FBI Chief James Comey Testifies On Hillary Clinton, Wikileaks (Full Testimony) | The New York Times

I don't know whether the time is 10:30 or 10:45 but there is a vote scheduled on the Senate floor it's my intention to keep the meeting going during that vote and we'll take turns going so somebody needs to be here presiding while I go vote and I won't how run over and run back and and we'll we'll do the questioning according to the fall of the gavel or our early birds whichever rule applies director Comey welcome we thank the FBI for what it does to keep America safe there's been a lot of controversy surrounding the FBI since the last time you were here in 2015 in March you publicly acknowledged that the FBI is investigating allegations of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia's effort to interfere in the 2016 election under President Obama's order former DNI clapper had been in charge of the intelligence community's review of that inference mr. clapper testified that President Obama asked the intelligence community to compile all available information after he left office mr. clapper said there was no evidence of collusion whatsoever the New York Times reported that American officials found no proof of collusion so where is all this speculation about collusion coming from in January BuzzFeed published a dossier spinning wild conspiracy theories about the Trump campaign BuzzFeed acknowledged that the claims were unverified and some of the details were clearly wrong BuzzFeed has since been sued for publishing them since then much of the dossier has been proven wrong and many of his outlandish claims have failed to gain traction for example no one's looking for moles or Russian agents embedded in the dnc yet some continue to quote parts of this document as if it were gospel truth and according to press reports the FBI has relied on the document to justify its current investigation there have been reports that the FBI agreed to pay the author of the dossier who paid his sources who also paid their sub sources where did the money come from and what motivated the people writing the checks the company that oversaw the dossiers creation fusion GSP won't speak to that point either its founder Glenn Simpson is refusing to cooperate with this company's committees invest investigation and inquiry his company is also the subject of a complaint to the Justice Department that complaint alleges that fusion worked as an unregistered foreign agent for Russian interest and with the former Russian intelligence agency at the time it worked on the dossier it was filed with the Justice Department in July long before the dossier came out the man who wrote the dossier admitted in court that it has unverified claims does that sound like a reliable basis for law enforcement or intelligence actions unfortunately the FBI has provided me materially inconsistent information about these issues that is why we need to know more about it how much the MV I relied on it once you buy into the claim of collusion then suddenly ever interaction with a Russian can be twisted to seem like confirmation of a conspiracy theory now I obviously don't know what the FBI will find for the good of the country I hope that the FBI gets to the truth soon whatever that truth or that answer maybe if there are wrong doors they should be punished and the innocent should have their names cleared and in the meantime this committee is charged with the oversight of the FBI and we can't wait until this is all over to ask the hard questions otherwise too many people will have no confidence in FBI's conclusions the public needs to know what role the dossier has played and where it came from and we need to know whether there was anything improper going on between the Trump campaign and the Russians or are these mere allegations just a partisan smear campaign that manipulated our government into choosing chasing a conspiracy theory now before the election and before we knew about this notorious dossier you Chairman Comey publicly released his findings that secretary Clinton's was extremely careless in the handling of highly classified information and this recommendation has no-one and and his recommendation that no one be prosecuted according to a recent New York Times article he did it partly because he knew the Russians had a hacked email from a Democrat operative that might be released before the election that email reportedly provided assurances that attorney general Lynch would protect Secretary Clinton and make sure the FBI quote/unquote didn't go too far despite Attorney General Lynch's prior connections to the Clintons and are now famous private conversation with former President Clinton during the investigation she failed to recuse herself from that the in director's announcement effectively gave her cover to have it both ways she would appear publicly uninvolved but remain and control the ultimate outcome moreover in its hasty and tough politically-charged investigation the FBI failed to follow up on credible evidence of the intent to hide hide federal records from the Congress and the public it is a federal crime as we know to willfully and unlawfully conceal remove or destroy a federal record director Comey said that quote the FBI also discovered several thousands work-related emails end of quote that Secretary Clinton did not turn over to the State Department he said the secretary Clinton's lawyers quote cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery integral of additional emails the Justice Department also entered into immunity agreements limiting the scope of the FBI investigation some of these agreements prohibited the FBI from reviewing any emails on the laptops of the Clinton aides that were created outside of secretary Clinton's tenure at state but of course any emails related to alienating records would not have been created until after she left office during the congressional FBI reviews and even though these records were subject to congressional subpoena and preservation records the Justice Department agreed to destroy the laptops so a cloud of doubt hangs over the FBI objectivity the director says that the people at the FBI don't give a rip about politics but the director installed as deputy director a man whose wife ran for elected office and accepted almost a million dollars from Governor Terry McAuliffe a longtime friend and fundraiser of the Clintons and the Democratic Party Andrew McCabe also reportedly met a person with Governor McAuliffe's office about his wife's political plans and he did not recuse himself from the Clinton investigations or the write of matter despite the obvious appearance of conflict the Inspector General is reviewing these issues but once again the people deserve answers and the FBI has not provided those answers we need the FBI to be accountable because we need the FBI to be effective its mission is to protect us from the most dangerous threats facing our nation and as a director was last here since the director was last here the drumbeat of attacks on the United States from those directed or inspired by Isis and other radical Islamic terrorists has continued for example in June 2016 a terrorist killed 49 and wounded another 53 in Orlando frequently frequented by gay and lesbian community it was the most deadly attack in the United States soil since 9/11 but long afterwards in September a terror stabbed ten at a mall in Minneapolis and another terrace injured 31 after he detonated bombs in New Jersey in New York City and in November a terrace injured 13 after driving into students and teachers at Ohio State University our allies haven't been immuned either as we read in the newspaper frequently we all recall the tragedy of July 2016 when terrorists plowed a truck through a crowd in France killing over 80 people so we in the Congress need to make sure that the FBI has the tools it needs to prevent and investigate terrorism as well as other series by violent crimes and these tools must be must adapt to both evolving technology and threats while preserving our civil liberties I hope we can also hear from the director about the FBI's use of some of these tools that may require Congress's attention and most obviously the FISA section 702 Authority is up for reauthorization at the end of the year this Authority provides the government the ability to collect the electronic communications of foreigners outside the United States with a compelled assistance of American companies and Bush and Obama administrations were strongly supportive of 702 and now the Trump administration is as well from all accounts the law has proven to be highly effective in helping to protect the United States and her allies the privacy and civil liberties oversight board and many other federal courts have found section 702 constitutional and consistent with our fourth amendment yet questions and concerns persist for many about its effects on our civil liberties specifically in the way the FBI queries data collected under section 702 in order in addition the director has spoken out often about how the use of encryption by terrorists and criminals is eroding the effectiveness of one of the FBI's core investigative tools a warrant based on probable cause I look forward to an update from you director Comey on going dark problem I'm also waiting for answers from the FBI's advanced knowledge of an attempted terrorist attack 2015 Garland Texas fortunately the attack was interrupted by local police officer but not before a guard was shot after the attack the director claimed that the FBI did not have advanced knowledge of it but it was recently revealed that an undercover FBI agent was in close communication with one of the attackers and the weeks leading up to the attack the undercover agent was in a car directly behind the attackers when they started shooting and fled the scene the committee needs clarity on what the FBI knew whether there was plans to disrupt any attack and whether it shared enough information with local law enforcement and obviously you expect me to always remind you about whistleblowers finally as you know the FBI whistleblower protection Enhancement Act became law December 2016 it clarified that FBI employees are protected when they disclose wrongdoing to their supervisors in April we learned that the FBI still has not updated its policies and done much to educate employees on the new law the Inspector General gave the P I updated training this past January employees who know that they're protected are more likely to come forward with evidence of waste fraud and abuse they should not have to wait many months to be trained on such a significant change in their rights and their protections and these are all important issues and I look forward to discussing them with you director Comey the public's faith of the FBI Congress and our democratic process has been tested lately oversight and transparency hopefully will restore that faith you may take as long as you want sir thanks very much mr. chairman mr. chairman as you stated this is the committee's annual oversight hearing to conduct that oversight of the FBI so usually we review and ask questions about the FBI's work that ranges from major federal law enforcement priorities to the specific concerns of individual members of the committee however this hearing takes place at a unique time last year for the first time the FBI and its investigation of a candidate for president became the center of the closing days of a presidential election before voters went to the polls last November they had been inundated with stories about the FBI's investigation of Senator Clinton's emails the press coverage was wall-to-wall every day there was another story about secretary Clinton's emails every day questions were released a classic everyday questions were raised about whether classified information had been released or compromised and over and over again there was commentary from the FBI about its actions and investigation on July 5th 2016 two months before the election director Comey publicly announced that the FBI had concluded its investigation and determine that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against Secretary Clinton that should have been the end of the story but it wasn't 11 days before the election on October 28th 2016 director Comey then announced that the FBI was reopening the Clinton investigation because of emails on Anthony Weiner's computer this explosive announcement and it was came unprompted and without knowing whether a single email warranted a new investigation it was in fact a big October Surprise but in fact as it turned out not one email on the laptop changed the FBI's original conclusion that no prosecution was warranted and only two days before the election the FBI sent another public letter to Congress affirming its original conclusion this was extraordinary plain and simple I joined those who believe that the actions taken by the FBI did in fact have an impact on the election what's worse is that while all of this was going on in the public spotlight while the FBI was discussing its investigation into senator Clinton's email server in detail I cannot help but note that it was noticeably silent about the investigation into the Trump campaign and Russian interference into the election in June 2016 the Press reported that Russian hackers had infiltrated the computer system of the Democratic National Committee in response then candidate Trump and his campaign began goading the Russian government into hacking Secretary Clinton two months later in August on Twitter Roger stone declared trust me it will soon be Podesta's time in the barrel and quote he then bragged that he was in communication with WikiLeaks and this was during a campaign the campaign in Florida he told a group of Florida Republicans that founder Julian Assange said that founder Julian Assange and that there wouldn't be no telling what the October Surprise might be and quote clearly he knew what he was talking about two months later on October 7 thousands of emails from John Podesta's account were published on Wikileaks we now know that through the fall election the FBI was actively investigating Russia's efforts to interfere with the presidential campaign and possible involvement of Trump campaign officials in those efforts yet the FBI remained silent in fact the FBI Samara Lee refused to even acknowledge the existence of any investigation it's still very unclear and I hope director that you will clear this up why the FBI's treatment of these two investigations was so dramatic Lee different with the Clinton email investigation it has been said that quote exceptional circumstances and quote including the high interest in the matter and the need to reassure the public required public comment from the FBI however I can't imagine how an unprecedented big and bold hacking interference in our election by the Russian government did not also present exceptional circumstances as I said at the beginning we're in a unique time a foreign adversary had actively interfere with a presidential election the FBI was investigating getting not just that interference but whether campaign officials associated with the president were connected to this interference and the Attorney General has recused himself from any involvement in this investigation at the same time the FBI must continue to work with its state and local law enforcement partners and the intelligence community as well to investigate crime of all types violent crime increased narcotic trafficking fraud human trafficking terrorism child exploitation public corruption and yesterday this committee had a very important hearing on hate and crimes against specific religions and races which are off the charts in order to do all of that I firmly believe it is of the utmost importance that the American people have faith and trust in the nation's top law enforcement agency we must be assured that all of the FBI's decisions are made in the interests of justice not in the interest of any political agenda or reputation of any one agency or individual so mr. director today we need to hear how the FBI will regain that faith and trust we need straightforward answers to our questions and we want to hear how you're going to lead the FBI going forward we never ever want anything like this to happen again Thank You mr. chairman Tommy I'd like to swear you in at this point you are firm you affirm that the testimony you're about to give before the committee to be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God thank you very much as the old saying goes for somebody as famous as you introduction so I'm going to just introduce you as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation but to once again thank you for being here today and we look forward to your testimony and answer to our questions you may begin Thank You mr. chairman senator Feinstein members of the committee thank you for having this annual oversight hearing about the FBI I know that sounds a little bit like someone saying they're looking forward to going to the dentist but I really do mean it I think oversight of the FBI of all parts of government but especially the one I'm lucky enough to lead is essential I think it was John Adams who wrote to Thomas Jefferson that power always thinks it has a great soul the way you guard against that is having people ask hard questions ask good questions and demand straightforward answers and I promise you I will do my absolute best to give you that kind of answer today I also appreciate the conversation I know we're going to have today and over the next few months about reauthorizing section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that you mentioned mr. chairman this is a tool that is essential to the safety of this country I did not say the same thing about the collection of telephone dialing information by the NSA I think that's a useful tool 702 is an essential tool and if it goes away we will be less safe as a country and I mean that and we'll be happy to talk more about that thank you for engaging on that so we can tell the American people why this matters so much and why we can't let it go away as you know the magic of the FBI that you oversee is its people and we talk as we should a lot about our counterterrorism work about our counterintelligence work and I'm sure we'll talk about that today but I thought I would just give you some idea of the work that's being done by those people all over the country all over the world every day every night all the time and I pulled three cases that happened and we're finished in the last month just to illustrate it the first was something I know that you followed closely the plague of threats against Jewish community centers that this country experienced in the first few months of this year children frightened old people frightened terrifying threats of bombs at Jewish institutions especially the Jewish community enters the entire FBI surged in response to that threat working across all programs all divisions are technical wizards using our vital international presence and using our partnerships especially with the Israeli national police we made that case and the Israelis locked up the person behind those threats and stopped that terrifying plague against the Jewish community centers second case I want to mention is all of you know what a botnet is these are the zombie armies of computers that have been taken over by criminals lashed together in order to do tremendous harm to innocent people last month the FBI working with our partners with the Spanish National Police took down a botnet called a kellyo spot net and locked up the Russian hacker behind that botnet who made a mistake that Russian criminals sometimes make of leaving Russia and visiting the beautiful city of Barcelona and he's now in jail in Spain and the good people's computers who had been lashed to that zombie army have now been freed from it and are no longer part of a huge criminal enterprise and the last one I'll mention is this past week for the first time since Congress passed the statute making it a crime in the United States to engage in female genital mutilation to mutilate little girls it's been a felony in the United States since 1996 we made the first case last week against doctors in Michigan for doing this terrifying thing to young girls all across the country with our partners in the Department of Homeland Security we brought a case against two doctors for doing this to children this is among the most important work we do protecting kids especially and it was done by great work that you don't hear about a lot all across the country by the FBI it is the honor of my life I know you look at me like I'm crazy for saying this about this job I love this work I love this job and I love it because of the mission and the people I get to work with some of you whose work I just illustrated by pulling those three cases from last month but it goes on all the time all around the country and we're safer for it I love representing these people speaking on their behalf and I look forward to your questions today Thank You mr. chairman and thank you for your opening statement I'm going to start out probably with a couple subjects you wish I didn't bring up and then a third one that I think everybody needs to hear your opinion on a policy issue it is frustrating when the FBI refuses to answer this committee's questions but leaks relevant information to the media in other words they don't talk to us but somebody talks to the media director Comey have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation never question - one relatively related have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation no has any classified information relating to President Trump or his association Associates been Declassified or and shared with the media not to my knowledge you testified before the House Intelligence Committee that a lot of classified matters have ended up in the media recently without getting into any particular article I want to emphasize that without getting into any particular article is there an investigation of any leaks of classified information relating to mr. Trump or his associates I don't want to I don't want to answer that question senator for reasons I think you know there have been a variety of leaks well leaks are always a problem but especially in the last three to six months and where there is a leak of classified information the FBI if it's our information makes a referral to the Department of Justice or if it's another agency's information they do the same and then DOJ authorizes the opening of an investigation I don't want to confirm in an open setting whether there are any investigations open you I want to challenge you on that because the government regularly acknowledges when it's investigating classified leaks you did that in the Valerie Plame case what's the difference here well the most important difference is I don't have authorization from the department to confirm any of the investigations they've authorized and it may be that we can get that at some point but I'm not going to do it sitting here in an open setting without having talked to them then I can i you can expect me to follow up on that offer sure there are several senior FBI officials who would have had access to the classified information that was leaked including yourself and the deputy director so how can the Justice Department guarantee the integrity of the investigations without designating an agency other than the FBI to gather the facts and eliminate senior FBI officials as suspect well not going to answer about any particular investigations but there are I know of situations in the past where if you think the FBI or its leadership or suspects you have another investigative agency support the investigation by federal prosecutors it can be done it has been done in fast okay moving on to another subject the New York Times recently reported that the FBI had found a troubling email among the ones the Russians Act from Democrat operatives the email reportedly provided assurances that attorney general Lynch would protect Secretary Clinton by making sure the FBI investigation called unquote didn't go too far how and when did you first learn of this document also who sent it and who received it that's not a question I can answer in this forum mr. chairman because it would call for a classified response I have briefed leadership of the intelligence committees on that particular issue but I can't talk about it here you can expect me to follow up with you on that point sure what steps did the FBI take to determine whether attorney general Lynch had actually given assurances that the political fix was in no matter what did the FBI interview the person who wrote the email if not why not I have to give you the same answer I can't talk about that in an unclassified setting okay then you can expect me to follow up on that I asked the FBI to provide this email to the committee before today's hearing why haven't you done so and will you provide it by the end of this week again T to react to that I have to give a classified answer and I can't give it sitting here so that means you can give me the email I'm not confirming there was an email sir I can't the subject is classified and in an appropriate forum I'd be happy to brief you on it but I can't do it in an open hearing I assume that other members of the committee could have access to that briefing if they want it I want to talk about going dark director Comey a few years ago you testified before the committee about going dark problem and the inability of law enforcement to access encrypted data despite the existence of a lawfully issued court order you continue to raise this issue in your public speeches speeches most recently Boston College my question you mentioned it again in your testimony briefly but can you provide the committee with a more detailed update on the status of going dark problem and how is it affected the FBI's ability to access encrypted data has there been any progress collaborating with the technology sector to overcome any problems at our hearing in 2015 you said you didn't think legislation was necessary at that time is that still your view Thank You mr. chairman the shadow created by the problem we call going dark continues to fall across more and more of our work take devices for example the ubiquitous default the full disk encryption on devices is affecting now about half of our work first six months of this fiscal year FBI examiner's were presented with over six thousand devices for which we had lawful authorities search warrant a court order to open and in 46 percent of those cases we could not open those devices with any technique that means half of the devices that we encounter in terrorism cases in counterintelligence cases in gang cases in child pornography cases cannot be opened with any technique that is a big problem and so the shadow continues to fall I'm determined to continue to make sure the American people and Congress know about it I know this is important to the president of the new Attorney General I don't know yet how the new administration intends to approach it but it's something we have to talk about because like you I care a lot about privacy I also care an awful lot about Public Safety and there continues to be a huge collision between those two things we care about so I look forward to continuing that conversation mr. chairman you didn't respond to the part about do you still have the view that legislation is not needed I don't know the answer yet as I think I said I hope I said last time we talked about this it may require a legislative solution at some point the Obama administration was not in a position where they were seeking legislation I don't know yet how President Trump intends to approach this I know he spoke about it during the campaign I know he cares about it but it's premature for me to say senator Feinstein director I have one question regarding my opening comment and I view it as a most important question and I hope you will answer it why was it necessary to announce 11 days before a presidential election that you were opening an investigation on a new computer without any knowledge of what was in that computer why didn't you just do the investigation as you would normally with no public announcement a great question senator thank you October 27th the investigative team that had finished the investigation in July focused on secretary Clinton's emails asked to meet with me so I met with them that morning late morning in my conference room and they laid out for me what they could see from the metadata on this fella Anthony Weiner's laptop that had been seized in an unrelated case what they could see from the metadata was that there were thousands of secretary Clinton's emails on that device including what they thought might be the missing emails from her first three months of Secretary of State we never found any emails from her first three months she was using a Verizon blackberry then and that's obviously very important because if there was evidence that she was acting with bad intent that's where it would be in the first they weren't there look can I just finish my answer senator and so they came in and said we can see thousands of emails from the Clinton email domain including many many many from the Verizon Clinton domain blackberry domain they said we think we got to get a search warrant to go get these and the Department of Justice agreed we had to go get a search warrant so I agreed I authorized them to seek a search warrant and then I faced a choice and I've lived my entire career by the tradition that if you can possibly avoid it you avoid any action in the run-up to an election that might have an impact whether it's a dog catcher election or president of the United States but i sat there that more and I could not see a door labeled no action here I could see two doors and they were both actions one was labeled speak the other was labeled concealed because here's how I thought about it I'm not trying to talk you into this but I want you to know my thinking having repeatedly told this Congress we are done and there's nothing there there's no case there there's no case there to restart in a hugely significant way potentially finding the emails that would reflect on her intent from the beginning and not speak about it would require an act of concealment in my view and so I stared at speak and concealed speak would be really bad there's an election in eleven days lordy that would be really bad concealing in my view would be catastrophic not just to the FBI but well beyond and honestly as between really bad and catastrophic I said to my team were gotta walk into the world of really bad I've got to tell Congress that we're restarting this not in some frivolous way in a hugely significant way and the team also told me we cannot finish this work before the election and then they worked night after night after night and they found thousands of new emails they found classified information on Anthony Weiner somehow her emails are being forwarded to Anthony Weiner including classified information by her assistant Huma Abedin and so they found thousands of new emails and then called me the Saturday night before the election and said thanks to the wizardry of our technology we've only had to personally read 6,000 we think we can finish tomorrow morning Sunday and so I met with them and they said we found a lot of new stuff we did not find anything that changes our view of her intent so we're in the same place we were in July it hasn't changed our view and I asked them lots of questions and I said okay if that's where you are then I also have to tell Congress that we're done look this is terrible it makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election but honestly it wouldn't change the decision everybody who disagrees with me has to come back to October 28th with me and stare at this and tell me what you would do would you speak or would you conceal and I could be wrong but we honestly made a decision between those two choices that even in hindsight and this has been one of the world's most painful experiences I would make the same decision I would not conceal that on October 28th from the Congress and I sent the letter to Congress by the way people forget this I didn't make a public announcement I sent a private letter to the chairs and the rankings of the oversight committees did you know it's a distinction without a difference in the world of leaks but it is it was very important that I tell them instead of concealing and reasonable people can disagree but that's the reason I made that choice and it was a hard choice I still believe in retrospect the right choice as painful as this has been and I'm sorry for the long answer well let me respond on the letter it was just a matter of minutes before the world knew about it secondly my understanding and staff has just said to me that you didn't get a search warrant before making the announcement I think that's right I think I authorized and the department justice agreed we were going to seek a search warrant I actually don't see it as a meaningful distinction well it very it's very hard it would have been you took an enormous gamble the gamble was that there was something there that would invalidate her candidacy and there wasn't so one has to look at that action and say did it affect the campaign and I think most people who have looked at this say yes it did affect the campaign why would he do it and what was there any conflict among your staff people saying do it people saying don't do it as has been reported no there was a great debate I have a fabulous staff at all levels and one of my junior lawyers said should you consider that what you're about to do may help elect Donald Trump president and I said thank you for raising that not for a moment because down that path lies the death of the FBI is an independent institution in America I can't consider for a second whose political fortunes will be affected in what way we have to ask ourselves what is the right thing to do and then do that thing I'm very proud of the way we debated it and at the end of the day everyone on my team agreed we have to tell Congress that we are restarting this in a hugely significant way well there's a way to do that I don't know whether it would work or not but certainly in a classified way carrying out your tradition of not announcing investigations and you know I look at this exactly the opposite way you do everybody knew it would influence the investigation before that there was a very large percentage of chance that it would and yet that percentage of chance was taken and there was no information and the election was lost so it seems to me that before your department does something like this you really ought to because they can senator leahy began to talk about other other investigations and I think this theory does not hold up when you look at other investigations but let me go on to 702 because you began your comments saying how important it is and yes it is important we've got a think a problem and the issue that we're going to need to address is the FBI's practice of searching 702 data using us person identifier zazz query terms and some have called this an unconstitutional backdoor search while others say that such queries are essential to assuring that potential terrorists don't slip through the cracks as they did before so could you give us your views on that and how it might be handled to avoid the charge which may bring down 702 No thank you senator it's a really important issue the way 702 works is under that provision of the statute the FISA Court federal judges authorized us as US agencies to collect the communications of non-us people that we believe to be overseas if there using American infrastructure the criticism the FBI has gotten in the feedback we've gotten consistently since 9/11 is you have to make sure you're in a position to connect the dots you can't have stove-piped information and so we've responded to that over the last 10 years mostly to the great work of my predecessor Bob Muller and we have Confederated databases so that if we collect information under 702 it doesn't sit in a separate stovepipe it sits in a single cloud type environment so that if I'm hoping an investigation in the United States in a terrorism matter an intelligence matter or criminal matter and I have a name of the suspect and their telephone number and their email addresses I search the FBI's databases that search necessarily will also touch the information that was collected under 702 so that we don't miss a dot but nobody gets access to the information that sits in the 702 database unless they've been trained correctly if there is let's imagine that terrorists overseas were talking about a suspect in the United States or someone's email address in the United States was in touch with that terrorist and that information sits in the 702 database when we open the case in the United States and put in that name and that email address it will touch that data and tell us there's information in the 702 database that's relevant if the agent doing the query is properly trained on how to handle that he or she will be able to see that information if they're not properly trained they'll be alerted that there is information then they have to go get the appropriate training and the appropriate oversight to be able to see it but to do it otherwise is to risk us where it matters most in the United States failing to connect dots so my view is the information that's in the 702 database has been lawfully collected carefully overseen and checked and our use of it is also appropriate and carefully overseen and checked I'm not sure what that means in this context what we do is we combine information collected from any lawful source in a single FBI database so we don't miss a dot when we're conducting investigations in the United States what we make sure though is nobody gets to see FISA information of any kind unless they've had the appropriate training and have the appropriate oversight my time is up Thank You senator hatch well Thank You senator director Comey in January I introduced the s 139 the rapid DNA act it's bipartisan co-sponsors include senators Feinstein corn and Coons flake Club a Charlie on this committee and maybe more mr. Chairman I want to thank you for putting this bill on the agenda for tomorrow's business meeting this is the same bill that the Senate unanimously passed last year this technology allows developing a DNA profile and performing database comparisons in less than two hours following standards and procedures approved by the FBI it would allow law enforcement to solve crimes and innocent advocates to absorbs now mr. director you came before this committee in December 2015 and asked you then about this legislation you said it would quote help us change the world in a very very exciting way unquote is that still your view of the value of this legislation and you believe that Congress should enact it on its own without getting tangled up in other criminal justice reform issues I agree very much senator hatch the rapid DNA will materially advance the safety of the American people so that if a police officer somewhere in the United States has in his or her custody someone who is a rapist before letting them go on some lesser offense they'll be able to quickly check a DNA database and get a hit that will save lives that will protect all kinds of people from pain and I think it's a great thing well thank you your prepared statement touches on what the FBI is doing to protect children from predators personnel and youth serving organizations such as employees coaches or volunteers often work with unsupervised they're with youth unsupervised that magnifies the need for thorough evaluating and betting at the time they joined such organizations along the senators Franken and Klobuchar I introduced the Child Protection Improvement Act which gives youth serving organizations greater access to the nationwide FBI fingerprint background check system now do you believe that providing organizations like the YMCA and the Girl Scouts of America greater access to FBI fingerprint background checks is an important step in keeping child predators and violent criminals away from our children I do senator I don't know enough about the legislation to react but I think the more information you can put in the hands of the people who are vetting people are going to be near children the better we have an exciting new feature of the FBI's fingerprint system called rap back that once you check someone's identification check them to see if they have no record if they later develop one you can be alerted to it if it happens thereafter which I think makes a big difference well thank you if smoking at length about the so called going dark program whereby strong encryption technology hinders the ability of law enforcement to access communication and other personal personal data on smartphones and similar devices your prepared testimony for today's hearing addresses this issue as well now I've expressed significant concern about proposals that would require device or software manufacturers to build a backdoor into their programming to allow law enforcement to access encrypted data in the course of investigations I remain convinced that such backdoors can be created without seriously compromising the the security of encrypted devices I believe this is an issue where law enforcement and stakeholders need to work together to find solutions rather than coming to Congress with one-size-fits-all legislative fixes now what are you doing to engage with stakeholders on this issue and what kind of progress are you making if you can tell us Thank You senator I think there's good news on that front we've had very good open and productive conversations with the private sector over the last 18 months about this issue because everybody realizes we care about the same things we all love privacy we all care about public safety and none of at least the people that I hang around with none of us want backdoors we don't want access to devices built-in in some way what we want to work with the manufacturers on is to figure out how can we accommodate both interests in a sensible way how can we optimize the privacy security features of their devices and allow court orders to be complied with we're having some good conversations I don't know where they're going to end up frankly I could imagine a world that ends up with legislation saying if you're going to make devices in the United States you figure out how to comply with court orders or maybe we don't go there but we are having productive conversations right now I think right section 702 of the 5s Amendments Act is up for reauthorization this year we now have almost a decade of experience using this statute so we have much more to go on than simply speculation or theory now the intelligence value of section 702 is well documented and it has never been intentionally misused or abused every federal court including the FISA Court that has addressed the issue is concluded that section 702 is lawful administration's of both parties have strongly supported it described for us that targeting and minimization procedures of section 702 requires and how each agency's procedures the subject oversight within the executive branch thank you senator as I said in my opening 702 is a critical tool to protect this country and the way it works is we are allowed to conduct surveillance again under the supervision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on non-us persons who are outside the United States if they're using American infrastructure an email system in the United States a phone system in the United States so it doesn't involve US persons and it doesn't involve activity in the United States and then each agency as you said has detailed procedures for how we will handle this information that are approved by the FISA Court and so become court or that they govern us but not only we overseen by the FISA Court we're overseen by our inspectors general and by Congress checking on our work and you're exactly correct there have been no abuses every court that has looked at this it says this is appropriate under the Fourth Amendment this is appropriate under the statute it was an act passed by a democratically controlled Congress for a Republican president then renewed by a republican-controlled Congress for a Democratic president and uphold by every court that's looked at it and and I'm telling you what the rest of the intelligence community has said we need this to protect the country this should be an easy conversation to have but often people get confused about the details and mix it up with other things so it's our job to make sure we explain it clearly well thank you my time is up sundar Leahy turn to you thank you welcome back to call me you mentioned you like these annual beings of course we didn't have an annual meeting last year it's been I think last year's the first time in 15 years that the FBI did not testify before this committee but no lots happen that last year have is and noted senator Feinstein noted that Americans across the country have been confused and disappointed by your judgment handling the investigation into secretary Clinton's emails and number occasion you chose to comment directly and extensively on that investigation you even released internal FBI memos and interview notes I may have missed this but my 42 years here I've never seen anything like that but you said absolutely nothing regarding the investigation into the Trump campaigns connections to Russia's illegal efforts how collect on Trump was it appropriate for you to comment on one investigation repeatedly not say anything about the other I think so can I explain senator Barb and I only have so much time okay I'll be quick the department I think like treated both investigations consistently under the same principles people forget we would not confirm the existence of the Hillary Clinton email investigation until three months after it began even though it began with a public referral and the candidate herself talked about it in October of 2015 we confirmed it existed and then said not another word not a peep about all until we were physical time possible a couple week before the election and I think there are other things involved in that election uh I'll grant that but there's no question that that had a great effect historians can debate what kind of an effect it was but you you did do it the in October the FBI was investigating the Trump campaigns connection to Russia you said letter informing the Senate House that you're reviewing additional emails it could be relevant to this but both of Vesta cases are open but you still only commented on what I commented as I explained earlier on October 28th in a letter that I sent to the chair and rankings of the oversight committees that we were taking additional steps in the Clinton email investigation because I had testified under oath repeatedly that we were done that we were finished there with respect to the Russia investigation we treated it like we did with the Clinton investigation we didn't say a word about it until months into it and then the only thing we've confirmed so far about this is same thing with the Clinton investigation that we are investigating and I would expect we're not going to say another peep about it until we're done and I don't know what will be said when we're done but that's the way we handled the Clinton investigation as well let me ask you this during your investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails a number of circuits like Rudy Giuliani claimed to have a pipeline to the yeah he boasted that and I quote numerous agents talk to him all the time close quote regarding the investigation even said they had insinuate he had advance warning about the emails described in your October letter former FBI agent Jim Kallstrom made similar claims not either they're lying or there's a serious problem within the bureau anybody in the FBI during this 2016 campaign have contact with Rudy Giuliani about about the Clinton investigation I don't know yet but if I find out that people were leaking information about our investigations whether to reporters or to private parties there'll be severe consequences did you know of anything from Jim Kallstrom same answer I don't know yet you know anything about from other former agents I don't know yet but it's a matter that I'm very very interested in but you are looking into it correct and once you found that answer will you provide it to us I'll provide it to the committee in some form I don't know whether I would say it publicly but I'd find some way to like to let you know now the reports a number of the senior officials in the Trump campaign administration are connected to the Russian investigation that the Attorney General was forced to recuse himself how many members of this committee have urged the Deputy Attorney General and he has that authority to appoint a special counsel to protect the Independence of the investigation I recall I was here in December 2003 shortly after you were confirmed his Deputy Attorney General then attorney general Ashcroft recused himself from the investigation into the Valerie Plame leak you immediately appointed special counsel I believe your point Patrick Fitzgerald what led you to that decision in that particular investigation my judgment was that it that the appearance of fairness and independence required that it be removed from the political chain of command within the Department of Justice because as you'll recall it seems like a lifetime ago but that also that involved the conduct of people who were senior level people in the White House and my judgment was that even I as an independent minded person was a political appointee and so I ought to give it to a career person like Pat Fitzgerald what about the situation now we have a Deputy Attorney General I voted for his confirmation but shouldn't he be not the one to be investigating campaign contacts when his boss the Attorney General was a central figure in that campaign that's a judgment he'll have to make he is as I hoped I was as Deputy Attorney General a very independent-minded career oriented person but it'd be premature for me to comment on that past weekend President Trump again said the hacking a DNC another effort to influence the election could have been China could have been a lot of different groups that contrary to what the intelligence community has said the intelligence community with high confidence concluded it was Russia in many circumstances it's hard to do attribution of a hack but sometimes the intelligence is there we have high confidence that the North Koreans hacked Sony we have high confidence that the Russians did the hacking of the DNC and the other organizations I have a lot of other questions which I'll submit but I owe it before it sounds totally negative I want to praise the response of the FBI in South Burlington Vermont we had had anonymous emails come in threatening serious action against students in a high school escalating cyber threats including detailed death threats multiple lockdowns and all the FBI work closely with Champlain colleges Lahey Center for digital investigation which you a couple years ago it was a textbook example collaboration between state local and federal authorities and I want to thank all those turned out to be a very disturbed young man who was doing it but you only have to turn on the TV and see what happens in different parts of the country how worried we were in Vermont I just want to thank here at the I agents for their help thank you for that senator senator Graham would be next so we'll go to Senator Cornyn thank you according to director Comey I'm disappointed to see that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in the news yesterday essentially blaming you and blaming everything other than herself for her loss on November the 8th I find it ironic because you're not the one who made the decision to handle classified information on a private email server you're not the one who decided to have a private meeting with secretary Clinton's husband in the middle of the Justice Department's ongoing investigation into secretary Clinton's server I use the word investigation here because according to a recent piece in The New York Times you were forbidden from using the word investigation and we're instead told to refer to the investigation which it was as a matter of course it was the former attorney general Loretta Lynch who up until that meeting with President Clinton was the person responsible for making the decision whether to convene a grand jury involving the allegations against Secretary Clinton and it was former attorney general Loretta Lynch who apparently forbade you from using the word investigation indeed the New York Times story is true a democratic operative expressed confidence that the former attorney general would keep that investigation from going very far I think you were given an an impossible choice to make and you did the best you could in light of the situation that you were presented with and it strikes me as somewhat sad for people here and elsewhere to condemn you for notifying Congress shortly before the election that you'd uncovered even more emails related to the investigation including classified emails again because Secretary Clinton had made the decision to use a private email server and I think it's important to remind folks that you are not the one who decided to do business this way and keep State Department emails on a computer of someone suspected of child pornography again I believe you were placed in an incredibly difficult position you did the best you could you may recall I was one of those who felt like given the nature of the investigation and the concerns that a special counsel should have been appointed to conduct the investigation but of course attorney general Lynch and the Obama administration oppose that effort so I just wanted to express to you my my disappointment that this continued seeking of a reason any reason other than the flawed campaign and the candidate herself for Secretary Clinton losing the presidential election if I can turn to a couple of other substantive items here you've mentioned 702 of FISA in the reauthorization and I believe you've referred to this as the crown jewels of the FBI and counterterrorism investigations could you explain why this provides such a unique tool and why you regard it as literally crown jewels of the FBI Thank You senator the every time I talk about this publicly I winced a little bit because I don't want bad people around the world to focus on this too much but really bad people around the world because of the genius of American innovation use our products and infrastructure for their emails for their communications and what 702 allows us to do is quickly target terrorists weapons of mass destruction proliferators spies cyber hackers non Americans who are using our infrastructure to communicate to target them quickly and collect information on them and it is vital to all parts of the intelligence community because of its agility its speed and its effectiveness and again in an open setting we can't explain what you already know from classified briefings about what a difference this makes but again because America is the mother of all this innovation they use a lot of our equipment a lot of our networks to communicate with each other if we were ever required to establish the normal warrant process for these non Americans aren't in our country just because the photons they're using to plan attacks cross our country's lands we'd be tying ourselves in knots for reasons that make no sense at all and the courts have said are unnecessary under the Fourth Amendment so this is a tool we talked a lot last year about the telephony metadata database I think that's a useful tool it does not compare in importance to 702 we can't lose 702 well I agree and it is a little bit difficult to talk about things that do involve classified matters in public but I think the public needs to know that there are multiple oversight layers including the FISA Court congressional oversight internal oversight within the FBI and intelligence community that protects Americans from and under there with their privacy rights while targeting terrorists and people who are trying to kill us I want to talk a minute about the electronic communication transactional records something you and I've discussed before as well the FBI can use National Security Letters I believe to get financial information and telephone numbers now in the conduct of a terrorist investigation but because of a typo in the law the FBI has not been allowed access to Internet metadata in national security cases to the extent that that is necessary can you talk to us about the importance of that particular fix the electronic communications transactional records fix or echo fix thank you so much senator this seems like a boring deal this makes a big impact on our work and here's why in our counterterrorism cases in our counterintelligence cases we can issue with all kinds of layers of approval in the FBI a National Security Letter to find out the subscriber to a particular telephone and to find out what numbers that telephone number was in contact with not the content of those communications but just the connection again because of what I believe is a typo in the law and if I'm wrong Congress will tell me that they intended this the companies that provide the same services but on the Internet resist and say we don't have the statutory authority to serve an NSL National Security Letter to find out the subscriber to a particular email handle or what addresses were in contact with what addresses although we could do the same with telephone communications I don't think Congress intended that distinction but what it does to us is in our most important investigations it requires us if we want to find out the subscriber to a particular email handle to go and get an order from a federal judge in Washington as part of the FISA Court an incredibly long and difficult process and I'm worried about that slowing us down but also worried about it becoming a disincentive for our investigators to do it at all because if you're working a case in in San Antonio or in Seattle you're moving very very quickly and if I have to go to get subscriber information for heaven's sakes on an email address to a federal court in Washington I'm probably going to try and find some other way around it if that's what Congress wants sure we'll follow the law I don't think that was ever intended and so I would hope that Congress will fix what I believe is a typo thank you mr. director I have other questions for the record thank you are going over to vote now and I'd also like to have both Democrat and Republicans notify me if they want a second round so I can get a inventory of that senator klobuchar thank you welcome back director Comey as you are well aware Russia is actively working to undermine our democracy and hurt American businesses at the same time now more than ever Americans are looking to Congress for leadership and we must be a united front and I've appreciated some of the members of this committee on the Republican side who have spoken out about this we must be united as we seek information from the administration last month during a hearing at the House Intelligence Committee you confirm that the FBI is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election including any links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government I know that you cannot discuss that ongoing investigation but just one question to clarify will you commit to ensuring that the relevant congressional committees receive a full and timely briefing on that investigations findings in general I can senator I need Department of Justice approval to brief on particular people that were investigating we've briefed the chairs in the rankings including of this committee on who we have cases open on and exactly what we're doing and how we're using various sources of information I don't know whether the Department will approve that for the entire intelligence committees but I'll lean as far forward as I can and then because some attorney general sessions is recused from that and now rod Rosen Stein is approved you go to him then to get that approval yes I've already briefed him at his first day in office i briefed him on where we are and so he would be the person to make that decision thank you in your testimony you note that the Justice Department brought charges against Russian spies and criminal hackers in connection with the 2014 Yahoo cyberattack in February an example of a cyber attack in our economy in December of 2016 the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security released a 13 page report providing technical details about how federal investigators linked Russia to the hacks against u.s. political organizations does Russia use the same military and civilian tools it used to hack our political organizations in order to do things like hack into US companies do identities and so the credit card information of Americans on the black market and how is the FBI working to fight against hackers supported by foreign governments like Russia the answer is yes both their government organizations and then they have a relationship it's often difficult to define with criminals and that the Yahoo hacks actually an example of that you had some of the Russia's greatest criminal hackers and Intelligence Agency hackers working together so the answer is yes and what we're doing is trying to see if we can impose costs on that behavior in a lot of different ways but including one I mentioned in my opening which is locking up people if we can get them outside of Russia Russia is not too great about cooperating with us when they're criminals inside their borders but all of them like to travel and so if they travel grabbing them and and locking the putting handcuffs on them to send a message that that's not a freebie in your testimony you also discuss the threat that transnational organized crime poses to our safety and our security Russia has vast criminal networks that the Kremlin uses to sow instability across the world I heard these concerns firsthand when senator Graham and McCain and I were in the Baltics Ukraine and Georgia there been recent concerns that organized criminals including Russians are using the luxury real estate market to launder money the Treasury Department has noted a significant rise in the use of shell companies in real estate transactions because foreign buyers use them as a way to hide their identity and find a safe haven for their money in the u.s. in fact nearly half of all homes in the u.s. worth at least 5 million dollars are purchased using shell companies does the anonymity associated with the use of shell companies to buy real estate hurt the FBI's ability to trace the flow of lists money and fight organized crime and do you support efforts by the Treasury Department use its existing authority to require more transparency in these transactions yes and yes okay very good because I think this is a huge problem when you hear that over five million dollars home half of them purchased by shell Trent shell companies that is a major problem in March this committee Subcommittee on crime and terrorism held its first hearing I think Senator Graham and Senator Whitehouse for that I raised the issue of protecting our election infrastructure with former Bush Department of Justice official Ken Weinstein and he agreed that this is a very important issue as a ranking as the ranking member of the Rules Committee I'm particularly concerned about ensuring our elections are safe from foreign interference I recently led a group of 26 senators and calling for a full account of the election assistance Commission efforts to address Russian cyber security threats in the 2016 election I'm also working on legislation in this area can you discuss how the FBI has coordinated with the election assistance Commission Department of Homeland Security and state and local election officials to help protect the integrity of our election process Thank You senator in short what we've done with DHS is share the tools tactics and techniques we see Packers especially from the 2016 election season using to attack voter registration databases and try and engage in other hacks and we've pushed that out to all the states and to the election assistance Commission so they can harden their networks that's one of the most important things we can do is equip them with the information to make their systems tighter very good because as you know we have different equipment all over this country there's some advantage to that I think I think it's good when we have paper ballot backups of course but we have to be prepared for this and this certainly isn't about one political party or one candidate last the last time you came before the committee in December 2015 just one week after the San Bernardino attacks since then as was noted by the chair we've seen other attacks in our country we had in a tragedy in a shopping mall in Saint Cloud Minnesota 10 wounded at a shopping mall thankfully brave off-duty cop was there I was able to stop further damage from being done and I would also like to thank you and the FBI for your Investigation having talked to the chief up there senator Franken and I were briefed by him as well as congressman Emmer right after this attack the local police department is a midsize department and they had to do a lot with working with the community that have a significant Somali community there that's a big part of their community that they're proud to have there so they're working with them they're working with the community they're helping but the FBI really stood in and did the investigation and I guess I want to thank you for that and just let end with one question since we've been reported that Isis has encouraged lone wolf attacks I like what we saw in Orlando it's murkier the vaccine st. cloud what challenges do these type of attacks present for law enforcement and what is the FBI doing to prevent these kinds of tragedies the center Thank You senator the central challenge is not just finding needles in a nationwide haystack but trying to figure out which pieces of hay might become a needle and that is which of the troubled young people or sometimes it's older people are consuming poisonous propaganda some Isis some Anwar Awlaki some other sources and are moving towards thinking and active violence like a stabbing at a shopping mall is some way to achieve meaning in their lives and a huge part of it is building relationships with the communities you mentioned because those folks do not want anyone committing violence committing violence in the name of their faith and so they have the same incentives we do and making sure they see us that way and we see them that way is at the heart of our response because we're not going to see some troubled kid going sideways and thinking he should stab people anywhere near as easily as the people around that kid are going to see it and so getting in a position where they feel comfortable telling us or telling local law enforcement is at the heart of our ability to define those needles evaluate those pieces of a and stop this appreciate it thank you Thank You director coming could you pass on to your agents and I'll support personnel how much we appreciate their efforts to defend the country we're going to set a record for questions asked and answered in 6 minutes and 54 seconds if I can do you agree with me if sequestration goes back into effect next year would be devastating to the FBI yes and it's due to do so unless Congress changes it that's I've been told that ok do you agree with me that ISIL loses the caliphate these people will go out throughout the world and become terrorist agents in the threat of terrorism to the homeland is going to get greater over time not smaller yes it'll diminish in that their power to put out their media to the troubled people in the country will decrease but the the hardened killers flowing out of the caliphate will be a big problem so from a funding point of view terrorism is not going to get better is probably going to get worse I think that's fair to say did you ever talk to Sally Yates about her concerns about general Flynn being compromised I did I don't know whether I can talk about it in this forum but yet the answer is yes that she had concerns about general Flynn and she expressed those concerns to you correct okay we'll talk about that later do you stand by your house testimony of March 20th that there was no surveillance of the Trump campaign that you're aware of correct you would know about it if they were is that correct I think so yes okay ah Carter Page was there a FISA warrant issued regarding Carter pages activity with the Russians I can't answer that here did you consider a Carter page a agent of the campaign same answer I can't answer that here okay uh do you stand by your testimony that there is an active investigation counterintelligence investigation regarding Trump campaign individuals in the Russian government as to whether or not they collaborate you said that in marches and see if there was any coordination between the Russian effort right and people is that still going on yes okay so nothing's changed you stand by those two statements right but you won't tell me about Carter page not here I won't okay the chairman mentioned that fusion are you familiar with fusion I know the name okay are they part of the Russian intelligence apparatus I can't say okay do you agree with me the diffusion was involved in preparing a dossier against Donald Trump that would be interfering in our election by the Russians I I don't want to say okay do you agree with me that Anthony Weiner of 2016 should not have access to classified information uh yes that's a first would you agree with me that if that's not illegal we've got really bad laws well if he hadn't well he got it somehow would be illegal if he didn't have appropriate clearance well do you agree with me he didn't have appropriate clearance he if he did have appropriate clearance I didn't even be worse I don't believe at the time we found that on his laptop that he had any kind of I agree so for him to get it should be a crime somebody should be prosecuted for let Anthony Weiner have access to classified classified information does that make general sense it could be a crime we depend upon what to be what do you dream it should be that anybody that less Anthony Weiner had classified information probably should be prosecuted if our laws don't cover that they probably should there's no Anthony Weiner statute but it is there's already well maybe we need one that's already a statute all right good already a statue I just wonder how you can get classified information and not be a crime about somebody uh unmasking are you familiar with that I'm failure with that term okay has the bureau ever requested unmasking of an American citizen caught up in incidental collection oh yes yeah okay I did it this week in connection with an intelligence report all right before I authorize reauthorize 702 and I'm a pretty hawkish guy I want to know how unmasking works are you aware of any requests by the White House anybody in the Obama administration to unmask American citizens that were caught up in incidental surveillances in 2015 or 2016 I'm not I'm not aware of any request to the FBI would you know what they would then make the request - well they could make it - to anyone in the FBI who was what about the NSA wouldn't you make it to the NSA sure if it was an NSA report okay - I've read in the media and heard about NSA reports when you asked for I don't know who do you ask do you go to the NSA to ask that somebody be unmasked when I want for example got a report this week that said US company number one right it had been removed and I said I believe I need to know the name of that company who do you ask so I asked my intelligence briefing the PDB staff say I'd like to know that and then she goes and asked the owner of the information which would be the NSA well in this case I think it was CIA information saying the director is the owner of the information record requests for unmasking I believe the NSA does CI I don't know about CSA NSA definitely does but there should be a record somewhere in our government for a request unmasked regardless of who made the request I think that's right uh is it fair to say that very few people can make requests for unmasking MS I can't go and make that request as a senator Kenna sure it's a fairly small group that the consumers which I am of that small sister National Security Council within that group that can make this request or do you know I don't know for sure I think the National Security Advisor certainly can okay uh when it comes to Russia is it fair to say that the government of russia actively provides safe haven to cyber criminals yes is it fair to say that the Russian government is still involved in American politics yes is it fair to say we need to stop them from doing this yes fair to say do you agree with me the only way they're going to stop is for them to pay a price for interfering and our political process I think that's a fair statement yeah okay so what we're doing today is not working they're still doing it they're doing it all of the world aren't they yes so what kind of threat do you believe Russia presents to our democratic process given what you know about Russia's behavior of late well certainly in my view the greatest threat of any nation on earth given their intention and their capability do you agree that they did not change the actual vote tally but one day they might I agree that I very much we found no indication of any change in vote tallies there was efforts aimed at voter registration systems but I suppose in theory par in the United States the beauty of our system is it's a bit of a hairball and all different kinds of systems and and you know elders have they done this in other countries where they actually tampered with a vote my understanding is they have attempted in other countries and there's no reason they didn't want it tempted here if we don't stop them over time I think that's fair thank you Thank You chairman welcome back director Comey what is the policy of the Department and the bureau regarding the release of derogatory investigative information about an uncharged subject the general practices we don't talk about completed investigations that didn't result in charges as a general matter and what is the policy regarding release of derogatory information about charged subjects beyond the derogatory investigative information disclosed either in the charging document or in further court proceedings well I think you summarized it the gist of the policy is you don't want to anything outside the charging documents or the public record that might prejudice the trial proceeding and one of the reasons you do that is if you had a police chief say we have investigated the contract between the mayor and the contractor and we've decided there were no misdeeds but we found out that the mayor was sleeping with her driver I just want to let you know that that would be kind of a blow to the integrity the prosecutor function and would probably tend to diminish support for the prosecutor function if we're played by those rules correct that's fair that's why the policy exists yep with respect to oversight questions let's hypothesize that an investigation exists and the public knows about it which could happen for a great number of legitimate reasons what questions are appropriate for senators to ask about that investigation in their oversight capacity they can ask anything they want what what questions are appropriate for you to answer very few wala matter is pending and while we know it's pending is it appropriate for you to tell us whether it's adequately resourced and asked questions about for instance are there actually agents assigned to this or is this been put in somebody's bottom drawer sure potentially right and how's it being supervised to is working on it that sort of thing and are there benchmarks in certain types of cases where departmental approvals are required or the involvement of certain Department officials it's required to see whether those steps have actually been taken I'm not sure I'm following the question I'm sorry let's say you've got a hypothetically a Rico investigation and has to go through procedures within the department I'm sorry to allow a Rico investigation to proceed if none of those have ever been invoked or implicated that would send a signal that maybe not much effort has been dedicated to it would that be a legitimate question to ask have these again you'd have to know that was a Rico investigation but assuming that we knew that that was the case with those staging elements as an investigation moves forward in the internal department approvals be appropriate for us to ask about and unit answer about that's harder question I'm not sure we'll be appropriate to answer it because it would give away what we were looking at potentially would it be appropriate to ask if whether any investigate any witnesses have been interviewed or whether any documents have been obtained pursuant to the investigation that's that's also a harder one I'd be reluctant to answer questions like that because it's a slippery slope to giving away information about exactly what you're doing but if we're concerned that investigation gets put on the shelf and not taken seriously the fact that no witnesses have been called and no documents have been sought would be pretty relevant and wouldn't reveal anything other than a lack of attention by the Bureau correct it could but we're very careful about revealing how we might use a grand jury for example and so if we start a few got sick see I understand that this is a separate thing yeah so that's a harder call well we'll pursue it okay what is the department's or the bureau's policy regarding witnesses who are cooperating in investigation who have some form of ongoing compliance problem let's say they haven't paid their taxes for the last year is it the policy of the department of the borough that they should get those cooperating witnesses to clean up their act so that their non-compliance does not become an issue later on in the case yes I don't know whether it's a written I know I should know this I can't remember sitting here with as a written policy it's certainly a law not getting practice long-standing practice exactly when our tax returns useful in investigating a criminal offense well they're useful in showing unreported income motive if someone hides something that should otherwise be on a tax return indicates they might know it was criminal activity it's not uncommon to seek and use tax returns in a criminal investigation not uncommon it's a very difficult process as it should be but especially in complex financial cases it's a relatively common tool the hearing that Senator Graham and I held with respect to Russia's infiltration and influence in the last election raised the issue of Russia intervening with business leaders in a country engaging them in bribery or other highly favorable business deals with a view to either recruiting them as somebody who has been bribed or being able to threaten them by disclosing the illicit relationship they're perfectly happy to blow up their own cutout but it also blows up the individual have you seen any indication that those are Russian strategies in their election influence toolbox in general my general my understanding is those are tools that the Russians have used over many decades and lastly the European Union is moving towards requiring transparency of incorporations so that shell corporations are harder to create that risks leaving the United States as the last big haven for shell corporations is it true that shell corporations are often used as a device for criminal money-laundering yes is it true that shell corporations are also often used as a device for the concealment of criminally garnered funds yes and to avoid legitimate taxation yes what do you think the hazards are for the United States with respect to election interference of continuing to maintain a system in which shell corporations that you never know who's really behind them are commonplace I suppose one risk is that it makes it easier for illicit money to make its way into a political environment and that's not a good thing I don't think it is yeah me neither okay thank you very much Thank You chairman director thank you for being here given the FBI's extensive responsibilities and expertise in cyber and counterintelligence investigations how likely do you think it is that Senate IT systems have been targeted by foreign intelligence services services I would estimate it's a certainty in inside the IC who who would talk about that problem and who with the Senate would they inform well they're Beneke I don't talk about particular matters but it often is the FBI alerting a US government institution or private-sector DHS might come across it or or other parts of the intelligence community especially NSA when when we talk about things like cyber investigations right now so often on cable TV it becomes the shirts and skins exercise so without asking you to comment about anything that's retrospective about 2016 do you think it's likely that in 2018 and Beyond you're going to see more targeting of US public discourse and elections I do I think one of the lessons that did Lee the Russians may have drawn from this is that this works and so as I said last a month or so ago I expect to see them back in 2018 especially in 2020 you regularly testify and correct maiya 5 mr. misheard you but I think you've regularly testified that you don't think the bureau is short of resources you don't come before us and make big increased appropriations requests and yet those of us were very concerned about cyber look at the US government writ large and think we're not at all prepared for the future can you tell us what the FBI is doing to prepare for that 2018 and 2020 circumstance that you envision without given too much detail we have a enormous part of the FBI in our counterintelligence division and in our cyber division that focuses on just that threat and making sure that we do everything we can to understand how the bad guys might come at us and as I talked about earlier to equip the civilian agencies they're responsible for hardening our infrastructure with all the information we have about how they're going to come at us and if you had in your national security domain increased resources how would you spend another marginal dollar beyond what you expect to receive now I probably have a tie between investing more in upgrading our systems to make sure we're keeping pace with the bar of excellence and probably to hire additional cyber agents and analysts and if you had your druthers what kind of increased funding request would you make I wouldn't make any sitting here I'd like to talk a little bit about WikiLeaks in January the FBI contributed to an IC assessment that concluded that WikiLeaks is a known outlet of foreign propaganda do you stand by that assessment yes do you believe that WikiLeaks has released sensitive and classified information yes do you believe any of WikiLeaks disclosures have endangered American lives and/or put at risk American interests I believe both have been the result of some of their releases can you help me understand why Julian Assange has not been charged for the crime well I don't want to comment on the particular case because I don't want to confirm whether or not there are charges pending he hasn't been apprehended because he's inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London I sent a letter to the Attorney General a number of weeks ago asking questions about the status of the investigation and it seemed pretty clear though individuals were polite and kind and response to our request it seemed that across the IC there wasn't much deliberation about WikiLeaks and about join Assange and this question is the FBI participating in any interagency dialogue about whether or not Assange has committed crimes I don't know where you got that impression but WikiLeaks is a important focus of our attention I intentionally left the almost half of my time for you to sort of wax broadly for a minute there is room for reasonable people to disagree about at what point an allegedly journalistic organization crosses a line to become some sort of a tool of foreign intelligence there are Americans well-meaning thoughtful people who think that weak elites might just be a journalistic outfit can you explain why that is not your view yeah and again I want to be careful they don't prejudice any future proceeding it's a important question because all of us care deeply about the First Amendment and the ability of a Free Press to get information about our work and publish it to my mind it crosses a line when it moves from being about trying to educate a public instead just becomes about intelligence porn frankly just pushing out information about sources and methods without regard to interest without regard to the First Amendment values that normally underlie press reporting and simply becomes a conduit for the Russian intelligence services or some other adversary the United States just to push out information to damage the United States and I realize reasonable people as you said struggle to draw a line but surely there's conduct that's so far to the side of that line that we can all agree there's nothing that even smells journalists about some of this conduct so if you could map that continuum there are clearly members of the IC that have at different points in the past leaked classified information that is an illegal act correct correct when American journalists court and solicit that information have they violated any law by asking people in the IC to potentially leak to leaked information that is potentially classified that conduct is not treated by the US government as criminal conduct I've been asked in other contexts isn't it true that the Espionage statute has no carve-out for journalists that's true but at least in my lifetime the Department of Justice's view has been news gathering and legitimate news reporting is not covered is not going to be investigated or prosecuted as a criminal act that's how it's thought of so a an investigative reporter taking advantage of and celebrating the liberties that we have under the First Amendment at the Washington Post or at the Omaha world-herald or at the Lincoln Journal star at the New York Times trying to talk to people in the IC and get the maximum amount of information that they possibly can out of them to inform the public it is not the burden of an American journalist to discern whether or not the number of the IC is leaking information that might be classified the journalist can legitimately seek information and it's not their job to police it the number of the US I see that leaks classified information has broken a law right but I think the clear legal obligation rests on those people who are in the government in possession of intelligence classified information it's not the journalists burden okay our focus is and should be on the leakers not those that are obtaining it as part of legitimate news gathering so near this part one more time and I know that the chairman has indulged me I'm at and pastime but the American journalist who's seeking this information differs from Assange and WikiLeaks how in that there's at least a portion and people can argue that maybe this conduct wikileaks is engaged in in the past that's closer to regular news gathering but in my view a huge portion of WikiLeaks is activities has nothing to do with legitimate news gathering and forming the public commenting on important public controversies but it's simply about releasing classified information to damage the United States of America and and people sometimes get cynical about journalists American journalists do not do [Music] [Music] Oh you Trump from I know I'm hitting my time but let me ask one one question for Thank You mr. chairman from an investigative standpoint is the sheer number of connections unusual or significant what about each individual's proximity to the president is an unusual for individuals in these important roles they have so many unexpected and often undisclosed ties to a foreign power not to give you the same answer that's not something I can come in on okay thank you mr. Jenner Thank You mr. chairman and thank you director Comey with regard to 702 reauthorization last well that the in 2014 the privacy and civil liberties oversight board recommended that agencies develop mechanisms to limit the potential scope of incidental collection under your leadership what is the bureau done to comply with these recommendations what we've done is make sure that we have tightened up our training and our and making sure that nobody with unauthorized access gets to see the content of a 702 collection that's probably a ugly way of summarizing it is a lot more beneath that but that's the gist of it just to make sure we're still collected under under 702 just to make sure that nobody gets access to it doesn't have a need-to-know and hasn't been trained on how to handle FISA information can you briefly describe the process for incidental collection or minimizing those who are involved yeah incidental collection is the name given to if you're targeting a terrorist let's say who's in Yemen and he happens to be using an American email provider to communicate so under 702 the US intelligence community can collect that terrorist communications he's outside the United States and he's not an American if an American contacts that terrorist sends him an email at his let's imagine it's a gmail account his Gmail that will be incidentally collected that Amer Rickon who sent the email to the terrorists is not the target but because he or she communicated with the terrorists that is collected as part of that lawful collection that's what incidental collection means and if the FBI is doing that 702 collection those communications from the terrorists and to the terrorists would sit in our database if we open an investigation on that person who happen to be the communicant and we search our systems we will hit on that 702 collection and the investigating agent will know holy cow there's an American who was in touch with that terrorists in Yemen if that agent has been trained that has access to the information they'll be able to know it that's how our systems are designed thank you I should say the same review that was conducted in 2014 does point out the value of the program I certainly think and I think most of us do here see the incredible value 702 and need for reauthorization there with regard to just different topic completely polygraph testing as you're aware any applicant for a law enforcement position with the federal government is required to undergo a polygraph it's worth noting that CPB experiences significantly high higher failure rates around 65% and and than any other federal law enforcement agency the FBI does pretty well with this has the Bureau ever conducted any benchmarking with other federal agencies as to the process where you require a polygraph or for employment it seems that I mean given FBI success with this instrument that you could inform some of the other agencies who are having difficulties I don't know whether we have senator Bell find out I think we have with other members of the intelligence community but I don't know whether we've talked to CBP about our program it would be helpful with regard to CPP if you could look into that we appreciate it with regard to data breaches falling on what Senator SAS was asking given the amount of sensitive data held by the FBI what are you doing to protect your own systems a whole lot they don't want to about too much in openstep but it is a constant weary of all of us under since I've been director we've stood up something called the insider threat Center and I've put a senior executive FBI executive in charge of it because I want someone waking up every morning worrying about how might we lose data who might be penetrating us either our systems or as a human asset and so a ton of work is going into protecting our systems but the weakest link is always the people because you can have the greatest firewalls and the greatest intrusion detection system but if your people are engaging either negligent or intentional misconduct all of that's defeated so we're spending a lot of time trying to make sure we have a rich picture of our people that is constant and doesn't depend upon five-year polygraph reinvestigations but that shows us flags of a troubled employee in real-time that's hard to do and build technically and as a matter of law and policy but we're working very hard on it in your opinion is Congress doing enough to protect itself and our systems from outside outside threats I don't mean this is a wise guy answer surely not because none of us can be doing enough frankly again it's not just about the perimeter we build it's about the security culture inside our organizations and and look I'm part of the FBI and I still don't think ours is good enough I'm sure Congress this is not good enough you know the Freedom of Information Act allows access citizens have the right to get information from the federal government can you talk about how the bureau promptly and fully responds to FOIA requests at the same time you level or up maintain some level of security over sensitive and classified data we have an enormous FOIA operation as you might imagine that's working I think 24 hours a day outside of Washington DC great people who this is their life they know the regulations they know the security sensitivities and work as hard as we can to comply with the FOIA deadlines it is it's a huge pain but it's an essential part of being a public institution Thank You mr. chairman Thank You chairman Grassley Thank You director Comey for your service and for your return in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee I want to start by asking about a letter and mr. chairman I'll submit this for the record if I might I'm Senator Whitehouse and I in early of August last year sent a letter to our colleague senator Cruz who then served as the oversight subcommittee chairman expressing our grave concern about the potential for foreign interference in our upcoming presidential election we asked for an oversight hearing to consider whether existing federal criminal statutes and court jurisdiction were sufficient to address conduct related to foreign entities posing a threat to our election we didn't have that hearing but I'd like to ask you that same question now our existing federal criminal statutes sufficient to prosecute conduct related to foreign entities that seek to undermine or elections I think so is my answer but someone smarter than I may have spotted something where there's a gap but my reaction is we have the statutory tools it's a question of gathering the evidence and then applying it under those statutory tools well in response to questions from Senator sass and Senator Graham earlier you stated that you fully expect Russia to continue to be engaged in efforts to influence our elections and you expect them to be back in 2018 and in 2020 what more should we be doing both to defend our election infrastructure and our future elections against continuing Russian interference and what more are you doing was the agency doing to help our allies in countries like France and Germany that have upcoming elections where there's every reason to believe the Russians are actively interfering there as well thank you senator I think two things we can do and that we are doing both in the United States and with our allies is telling the people responsible for protecting the election infrastructure in the United States everything we know about how the Russians and others try to attack those systems how they might come at it what IP addresses they might use what what phishing techniques they might use and then we've shared the same thing with our allies that one-two-two equip the American people and our allies to understand that this is going on because a big part of what the Russian did was pushing out false information echoing it with these troll farms that they use and I think one of the most important things we can do is tell the American voter this is going on you should be skeptical you should ask questions you should understand the nature of the news that you're getting and we've done to deliver that same message to our European colleagues and an interesting thing is happening the marketplace of ideas is responding to this because it's not a role for government people are out there using the power of social media to push back against this kind of thing in France in the Netherlands in Germany and I hope it will happen here in the United States where ordinary citizens will see this bogus stuff going on and push back kind of have good troll armies pushing back the other way so the marketplace of information is better educated frankly well it's an optimistic vision and I appreciate it I also appreciate the work the FBI continues to do to push back and to strengthen our defenses but I think there's more to do you certainly as you've testified before made a great deal of news just before our own election and I'm struck that you chose to make public statements about one investigation and not another the investigation we now know that was ongoing into the Trump campaign and the investigation ongoing into Secretary Clinton I'm concerned about what the future practice will be how has the approach taken with regard to the Clinton investigation been memorialized and have you modified in any way FBI or Department procedures regarding disclosure of information concerning investigations particularly close to an election we have not and the reason for that is everything that we did that I did was in my view consistent with existing Department of Justice policy that is we don't confirm the existence of investigations except in unusual circumstances we don't talk about closed we don't talk about investigations that don't result in criminal charges unless there is a compelling public interest and so those principles should still govern we also whenever humanly possible avoid any action that might have an impact on an election I still believe that to be true an incredibly important guiding principle it's one that I labored under here frankly as I said earlier didn't think I had a choice because I could only have two actions before me I couldn't find a door labeled no action so those principles still exist they're incredibly important the current investigation with respect to Russia we've confirmed it Department Justice authorized me to confirm that it exists we're not going to say another word about it until we're done then I hope in league with the department justice we'll figure out if it doesn't result in charges what if anything will we say about it and we'll be guided by the same principles well director I do think there was a third door available to you in in late last year just before the election and that was to confirm the existence of an ongoing investigation about the Trump campaign which I think was of compelling interest and was an unusual circumstance and activity by a known adversary to interfere in our election had there been public notice that there was a renewed investigation into both campaigns I think the impact would have been different would you agree no I thought a lot about this and my judgment was a counterintelligence that we have to separate two things I thought it was very important to call out what the Russians were trying to do with our election and I offered in August myself to be a voice for that in a public peace calling it out the Obama administration didn't take advantage of that in August they did it in October but I thought that was very important to call out that's a separate question from do you confirm the existence of a classified investigation that has just started to try and figure out are there any connections between that Russian activity and US persons that started in late July remember the Hillary Clinton investigation we didn't confirm it existed until three months after it started and it started publicly so I thought the consistent principle would be we don't confirm the existence of certainly any investigation that involves the u.s. person but a classified investigation in its early stages we don't know what we have what is there and so I my judgment was consistent with the principles I've always operated under that was the right thing to do separately I thought it was very important to call out and tell the American people the Russians are trying to mess with your elections well I hope that in the future that attempt to draw attention to Russian interference or an election which you've testified you expect to continue will be effective let me ask one last question if I might there's a lot of ways the FBI helps state and local law enforcement 1 I've been grateful for was the violence reduction network through which the FBI provided much-needed assistance to wilmington police departments my home town where we've had a dramatic spike in violence I'd be interested in hearing how you imagine or how you intend that the FBI will continue to assist local law enforcement in combating unprecedented spikes in violent crime in a few of our communities such as Wellington where they've happened we're try thank you for that senator the vrn the violence reduction network was piloted in wilmington and a small number of other places and we believe it works where the FBI brings to a fight that's primarily a state and local fight our technology our intelligence expertise at figuring out how to connect dots and which of the bad guys we should focus on and then our enforcement our agents and their ability to make cases and so we're trying to do what we've done in Wilmington in cities around the country those cities that are seeing spikes and violence and and the depressing fact is about half of America's biggest cities saw another rise in violence the first quarter of this year and so we're trying to lean forward and do what we've done in Wilmington in those places as well we appreciate your efforts to support local law enforcement Thank You director senator Kennedy morning mr. director in this afternoon now assume for a second that I'm not a United States Senator and that I don't have security clearance to look at classified information if someone sends me classified information and I know or should know it's classified information and I read it have I committed a crime potentially has the person who sent me the information committed a crime potentially if they knew you didn't have a proprietary enseña need to know was there classified information on former congressman weiners computer yes who sent it to him his then spouse Huma Abedin appears to have had a regular practice of forwarding emails to him for him I think to print out for her so she could then deliver them to the Secretary of State did Congress former congressman Weiner read the classified material I don't I don't think so I think is descriptive I don't think we've been able to interview him because he has pending criminal problems of other sorts but my understanding is that his role would be to print them out as a matter of convenience if he did read them would he have committed a crime potentially would his spouse have committed a crime again potentially would depend upon number of things is there an investigation with respect to the two of them there was it is we completed it why did you conclude neither of them committed a crime because with respect to miss Abbott in a particular week we didn't have any indication that she had a sense that what she was doing was in violation of the law couldn't prove any sort of criminal intent really the central problem we have with the whole email investigation was proving that people knew the secretary and others knew that they were doing some that they were communicating about classified information in a way that they shouldn't be and proving that they had some sense that they were doing something unlawful that was our burden and we weren't able to meet it so she thought it was okay to send her husband the information well I think I don't we get too much into what she thought we could not prove that the people sending the information either in that case or in the other case with the secretary we're acting with any kind of mens rea with any kind of criminal intent assume for a second again I'm not a United States Senator I'm working for a presidential campaign and I'm contacted by a Russian agent and he just wants to talk about the campaign in general and strategy am i committing a crime it harder to answer one I want to be I probably don't want to answer in the in even a hypothetical given the work that we're doing all right let me try it this way let's assume that I'm not a United States Senator I'm working for a presidential campaign and I'm contacted by a Russian agent who says I've got some hacked emails here and I want to visit with you about am i committing a crime yeah also um senator I think I should resist answering that hypothetical okay can you explain to me not the law but just in your personal opinion when interrogation techniques become torture would you mean not the law right there is a statute that designs torture in the United States and so that as a lawyer and as a member of law enforcement organization that's where I would start that the definition of torture is laid out in American statutes I'm not sure I understand what you mean beyond that I'm just asking your personal opinion about what you think constitutes torture well you would where you personally will draw the line drawing on your substantial experience I'd say in general any conduct that involves the intentional infliction of physical pain or discomfort in order to obtain information is in a colloquial sense torture may not be torture under the statute which Congress chose to define at a fairly high level but as a human being and a FBI director I considered the infliction of physical pain and discomfort to be by large colloquially torture any kind of physical pain or discomfort suppose you just serve someone bad food well again tricky for us because the FBI is very careful never to inflict intentionally inflict physical pain or discomfort of any sort to try and question somebody so stamp I'd say yeah that's conduct you should stay way clear of mr. director he's also ineffective frankly but that's a whole nother deal sure do you think it is possible from a law enforcement perspective to to properly vet a non-american non citizen I should say coming to the United States from a conflict area such as Syria it's difficult to do it perfectly and I have concerns about the ability to vet people coming from areas where we have no relationship on the ground with the government there and so I suppose it's possible to do it reasonably there's a number of tools you could bring to bear but there are always risks associated with that I mean how do you do it you can't call you can't call the Chamber of Commerce in Syria how do you do it well you and we do it now we query the holdings of the entire American intelligence community to see if any what we call selectors phone numbers emails addresses associated with that person have ever shown up anywhere in the world in our holdings that's a pretty good way to do it getting into the person's social media to see what they have there yes is another pretty good way to do it the way we rely on in most cases is the host government will have information about them yeah and I mean we're the host government would come out in the article here go ahead yeah and in Iraq we had a United States military presence for many years and collected a whole lot of biometrics so we can query that to see if the person's fingerprints ever showed up copy from one yeah I got Tim sure I'm sorry how about Yemen similarly difficult I yield back my 30 seconds mr. chairman Thank You senator Hirono thank you you've been getting a lot of questions surrounding your decision to to make certain statements about the investigation into secretary Clinton's emails and too many of us you treated the investigation of the Clinton email investigation or matter whatever you want to call it differently than how you treat it the ongoing investigation of the Trump campaign and the Russian attempts to interfere with their elections and while you've if I can understand correctly that there's a you've fell free to speak about the clinton investigation because it had been completed when you had your press conference in july correct 2016 and you do confirm that that there is still an ongoing investigation of the Trump campaign and their conduct with regard to the to Russian efforts to undermine our elections we're conducting an investigation to understand whether there was any coordination between what the Russian efforts and anybody associated with the Trump campaign so since that you've already confirmed that such an investigation is ongoing can you tell us more about what constitutes that investigation no in July of 2016 when you announced that you are not going to be bringing criminal charges against Secretary Clinton because you did need to show intent and there was no intent discovered you held that you spoke for 15 minutes and not only did you say that you are not going to bring criminal charges against her by the way which you said at the end of your 15 minutes but you went on to chastise her saying that she had been extremely careless you raised questions about her judgment you contradicted statements she had made about her email practices and said that possibly that of hostile foreign agents or governments had gained access to her server and that had she still been employed by the government she could have faced disciplinary action for what she did I just wanted to you know whether when you made all those public public statements chastising her which amounts to editorializing on your decision not to bring about criminal charges it had to occur to you that this public chastisement put a Secretary Clinton in a negative light so did you consider whether this public chastisement might affect her campaign I have to respectfully disagree with your characterization my intention is chastising or editorializing my goal was to say what is true what did we do what did we find what do we think about it and I tried to be as complete and fair as I could be and tell the truth about what we found and what we think about it and what we're recommending so when you said that she was behaving in and extremely what was it extremely careless can you psyche me to other examples where you may sum those kinds of comments that elaborated on an FBI's decision not to bring about criminal charges I can't as director I know the department has in the IRS email investigation they wrote a report after they were done chastising Lois Lerner I think the woman's name was for her behavior in a similar way and so it happens it's very unusual but it happens but we know that you were very concerned about what might happen if it came to light that you had possibly gone easy on mrs. Clinton and therefore that you were concerned about the political ramifications of your decisions and yet I was not so you did not consider that your statements about a person who is running for president would not have a negative effect on her I tried very hard not to consider what effect it might have politically I tried very hard to credibly complete an investigation that had got an extraordinary public attention and my judgment and people can disagree about this was that offering as much transparency as possible but what we did what we found in what we think of it was the best way to credibly complete the investigation I wasn't thinking about what effect it might have on a political campaign I find that very hard to to really you know I find that hard to believe that you did not contemplate that there would be political ramifications to your comments I'm just wondering why the ramifications I just tried not to care about them I knew there'd be a huge storm that would come but I tried to say what is the right thing to do in this case yes sir what the right thing would have been that you did have enough evidence to bring about criminal charges and that should have been the end of it I would think I don't understand why you chose to go forward with all kinds of characterizations about her actions I that I find hard to believe and that you will not have considered the political ramifications of that it did not you may not have considered it but the thought should have occurred to you and that I would think that you would have bent over backwards not to say anything that would have an impact on the campaign or on the election because you seem to do that that that was a concern for you let me turn to the Trump administration's vetting and security clearances in that process in recent days there have been numerous reports of trouble administration officials failing to disclose foreign contacts in their security clearance forms what is the role of the FBI in vetting the security clearances of White House personnel if any sometimes the FBI is assigned to do the background checks on people who are coming into government in the executive office of the president other times not a lot of times there are people who are arriving with clearances that already exist so in the case of the Trump administration officials and there have been a number of them was the FBI asked to participate in the vetting process the FBI has done background checks for some appointees in the Trump administration can you disclose who these sub pointees were or are I can't I'm not comfortable sitting right here I don't know them for sure but I shouldn't talk about individuals in an open forum at least without thinking about it better what would be the consequences for a White House staffer or Prasanna who fails to disclose their foreign contacts on a security clearance form hard to say it could include losing your clearances if conduct is intentional it could subject someone to criminal liability is that something that the Department of Justice would investigate and pursue potentially it I think it would depend upon who owned the clearance as well in the first instance it might be another part of the intelligence community so since there have been these concerns raised about the clearances not being appropriately vetted is there an ongoing FBI investigation nation into what happened with the vetting process and whether any crimes may have been committed it's not something I can comment on sitting here thank you Thank You mr. chairman director Comey welcome thank you for your service thank you for your testimony um you know I have to say I found your answer to Senator Kennedy a few minutes ago puzzling in that you described the reason why the case was closed against miss Aberdeen as that you could not determine she was aware her conduct was unlawful and the reason that answer is puzzling is you're a very accomplished lawyer and as you're well aware every first-year law student learns in criminal law that ignorance of the law is no excuse and that mens rea a' does not require knowledge that conduct is unlawful and in fact the governing statutes 18 USC 793 F and 18 USC 798 F 798 a have no requirement of a knowledge of unlawful sit 798 a provides whoever knowingly and willfully communicates furnishes transmits or otherwise makes available to an on an off an unauthorized person classified information shall be fined under this title or in prison not more than 10 years or both under the terms of that statute the fact pattern you described in this hearing seems to fit that statute directly in that if I understand you correctly you said miss Aberdeen forwarded hundreds or thousands of classified emails to her husband on a non-government non-classified compute computer how is how does that conduct not directly violate that statute first senator if I'd said that I misspoke she forwarded hundreds and thousands of emails some of which contained classified information in the four generations generations think is a fair way to say it the Department of Justice has understood that statute to require in practice and I believe they think in law to require a general sense of criminal intent that is not a specific intent but a general criminal intent a sense and knowledge that what you're doing is unlawful not filing a particular statute but some general criminal mens rea oh I can't find a case that's been brought in the last 50 years based on negligence based on without some showing or indicia of intent you and I have both worked in a number of jobs that require dealing with classified information and on its face anyone dealing with classified information should know that that conduct is impermissible let me ask you how would you handle an FBI agent who forwarded thousands of classified emails to his or her spouse on a non-government computer whether it be significant administrative discipline I'm highly confident they wouldn't be prosecuted I'm also highly confident there would be discipline all right let's let ship shift to another topic the previous Congress I chaired a hearing on on the willful blindness of the Obama administration to radical Islamic terrorism we heard testimony from a whistleblower at the Department of Homeland Security that described a purge DHS had had undergone of editing or deleting over 800 records at DHS to remove references to radical Islam to the Muslim Brotherhood and and the purge indeed was the word used by the White House that directed DHS to conduct that purge we obviously have a new administration now a new White House a new Attorney General has the approach of the FBI to radical Islamic terrorism changed any respect with the new administration not that I'm aware of no let me ask you about one specific terror attack which is on May 15th on on may in May of 2015 the terrorist attack in Garland Texas where two terrorists opened fire on a peaceful gathering and thankfully no innocent people were killed thanks to the heroic action of Garland police officer Greg Stevens who fatally shot the two terrorists but a security officer was shot in the leg and it could have been much much worse at the time of the incident you stated publicly that the FBI did not know that the terrorists were on their way to the event and that or that they planned on attacking the event recently there have been media reports suggesting otherwise specifically media reports that have stated that an undercover FBI agent was in close communication with the two terrorists in the weeks leading up to the attack explicitly discussed plans for the attack uh and was in a car directly behind the two terrorists outside the event and took photos of the terrorists moments before the attack but then left the scene when the shooting began and that that agent was detained by the garland police uh are those media reports correct no I stand by what I said originally I can't go into the details of it here because they're classified but the big affair thing is says the media reports are highly misleading and in a classified setting I could explain to you how I would appreciate you or your designee sharing those in a classified setting so that I can learn more of what what occurred this committee has had substantial focus also on the practice of the previous IRS of targeting citizens and citizen groups based on their political speech political views and perceived political opposition to President Obama and the previous Department of Justice both Attorneys General Holder and Lynch in my views stonewalled that investigation is the FBI currently investigating the FBI's rather the IRS is unlawful targeting of citizens for exercising political speech I think you're referring to the original investigation focusing on particular groups allegedly associated with Tea Party yes we completed that investigation in the department declined prosecution we work very hard on it but a lot of people on it couldn't make what we thought was a case and to my knowledge it has not been reopened so did the FBI recommend prosecution you said he couldn't make the case now we couldn't prove again the challenges of intent we couldn't prove that anybody was targeting these folks because they were conservatives or associated with the Tea Party we worked very hard to see if we could make that case we couldn't get there thank you senator Blumenthal Thanks Thank You mr. chairman thank you director Comey for being here and thank you to you and the men and women who work with you at the FBI for their extraordinary service to our country much of it unappreciated as you marked so powerfully it in your opening statement you have confirmed I believe that the FBI is investigating potential ties between Trump associates and the Russian interference in the 2016 campaign correct yes and you have not to my knowledge ruled out anyone in the Trump campaign as potentially a target of that Criminal Investigation correct well I haven't said anything publicly about who we've opened investigations on briefed the chair and ranking on who those people are and so I can't I can't go beyond that in this setting have you ruled out anyone in the campaign that you can disclose I don't feel comfortable answering that senator because I think it puts me on a slope to talking about who we're investigating and if you have you ruled out the present United States I don't I don't want people to over interpret this answer I'm not going to comment on anyone in particular because that puts me down a slope of because if I say no to that then I have to answer succeding questions so what we've done is briefed the chair and ranking on who the US persons are that we've opened investigations on and that so that's as far as we're going to go at this point but as a former prosecutor you know that when there's an investigation into several potentially culpable individuals the evidence from those individuals and the investigation can lead to others correct correct we're always open-minded about and we follow the evidence wherever it takes it so potentially the president United States could be a target of your ongoing investigation into the Trump campaigns involvement with Russian interference in our election correct I just worry I don't want to answer that correct that seems to be unfair speculation we will follow the evidence we'll try and find as much as we can we'll follow the evidence wherever it leads wouldn't this situation be ideal for the appointment of a special prosecutor and independent counsel in light of the fact that the Attorney General has recused himself and so far as your answers indicate today no one has been ruled out publicly in your ongoing investigation I understand the reasons that you want to avoid ruling out anyone publicly but for exactly that reason because of the appearance of a potential conflict of interest isn't this situation absolutely crying out for a special prosecutor that's a judgment for the Deputy Attorney General the acting Attorney General on this matter and not something I should comment on you had some experience in this kind of decision 2003 you admirably appointed a special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald when the Attorney General then John Ashcroft refused recused himself from involvement in the investigation concerning whether the Bush administration officials illegally disclose the identity of an undercover CIA official are there any differences materially between that situation and this one so far as the reasons to appoint a special counsel well I think both situations as with all investigations that touch on people who've been actors in a political world involve considerations of actual conflict of interest and appearance of conflict of interests in I'm not going to talk about the current situation in that situation my judgment was that the credibility of the investigation into the leak of the CIA officers identity would be best served by not having an overseen by myself because I was a political appointee and appointing someone and giving him the authority to run it separate from the political leadership of the Department of Justice that was my judgment in that circumstance I don't know what judgment the acting Attorney General will make I'm sure he'll consider many of the same things as he asked for your advice I'm not I'm not going to say senator I wouldn't when I was Dagon I want people talking about what their conversations with me so I'll do the same for him so far as the investigation the ongoing investigation into Trump associates and their potential collusion with the Russian meddling in our election will you be providing any updates to the American people certainly not before the matter is concluded and then depending upon how the matter is concluded I mean some matters are concluded with criminal charges and then there's a public accounting in a charging document other matters as was the case with the email investigation and with no charges but some statement of some sort others end with no statement I don't know yet and obviously I'd want to do that in close coordination with the department will you make recommendations to presumably it would be the Deputy Attorney General or the special prosecutor if one is appointed as to whether criminal charges should be brought I don't know in this case in particular but in general we almost always do especially the highest profile matters but you cannot yourself pursue criminal charges correct correct I think that's important for the American people understand because it bears on the question of whether a special prosecutor ought to be appointed the FBI may inspire great credibility and Trust but the FBI cannot bring charges neither can the intelligence committees do so nor can an independent commission only the Deputy Attorney General or a special prosecutor designated by him correct correct let me close because I am running out of time have you been questioned at all by the Inspector General in connection with the inquiry that I understand is on going into a number of the topics that we've been discussing here yes I've been interviewed the Inspector General's inspecting me and looking at my conduct in the course of the email investigation which I know this sounds like a crazy thing to say I encourage I want that inspection because I want that my I want my story told because some of its classified but also if I did something wrong I want to hear that I don't think I did but yeah I've been interviewed and I'm sure I'll be interviewed again do you have any regrets or are there any things you would do differently in connection with either the comments you may if time you close the investigation or when you then indicated to Congress that you were in effect reopening it yeah the honest answer is no I've asked myself that a million times because lordy has this been painful the only thing I regret is it maybe answering the phone and they called to recruit me to be FBI director and I was living happily in Connecticut and we would welcome you back to Canada but I really and I've gotten all kinds of rocks thrown at me and this has been really hard but I think I've done the right thing at each turn I'm not on anybody's side so hard for people to see that but I look I've asked that a million times should you have done this should you have done that and I act the honest answer I don't mean to say an arrogant is I wouldn't have done it any differently somehow I have prayed it away wished it away wish that I was on the shores of the Connecticut sound but failing that I I don't have any regrets I want to ask one last question unrelated to this topic on the issue of gun violence would you agree that universal background checks would help with law enforcement and prevention of gun violence the more able we are to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and spouse abusers and all the better so the more information we have the better for law enforcement perspective I'll take that as a yes thank you all right call on senator Tillis yeah I think we have one member that if if that member is going to come back for first round then we have three or four maybe five of us that want a second round so I hope that people get back here so we know exactly how many people we have out of courtesy to the senator or director Comey there tell us director Comey thank you for being here I'm always impressed with your composure and your preparation and I want to get to a couple of other things maybe first than if I have time come back to what the hearing has been predominantly about when you briefed us last year I think that you said that there were some that there were ongoing investigations on Homeland Homeland Security potential terrorists either homegrown or foreign inspired investigations in every state is that still the case yes do you have roughly and can you give me roughly an idea of the number of investigations that is yeah it's just north of a thousand just north of a thousand yeah we have that at caseload of state about the same since we last talked about it some have closed some have opened but about a thousand homegrown violent extremist investigations in the United States and at the time I also asked the question about to what extent that you can discuss in this setting were people who are the target of investigations persons who came in through various programs where questions about vetting have been raised as whether or not they're accurate at the time there were there were a dozen and a half I think that you may have estimated you have any rough numbers about that yeah I do if you we have about a thousand homegrown violent extremists investigations then we probably have another thousand or so that are I should define my terms homegrown violent extremist we mean somebody we have no indication that they're in touch right then we have another big group of people that we're looking at who we see some contact with foreign terrorists so you take that two thousand plus cases about 300 of them are people who came to the United States as refugees okay and to what extent in all of those investigations you mentioned earlier that there are probably about half of the various computing devices that you've accessed that you can't get into with any technology that the FBI has which I assume is some of the most advanced available to what extent is the access to that information relevant and these investigations of potential homeland threats oh it's a it's a feature of all our work but especially concerning here because we're trying through lawful process figure out are they consuming this poison on the Internet and are they in touch with anybody and so it's true in terrorism cases about half the devices we can open about 90 some percent of our subjects or using at least one encrypted app as well it was mr. director just because of physical and technological constraints half of the base of information like to harvest you can't get to without 7:02 how much more of the remaining half would be would be harmed well the 702 actually addresses a different challenge losing 702 would be disastrous because it would lose our it is relevant in these investigations it is because that's what means so half of the physical assets you can't already get access to then there's the metadata and all the other information that would be instructive to these investigations so when by going dark do we mean 100% well we're headed towards a hundred percent if 702 is our window into the really bad guys overseas and if we close that one I don't know why on earth we would close that but we have thousands of investigations of potential homeland security threats evenly split by either people who have self radicalized or some who have been influenced some who have come over in refugee programs that we will basically pull the rug out from under you in terms of being able to actively investigate the America should say expeditiously investigate them well certainly significantly impair our ability to investigate them and that's what folks often say once you get metadata you can't convict somebody and incapacitate them based on that got a drill down the director called me in my remaining time I want to go back to the to the investigation and I just want to give you another opportunity to maybe finish by explaining the context that you were operating in but I want to I want to create the context to going back to when the investigation first began it was already a part of media attention I think on June the 27th the then Attorney General met with the spouse of someone who's subject to an active investigation which was at the very least an unusual encounter which also spun up the media and that I think it was July 5th that you made the statement that I think a few of the things you've said that I guess based on the evidence you were gathering there was one component was like removing a frame from a huge finished jigsaw puzzle and dumping pieces on the floor something else that the media ties into then you said there is evidence of potential violations of statutes regarding the handling of classified information and you went on to say that under circumstances a person who's engaged in these activities would likely be subject to security or administrative sanctions I mean that was the tough part of the statement that you made but you went on to to say that you didn't believe a reasonable minded prosecutor would bring a case even though there was evidence of potential violations and that you were expressing your view that the Justice Department should not proceed is that is that typical for you to go to a point and say I've gathered this information there may be evidence of violations but we don't think any reasonable prosecutor and the DOJ would pursue it therefore we're going to recommend not pursuing it is that common for an FBI director to do that I I've never heard of it I never imagined I ever until this circumstance when I was there some logic and that at the time that you were making that decision based on the information that you were provided was there the same sort of thought process that you're going through there to have it rise to that level that then led to your October 28th notification of Congress that you had to look at other evidence that had been identified on anthony Weiner's t see what I've tried to do is say it looks like you were trying to provide as much transparency and as much real-time information as you had yeah and then on November the 6th the FBI apparently moved heaven and earth and got something done in a matter of days that they thought was going to take beyond the election but you were in that pressure cooker I just wanted to give you an opportunity to glue together I think the decision for your actions on July the 5th and how I think there's parallels between that and what you ultimately did on October the 28th and then November the 6th then I'll go back the remaining my time for the answer and I I've lived my whole life caring about the credibility and the integrity of the criminal justice process that the American people believe it to be and that it be in fact fair independent and honest and so what I struggled with in the spring of last year was how do we credibly complete the investigation of Hillary Clinton's if we conclude there's no case there the normal way to do it we'd have the department justice announce it and I struggled as we got closer to the end of it with the number of things that gone on so which I can't talk about yet that made me worry that the department leadership could not credibly complete the investigation and decline prosecution without Grievous damage to the American people's confidence in the justice system and then the capper was I'm not picking on the the Attorney General Loretta Lynch who I like very much but her meeting with President Clinton on that airplane was the capper for me and I then said you know what the department cannot by itself credibly end this the best chance we have is a justice system is if I do something I never imagined before step away from them and tell the American people look here's what the FBI did here's what we found here's what we think and that that offered us the best chance of the American people believing in the system that it was done in a credible way that was a hard call for me to make to call the Attorney General that morning and say I'm about to do a press conference and I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to say and I said too I hope some day you'll understand why I think I have to do this but look I wasn't loving this I knew this would be disastrous for me personally but I thought this is the best way to protect these institutions that we care so much about and having done that and then having testified repeatedly under oath we're done this was done in a credible way there's no there there that when the Anthony Weiner thing landed on me on October 27th and there was a huge this would people forget new step to be taken we may be finding the golden missing emails that would change this case if I were not to speak about that it would be a disastrous catastrophic concealment it was incredibly painful choice but actually not all that hard between very bad and catastrophic I had to tell Congress that we were taking these additional steps I prayed to find a third door I couldn't find it - actions speak or conceal I don't think many reasonable people would do it differently than I did no matter what they say today if you were standing there staring at that on October 28th would you really conceal that so I spoke again the design was to act credibly independently and honestly so the American people know the system is not in any way and that's why I felt transparency was the best path in July and then I wasn't seeking transparency in October I sent that letter only to the chairs and rankings yeah that I know they were going to leak it of course I know how Congress works but I did not make an announcement at that point and then you're my amazing people moved heaven and earth to do what was impossible to get through those emails by working 24 hours a day and then said honestly sir we found tons of new stuff doesn't change our view and I said are you sure don't do it just because you're under pressure they said we're sure we don't believe is a case against Hillary Clinton and I said then by god I got to tell Congress that and no I'm going to get a storm at me for that but what I can promise you all along is I said to people you may think we're idiots were honest people we made judgments trying to do the right thing and I believe even with hindsight we made the right decisions and I'm sorry for that long answer director Comey I we have 7 times 6 is 42 minutes I hope you won't want to take a break I'm made of stone thank you on March 6 I wrote to you asking about the FBI's relationship with the author of the Trump Russia dossier Christopher Steele most of these questions have not been answered so I'm going to ask them now prior to the bureau launching the investigation of the ledge ties between the Trump campaign and Russia did anyone from the FBI have interactions with mr. Steele regarding the issue it's not a question that I can answer in this forum as you know I've briefed you privately on this and if there's more that's necessary then I'd be happy to do it privately have have you ever represented to a judge that the FBI had interaction with mr. Steele whether by name or not regarding alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia prior to the bureau launching its investigation of the matter I have to give you the same answer mr. chairman this one I'm going to expect an answer on do FBI policies the policies allow it to pay an outside investigator for work another source is also paying him for as well want me to repeat it do FBI policies allow it to pay an outside investigator for work that another source is also paying that investigator for I don't know for sure as I said here I possibly is my answer but I'll get you a precise answer in writing sure okay did the FBI provide any payments whatsoever to mr. steel related to the investigation of Trump associates I'm back to my first I can't answer in this forum was the FBI aware was the FBI aware that mr. steel reportedly paid his sources who in turn paid their sub sources to make the claim in the dossier same answer sir here's one you ought to be able to answer is it vital to know is it vital to know whether or not sources have been paid in order to evaluate their credibility and if they have been paid doesn't that information need to be disclosed if you're relying on that information in seeking approval for investigative authority I think in general yes I think it is vital to know the FBI and the Justice Department have provide provide me material inconsistent answers in closed settings about its reported relationship with mr. steel will you commit to fully answering the questions from my March 6th and April 28th the letter and providing all requested documents so that we can resolve those inconsistencies even if in a closed session being necessary because as I sit here I don't know all the questions are in the letters I don't want to answer that specifically but I commit to you to giving you all the information you need to address just that challenge because I don't believe there's any inconsistency I think there's a misunderstanding but in a classified setting I'll give you what you need okay well I hope to show you those inconsistencies now and I think I know what your Europe where the confusion is but I think in a classified setting we can straighten it out question next question according to a complaint filed with the Justice Department the company that oversaw dossiers creation was also working with a former Russian intelligence operate operative on a pro-russian lobbying project at the same time the company fusion GPS allegedly failed to register as a foreign agent for its work to undermine the Magnitsky Act which is a law that lets the president punish Russian officials who violate human rights before I sent you a letter about this were you aware of the complaint against fusion was acting as an unregistered agent for Asian interest it's not a question I can answer in this forum we can't answer that no no I can't go on to something else last week the FBI filed a declaration in court pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act litigations the FBI said that a grand jury issued subpoenas or Secretary Clinton's emails yet you refuse to tell this committee whether the FBI saw it or had been denied access to grand jury process from the Justice Department so I think a very simple question why does the FBI give more information to someone who files a lawsuit then to an oversight committee in the Congress and that has happened to me several times I'm not sure senator whether that's what happened here but you're right I refuse to confirm in our hearings as to whether we'd used a grand jury and how I think that's the right position because I don't know it well enough I don't think I can tell you I don't think I can distinguish the statements made in the FOIA case as I sit here but yeah just as a matter of proposition then if I Chuck Grassley is a private citizen file a Freedom of Information Act and you give me more information than you'll give to Senator Chuck Grassley how do you justify that yeah it's a good question I don't wait it's a good question how do you justify it but I was gonna say it's a good question I can't as I sit here eat God's was the Clinton investigation named operation mid-year because it needed to be finished before the Democratic National Convention if so why the artificial deadlines if not why was that the name certainly not because it had to be finished by a particular date there's an art and a science to how we come up with code names for cases they assure me it's done randomly sometimes I see ones that make me smile so I'm not sure but I can assure you that it was called mid-year exam was the name of the case I can assure you the name was not selected for any nefarious purpose or because of any timing on the investigation last question when was a grand jury convened was it for you your first public statement about closing the case I'm still not in a position where I'm comfortable confirming whether and how we use the grand jury in an open setting I don't know enough about what was said in the FOIA case to know whether that makes my answer silly but I just want to be so careful about talking about grand jury matters that's sir senator Feinstein thanks very much mr. chairman mr. director first of all thank you for your fortitude going through this appreciate it in your testimony you noted that the first half of the fiscal year the FBI was unable to access the content of more than 3,000 mobile devices even though the FBI had the legal authority to do so I'm familiar with one of those and that is the Southern California terrorist attack which where 14 people were killed in San Bernardino of those 3,000 devices that you weren't able to access can you say how many of these were related to a counterterrorism event I don't know as I sit here senator but we can get you that information yeah I really very much appreciate that we had looked at legislation that would take into consideration events of national security and provide that devices it must be some way of even going before a judge in getting a court order to be able to open a device do you think that would work well that would sure to my mind be a better place for us to be from a public safety perspective but we aren't there now in terms this week the British Parliament's Home Affairs Secretary released a report finding that social media platforms such as Facebook Twitter and you two failed to remove extremist material posted by banned jihadist and neo-nazi groups even when that material was reported the committee urged tech companies to pay for and publicize online content monitoring activities and called on the British government to strengthen laws related to the publication of such material last year I worked with senators Burr Rubio and Nelson to introduce a bill to require tech companies to report terrorist activity on their platforms to law enforcement what do you advise the provision we modeled it after an existing law which requires tech companies to notify authorities about cases of child pornography but does not require companies to monitor any user subscriber or customer I plan to re-enter introduce the provision in separate legislation so here two questions with the FBI benefit from knowing when technology companies see terrorist plotting and other illegal activity online yes would the FBI be willing to work with the Judiciary Committee going forward on this provision yes senator I don't know it well enough to offer you a view but we'd be happy to work with you on it well I I was so struck when San Bernardino happened and you made overtures to allow that device to be opened and then the FBI had to spend nine hundred thousand dollars to hack it open and as I subsequently learned of some of the reason for it there were good reasons to get into that device and the concern I have is that once people have been killed in it terrorist attack and there may be other DNA there may be other messages that lead an investigative agency to believe that there are others out there isn't it to the for the protection of the public that one would want to be able to see if a device could be opened and I've had a very hard time I've tried gone out I've tried to talk to the tech companies there in my state one Facebook was very good and understood the problem but most do not have the FBI ever talked with the tech companies about this need in particular yes senator we've had a lot of conversations and as I said earlier they're in my sense they've been getting more productive because I think the tech companies have come to see the darkness a little bit more my concern was privacy is really important but I'm not that they didn't see the public safety costs I think they're starting to see that better and what nobody wants to have happen is something terrible happened in the United States and it be connected to our inability to access information with lawful authority that we ought to have the conversations before that happens and the company's more and more get that I think over the last year and a half and but it's vital we weren't picking on Apple in the San Bernardino case there were real reasons why we need to get into that device and and that is true in case after case after case which is why we have to figure out a way to optimize those two things privacy and public safety well to be candid my understanding about some of this was that the European community had special concerns about privacy and that some of the companies in our country were concerned well they would lose business that European concern is changing I think what I read about the UK what I understand is happening in France and Germany increased sharing of intelligence the realization I think that they have very dangerous people in large numbers possibly plotting at any given time to carry out an attack has had some palliative effect and there may be a change of viewpoint so it would be very helpful if our law enforcement community could help us and this is not to monitor this is something that's very basic if there is a piece of evidence it says hey there may be a cell there may be another individual out there you have a chance of getting into that piece of evidence to see if that's true all right with the judge's permission with the judge's permission that's correct so I thank you for that thank you so Thank You mr. chairman we Sandra Lee hasn't had first round so I got to go to senator Lee Thank You mr. chairman thank you for coming for being here today and thanks for your service to our country I want to talk to you about something raised by one of my colleagues a little while ago about electronic communications transaction records would it be fair to say that electronic communications transaction records include such things as browsing history one's history of websites that one might have visited on the Internet yes but would it be fair to say also that what one views what pages one has visited might in some ways be indicative of what one is reading potentially you're right even if you don't have see where they went on the page that they went to ESPN or some fishing magazine gives you some indication of their interests yes individually and collectively you can find out a fair amount about a person especially if you're able to review what it is that they've been reading for a certain period of time right your only reason hesitating is as I understand it we can't look at all we get as the websites visited not where they went on the page or what they clicked on but it does give some indication of your interest just like what you call gives you some indication of your interests but where they went on the website will also be indicative of what they did on the website would it not I mean if you can get that granular information about what subpart not just that they went to ESPN but they went to ESPN and read this or that article right my understanding is that we can't with an NSL as we understand the statute get that sub content we can get the webpage visited we can't get where they navigate it within the website that's I may be wrong about that but I think that's how we are within the existing confines of the law correct and so for those who are proposing that we change existing law so as to allow you to use a National Security Letter to go further as was suggested by one of my colleagues earlier today that then would allow you to get this more granular information no I'm sorry I may have screwed this up as we understand the way Ector was intended to be under to be used that our NSL authority under Ector as we thought it was and as we hope it will be changed is limited to that top level website visit address correct so even if it's changed the way we hope it will be we don't get any deeper into what what you looked at on a page it's as if we're able to see what sporting goods store you called we can't tell from the call record what you asked about we can see what sporting page you visited what website but we can't see where you went within that you know based on the legislation that I've reviewed it's not my recollection that that is the case what I've been told is that it it would not necessarily be the policy of the government to use it to go to that level of granularity but that the language itself would allow it is that inconsistent with your understanding it is and my understanding is we're not looking for that Authority you don't want that Authority that's my understanding what we'd like is the functional equivalent of the dialing information where you the address you emailed to or the or the webpage you went to not where you went within it even if you look at it at the broad level of abstraction so if you're suggesting it would be used only at the domain name level somebody went to espn.com if you follow someone's browsing history over a long period of time you could still find out a fair amount about that person could you know yes sure yeah and again I keep saying this but I mean it as you can from their telephone dialing history yes let's talk about section 702 for a minute section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance let's act authorizes the surveillance the use of us signals surveillance equipment to obtain foreign intelligence information the definition includes information that is directly related to national security but it also includes quote information that is relevant to the Foreign Affairs of the United States close quote regardless of whether that foreign affairs related information is relevant to a national security threat to your knowledge has the Attorney General or has the DNI ever used section 702 to target individuals abroad in a situation unrelated to a national security threat not that I'm aware of I think I could be wrong but I don't think so I think it's confined a counterterrorism to espionage to counter proliferation and those those are the buckets okay as I say cyber but cyber is fits with that's where it has typically used those things does it so to your knowledge it doesn't currently use section 702 to target people abroad in instances unrelated to national security threats I don't think so like a diplomat to find out how someone feels about a particular foreign policy issue or something I don't think so right so if section 702 were narrowed to exclude such information to exclude information that is relevant to foreign affairs but not relevant to a national security threat would that mean that the government would be able to obtain the information it needs in order to protect national security would seem so logically mean to me the value of 702 is exactly that where the rubber hits the road in the national security context especially counterterrorism counter-proliferation yeah now when section 702 is used typically what we're talking about here is not metadata it's not this call was made to from this number to this number this is content and so if if we were talking about two u.s. persons two American citizens if I were calling you typically that's not something that section 702 would be used to collect but if it's if it's me calling someone else and if that person is not a US person if that person ends up being an agent of a foreign government and if somebody has determined that communications involving that person might be connected to a national security investigation there's a a chance that that communication could be intercepted not just the fact that call was made but also the content of that call correct that that's what we call incidental collection and that incidental collection is then aggregated you have databases that store all these things and so there are lots of US persons who have had communications conversations that have themselves been recorded that are out there and in a database can you search that database for communications involving specific US persons without getting a warrant yes and the fact that these communications were intercepted without necessarily any showing of wrongdoing on the part of the US person without necessarily showing that that US person had anything to do with the foreign that with the national security investigation at issue does that cause you concern that that could involve almost a backdoor way of going after communications by US persons in which they have a reasonable expectation of privacy it doesn't cause me concern but it may be because of the way what I can see from where I am I understand the question though but it's true whether it's 702 or other court authorized domestic surveillance in the United States if we are covering a particular embassy of a foreign power and Americans call in and speak to them we record that because we're authorized to collect the communications in and out of that embassy and we store all of those in a database where we have lawfully collected those even though the American who called wasn't a target the same happens with 702 if you contact or call a terrorist or someone we're targeting overseas you're an American you have a conversation even though you're not the target that's going to be collected and stored in a database what matters is how we treat that data and that we're careful with it and we don't use it willy-nilly and we protect it in important ways that's true whether we collected in 702 are collected domestically I don't know how we would operate otherwise and that's yeah I don't know how we would operate otherwise I think what the American people want us to do is make sure we hold it so we can connect dots if it turns out there's something bad in there but treat it like the u.s. person information that it is protected and make sure that it's handled in a responsible way thank you thank you thank you miss chairman director let me let me tell you a story about a hundred years ago literally my Italian grandparents and my Irish grandparents faced discrimination because of their religion now that discrimination wasn't violence it was economic this was not unusual in this country at that time I like to think that's gone I like to think of my grandparents the Italian grandparents the Irish grandparents discrimination they faced because of both their race and their religion is not here but now we see alarming rise in hate crimes among minority communities yesterday this committee heard some important testimony from the Department of Justice from the International Association of Chiefs of Police I believe our nation's largest civil rights organization the law enforcement and political leaders I send the message that toxic hateful rhetoric would not be tolerated they must denounce bigotry wherever they encounter even as a child I was taught that we are never to discriminate against anybody because of their race or their religion now what bothers me let me show you this on the campaign trail President Trump promises supporters a Muslim ban a campaign press release entitled Donald J J Trump's statement on preventing Muslim immigration says they called for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States now I can understand the dumb things are said during a campaign that's on his website today that goes beyond being stupid do you agree with me the messages like that can cast suspicion on our Muslim neighbors can perpetuate division and hatred if it does does that make America less safe senator thank you I'm not going to comment on the particular statement but I do agree that a perception or a reality of hostility towards any community but in this particular the Muslim American community makes our jobs harder because as I said in response to an earlier question those good people don't want people engaging in acts of violence on the in the name of their faith or in their neighborhood and so our interests are aligned but if anything gets in the way of that and chills their their openness to talk to us and to tell us what they see it makes it harder for us to find those threats so we've been spending a ton of time you're right about the increase in hate crimes we've seen those numbers start to go up in 2014 they've been climbing since then to redouble our efforts to get in those communities and show them our hearts and what we're like to encourage people not to fear contact with us and director Comey I don't ask this to make a political point I asked this as United States Senator I believe the United States Senate can be and sometimes has been the conscience of the nation we're a nation that hearings our First Amendment we trust them can we believe in all religions allow you to practice any religion you want or none if you want I worry but it's the Muslim religion or any other you have religions where people believe in it they should not be condemned of actions of a few I worry very much that the rhetoric and hatred can bring about things neither you nor I ever want to see in this country I think would agree on that hate crimes I don't care who it's against against somebody because of the race of the religion you as a head of the FBI any one of us have been prosecutors we abhor all hate crimes and I believe you do is that not collects for sure and I worry that we also give the impression that citizenship alone might be a reliable indicator of the terrorist threat posed by an individual to the United States I think of the Oklahoma City bombing one of the greatest acts of terrorism in our country done by the Americans incident it served I believe honorably in our military so would you agree the citizenship alone is not a reliable indicator of a terrorist threat posed by an individual to the United States correct most of the people that I talked about that we have open cases on are American citizens thank you back the Department of Homeland Security that we've heard from them they have an assessment from the office of intelligence and analysis conclude the citizenship his own like they'd be a reliable indicator of potential terrorist activity do you agree with that yes you not matter chairman Grassley I've worked to address the concerns related to the FBI's here and Piper analysis testimonies been flawed I think we all accept the past vestigation began and I believe 2012 after three men were exonerated here in Washington DC because the FBI animus gave in testimony hoarders review more than 3000 cases the FBI's reached out to houses originally prosecuted these cases and I appreciate that I main concern that cases remain closed if you don't find the transcript right away I've asked you this question in writing the in case is there where there's a missing transcript you commit to have an FBI conduct an in-person visit to obtain whether there was information that was used and possibly faulty analysis by the FBI that might have brought about a conviction I'm sorry an in-person visit both to the prosecutor's office whoever else may be involved if you don't have a transcript an in-person visit to say okay was what do you record showed do you did you use analyses that may have been faulty from the FBI and bring about the conviction I see I I don't know enough to react to that now and commit to it now can I follow up with you to see how we're thinking about that will you follow up I will bring to you okay thank you thank you Senator Leahy Sarah White House thank you um a couple of quick matters for starters did you give Hillary Clinton quote a free pass for many bad deeds there was a tweet to that effect from the president no not that was not my intention certainly well did you give her a free pass from any bad deeds whatever your intention may have been we conducted a competent honest and independent investigation closed it while offering transparency to the American people I believed what I said there was not a prosecutable case there the with respect to the question of prosecution for classified material is the question of the consequences of the disclosure ie the harm from the release or the actual secrecy of the material considered in a prosecute of decision in my experience it is yes because there's a great deal of material that while technically classified is widely known to the public and because over-classification is a very significant problem within the executive branch correct correct and DOJ reserves prosecution for the most serious matters of my experience and that would have been evaluated also in looking at secretary Clinton's emails yes so although they were classified they may not have caused any harm in terms of who saw them will may not make it specific to that there are emails that could be classified and cause no harm if they were disclosed yes there are that is the case it has been disclosed and publicly reported that there was a two-day interval between the FBI interview of Michael Flynn related to his conversations with ambassador kis lyac and then Deputy Attorney General's report to White House Counsel about those calls did you participate in conversations related to this matter during that two-day interval and what can you tell us about why that interval took two days was there some standard operating procedure that needed to be vindicated was there you'd think that that could have flipped over to a conversation to the White House a good deal quicker than that once the agents report came back from the interview yeah I don't I don't know whether the two days is right I think it might have been a day I could be wrong could have been two days and I did participate in conversations about that matter and I think I'll stop there because I don't I don't know the department's position I'm speaking about those communications but as you sit here you don't have any hesitation about that delay about any it representing any kind of you know mischief or misconduct no no it given your experience you know how this works an agent conducts an interview they're going to come back they write up a 302 they show it to their partner they make sure they get it right then they produce the 302 so sometimes it's the next day before it's finished so the deputy midgets would have seen the 302 and that process would have taken place by the time she went up to see white House Counsel McGann I think that's right yes okay thank you and on to the Weiner laptop as I understand it you were informed by agents in the FBI office that there was potentially related or relevant information in mr. Weiner's laptop on the basis of that information you then sent a letter to the members of Congress before whom you had committed to answer if there were any changes in the status of things you also then authorized the agents to pursue a search warrant which then gave them access to the content which allowed them to do the search that you then said came up with nothing so that you could then undo the letter and say actually we took a look and there's nothing there is that the do I have the order correctly they're right they came to me they briefed me on what they could see from the metadata why it was significant they thought that I seek a search warrant one of my approval to do that I agreed authorized it so did the Department of Justice and then they reviewed it was just making sure I get the numbers right during the following week they reviewed 40,000 emails I understated how many they reviewed and found that 3,000 of them were work-related and came from blackberry backups and a bunch of other things in like 12 of them were classified but we'd seen them all before you know so they finished that work they briefed me on it and say it doesn't change our view and then I send the second letter did any of those classified emails create national security damage that's hard one answer by definition a classification is based on the potential national security damage with respect to our earlier conversation that tons of stuff is classified that is on the front page of the times I'm not aware that any of these emails or any of the emails in the investigation got into the hands of people they were able to exploit them to damage our national security so let me offer you this hypothetical they come to you and say the metadata shows that we have potential information here that could be relevant could cause us to reopen the information it would seem to me that it would be as sensible at that moment to say how quickly can you get a search warrant and how quickly can we get an answer to that question because I made a promise to people in Congress that I would get back to them with this information and if there's anything real here you need to get on that pronto so that I can answer that question so that the search warrant precedes the letter rather than the letter preceding the search warrant particularly in light of the widely adhered to policy the department not to disclose ongoing investigative materials and the truly exceptional nature of disclosures yeah why not the search warrant first well I pressed them very hard on that and found credible their response is that there was no way no way they could review the volume of information they saw on the laptop in the time remaining except that they did well they did and because our wizards and our operational technology division came up with a way to D dupe electronically that as I understand it involved writing a custom software program that's going to help us in lots of other areas but investigative team said sir we cannot finish this before the election so that to my mind that then made the judgment appropriate the one that I made not waiting waiting waiting to make the disclosure okay and with just respect to your response to secretary to Senator Tillis we can talk about it some other time my time has expired but lest silence be viewed as consent I have a different view of what took place I don't don't doubt your honesty for a minute but I do think that they were very significant mistakes made through this process in which in the email case yes okay in the Hillary Clinton email case yes thank you to the ranking member and I admire your hanging in there and being made of stone was it sandstone I think I I just want to clarify some something some of the answers that you gave me for example in response to director I asked you would president Trump's tax returns be material to such an investigation the Russian investigation and does the investigation have access to president Trump's tax returns and some other questions you answered I can't say and I'd like to get a clarification on that is is it that you can't say or you can't say in this setting then I won't answer questions about the contours of the investigation as I sit here I don't know whether I would do it in a closed setting either but for sure I don't want to begin answering questions about what we're looking at and how okay so I'll take that as at least in this setting you can't do that and maybe you can elsewhere we're talking about some of the the number of the unusual number of individuals in important roles in the Trump campaign or in his life and they're sort of unexpected and often undisclosed ties to to Russia and I'd like to focus on one of those individuals Roger stone and his relationship with gusoff er 2.0 whisper 2.0 is an online persona that the IC concluded was used by Russian military intelligence to leaked documents and emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks the US intelligence community including the FBI has since concluded that the Russian Russian government directed the breach and that Russian military intelligence used gusoff er 2.0 to ensure that the documents obtained were publicly released so while gusoff er has insisted that he or she is not Russian the intelligence community has concluded that the hacker has strong ties to Moscow and was used by Russian military intelligence to weak information about the Clinton campaign and Democrats that was stolen by Russia is that director Comey a fair characterization yes gusu art the ICC judgment was gusoff er 2.0 was an instrument of the Russian intelligence thank you well a few months back it was revealed that in August of last year that's a couple months before the 2016 election Roger stone one of president Trump's long-standing political mentors and at one time a formal campaign adviser exchanged a number of private messages with gusoff er 2.0 via Twitter mr. stone has since insisted that the relationship was totally innocuous now in this series of messages goofer 2.0 and mr. stone exchanged a number of bizarre pleasantries because the Fuhrer thanks mr. stone for writing about him and mr. stone expresses delight that goose AFER's Twitter handle was reinstated after having been suspended but in one message goes for rights to mr. stone quote I'm pleased to say that you are a great man please tell me if I can help you anyhow it would be a great pleasure to me director Comey to me this sounds like a clearer offer from a Russian intelligence operative to collaborate with a senior official on the Trump campaign is that a throwaway line or an offer to help stone in some respect do we know whether any further communication between stone and goose fur took place and if you can't say here or can't say and but you could say in a another classified environment but could you make that distinction I definitely cannot say here I don't think I would say in a classified environment because it calls for questions about what we're looking at and and how and so but I definitely can't say here okay well at the very least stones conversation with goose fur demonstrated once again that the Trump campaign officials were communicating with Russian operatives what is less clear however is whether the Trump campaign ever provided direction to Russian operatives or aware that specific actions were being carried out to influence the election for example it has been suggested that last year the Russians used thousands of paid trolls human trolls we know those and botnets the flood the internet particularly social media and with fake news aimed at influencing the election and favoring President Trump I'm curious whether such actions were part of a coordinated effort is there any evidence that the Trump campaign assisted or directed those efforts that something that I can't answer here but I would refer you back to what I said was the purpose of the investigation to understand whether there were any coordination or collusion between elements of the campaign and the Russians of course and I would point out to that that right before the Podesta emails came out that Roger stone said it's it look it's soon going to be time for Podesta's time in the barrel and so I think there may be a little bit of there there before I I just want to I only have 30 seconds so I'm I want to say this I know senator Cornyn isn't here I think it's a shame that he said that Hillary yesterday in this forum blamed everyone but herself she took a lot of blame on herself in the in that forum and I think she when she referenced what you did and in 11 days for the election which has been a subject here that and also the Russian interference I think she was only saying stuff that other people have said I don't think she was saying anything that that a lot a lot of people also think had had an effect on the election so I just think it was a shame that that the senator from Texas I don't know if he meant to leave that out deliberately but she did not blame everyone but herself Thank You mr. chairman say before I call on the next senator there's two things I'd like to say one would be for what you promised senator Cruz about a briefing on the garland situation that you would include any of the staff of the committee in on that briefing as well so we have a committee briefing on it as well at least at the staff level would you do that assuming they have the clearances for it I don't think that's a problem at all I'll do that I guess that's that's obvious the second thing is after we have two more people have second round before they get done I have to go and I want to thank you for being here senator Feinstein I'll pose down the meaty thank you thank you saw I think under the previous order senator Hirono was ahead of you chairman I'm I'm happy to follow senator Verona okay thank you as mentioned earlier director in March President Trump issued a revised refugees and visa ban executive order that suspended entry into the u.s. from six majority Muslim countries the suspicion was this suspension was largely promised on the claim that quote more than three hundred persons who entered the United States are refugees are currently set the subjects of counterterrorism investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation end quote can you provide any additional information on whether the persons under investigation are from the six countries subject to the suspension and are these persons exclusively from the six countries subject to the suspension and if not what other countries are represented among the population that is currently under investigation I'm sure we can provide you what I can tell you here is I think I think about a third of them are from the six countries of so 300 about a third of them from the six countries I think two-thirds of those were from the seventh country Iraq that was not included but but I'll make sure my staff gets you the precise numbers senator so Iraq is the only other country that was not among the six targeted countries I think that's right obviously as you ask it I'm wondering whether I'm wrong and so I'll get you the precise numbers but I came I think it was refugees about 300 about a third from the six countries about two-thirds from Iraq that's my rank you can provide the information later thank you very much now can you provide additional information on the percentage of these individuals who came to the US as children I can't as I sit here I'm sure we can get you that you check that thank you and can you provide additional information on the percentage of these individuals who are radicalized after having been in our country for a long period of time however way you would describe that's a harder one because it's very hard to figure out when someone is radicalized and then when it happened I'll ask my folks to think about what information we can get you on that we'll do our best yes thank you probably during the course of your investigation you might be able to ascertain when they became radicalized we went turning to the death threats against certain judges we have an administration that challenged us federal judges who disagree with President Trump's views we've seen this in the campaign and during his presidency following Judge Derek Watson's ruling blocking the president's revised travel ban judge Watson who sits on the Hawaii District Court judge Watson began receiving death threats I understand the u.s. marshals have primary responsibility for the production of federal judges but that the FBI FBI is poised to step in if necessary is the FBI investigating the threats made against judge Watson I believe we are I was last week visited the Honolulu field office and got briefed on our work again to assist the marshals in trying to understand the threats and protect the judge I believe we are and then in February the three ninth circuit judges who rule against the president's first travel ban also began receiving threats is the FBI investigating those threats I don't know that one for sure I bet we are but I can't answer with confidence as I sit here so can we say that any time a federal judges are threatened that the FBI would likely be involved in investigation investigating those threats in most circumstances the marshals have the primary responsibility and in my experience they very very often ask us for assistance on our what information we may have some of our technical resources they're pretty darn good but in most cases I think we offer assistance and are the president's continued attacks on the judiciary in bowling involving our individuals to make these sorts of threats we're in an environment where some people might think that it's okay to issue these kinds of threats against judges who disagree with the president that's not something I think I can comment on it's concerning whenever people are making threats of judges because their independence and insulation from influence whether fear or favor is at the core of the whole justice system which is why we take them so seriously yes and so speaking of the independence of not just the judiciary but I'd like you to clarify the FBI's independence from the DOJ apparatus can the FBI conduct an investigation independent from the Department of Justice or does the FBI have to disclose all its investigations to the DOJ does it have to get the Attorney General's consent well we work with the Department of Justice whether that's main justice or US Attorneys offices on all of our investigations and so we work with them and so in in a in a legal sense we're not independent of the Department of Justice we are spiritually culturally pretty independent group and that's the way you would want it but yeah we work with the Department Justice on all of our investigations so if the Attorney General are senior officials at the Department of Justice opposes a specific investigation can they halt that FBI investigation in theory yes has it happened not in my experience because it would be a big deal to tell the FBI to stop doing something that without a appropriate purpose we're oftentimes they give us opinions that we don't see a case there and so you ought to stop investing resources in it but I'm talking about a situation where we were told to stop something for a political reason that would be a very big deal it's not happened in my experience well a number of us have called for an independent investigator or a special prosecutor to investigate the the Russian efforts to undermine or to interfere with our elections as well as the Trump teams relationships with these these Russian efforts and should the department Justice decide that there should be such as independent investigator special prosecutor and you already have an ongoing FBI investigation into these matters how and the Attorney General has already recused themselves so Howard how would this proceed when you have the Department of Justice conducting or assigning an independent or special prosecutor and then you're already doing an investigation how would this work our investigative team would just coordinate with a different set of prosecutors it's as if a case was moved from one US Attorney's office to another the investigative team just starts working with a different set of assistant US Attorney's you don't you don't miss it so the two investigations could proceed but you would talk to each other right it's gone in but it's one investigation and the strength of the justice system at the federal level in the United States is the prosecutors and the agents work together on their investigations and so the investigators would disengage from one prosecutor and hook up to another and just continue going so in the investigations that you're currently doing on the Russian interference and the Trump teams relationship are you coordinating with any US Attorney's Office those investigations two sets of prosecutors main justice the National Security Division and the Eastern District of Virginia US Attorney's Office so should the AG decide to go with a special prosecutor then you would end your engagement with these other two entities and work with the DOJ well I could have mishegoss Skinner potentially or it could be that in some circumstances and Attorney General appoints someone else to oversee it and you keep the career level prosecute of team and so to the prosecutors and the agents there's no change except the boss is different if I could just ask one more follow up question so this has this happened before where you're doing an investigation and the Attorney General appoints a special prosecutor to conduct the same investigation it happened to me when I was in what I thought was my last job ever in the government as Deputy Attorney General and I appointed Patrick Fitzgerald then the US attorney in Chicago to oversee a very sensitive investigation involving allegations that Bush administration officials out at a CIA operative and so what happened is the team of agents that had been working for up a chain that came to me was moved over and worked up under Patrick Fitzgerald okay thank you so it happens thank you man editor last before firmly sir thank you madam chair to take the analogy that you began with I think we're at the end of the Dennis visit or toward the end of it anyway and fortunately there's no unlimited time that the last questioner can take I dentist sometimes ask questions to to to pursue the line of questioning that senator Hirono just just finished there is abundant precedent is there not for the appointment of a special prosecutor in fact there are regulations and guidelines for the appointment of a special prosecutor yes and that has happened frequently in the history of the Department of Justice you mentioned one in your experience also then designee attorney general Richardson appointed a special prosecutor Archibald Cox who then pursued the Watergate investigation correct yes there's been many examples of it so this would not be a earth-shaking seismic occurrence for a special prosecutor to be a point in fact taking your record which is one of dedication to the credibility and integrity of our criminal justice process and your families I would think that at some point you might recommend that there be a special prosecutor would that be appropriate at some point it's possible I know one of my predecessors did it Louis Freeh did it with respect to a Clinton administration issue about Chinese interference and election so it's possible and I take your contention that you don't want to talk about your conversations with the current Deputy Attorney General but my hope is that you will in fact are you forcefully and vigorously for the appointment and special prosecutor I think that the circumstances here are exactly parallel to the situation where you appointed Patrick astera Fitzpatrick and others where routinely special prosecutors have been appointed and I know that your recommendation may never be disclosed but I would urge that that you do so going back to the questions that you were asked about your announcement initially that you were terminating the investigation of Hillary Clinton you said that the matter was one of intense public interest and therefore you were making additional comments about it normally there would have been no comments correct correct and at most you would have said as you did just now there was no prosecutable case correct correct and you went beyond that statement and said that she had been extremely careless I believe was the word that you used which was an extraordinary comment would you agree that the investigation of the Trump campaigns potential involvement in the Russian interference is also an investigation of intense public interest yes I agree in fact they're probably very few investigations that will be done while your FBI director that will be of more intense public interest and my question is will you commit to explaining the results of the investigation at the time when it is concluded I won't commit to it senator but I do commit to apply the same principles and and reasoning to it I just don't know where we'll end up so I can't commit sitting here but you would agree that as the FBI director you would need to go beyond simply saying there's no prosecutable case or there is a prosecutable case potentially when I was US Attorney many years ago there was actually a rule in the Department of Justice that there could be no report on any grand jury matter or any investigation without permission of the Attorney General or main justice I don't know where that rule still applies but speaking more generally do you think it's a good idea for prosecutors or yourself to be able to comment in some way to explain the results of an investigation not in general I don't I think it I think it's important that there be as there has been for a long time a recognized exception for the exceptional case I referred to the IRS alleged targeting investigation which would also have intense public interest and then actually had someone prepare for me a chart the department has done it infrequently but done it a dozen or more times in the last 5-10 years it ought to be reserved for those extraordinary cases but there are times where the public interest warrants it with respect to the investigation ongoing into the Trump associates ties to the Russian meddling has the White House cooperated with the investigation correct it's not something I'm going to comment on have you had any requests for immunity from anyone potentially a target of that investigation I have to give you the same answer senator would you tell this committee if there is a lack of cooperation on the part of the White House I won't commit to that isn't there again another reason for there to be a special prosecutor because who would you complain to the Deputy Attorney General if there were a lack of cooperation on the part of the Trump White House if there was a challenge with any investigation that I couldn't at the working level I would elevate it to the Deputy Attorney General whoever was in charge of it but the Deputy Attorney General is appointed by the president correct correct isn't that at inherent conflict of interest it's it's a consideration but also the nature of the person in the role is also a very important consideration I think we're lucky to have somebody who thinks about the justice system very some of the way I do in Fatt Fitzgerald does and the way you did and let me ask again to just clarify a question that senator Hirono asked the career prosecutors so far involved are in the National Security Division in main justice and the Eastern District of Virginia United States Attorney's Office correct correct but the decision about prosecuting would be made by their boss I think is the word you use correct correct and that would probably be right now the Deputy Attorney General correct correct in a matter of complexity and significance the decision Ultima citizens the highest level in the department which would be rod Rosenstein and let me ask one last question unrelated you were asked by Senator Leahy about targets of investigation I think your comment was that there were more citizens currently under investigation for potentially terrorist violence or extremist violence than non-citizens that correct correct in terms of sources of information are there many non-citizens who have provided such information yes and are a large number of them undocumented residents of the United States I don't know what percentage I'm sure some significant percentage are so cooperation from them is important and the fear of apprehension of roundups of mass detention would be a significant deterrent for them would it not in theory I don't know whether we've seen an impact in practice though I just don't know as I sit here could you inquire or do some internal research to the extent it is possible and report back to us about your thank you madam chairman thank you very much senator director I think this concludes the hearing let me thank you for your ability to last for many hours it's very impressive and let me also thank ladies and gentlemen in the audience many of you have been here from the very beginning thank you for your attention and thank you for being respectful it's very much appreciated and the hearing is adjourned [Music] you you

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Keywords: The New York Times, NY Times, NYT, Times Video, nytimes.com, news, newspaper, feature, reporting, senate, comey, FBI, james comey, hillary clinton, election 2016, russia, wikileaks, anthony weiner, hillary clinton emails, clinton email investigation, donald trump, president trump, trump, russian interference, russian hacking, election hacking, vladimir putin, putin, swaying election, jim comey

Id: wOA1Pn4wyoA

Length: 235min 29sec (14129 seconds)

Published: Wed May 03 2017