screens open. we had two election supervisors that were removed because of what they did in my election. and they completely violate a law and found and tried to count 95,000 ballots after election night. not in my favor, in the democrats favor. so judge stark, what do you think about the need to have local elections, because i think what mr. krebs said is right, but one of the reasons we have a good system is because we do not have a national system, we have a local system, but should we have national standards? should you can't register on the same day vote, all of these things like we do in florida where you have to get your ballot early in all these things and by the way, you're supposed announce how many ballots you have that night. you should know. so what do you think about this idea that we have to have some national standards but still have local elections? >> i think that national standards need to be seriously considered in light of these occurring issues. we have anecdotes, one of my friends and academic leader in the commonwealth of virginia where he used to live, here is an anecdote, one of his students, a registered voter in vermont studying in virginia, and she receives appropriately an absentee ballot from vermont, but she receives four unsolicited ballots from the commonwealth of virginia where she happens to not be registered to vote, but she is studying. and everyone is hearing these anecdotes and saying, are there control mechanisms in place, so the issue with the centralization is you will continue to have these varieties unless and until there is some enormous reforms in state government, or in congress using its powers under article two, under article 1 in this particular instance, so we need to step in and have regulations to ensure integrity. and a signature requirement is one of the bases. i would like to say senator scott, you have to show i.d. if you want to check into a hotel or get through tsa security, so don't we want to have those kinds of safeguards just to ensure that yes, this is going to be an honest election? which i think we are all asking. >> so, mr. binnall, if we have done these things that would be enforced in your state, would people feel comfortable that there was a fair election? >> senator scott, i think it would absolutely go miles to make sure that people were constant in the results of the election if we put in simple methods to make sure that people who vote are who they report to be, that one person only gets one vote, that the weight of the ballots are counted and leads to an accurate total, these things should not be partisan. to these things should be exactly what we do to protect our republic and make it so that people know that the results are accurate. because otherwise you end up where we are today. >> senator, one of the fascinating things about wisconsin is we have a long history of real transparency in our process, in our recount process and all of the processes. so it is particularly odd here, and several of the justices called what the democrats had done in the majority of the court, the supreme court as absurd and bizarre, and the reason they refer to it that way is because they say the issue here is what confidence do people have in the election process? so if that's what we hear, and i have been hearing that all day here. confidence in the election process, well, why when everything is teed up, i mean, i am a former judge, my cocounsel is of former president state bar, we had teed up everything, absolutely, the names, the presses, you had exact records, and what the biden campaign did not want the court to do is to actually address the substantive question. that is beholden to the court. we won't address the substantive question. and the chief justice, i mean, a great frustration and the chief justice when she said four members of this court throw the cloak of latches over numerous proper providences that will be repeated again and again until this court has the courage to correct them. it was all democrat talking points. this is the same thing. i heard something about justice paretsky's comment, it was just a talking point. and i guess the frustration that you hear from those of us who are serious and have taken a serious is that when we pose these matters took courts, we expect them to address them. when they don't, it undermines the integrity of our system, that's what's going on here. the frustration that you hear even in good democrat circles is if the courts don't address these, who is going to? aren't they the ultimate arbiters? there is no dispute that the election would have turned out differently in wisconsin if according to the allegations in the proofs the court accepted those, that the election results would be different, but instead of addressing the substantive claims, the biden campaign argues don't talk about them, don't address them. that's why i think senator johnson when he first called and asked if i would talk, because if you don't inquire here in the senate, and as ken starr said a minute ago, if you don't do this inquiry, there really isn't going to be any analysis, and there isn't going to be an opportunity to get the very integrity that we all want. i mean, as i said as a former judge, and this is a serious matter to me, and nobody suggested at any point in the process with the allegations in wisconsin are anything but serious and substantive, and documented. and yet, a court takes the biden line and says, we are just not going to talk about it. that is wrong, and that is the reason, one of the reasons that people don't trust this outcome. >> in florida, you know, we have a lot of people who move from south america, and so, a lot of them have said to me, how is this different than what modero is doing? it is so simplistic when you hear about people that are dead that votes, people they don't live in the state that vote, you hear all of these things, and there is no recourse, so we have to figure this out. you have to be able to prevent this -- i don't know if anything will happen with this election, but clearly we can't let this go on for the next election. >> thank you, senator scott, and you have to air these -- you have to have the information. this is not a dangerous hearing, this is incredibly important and crucial hearing. so thank you for participating. senator portman, are you available by webex? >> i am, mr. chairman, i've been moving around the capital as we had to vote, but i was at the hearing earlier and i appreciate the witnesses and all of the information we have received, and you know, as i look at the issue and even watch some of the back and between our colleagues, it seems to me that pulling this out of politics a little bit and having a bipartisan group, there is more independent look at the issue is a good idea. in part because most of us don't believe that this ought to be something that the government usurps from the states may in fact, we believe that the constitution has got it right and generally speaking it is better to have the states handle this, but there are obviously many disparities between how the states do it. so out of the carter baker commission, i would ask you, mr. starr, is it time for us to establish commission, i have had some that work and some that don't work, but they can be quite effective as you take the partisan issue and address it in a very straightforward way, if you had had a distinguished democrat and a distinguished republican and commissioners who are dedicated to increasing the confidence in our elections, do you think now is the time for us to establish such a commission that could report with plenty of time before the next midterm election and help to give the states a sense of direction and perhaps a template of best practices? >> the short answer is yes, in light of the acrimony and division with respect to the 2,000 election, bringing together jimmy carter and baker was very efficacious. they made thoughtful recommendations, but they bring attention and shed light on what the issues are, so yes, i think that taking it out of what is clearly continuing to be a highly bitter and acrimonious discussion and to say that the american people, we are going to take a look at this, and we are going to try to infect improve in the great spirit of reform, we want honest elections, abraham lincoln, with the subject of the campaign, let's not lose sight, even though i am thankful that foreign interference and so far very much admire mr. krebs and all of that, but we are talking about down in the boiler room so to speak of american elections. and that's where i think that these reforms need to be in safeguards that need to be an open place. >> thank you for that, and i am looking forward to working with one of my democratic colleagues to promote this idea. we have had some discussions already, and i think that today what we have heard is indicative of the degree of intensity in this issue and the need for free and fair elections, everybody agrees with it secure elections, and you mentioned, mr. krebs. chris, thank you for your service at cisa. i agree that you were instrumental in building up our defenses on the cybersecurity side. thank you for working with ohio secretary of state, i think that you were able to provide some examples for other states as i understand it using -- you can speak to that, but if we have in every county in ohio so-called detection monitoring hardware, which is designed to detect suspicious cyber activity, any monitoring hardware and how it helped? >> yes, sir. first, i want to thank you for the state of ohio, for some reason in my senior staff and front office, two of my top three advisors having to be from ohio. so you are something right there. the albert systems -- >> let me put on my mask after you said that. i saw senator with the ohio mask earlier. >> so it is in the detection system that sit on the network and the wire, that capture traffic that we can work with our community partners and develop what is known as signatures looking for known malicious activity or known interaction with suspicious ip addresses. just looking for bad interaction, and it gives us a good insight into what sort of behaviors may be happening on those networks. and they are actually pretty key after the 2016 election once we were able to get a sense of what was happening in illinois, we could load up some of the signature systems. where we need to go is building on the trust we have developed through the albert centers and coordinating councils to start deploying more advanced technologies, and i'm specifically talking about some of the end point detection and response capabilities that will actually sit on a computer in the state and local office and be a real-time monitoring capability. that's how we continue moving forward. we mean the same capability in the federal government. we are not there yet, but we have to continue advancing. and i think that congress i will stop there. >> thank you. and as you know, i've talked about this, i appreciate what you did for the election, but i am also very concerned that the government is not up t up to thk generally. and that is another topic for another hearing, perhaps, one where you will be back to testify, but look what happened recently, we found out that a very sophisticated group of hackers got into the computers of some of the most sophisticated agencies, so we obviously have a lot of work to do, and i am not suggesting that cisa was at fault there, but on the other hand, i think we have not yet given even cisa the adequate resources and authority to handle all of these issues. not just election issues, but we have a huge problem right now is cyber attacks and we don't know all the details yet. and i want to ask you again about the stuff you don't know about, but it was a massive cyber attacks that undercut our national security. we know that. senator paul talked about the fact that there has been some lack of understanding between what you testified to you and what you stated as to the election being secure from cyber attacks and this notion that there were not considered as of irregularity and fraud in this election, which of course there have been in every election in the history of this country and there were in this election and we heard about some of those today, it senator paul correct? and i guess i would amend with what he said that your focus was just on foreign adversaries, i assume that you are not just on foreign adversaries even though you feel confident that that did not happen this time and based on what happened in 2016, this is good news, but with regard to the domestic cyber attacks, is that what it was about is he accurate in saying that? >> yes, sir. so when you come into the federal office, you pledge the oath i will uphold and defend the constitution from foreign and domestic threats. that's what we did. the joint statement was security. it was secure in terms of being conflated here, you know, alleging that we were speaking to the fraud aspect, we absolutely were not. we were talking about security, hacking, manipulation of these machines, that was the thrust of the state. >> i think that is very important to point out in a number of people are very confused about that, including the folks in the administration, postelection, there has been a lot of talk about signature matching and i will and with this, mr. chairman, i know that we are getting overtime. but in ohio what we do, we have been doing this for 15 years quite successfully, we send out an application for an absentee ballots, and no fault of absentee, that's how i vote, but you have to send in an application including a signature. those are collect and then the signature on the actual ballot, you have another signature and that is checked and then the two are compared. they also in ohio have access to other signatures if there is some confusion as to whether it might be the right person or not, could you, mr. krebs or others comment on the system, is that a good way to ensure that you have the protection that we all went to have that the person who requested the ballot is an eligible voter? and that they return ballots was completed by the same person? >> i'm not an expert on the system. >> anybody else want to comment on that? >> sir, this is frank ryan, i would tell you that that is a good system and that would alleviate a significant number of issues i had in the election. and those are some of the comments that were made by many of the senators and these tester fires. i would indicate that we saw a major problem in the.com mogul in 2001, which led to it to build much of my testimony today. and in 2008 and 2009, we had the banking industry to know to the documentation, we saw how that built, i would hope that happens in the 2000 election and that election and the most recent one in 2016 and 2020 would be similar legislation that would restore the confidence of people have through some degree of uniform perspective about the requirements in each of the states needs to be able to comply with oh hyo is doing to alleviate the major amount of concerns that i had when we have a supreme court that decided to legislate from the bench. >> i mr. chairman, if i may say just a word, and that is that i think what senator portman coming you have identified is a best practice. and it certainly qualifies as one of those things that is a commission as we can say, we have campus to the entire 50 states, and here are the best practices, the recommendations can be based on experiences of those who simply look at the constructs, let's just see what has worked in the various states with recommendations for honesty and integrity. >> that would be the objective. thank you for your indulgence. >> thank you very much, senator portman, on behalf of the chairman i will recognize myself, so thanks to the witnesses for being here. i just want to say how important it is that we are having today's hearing. let me just give you an example of why. yesterday i was talking -- i am from the state of missouri. yesterday i was talking with some of the constituents back at home about 30 people, every single one of them, every one of them told me that they felt they had been disenfranchised, that their votes did not matter. that the election had been rigged, these are normal reasonable people, these are not crazy people, these are reasonable people who by the way have been involved in politics that won, that lost, they have seen it all. these are normal folks living normal lives firmly believe that they have been disenfranchised, and to listen to the mainstream press and quite a few voices in this building tell them after four years of nonstop russia hoax it was a hoax, it was based on the whole russia nonsense was based on we now know why it's from a russian spy, the steele dossier was based on a russian spy after four years of that being told that the last election was fake and that donald trump was not really elected and after four years of that now the same people are told, you sit down and shut up. if you have any concerns about election integrity, you are not case, you should shut up. well 74 millions million americans are not going to shut up. and telling them that their views don't matter and other concerns don't matter and that they should just be quiet is not a recipe for success in this country. that is not a recipe for unity, and i hear on the other side is so interested in after years, years of trying to delegitimize president donald trump. so suffice it to say, i am not too keen on lectures about how missourians and others who voted for president trump now have some concerns about fraud and integrity and compliance with the law should just be quiet and that they are somehow not patriotic if they raise these questions. i mean, it is absolutely unbelievable. let me talk about the first amendment. i want to begin with you, because i know that you have spent much of your life as a litigator defending the first amendment, have you ever seen anything like we saw in the closing days of the election when you had the biggest corporations in the history of this country, the most powerful corporations in the world, facebook, twitter, working with the democrat campaign to suppress legitimate reporting on hunter biden, who we now know is under federal investigation for criminal wire fraud, tax evasion, other things? have you ever seen anything in your career like that, judge starr? where we have these giant can corporate conglomerates bearingn an election before hand and doing it apparently in conjunction with one of the major political parties, have you ever seen anything like that? >> i think that we learned in the new age, and we need to go back to great lessons from constitutional law, as you well know, senator hawley, and justice william brennan, an icon of the warren court saying that our democracy is based on robust and uninhibited debate, and saying, let's test things in the marketplace of ideas. you can't test places, ideas and theories unless you allow the marketplace of information, communication to flourish. >> well said, i agree with that 100%. and it is an extraordinary thing not to be able to get, i have had jack dorsey, mark zuckerberg under oath. we have asked them, did you coordinate with the democrat campaign? how is it within minutes of the story breaking that both of those major corporate giants decided that they would suppress this story? they did exactly what the biden campaign wanted them to do, i have asked them to determine whether this was an illegal campaign contribution on the behalf of these corporate entities, and i cannot fathom why anybody who cares about free speech in this country would be fine with these make a corporations controlling what people can and cannot say and trying to intervene in the presidential election. let me ask you, judge starr, about something else. let's talk a little bit about male in balloting. in your written testimony, you discuss the findings of the carter baker commission and you have mentioned that here today. that commented on the use of mail-in ballots after the 2000 election, can you tell us a little bit about that commission's finding on mail-in ballots as you recall it and talk about some of the warnings that they put into place? >> yes, the commissioner was referring to absentee ballots, but in light of what has happened in this presidential election, we are now talking about the unprecedented use of mail-in ballots. and their concern and warning about president carter and secretary of state baker is that this is a mechanism or a platform for fraud and abuse, be careful about it. have safeguards in place, and i think that at the bottom it is what some of these concerns are. how do dead people vote, excepting that allegation from nevada, and it is because of an inadequate safeguard. something, they did not walk into the voting booth and vote, somebody voted for him or her. we need the safeguards in place, and that's what the commission was saying and issuing the fervent warning that made it worse in a deeply divided country. >> the 26 states as i understand it when it comes to mail-in voting, 26 states allow third-party ballot harvesting mail-in votes where you can pay a third party to go and distribute to the ballots. you can't do this in my home state of missouri, because we have controls similar to those in ohio, but in other states 2016, you could pay a third party to distribute the ballots and pick up the ballots, there is no chain of custody, there is no verification, this seems to me an invitation to fraud and abuse. i have introduced legislation to end third-party ballot harvesting nationwide to make it legal nationwide, would you agree, judge starr, that looking at something like third-party ballot harvesting is a common sense approach? by the way, some house democrats even have enforced that approach. would you believe that that is a common sense place to start when we think about preventing fraud and addressing it in our election? >> yes, because the opportunity for fraud and abuse is so omnipresent with that kind of if i can call it that, worse practice. so many states have best practices. we hear from ohio, other states have the safeguards in place, let's put safeguards in place, but one of them is let's eliminate practices that are so prone to fraud and abuse. >> and i think that it's just the very beginning of what we should do, we should also make sure that poll watchers can be present at all times, that there are eyes on ballots, cameras on ballots at all times, that there is signature verification requirements that are mandatory and there is mandatory reporting requirements about where we are in the count so that they cannot go dark for days at a time. all the stuff ought to be common sense. there is no reason that we should shrug our shoulders and say, fraud happens all the time. no big deal. it is a big deal. it's a very big deal, and for millions and millions of americans in this election it is a very, very big deal in the indeed. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator hawley for your questions and for standing in. based on one question and the answer from judge starr, i just want to read my opening statement from last year, and reflections on progress, peaceful coexistence, and in freedom, writing "the second basic thesis is that intellectual freedom is essential to human society. freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open minded and unfeeling debate and freedom from pressure by official dome and prejudices. such a trinity of freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths which enhance of hypocrites and demagogues can be transformed into a bloodied dictatorship. freedom of thought is the only guarantee of the feasibility of the scientific democratic approach to politics, economics, and culture. i like to think of this hearing is a demonstration of that freedom to obtain and distribute information to the public. there is nothing dangerous about that. it is essential to our freedom, it is essential to our country, to our democratic republic, and is essential if we are going to restore confidence in this election system that we have. we have to do this. we can't ignore the problem, the first step to solving any problem is admitting you have one, and then dealing with it honestly. gathering the information, this hearing, as all of my hearings have been have been a problem solving process, gathering the information. that's what we are trying to do here today. senator sinema. >> thank you so much, mr. chairman. the 2020 arizona election was a successful election, not for any one party or individual, but for our democracy, and as a demonstration of the will of arizona voters. 80% of registered voters were demonstrated. they vote for state and federal as a trust to be honest, who they believe will fight for arizona values. this record turnout number is also in testament to the work of arizona officials who not only ensure the system work and the laws were upheld, but did so while ensuring the people could anticipate any election during a pandemic as voters and volunteers. arizona has had some sort of absentee voting by mail or over 100 years. in 1992, the arizona legislator and governor in bipartisan fashion made it easier for arizonans to vote by mail by no longer requiring a reason to participate. it has a number of states to ensure state elections. ballots are mailed out 28 days prior to the election and each ballot has a tracking mechanism. we use tamper-resistant envelopes and ballot drop boxes have specific security requirements. election staff are trained to authenticate signatures and a voter response method is the signature cannot be verified. arizona has severe prosecution for ballot tampering or throwing out someone's ballot. in 2018 when i was elected to the united states senate, nearly 80% of arizona voters voted early, most of them by mail. in 2020, that increased to 88%. that is 2.9 million votes in the postal system in arizona. working in long hours, many working 65 hours a week for weeks on end to ensure that ballots got to voters and were returned by state the deadline so they could be counted. even though many of postal facility is in arizona are short-staffed right now, these essential workers do not shy away from the challenge or the need to protect our democracy. arizonans know that it takes time to count our votes and determine election winners. when i was elected to the senate, i was declared the winner six days, but it took 12 days to finish counting the vo vote. now that's not an indication of fraud, it shows that election officials are following the law and tossing out the votes. that's how elections have worked in arizona since our state adopted widespread mail-in voting and is how things work in arizona again in 2020. our elections this year produced by partisan results where members of both parties won elections. arizona state white officials from both parties have also confirmed that our election was fair, just, and without fraud. kitty hawk, arizona's democratic secretary of state on december 9th said this about our election. this election is one for the record books were a number of reasons. participation was at a historic high as was interest in the inner workings of the specific process. which is the kind of scrutiny that pushes us to be better. i have full confidence in this election, that confidence has been affirmed by the court. on november 20th, the chairman of the america board county supervisors as a republican side, no matter how you voted, the election was administered with integrity, transparency, and most importantly in accordance with the arizona state law, and on december 4th, the republican speaker of the arizona state house rusty bowers rejected calls from the state legislator to change the results of arizona's election. here is his quote. as a conservative republican, i don't like the results of the presidential election, i voted for president trump, and i worked hard to reelect him, but i cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election. i and my fellow legislators sworn oath to support to the constitution and the constitution of laws in the state of arizona. it would violate that oath, the basic principles for government and the rule of law if we attempted to nullify the people's vote based on unsupported theories of fraud. challenge contesting the arizona election were brought to the court and dismissed including a unanimous ruling by the arizona supreme court confirming the lower court ruling upholding the results of the election challenge. this is how our system works. if there are concerns of fraud or abuse, the court can look at the evidence and make a ruling. i have a few questions for mr. krebs, during your work at the cyber security and infrastructure security agency, did you find any evidence that refutes the statements i shared from elected officials regarding the fairness of the 2020 election in arizona? >> no, ma'am. >> more broadly what evidence can you offer to support the idea that the election across the country, not just in arizona was fair and secure? >> again, it is those layered security controls that are in place during and after an election. the thing that i always like to point back to you is that increase of paper ballots across the country and the ability to then conduct postelection audits. in arizona i believe it was a 2% audit, in georgia they did a risk limiting audit, and the outcomes were consistent. 5% audit in ohio, wisconsin, 2 percent in pennsylvania, those are the sorts of things that give you confidence in the process when you can go and recount the ballots over and over and over. >> what lesson shall be learned from the 2020 election as we plan for future elections? >> we need to invest in democracy first and foremost we need to fully eradicate those machines that don't have the paper ballots, so the direct recording electronic machines, there is only one state statewide, and that is louisiana, but they are throughout texas, indiana, tennessee, and in a couple of other states including new jersey, we need to get those out of the system so congress needs to fully invest in a risk-based approach to eradicate those. we need to continue investing in postelection audit capabilities for the state, that takes a little bit more time, and then a steady stream of funding in grants on a regular basis, not every ten years or every four years, but on a regular dependable basis to support elections and along the same lines, we need to fully fund and support the election assistance commission, a very critical tool to helping the administration of elections. and lastly, and this is my pet project here, we need to reinvest in civics education in k-12 throughout the country. we have to continue educating our children on what it means to be an american and to the democracy we are enjoying here. >> thank you. my last question, early in this election cycle, the fbi looked at a potential threat to that foreign elements could go through disinformation campaigns. looking back, did the u.s. do enough to prepare for the threat foreign and domestic actors? >> ma'am, we had the distinctive opportunity of having 3.5, four years to prepare for this election in comparison to the prior administration where we only had about four months. we had four years, i know my team, we took every moment of the day to think through any number of scenarios. i have talked about it often that i was paranoid, that we were looking for every angle that we possibly could, and i think that that ultimately benefited us from a preparation perspective when it came around, and then we had a full range of scenarios we had worked through that we had gone through security at the state level, but ultimately it came down to those perception hacks and disinformation, and i think that rumor control is an incredibly valuable tool that we need to think about from a governmentwide perspective of how rumor control, i've said rumor control as a service, how can we use it to help ensure -- rather counter disinformation on the vaccine for covid as it rolls out? those are the sorts of things that we need to be thinking about. >> thank you. mr. chairman, i over extended my time, i yield back and thank you for your indulgence. >> thank you, senator sinema, for participating. i want to warn mr. palmer and mr. brian, i apologize for not having any questions directed your way, i will at the tail end of this have a quick round of questions, but i will ask you a couple of questions, and then what i will tell all the witnesses as a final summary, this is what i got the technique from senator carper's we will give you each an opportunity to make kind of a final statement, things that you weren't asked that you wanted to be asked about or something that you just think needs to be said during this hearing. so we will do that, but i will turn it over to senator peters for some extra questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. a question for mr. krebs, we have spoken about the rise of the extremist of violence in the country and how we need to be conscious of that rise, and in august, the fbi and department of homeland security memos reportedly warned of threats of domestic extremists to election related targets in the run-up to the 2020 election, unfortunately and sadly, these warnings seem to have been well warranted, since president trump's false claims of widespread voter fraud, local election officials across the nation have faced harassment, some have faced death threats against themselves and their families, in michigan are secretary of state had protesters around her home while she was decorating it with her young child to get ready for christmas. according to a local law enforcement, many of those folks were armed, they were repeating some of the presidents false allegations of widespread fraud in an intimidating way, and after speaking out defending the integrity of the 2020 election, it is my understanding that you and your family also faced threats, in fact it required us to take some and make some arrangements for your security to be here today to testify in person. on december 1st of this year, a top republican election official gabrielle sterling in the georgia secretary of state's office held a news conference urging president trump and republican law makers to stop attacking georgia's election system with baseless claims of voter fraud, and in that news conference, mr. sterling said, president trump was, and i am quoting mr. sterling here are "inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence." and that "someone is going to get hurt. someone is going to get shot. someone is going to get killed." we saw similar dangerous trend earlier this year when election officials questioned covid public health safety protocols and fueled extremists including in my home state, the extremist that targeted the governor of the state of michigan. so my question for you, mr. krebs, given the fact that you have faced some of this, do you believe the statements are overstated or that unfortunately real-world violence stemming from dangerous claims can indeed be a real concern that we should be conscious of? >> absolutely. he himself received a number of threats, and he has continued to receive threats as i understand it, secretary rothenberg, i have continued to receive threats. and i think it is not to just the heads -- the principal level people, the directors of the offices. he was having i.t. contractors that were receiving death threats. we are seeing stoking of fires that is completely unnecessary with claims that are -- i'm not not even talking about some of the work cases. i'm talking about in my case, and in many of our cases, it is these fanciful claims of dead dictators and computer algorithms, and we are debunking them, because they are nonsense, and we have said that from the beginning, but they have taken root and some people just don't want to hear how the systems actually work and what is actually capable across the systems, and most importantly -- i'm going to say it again, i will say it again, the paper ballots, it is those -- the root of trust in the process that can dispense with these claims, even if these algorithms were there, they did not work, but they are probably not there, so we have to move past this and in these cases of threats, they need to be prosecuted. people need to be held accountable for these claims they are making. >> in just the last question, and we have spoken about this earlier, if you look at the fact that we were able to conduct this election in a fair way, during the middle of the pandemic, which is an extraordinary time to try to conduct a fair election and do it as efficiently as possible, and the fact that you have thousands of election officials and volunteers that are working, i think of the men and women who went to the polling places to process voting, did it with concerns about their health, people who went to vote, or people who chose to vote absentee in order to minimize the risk to their families, to the health of their families. this is really in my mind a time to celebrate a very successful election that was done fairly, and it was done in the midst of an extraordinary time that we are living in, and it is a result of your folks, others with homeland security, folks of the fbi and others, could you just comment on that as how we should look at what we just went through? and that does not mean that we should not be looking at ways to improve the system and make sure that we minimize clerical errors to make sure that if they are isolated incidents of fraud that they are dealt with, but we should be also celebrating what just was pulled off in this country, which is an example of how the democratic system can work efficiently, fairly, and even do it under extraordinary pressure. >> i absolutely agree with the earlier conversation about the need for a national conversation about how to improve trust in the elections. i think that things that i have even recommended about eliminating the dres and having more audits available after the election is going to require that policy conversation that will required investing in democracy, but we need to recognize the fact that this was a historic election, we had 100 million voters by novembe november 3rd that shows that people wanted to get out there and vote and participate in the process. and all along, we have hundreds of thousands of voters in the opening statement that risk their lives in a global pandemic to make sure that we can all get out there and vote. so we need to support them. i have significant concerns that the targeted violence against the as election workers is going to have a chilling effect. >> harris: so much happening this hour, fox news alert, we have been watching it together alive, senate lawmakers battling it out during a hearing on 2020 election in a gra irregularity, "outnumbered overtime," i am harris faulkner. tempers flare earlier. the top cybersecurity official among those testifying today. lawmakers are looking at security and how the november election played out. to the committee and ranking democrat got into a very heated match. watch list. >>