Watch Live: FBI, CIA Directors Testify On 'Worldwide Threats' | NBC News

I call this hearing to order I'd like to welcome our witnesses today Director of National Intelligence dan coats director of Central Intelligence Agency Gina Haspel director of the Defense Intelligence Agency general Robert Ashley director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Chris Rea director of the National Security Agency general paul naka Sony and Director of National geospatial Intelligence Agency Robert Cardillo I thank all of you for being here this morning I'd also like to welcome the committee's new to newest members who in typical Senate fashion are not here yet senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado they're both great additions and I look forward to working with them and with you to fulfill the committee's critical oversight mandates before I go to my formal remarks I want to extend my condolences of this committee to general Ashley and his workforce at the Defense Intelligence Agency as well as general naka Sony and his workforce at NSA on January 16th a DIA employee and they've enabled chief cryptology technician were killed in northern Syria alongside two other Americans this is a stark and sobering reminder of the dangerous work that the men and women of the intelligence community do around the world on behalf of the country every single day often with no public acknowledgement we thank you for your leadership of this community and more importantly for what your officers do and the sacrifices they make on behalf of our nation this committees met in open forum to discuss the security threats facing the United States since 1995 the nature scale and scope of those threats have evolved greatly over the last 25 years hostile nation States terrorist organizations maligned cyber actors and even infectious disease and natural disasters at different times have been the focus of the intelligence community's efforts our intelligence officers have repeatedly proven themselves equal to the task of refocusing reconfiguring and relearning the business of intelligence to keep pace with a threat landscape that's never static when this nation was attacked on September the 11th counterterrorism rightly became our nation's security focus and the intelligence community responded by shifting resources and attention we learned the ways of our new enemy and we learned how to defeat it we're now living in yet another new age a time characterized by hybrid warfare weaponized disinformation all occurring within the context of a world producing more data than mankind has ever seen tomorrow it's going to be deep fakes artificial intelligence a 5g enabled Internet of Things with billions of internet connections on consumer devices what I hope to get out of this morning is a sense of how well prepared the intelligence community is to take on this new generation of technologically advanced security threats counter and these threats requires making information available to those who can act and doing so with speed and agility sometimes the key actors will be the federal government other times it will be a city many times it will be a social media company or startup or a biotech firm I see a world where greater collaboration between government and the private sector is necessary while still protecting sensitive sources and methods we have to share what we can trust who we can and collaborate because we must the objective of our enemies has not changed they want to see the United States weakened if not destroyed they want to see us abandon our friends and our allies they want to see us lessen our global presence they want to see a squabble and divide but their tools are different I don't need to remind anyone in the room when this country's democracy was attacked in 2016 it wasn't with a bomb or a missile or plane it was with social media accounts that any thirteen-year-old can establish for free the enemies of this country aren't going to take us on a straight-up fight because they know they'd lose they're going to keep finding new ways of attacking us ways that exploit the openness of our society and slip through the seams of a national security architecture designed for the Cold War what this means is that we can't afford to get complacent we can't find comfort in being good at doing the same things that we've been doing for 50 years those who would seek to harm this nation are creative adaptive and resolute they're creating a new battlefield and we have to we have to we've been playing catch-up defeating them demands that we as members of your Oversight Committee make sure you have the resources and the authorities you need to win director coats I'd appreciate your perspective on how to best strike the balance between satisfying existing intelligence requirements and preparing the IC to take on the technological challenge of the future I'd like to recognize that this will be director carte Dilla's last appearance before the committee Roberts since 2014 you've served as the consummate consummate ambassador for nga and this committee thanks you for your more than 35 years of honorable service to nga the intelligence community and more importantly to the country I'll close here because we have a lot of ground to cover today but I want to thank you again and more importantly your officers for the selfless sacrifices that helped keep this nation safe yours is an exceptional mission in that so few will ever truly know how much you do in the service of so of so many before turning to the distinguished vice chairman I'd like to highlight for my colleagues that the committee will be convening again at 1:00 p.m. this afternoon promptly for the afternoon for classified continuation of this hearing please reserve any questions that delve into classified matters until then and don't take it offensive if our witnesses find the need to delay their answers to questions that might be on the fringe before the closed session with that I turn to the vice chairman well Thank You mr. chairman and let me also welcome our witnesses let me extend my condolences as well for loss let me also echo what the chairman has said Robert about your service your leadership at nga your willingness to always push push push and your recognition that in many ways we need to change our models and how we make sure we use better use of our commercial and other partners today's open hearing comes at an important time for our nation in the world as I look over the witnesses statements for the record I'm struck by the multiplicity of threats our nation continues to face from new threats like cyber and online influence to those that were more familiar with like terrorism extremism proliferation of WMD and rogue actors like Iran North Korea and regional instability we've also seen and see on a regular basis daily basis with some of the news yesterday an increasingly adversarial stance of major powers like Russia and China at the forefront of our nation's defenses against these threats stand professional men and women of the Intelligence Committee whom you represent it is I believe unconscionable that some of these men and women and in particular the FBI Department of Homeland Security State Department and others were forced to work without pay for five weeks because of the government shutdown this is no way to run a country we count on the intelligence and law enforcement professionals to protect us we cannot ask them to do so with no pay and facing threats of eviction or losing their health insurance the method of running government via shutdown brinksmanship must come to an end the myriad threats we faced must also be faced must also be faced in tandem with our allies and partners around the world as former Secretary of Defense mattis wrote in his resignation letter quote while the US remains the indispensable nation in the free world we cannot protect our interest or serve the role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies unquote I think that is a lesson we all need to take the heart of the multiple threats we face I would height like to that I hope we can especially dive into first Russia's use of social media to amplify the divisions in our society and to influence our democratic process this is an area that I know was highlighted in our worldwide threat hearing last year and the concern that we and the IC that Russia would continue its malign activities to try to influence the 2018 elections well we did see Russia continue to try to divide Americans on social media and we saw cyber activities by unknown actors targeting our election infrastructure in 2018 the good news is Sony I commend you I think we did a much better job the question though is how do we prepare ourselves for 2020 how do we make sure that we're fully organized what is the icees role in fighting the student this disinformation threat and how can we build upon public/private partnerships with online social media companies in a way that works for both sides this is a problem as the Chairman's mentioned with the question around deep fakes and other areas that technology is only to make more difficult the second issue I'd hope to you at all dressed today is the threat from China particularly in the fields of technology I think we all saw the Justice Department announcement yesterday about wall way I have to say is a former entrepreneur and venture capitalist I long held the view that an economically advanced China would eventually become a responsible global citizen that would join the world trade agreement organization and whose system would ultimately be liberalized by market-based economies unfortunately what we've seen particularly in the last two or three years is the opposite with the consolidation of power by the Communist Chinese party and with President Xi emphasizing nationalistic tendencies and an aggressive posture towards those nations on China's periphery and an economic policy that seeks by hook or by crook to catch up and to surpass the United States economically especially in the areas of technology like AI machine learning biotech 5g and other related areas especially concerning have been the efforts of big Chinese tech companies which will beholden to the Communist Chinese party to acquire sensitive technology replicated and undermine the market share of US firms with the help of the Chinese state I want to thank DNI director Coates an FBI director ray as well as DHS for working with the committee to take seriously the threat from China's whole of society approach to technology acquisition and to jointly reach out to our business community with whom we must work in partnership to begin to address these issues unfortunately we've still got a long way to go and to coach particularly you we've been on some of these road shows together with the Chairman I think we need much more of those going forward I want to ensure that the IC is tracking the direction of China's tech giants and to make sure that we counter those efforts particularly as so many of them are beholden to the Chinese government the truth is this is a challenge that will only continue to grow I also in closing want to thank not only you but all the men and women who stand behind your organizations who work day in and day out to keep our nation safe I look forward to this public hearing thank you Mary yield I thank the vice chairman before I recognize director coach for his testimony let me say to our witnesses a number of the members of this committee have competing committees meeting right now on very important things so members are going to be in and out please don't take that as a sign of any disinterest in your testimony or your answers but there are a lot of things going on on the hill today that are priorities from a standpoint of legislative activity director coaches my understanding you're going to give one opening statement for the entire group and then we'll move to questions yes sir floors yours and I miss chairman and mr. vice chairman members of the committee we are here today and I'm here today with these exceptional people who I have the privilege to work with we are a team that works together in making sure that we can do everything we possibly can to bring the intelligence necessary to our policymakers to this committee and others relative to what decisions they might have to make given this ever-changing world that we're facing right now during my tenure as DNI now two years in I have told our workforce over and over that our mission was to seek the truth and speak the truth and we work to enhance to agree with and enforce that mission on a daily basis I want our people to get up in the morning to work to think that this is what our job is despite the swirl of politics that swirls around not only the Capitol but the world our mission is to keep our heads down our focus on the mission that we have to achieve in order to keep American people safe and our policymakers aware of what's happening so truly the efforts of people sitting here at this table and all their employees and all of our components is not really public for the release for the public to know about but we continue to value our relationship with this committee in terms of how we share information how we respond to your legitimate questions that you bring to us and task for us and we value very much the relationship that we have with this committee my goal today is to responsibly convey to you and the American people in this unclassified hearing the true nature of the current environment and in the interest of time and also like to refer you to my statement for the record for a more complete threat picture as I stated in my recent remarks during the release of the National Intelligence strategy we face significant changes in the domestic and global environment that have resulted in an increasingly complex and uncertain world and we must be ready we must be ready to meet 21st century challenges and recognized emerging threats the composition of the current threats we face is a toxic myth mix of strategic competitors regional powers weak or failed States and non-state actors using a variety of tools in overt and subtle ways to achieve their goals the scale and scope of the various threats faces in the United States and our immediate interest worldwide is likely to further intensify this year it is increasingly a challenge to prioritize which threats are of greatest importance I first would like to mention election security this has been and will continue to be a top priority for the intelligence community we assess that foreign actors will view the 2020 us elections as an opportunity to advance their interests we expect them to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other's experiences and efforts in previous elections on the heels of our successful efforts to protect the integrity of the 2018 midterm elections we are now focused on incorporating lessons learned in preparation for the 2020 elections I would now like to turn to the variety of threats that currently exist in May materialize in the coming year I'd like to begin with the remarks and what I would describe as the big four China Russia North Korea and Iran all of which pose unique threats to the United States and our partners China's actions reflect a long-term strategy to achieve global superiority Beijing's global ambition continues to restrict the personal freedoms of its citizens while strictly enforcing obedience to Chinese leadership with very few remaining check president cheese power in its efforts to diminish US influence and extend its own economic political and military reach Beijing will seek to tout a distinctly Chinese fusion of strongmen autocracy in a form of western-style capitalism as a development model and implicit alternative to democratic values in institutions these efforts will include the use of its intelligence and influence apparatus to shape international views and gain advantages over its competitors including especially the United States China's pursuit of intellectual property sensitive research and development plans in the u.s. person data remains a significant threat to the United States government in the private and the private sector China's military capabilities in reach will continue to grow as it invests heavily in developing and fielding advanced weapons and Beijing will use its military clout to expand its footprint and complement its broadening political and economic influence as we have seen with its one belt one road initiative as part of this trend we anticipate China will attempt to further solidify and increase its control within its immediate sphere of influence in the South China Sea and its global presence further abroad whereas with China we must be concerned about the methodological and long-term efforts to capitalize on its past decade of a growing economy and to match or overtake our superior global capabilities Russia's approach relies on misdirection and obfuscation as it seeks to destabilize and diminish our standing in the world even as Russia faces a weakening economy the Kremlin is stepping up its campaign to divide Western political and security institutions in undermine the post-world War two international order we expect Russia will continue to wage its information war against democracies and to use social media to attempt to divide our societies Russia's attack against Ukraine in naval vessels in November is just the latest example of the Kremlin's willingness to violate international norms to coerce its neighbors and accomplish its goals we also expect Russia will use cyber techniques to influence Ukraine's upcoming presidential election the Kremlin has aligned Russia with repressive regimes in Cuba Iran North Korea Syria and Venezuela and Moscow's relationship with Beijing is closer than it has been in many decades the Kremlin is also stepping up its engagement in the Middle East Africa in Southeast Asia using weapons sales private security firms and energy deals to advance its global influence regarding North Korea the regime is halted its provocative behavior related to its WMD program North Korea has not conducted any nuclear capable missile or nuclear tests in more than a year and it has dismantled some of its nuclear infrastructure as well Kim jong-un and continues to demonstrate openness to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula having said that we currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival our assessment is bolstered by our observations of some activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearization while we assess that sanctions on exports have been effective and largely maintained North Korea seeks to mitigate the effects of the us-led pressure campaign through diplomatic engagement counter pressure against the sanctions regime and direct sanctions evasion now let me discuss Iran the Iranian regime will continue pursuing regional ambitions in improved military capabilities even while its own economy is weakening by the day domestically regime hardliners will be more emboldened to challenge rival centrists and we expect more unrest in Iran in meets recent months Taron continues to sponsor terrorism as the recent European arrests of Iranian operatives plotting attacks in Europe demonstrated we expect Iran will continue supporting the Houthis in Yemen and Shia militants in Iraq while developing indigenous military capabilities that threaten US forces and allies in the region Iran maintains the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East and while we do not believe Iran is currently undertaking activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device Iranian officials have publicly threatened to push the boundaries of Dick Powell restrictions if Iran does not gain the tangible financial benefits it expected from the deal Iran's efforts to consolidate its influence in Syria and arm Hezbollah have prompted Israeli airstrikes these actions underscore our concerns for a long-term trajectory of Iranian influence in the region and the risk of conflict escalation all four of these states that I have just mentioned China Russia North Korea and Iran are advancing their cyber capabilities which are relatively low cost in growing in potency and severity this includes threatening both mines and machines in an expanding number of ways such as stealing information attempting to influence populations or developing ways to disrupt critical infrastructures as the world becomes increasingly interconnected we expect these actors and others to rely more and more on cyber capabilities when seeking to gain political economic and military advantages over the United States and its allies and partners now that I've covered the big four I'll quickly hit on some regional and transnational threats in the Middle East President Bashar al-assad has largely defeated the opposition and is now seeking to regain control over all of a Syrian territory remaining pockets of Isis and opposition fighters will continue we agree we assess to a stoke to stoke violence as we have seen in incidents happening in the ibly province of sir the regime will focus on retaking territory while seeking to avoid conflict with Israel and Turkey and with the respect to Turkey we assess it is in the midst of a transformation of its political and national identity that will make Washington's relations with Ankara increasingly difficult to manage during the next five years Turkey will continue to see the PKK and related Kurdish groups as the main threat to their sovereignty under president air Dewan u.s. turkey relations will be important but not necessarily decisive for Ankara in Iraq the underlying political and economic factors that facilitated the rise of Isis persist in Iraqi Shia militants attempts to further entrench their role in the state with the assistance of Iran will increase the threat to US personnel in Yemen where seventy-five percent of the population is reliant on foreign assistance neither side of the conflict seems committed to end the fighting and the humanitarian impact of the conflict in 2019 will further compound already acute problems in Saudi Arabia public support for the royal family appears to remain high even in the wake of the murder of journalist Jamal khashoggi in the kingdom's continued involvement in the Yemen conflict that has generated global pushback in South Asia the focus of the region will be centered on the potential turmoil surrounding Afghanistan's upcoming presidential election ongoing no she negotiates with the Taliban and the Taliban's large scale recent attacks we assess neither the Afghan government nor the Taliban will be able to gain a strategic advantage in the Afghan war in the coming year even if coalition support remains at current levels however current efforts to achieve an agreement with the Taliban and decisions on a possible withdrawal of US troops could play a key role in shaping the direction of the country in the coming years militant groups supported by Pakistan will continue to take advantage of their safe haven in Pakistan to plan and conduct attacks in neighboring countries and possibly beyond and we remain concerned Pakistan's continued development and control of nuclear weapons in Africa several countries are facing significant challenges that threaten their stability which could reverberate throughout the region Libya remains unstable in various groups and various groups continued to be supported by a variety of foreign actors and competing goals in the Democratic Republic of Congo a new government will be challenged to deal with ongoing violence by multiple armed groups and the outbreak of Ebola in the east of the country an instability is growing in Sudan where the population is angry at the country's direction in the president and president Bashir's leadership in Europe political economic and social trends will increase political uncertainty and complicate efforts to push back against some autocratic tendencies meanwhile the possibility of a No Deal brexit in which the UK exits the EU without an agreement remains this would cause economic disruptions that could substantially weakened the UK and Europe we anticipate that the evolving landscape in Europe will lead to additional challenges to US interests as Russia and China intensify their efforts to build influence there at the expense of the United States in the Western Hemisphere flagging economies migrant flows migration flows corruption narcotics trafficking and anti-us autocrats will challenge US interests Venezuela is at a crossroads as its economy faces further cratering and political leaders vie for control all of which are likely to further contribute to the unprecedented migration of Venezuelans we expect the attempts by Cuba Russia and to some extent China to prop up the Maduro regime security or financing will lead to additional efforts to exploit the situation in exchange for access mostly to Venezuelan oil we assess that Mexico under new leadership will pursue cooperation with the United States as it tries to reduce violence and address socio-economic issues but authorities still do not have the capability to fully address the production the flow and trafficking of the drug cartels high crime rates in weak job market we'll continue to spur us-bound migrants from El Salvador Guatemala and Honduras to close my remarks I would like to address several challenges that span the globe I already mentioned the increased use of cyber capabilities by nefer-as actors but we must be mindful of the proliferation of other threats beginning with weapons of mass destruction in addition to nuclear weapons we have heightened concerns about chemical and biological weapons we assess that North Korea Russia Syria and Isis have all used chemical weapons over the past two years which threatens international norms and may portend future use the threat from biological weapons has become more diverse as they can be employed in a variety of ways in their development is made easier by dual use technologies we expect foreign governments to expand their use of space-based reconnaissance communications and navigation systems in China and Russia will continue training and equipping their military space forces and fielding new anti-satellite weapons to hold us and allied space services at risk space has become the new global frontier with competition from numerous nations terrorism remains a persistent threat and in some ways is positioned to increase in 2019 the conflicts in Iraq and Syria have generated a large pool of skilled and battle-hardened fighters who remain dispersed throughout the region while Isis is nearing territorial defeat in Iraq and Syria the group has returned to its guerrilla warfare routes while continuing to plot attacks and direct its supporters worldwide Isis in to is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria meanwhile al Qaeda is showing signs of confidence as its leaders work to strengthen their networks and encourage attacks against Western interests we saw this most recently in Kenya is al-shabaab attacked a hotel frequented by tourists and Westerners lastly the speed and app tab - excuse me talking too fast lastly and this is important because both the chairman and vice-chairman have stated this and it's something that I think is a challenge to the IC and the American people the speed and adaptation of new technology will continue to drive the world in which we live in ways we have yet to fully understand advances in areas such as artificial intelligence communication technologies biotechnology and material sciences are changing our way of life but our adversaries are also investing heavily into these technologies and they are likely to create new and unforeseen challenges to our health economy and security mr. chairman and mr. vice chairman and members of the committee this becomes a major challenge to the IC community to stay ahead of the game and to have the resources directed toward how we need to address these threats to the United States we look forward to spending more time discussing this issue as both you have raised well with that I'll leave it there we look forward to answering your questions about these and other unmentioned threats director coach thank you for that very thorough testimony every year this hearing is geographically increased and I think this year you have left no region of the world untouched with a concern that we might have and this year especially the threat landscape continues to increase from a standpoint of the tool used I'm sure that much of that will be the subject of questions both this morning and this afternoon I want to acknowledge that we have a distinguished group with us joining us this morning from Austria who come from their government and I'm not gonna ask them to stand or anything not to distinguish them out of the group but we're delighted to have them with us being part of the United States Senate today I want to notice members that you will be recognized by seniority for five minutes we intend to do one round and I would say sorry to Senator sass and Senator Bennet because they will be last and had they been here on time they would have heard the great comments that made about their addition to the committee they still would have been last question with what the chair would recognize himself for five minutes and general Marcus only this is probably directed at you this committee requested independent third party researchers to produce two reports that comprehensively detailed the leveraging of u.s. social media companies by Russia with based actors to conduct a disinformation an influencer campaign in the 2016 election without speaking to sources and methods under your current authorities with the IC be able to conduct the same analysis and produce comparable finished intelligence mr. chairman thank you very much for the question and thank you for your recognition of chief petty officer Kent in terms of the the work that was done by the the two organizations that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had asked they looked at an internal study with a number of social media groups which is something as you know is is outside our authorities but was very very effective for us as we prepared for the 2018 midterm we took a very very close look at the information that was provided there we understood our adversary very well and we understood where their vulnerabilities also lie to this to direct array and then to yourself Journal of Sony is is it the isyes assessment that this country's adversaries continue to use us social media platforms as a vehicle for weaponizing disinformation and spreading foreign influence in the United States directly right yes that's certainly the FBI's assessment not only of the Russians continued to do it in 2018 but we've seen indication that they're continuing to adapt their model and that other countries are taking a very interested eye in that approach it is certainly NSA's assessment as well mr. chairman an area of increasing concern for this committee is how the production storage and usage of data is a national security issue in 2013 IBM estimated that we were producing 2.5 billion gigabytes of data every day and that data growth has not been linear IBM similarly reported that 90% of the world's data had been created in the last two years that date is now being aggregated curated and traffic trafficking to enable and enhance data hungry artificial intelligence algorithms how much of a concern should we have about protecting data from foreign adversaries I'll probably turn to director ray and gentlemen Sony on this again well I think it's a great concern certainly we see strong interest from a computer intrusion dimension both from nation-states but also from criminal hackers and increasingly the two in a blended threat way so we see nation-states enlisting the help of criminal hackers which just is a form of outsourcing that makes it even more of a menace so it's something that we're extremely focused on and should be a high priority general mr. chairman I concur with with the importance of data it's it's the coin of the realm today if you think the power of data not only for information that it can provide us but also as you indicated the weaponization of it we see our adversaries very interested in being able to procure data and obviously as director ray mentioned this is something that we're very very focused on as well as the National Security Agency I'll throw a well to whoever would like to answer what applications of big data by foreign adversaries have you most concerned today well certain certainly China has the capacity and the resources to be able to do a lot but that has not deterred other major nations like Russia and others to be aggressive in doing this you have identified this as a significant threat we are awash in data we have to understand how our adversaries use that data against our interest and how we can prevent that from happening as well as use it for our own purposes relative to know what is going on around the world and what influence efforts are being at the United States that so that was why we are as a whole is a very very high priority as you mentioned in your opening statement in terms of how we resource our community intelligence community with the kind of tools and weapons needed to address this issue director I was just going to add that as the challenges of encryption become bigger and bigger on the SIGINT side were more and more dependent on human sources and the more big data can be exploited by our adversaries the harder it is to recruit and retain human sources suspect director hospital may have a view on that as well I think Durack director ray captured that exactly and I would just add from the CIA perspective that a big focus for us is finding out how our adversaries are using big data against us and sharing that with our partners I'm gonna exercise the chair for just a second for one last question and this is your opportunity to recruit your agencies to do cutting-edge research on every technology you could imagine from classic spy craft like disguising to communications technology that would blow James Bond and Q branch away what pitch would you make to those in school now or perhaps those working in tech and looking to serve a greater purpose that they should come apply their engineering degrees coding skills and creativity and work in the IC records I would say there is nothing more rewarding than protecting the American people and we've seen with some of our smartest high-tech folks I can think of one office in particular where two of our brightest stars with great talent briefly left for what they thought would be greener pastures in the private sector and I was very pleased to see them both independently come back only about eight months later when they realized the grass was browner if I could mr. chairman I would have probably asked you for to release the tape of what you just said in terms of really how innovative and how creative and the opportunities that the folks in the IC didn't get a chance to engage in farce trip anything that you see in a Hollywood movie and the other thing I would add to that is imagine when you get up every morning that your task your responsibility is to defend the hopes and dreams of 320 million Americans and that's something that we relish the opportunity to do that every single day and people would want to join that team mr. chairman our mission sells itself when we talk to our people I would offer as as we talk to young people at the National Security Agency I saw a big data artificial intelligence machine learning cloud computing in places like Baghdad and Kabul in support of our forces long before we ever called it that that's the selling point that we emphasize to our people because if it's cutting edge we will be doing at the National Security Agency Robert mr. chairman we're proud of the bill our ability to recruit some of the talent you just described we don't do it often on fiscal terms we do it on psychic terms and so serving something greater than oneself for a cause to protect the nation and our interests is one that both attracts and retains the lifeblood of our agency which is our people director Haskell you want to take a shot at selling something that not many people know about well like my colleague CIA officers come to Langley for the mission and they stay because of the mission and it's really about being something part of something that's bigger than yourself and in terms of advanced technologies it's a chance to be on the cutting edge and make a difference let me just conclude by saying the disciplines that come out of higher education and community colleges today all of those disciplines are applicable to the agencies that sit before us today and there should be no student that doesn't look at this as a way to apply what they've learned or the degree that they have that didn't used to be the case it was all specialized but now it applies to everything directly well mr. chairman is as somewhat of an older generation here who has to turn to his grandson to get the TV on the right channel I'm continually amazed as I get around the country talking to colleges and graduates and people that are in these stem positions and studying of their incredible talent they bring those kind of talents and skills to our agencies as you have heard and it is extremely rewarding to see the young people who know they could have a better financial deal or settled lifestyle easier and so forth and so on they want to serve this country and they see this as meaningful and it exceeds what financial gains they could get on the outside and plus they're they're able to do some really cool stuff in all of these agencies which we can't talk about here but it is that it is attractive to it but their commitment to the country and commitment to the mission as has been demonstrated here is pretty is awfully rewarding when you go out and see what these young people have and what they're willing to do for the country I thank all of you vice chairman well thank you mr. chairman and I agree that the people who work with all of you are extraordinarily special Americans and the mission is critically important I would personally add one other item that if they work for the United States government they actually ought to be paid on time and I question I've seen the number of federal employees who've gone five weeks plus without pay I'm not sure many folks in the private sector would show up five weeks plus without pay on an ongoing basis and while I'm appreciative the fact that particularly the FBI that your agents will be reimbursed I do worry the FBI has a number of contractors under our current setting they will come out of this some five week plus 35 days shutdown with nothing to show and if we cannot guarantee that people that work for United States government are going to be not used as hostages for either side of the political debate then I think our ability to recruit and retain and low down dramatically I don't know directory if you want to make any comment on that or maybe just punt but it is something I've I saw FBI agents I saw homeland security agents I saw air traffic controllers working double shifts and then going and driving an uber I'm not sure I want somebody showing up maintaining the safety of our of our airway with four hours of sleep Oh mr. vice-chairman needless to say we're still assessing the overall operational impact of the shutdown but what's quite clear is that it was incredibly negative and painful for the 37,000 men and women of the FBI and their families but I will also say that I could not be more proud of their professionalism and their dedication to not let balls drop but to keep charging ahead across all of our various program areas during that time certainly when you talk about contractors we are very dependent just like every government agency on contractors for a whole range of services and you know we would want to make sure that that aspect of our operations doesn't get disrupted and my hope would be that folks on both sides the aisle will look at how we might make sure pretty soon those low-price contractors oftentimes the folks who clean the bathrooms or serve the food don't have to come out of this 35 days shutdown with absolutely no compensation at all let me start my first question director ranger after coach and this is the Chairman's alluded to it we've all talked about it this emerging challenge around social media particularly the fact whether it's Russians or other foreign entities that try to masquerade as Americans they build large followings create fake accounts I think this problem isn't going to get exponentially harder as we move into deep fake technology a lot of policy implications how do we sort through that how do we work with our social media company partners to put Americans on alert about the the volume of foreign based activities BOTS and others who are masquerading as Americans going forward so they are not able to further manipulate not just our election process but actually to build social divisions well mr. vice chairman this is a particularly vexing and challenging problem I think it's going to require a holistic response certainly at the FBI through the foreign influence task force and all of our field offices we're trying to work much more closely not just with our intelligence community partners especially general Nike Sony and the NSA but also as you say with the private sector and I will say that one of the bright spots between 2016 and 2018 is how much more cooperatively we're working with the social media companies because there's an awful lot that really has to be done by them in this space and there were a number of success stories only some of which we could really ever share where the social media companies based on tips that we provided we're able to take action much more effectively much more quickly to block and and prevent some of the information warfare that the Russians were engaged in and I think we're gonna need to see more and more of that but now that we've got some momentum we're looking forward to growing that partnership and I think you agree some companies have done well some have not done as well I think we're gonna need to continue to explore this and and just basic notional ideas of where I think we don't get into First Amendment challenges where Americans ought to have the right to know whether they're being communicated with by a machine or a bot versus a actual human being and some of the research done by some of the folks we looked at in a way it may be a little more positive says the vast volume of traffic on the far left and the far right in terms of political discourse and social media is actually not Americans but form based BOTS there may not be as many crazies out there is it seems editorial comment but I do think we've still got a long way to go Thank You mr. chairman mr. chairman if I could just add one thing to support the director Ray's remarks having served on the committee and gone through the frustrations of the interaction and information sharing with private social media companies we've seen a significant progress with that many of us have sat down eyeball-to-eyeball with its leaders our tech teams are working with their tech teams I can't say that's worked with every social media company but it's significantly better because there is information we can provide them that is in their benefit and of course we always stress the fact that we're working we need to work together to protect our people from the influence activities from abroad and threats to the American people so I'm encouraged having made some trips to several of these companies courage with the openness and willingness to see what we can do while protecting privacy rights but also ensuring security thunderation thank you very much mmm first of all let me say that I'm always astounded in this committee in the Foreign Relations Committee with the volume of issues that we have to deal with I think your your opening statement director coats indicated how how difficult this is to to process all this and to deal with all this and your statement for the record that all of you who joined in again lays this out for us it tells us the kind of volume that we have to deal with we're certainly only going to scratch the surface here today but I want to I'm gonna focus on something that doesn't get as much focused as I think it should we we seen these days every time we pick up meteor turn on TV they're talking about Russia and Russia's ham-handed efforts to affect things in the world and certainly it's a concern but in my judgment I think many others the real concerns China we're approaching the end of the first fifth of the 21st century and if we've learned anything it's the the last few decades have convinced us that China in the 21st century as we proceed through it it's going to be a major competitor of ours in in every way that there is obviously economically and militarily culturally and in every other way and look this is going to happen we're we're living in the 21st century that communications and transportation are so different than what they were and we as the United States are going to wind up having to compete like we never have before with a gorilla that's starting to get to be about the same size we are and as a result of that we're gonna have to learn to deal with that the thing I really want to focus on is how we're going to deal with that we were Americans we've always competed we can compete we innovate we create we manufacture we do the great things we do that have really led the world but we can only do it if we're operating under a rule of law and and that is something that is greatly missing at the present time as China tries to compete with us the poster child for me is a local company we have an Idaho micron technology most you've heard of them the second largest manufacturer of memory and in the world and they have had a recent case where Chinese nationals stoled intellectual property and then took it back to China and are now suing micron in China in a through a state-owned entity in a state-owned court in front of a state-owned judge and this is the kind of thing that we just can't have i had a spirited discussion with the Chinese ambassador about this as he attempted to defend the undefendable and his suggestion was that well things aren't as advanced in China as they are here well I get that they are they've come a long long long ways in in a few decades but if we're gonna if we're gonna do this and keep the world order in right-side-up China is going to have to develop their rule of law and live by it much better than what they have recently we just saw again the the indictments against the Huawei official and and in defense of the Department of Justice Department of Treasury and others they've indicted these Chinese people that have affected my crown and the question I have for you is after listening to the Chinese ambassador I'm not wholly convinced that their efforts are going to be as robust as they need to be to get China right-side up when it comes to the rule of law and when I'm talking about the rule of law I don't mean just covert theft but I mean the what I call over theft and that is where they require businesses as we all know to divulge their information before they can do business in China and then having the kind of restrictions they have on them in China and all of this causes us real difficulty as we as we attempt to compete director coats I wonder if you could address that or assign it to somebody there at your panel I'm looking for what do we see in the future number one and number two how can we try to get our arms around this to do something about well I'll start but I'd like to turn to director ray and relative to what was just released yesterday and which pointed I think in the direction of what you were talking about but frankly while we were sleeping in the last decade and a half China had remarkable rise in capabilities that are stunning a lot of that was achieved a significant amount of that was achieved by stealing information from our companies by inserting Chinese in certain of our labs are bringing back technological stolen properties which China engaged you can talk to any number of everything from automobile manufacturers to sophisticated software as well as R&D for military and general Ashley can speak to that on the military side I think we can go down the panel here and discuss for a significant amount of time the kind of actions China has taken to gain some become a competitor but also to gain superiority and what they're doing and how they're spreading it around the world through their belt and road initiative and a number of other initiatives it's a serious issue that has to be dealt whether you are right on target in terms of saying that rule of law and international norms and fairness in trade and engagements is not how not the Chinese model in encounter it we have to expose it it was exposed yesterday in a significant way relative to telecommunications and director ray can talk about that we have alerted our allies they are now second-guessing in questioning their initial responses to China oh it's a great market we need to get over there don't worry about anything else except selling our product they're now finding that their product has been duplicated by the Chinese and sold for half the price because then have to spend as much money on research and development so it is we are working with the chairman the vice chairman and with the committee actually to try to be as transparent as possible with our company heads we've been traveling around the United States meeting with CEOs and others we're dialing up a program with the I think I ought to stop right there and and the rest of this ought to go into a secure a setting in terms of how we're dealing with this but I'd love to turn to director ray relative to what they're doing I'm Senator I completely share your observations and I would just say that one of the things that the American people I think are now sort of waking up to understand is that the Chinese government the lines between the Chinese government the Chinese Communist Party are blurred if not totally erased the lines between the Chinese government and Chinese state-owned enterprises the same the giant line between the Chinese government and ostensibly private companies for all the reasons you described and especially the line between lawful behavior and fair competition and lying and hacking and cheating and stealing and one of the things that I've been most encouraged about in an otherwise bleak landscape is the degree to which as director Coates was alluding to American companies are waking up American universities are waking up our foreign partners are waking up and it's one of the few issues that I find what I engage in the interagency and up on the hill covering from one end of the spectrum to the other there seems to be actually more consensus than I've ever seen before in my career and I think that's a positive and we need to build on that do either the generals have yes sir you laid out the problem set very well and what's been highlighted this isn't just US issue this is a global issue when you think about the Internet of Things when you think about the nature of a global business and how corporations are integrated and if it touches a company in Australia who may have a relationship with a company in the u.s. then we become connected from a military standpoint when you look at major acquisition from Defense Intelligence Agency one of the things we put against this is supply chain risk management threat analysis Center so when DoD looks for major acquisition we do the due diligence and research again those against those companies but that challenge is getting more and more complicated because you think you there buy it they steal it or they can build it but the nature of that business you have things like white labeling where you don't necessarily have to disclose the relationship or you could sell a semiconductor a chip a piece of software and ostensibly it is from your company when in fact it may have been manufactured by a Chinese company so that's the due diligence that we have to apply look at the supply chain across all acquisition and we got to bring all our partners in and illuminate the challenge and make sure they're doing the same due diligence whether it's through Sophia's or other other protocols sooner Thank You chairman director coats in this hearing last year you testified that you would recommend minimal access to classified documents to anyone without a permanent security clearance you made that statement with regard to reports of multiple holders of interim security clearances in the White House and now we are seeing published reports that dozens of times the White House has overruled the career FBI experts responsible for adjudicating security clearances granting top-secret clearances to White House officials would you still recommend minimal access to classified documents to those White House officials since FBI experts recommended that they not be given those top-secret clearances I do support the providing all the information necessary for not only the White House but for all of our branches relative to providing security clearance they have those a thought authority to do that we issue guidelines in terms of what I understand that yeah authority I hear to I want to know do you think that that the White House should take seriously the recommendations of those FBI experts to my knowledge they do take seriously is their decision based on a whole number of factors we've seen every administration issue clearances based on how they assess what is provided our job is to provide them the best information we have relative to security clearance processes so that they have the full picture in front of them but when they make that decision speaking of the full picture last year we passed the secret act as the Director of National Intelligence do you think it's problematic that the administration has not complied with the portion of that law requiring the White House to report on its process for conducting security clearance investigations I'm not aware that that has happened I'd be happy to look into that I would appreciate that director Rea as I mentioned we're seeing public published reports that numerous times the White House's simply overruled career FBI experts responsible for adjudicating those clearances in your view were there valid reasons given for why the FBI's expert advice was overruled so many times senator I think there may be some confusion about the way the process actually works the FBI is in the context of providing background investigations for people other than its own employees is what's called an isp or the investigative service provider so we essentially do it at the request of whoever the requesting entity is in this instance it would be the White House and I think where the confusion is is what we do is we assemble the information we provide the factual information we do not actually make recommendations one way or the other about the clearances the decision about what to do based on those facts is entrusted by long-standing process to the requesting entity so we provide the information but then they make the call thank you director director Coates I want to come back to you for a moment you're your office issued a statement recently announcing that you had submitted the intelligence community's report assessing threats to the 2018 midterm elections to the President and to appropriate executive agencies our committee has not seen this report and despite committee requests following the election that the odni breached the committee on any identified threats it took odni two months for us to get a simple oral briefing and no written assessment has yet to be provided can you explain to me why we haven't been kept more fully and currently informed about those Russian activities in the 28 dose before you respond let me just acknowledge to the members that the vice chairman and I have been briefed on the report and it's my understanding that the report at some point will be available yeah the process that we're going through or to 45-day periods one for the IC to assess whether there was anything that resulted in a change of the vote or tampering with machines what the influence efforts were and so forth so we we collected all of that and then the second 45 days which we then provided to the chairman and vice-chairman and the second 45 days now is with DHS looking in DOJ looking at whether there is information enough there to take what to determine what kind of response that they might take we're waiting for that final through the rest of information to come in you know that will be reading come the rest of us can look forward to reading that report I think we'll be informing the chairman and the vice chairman of that yes are there decisions that's not what I asked well the rest of the committee have access to that report mr. chairman chairman burr well let me say the members were sort of in on charter ground but I make the same commitment I always do that anything that the vice-chairman and and and myself were exposed to will make every request to open the aperture so that all members can see it I think it's it's vitally important especially on this one we're not to a point where we've been denied or we're not to a point that negotiations need to start so it's my hope that once the final 45 day window is up that is a report that will be made at made available probably to members only that would be my hope as well senator Rubio thank you director a but as we keep talking about China and just takes off on what Senator Risch has already asked at the app using the academic community in the university's commercial espionage the force transfer intellectual property embedding themselves into potentially into the supply chain obviously the traditional counterintelligence work that they do and the like I is it not fair to say that China today poses we're just looking at the scale and scope of the threat that China today poses the most counterintelligence threat this nation has faced perhaps in its history but certainly in the last quarter to century well I'd hesitate to speak you know categorically about the entire course of history but I certainly would look at the 25 years but I would certainly agree with you senator that as I look at the landscape today and over the course of my career I still think of myself as a little bit young that the Chinese counterintelligence threat is more deep more diverse more vexing more challenging more comprehensive and more concerning than any counterintelligence threat I can think of and in that realm would it not make sense and purposes for you director coats that we would have a more coordinated approach to educate and prepare all the departments and agencies of government as well as businesses universities I mean just the scale and comprehensive nature of the threat would it not make sense to have some high-level coordination or a coordinated approach to be able to prepare all these different entities in our economy and society to deal with this threat we are working carefully with the committee particular senator Warner at Senator Burr both have engaged with us in terms of putting a program together to do just that I turned to General Ashley for his comments and also so the fact that we're having this discussion and that you've illuminated even last year we talked about the Confucius Institutes you know that word gets out since 2014 13 universities have closed down the Confucius Institutes u.s. white I think the numbers about a hundred but again my previous comment in terms of this is a global issue while we've closed down about 13 in the US there's been about a 23% increase globally in Asia Europe and other places and there's probably about 320 plus Institute's that exist globally so the education is getting out from a u.s. standpoint and it's treating the right way slowly but again it is a global problem and we're as weak as the relationships with some of those partners subject to influence but this is now where I make the obligatory pitch senator Warner and I have filed a bill that creates an office of critical technologies to help coordinate the response to this threat across the board and so on and I know everybody in this committee is interested in this topic I want to switch gears for a moment and maybe ask you this the director of codes as well if we look at the situation of Venezuela which usually I raise in this committee and people know it's important but now it's really topical so we've had three million migrants flow primarily into Colombia Peru and Ecuador its projected to be five million if current trends continue by the end of this year rivalry its that would be rival number two what we've seen in the Syria situation and it most certainly has had a destabilizing effect on Colombia and other neighboring countries to the point where some of these nations very few nations could take in 1 million migrants in one shot not to mention that quickly imagine 2 million and the impact it's having on their government budgets their healthcare systems and the like we know from Department of Justice filings and and in sanctions from Treasury that their government doesn't just tolerate drug trafficking they give it the protection of government and many high-level officials are active participants in narco trafficking we know that they have a relationship long-standing relationship with Iran and with Hezbollah we know they have openly and repeatedly at least Maduro has invited the Russia Russians and Putin to establish either a rotational or permanent presence somewhere in Venezuela thereby creating a Russian military presence in the Western Hemisphere in fact they flew about three weeks ago or a month ago to Russian nuclear capable bombers into the Caribbean Sea seeing all these factors what's happening in Venezuela we care a lot about democracy we care a lot about freedom we care a lot about human rights but when you add all these things together the migratory impact on regional partners and how that spills over into the United States their relationship with Iran and Hezbollah the drug trafficking because all that cocaine is destined to come into our streets the invitation to the Russians to potentially have a military base whether it's rotational or permanent our hemisphere is it not in the national interest of the United States of America the Maduro regime fall and be replaced by a democratic and more responsible government well I think everything you said is is been very open to the American public relative to the situation that exists in Venezuela our job as intelligence community is to provide all the relevant information that you just talked about in terms of what the impact of what's happening in Venezuela and in and then throughout the region and the threat that it evolves from that the decision is to you know how to address that obviously is a decision by the executive branch and by the president ultimately with the support of the National Security Council so we do we do obviously face a dire situation that has enormous consequences I think nobody's more aware of that than you you've been been personally turned to for and almost ready to invite you into the intelligence community given the information that you can provide for us given your interest I was remiss in not naming you as someone relative to China is taking a forward effort on the part of the committee and joining us in a number of ways to talk to CEOs and others around the country relative to the Chinese threat with Venezuela it's a very tenuous situation right now as you know we have taken steps in terms of recognition of the opposition as the legitimate president of Venezuela yesterday the Treasury Department announced oil sanctions against Venezuelan oil company their major company that we do business with here also so steps are being taken and we have a lot of support from a lot of our allies so it as I said it's a very fluid situation that I think hopefully will be successfully resolved with the support of the Venezuelan people and what we do assess and I'll turn to general Ashleigh here the influence of the military on that decision I think the Venezuelan military that decision probably is a key to what direction we might go in so I would say that everything you laid out is correct we expect to see another two million refugees leave to add to the 3 million that will go into the region the relationship that they have with Russia China Iran is a long-standing one pre-existing the reference you made to the tu-160 blackjack that flew those strategic bombers third iteration of that first time was in Oh 8 and then 14 and we've seen it again as far as presence on the ground we can talk a little more detail in a closed session about where we see Russia and China going with their greater instability but in the open press what you've seen thus far really is nothing more than just a vocal support that's coming out of Moscow and that's coming out of China as well but there is a relationship there from a military standpoint in the way of training lots of Venezuelan officers go to Russia for training and there's a reciprocal relationship for equipping them as well thank you mr. chair in in lay senator Rubio's comments I just like to note of caution he listed refugee flows human rights abuses and corruption there are lots of countries in the world that meet that description and our right or responsibility to generate regime change in a situation like that I think is a slippery slope and I have a I have some real caution about what our vital interests are and whether it's our right or responsibility to take action to try to change the government of another sovereign country that same description would have led us into a much more active involvement in Syria for example five or six years ago other parts of the country I just wanted to note that senator burr I loved your opening statement it was very thoughtful and you came up with a wonderful formulation for I think a mission of this committee and also the intelligence community of creative adaptive and resolute and I must say it reminded me immediately at my old high school football coach who put it somewhat less elegantly he said he wanted us to be agile mobile and hostile I think that may be a less elegant way of but the same principle on why way it seems to me they have to decide they are either going to be a worldwide telecommunications company or an agent of the Chinese government they can't be both and right now they're trying to be both and I think the world's customers which the Chinese are certainly sensitive to are the best enforcers of that of that principle director has but one quick I think a yes or no question and I think I almost said senator coast director coach referred to this in his opening testimony is Iran currently abiding by the the terms of the jcpoa in terms of their nuclear activities senator King I think the most recent information is the Iranians are considering taking steps that would lessen their adherence to jackpoet as they seek to pressure the Europeans to come through with the the investment and trade benefits that Iran hope to gain from the deal but but since our departure from the deal they have abided by the terms you're saying they're considering but at the current moment there yes there they're making some preparations that would increase their ability to take a step back if they make that decision so at the moment technically they're in compliance but we do see them debating amongst themselves as they fail to realize the economic benefits they hope for from the deal Thank You director hospital and generally Ashley mr. Khalil Khalil Asaad our invoice Afghanistan has said that part of the basis of the current talks with the Taliban is that they would prevent Afghanistan from ever becoming a platform for international terrorist groups and of course that was the basis of our original intervention do we believe them and are they is are they capable of that did they learn something from having given safe haven to Osama bin Laden do we believe that there's a mindset change that that could be a enforceable or at least a reasonable expectation director Haspel yes senator and you're referring to very recent and fresh news that has come out of Ambassador Khalil Assad's very intensive efforts over many months now but particularly over the last eight days in Doha where he has been engaged in talks with the Taliban to seek to achieve a framework under which we can we believe that the Taliban will will do well because we have inflicted severe damage on al Qaeda in the AfPak theater I think however that all of us at this table would agree that it's very important that we maintain pressure on the terrorist groups that are there and so of if there were an eventual peace agreement a very robust monitoring regime would be critical and we would still need to retain the capability to act in our national interest if we needed to thank you another note director coach you mentioned I wouldn't say almost in passing but it went it was just a sentence of your introduction which i think is a very important point it may be the big news of right now what's going on increased cooperation between Russia and China for a generation that hasn't been the case that could turn out to be a very big deal on the horizon in terms of the United States if those two countries begin to work together systematically that could be a big problem for us one more quick question director ray you're doing a lot of monitoring and and working with working on the intervention in our election process one thing we're worried about is deep fake which we've used but not not defined that's when they use technology to create essentially a false reality of an apparent speech by a candidate where different words are coming out of their mouth and what they actually said here's my question if in the next two years and particularly in the year preceding the next election your agency determines that this is happening and that it's sponsored by a foreign entity will you inform the candidates that are the victims of this the the committee's my concern is it's one thing for the Intelligence Committee to know that this is happening but if they don't inform the people who are being victimized who are being attacked in this way I think that really blunts the effectiveness of the of the availability of the intelligence senator we have a fairly established protocol that we work through to try to determine whether or not we have information that is reliable enough and immediate and enough and actionable enough to be able to notify a victim the Department of Justice has a set of guidelines that goes through that they've recently been expanded to provide us more flexibility in the foreign influence or malign influence arena which this would be a permutation of and we would expect to follow that process I hope you'll review that process because telling the world of a Millian influence a month after the election doesn't doesn't do anybody any good so I hope that could be reviewed and and thought about in terms of letting people know as soon as possible when there's a credible credible evidence of a foreign deep fake or other kind of cyberattack on a campaign just to be clear I wasn't referring to the sort of post-election process oh I understand yeah the protocol that I'm talking about is that's where the actionable piece of it comes into into play right obviously there's the ability to be able to contact just like we do in the cyber arena first I just want to be sure our policies keep pace with the with the magnitude and accelerated nature of the threat well we clearly need to be to your point about agility we clearly need to be able to adapt as the technology adapts and as director Cote said in his opening we would expect our foreign adversaries in the malign influence base to keep adapting as well which is a source of concern we want you to be agile and mobile maybe not hostile Thank You mr. general Ashley has a comment he would like if I go back to your comment a huawei you know why needing to make a decision about the direction that they want to take with regards to how do they support Chinese government or as an independent business the challenge in which you're laid out part of the dialogue is that decision does not lie with it lies with the CCP it lies reducing peeing in the way that they are starting to centralize greater the management of those business so therein lies the challenge where you see a decentralization and execution of capitalism but really you have this kind of authoritarian capitalism in the way that the government provides oversight and puts very strict rules in place that makes it very problematic for all of those businessmen to operate without providing that information back to Beijing and I think the market has to tell them that's not acceptable thank you agree senator Collins director has both director codes described this morning a Russia that is aggressive across all fronts does did the CIA have any concerns about the Treasury's actions to ease sanctions on companies associated with the close Putin Ally Oleg Deripaska in terms of his ability to retain some informal control this isn't a typical American company that we're dealing with senator Collins I don't think I'm expert enough to comment on Treasury's decision but what I will say is that we work very hard to make sure that every agency and all of our senior agency leaders understand Putin's methodologies and what he will do to try and achieve what he perceives as Russia's place in the world and as a great power status they Moscow continues to grapple with the effect of Western sanctions there have been very severe sanctions placed on them I'm also I think as an community both director ray and I were very pleased with the decision to expel 61 Russian intelligence officer that has a tremendous impact on their ability to hurt us in our own homeland so our job is to make sure that everybody understands Putin's efforts to influence globally and to enhance Russia's power status in the world and we will continue to support Treasury as they look to impose sanctions I think Treasury has been very very aggressive on the sanction it did did the CIA raise any concerns about the Treasury plan no I don't believe we raised any concerns but we provided all the supporting intelligence about the oligarch in question these versus the aluminum company that you're referring to let me switch to a different issue and that is Syria let's assume that after we depart from Syria the Assad regime takes control of Northwest Syria and eastern Syria which i think is a reasonable scenario should this happened what kind of threat with the United States and its allies expect from the thousands of extremists who are still currently fighting in those areas of Syria such as Isis senator Collins to start with the last part of your question everyone at this table is working very hard to make sure that we can finish the defeat Isis campaign and also that we understand the foreign fighter picture in eastern Syria and that we don't allow the foreign fighters that have been captured to return to the battlefield it is of course accurate that Isis has suffered significant leadership losses and near total loss of territorial control but of course they're still dangerous which is your point and they're the largest Sunni terrorist group and they still command thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria so I think the stance in the administration and supported by the IC is that we're going to work very hard to finish that mission and that we that's another example of where we must maintain a very robust monitoring regime and and retain the ability to project into Syria should we need to director coats you looked like you wanted to add to that well just to make the point that while we have defeated the Caliphate with a couple of little villages left it would be we should not underestimate the ability of terrorist groups particularly Isis and and affiliated groups with al Qaeda and other terrorist groups that they are operating not simply on what takes place on the battlefield that gives them strength or weakness but they're operating on the basis of a of a theocracy theology and ideology that we will continue to see for perhaps years ahead in various places of the world so we see we see those that were engaged in Syria moving to other uncovered spaces we see the tentacles of of Isis and and Isis and al Qaeda tactics in different places in the world North Africa the Philippines we've just seen that take place Isis claiming credit for that so Isis will continue to be a threat to the United States and we're going to have to continue as director hospital said the keep our eyes on that and our interest in the realization that this terrorism threat is going to continue for some time Thank You senator Bennett Thank You mr. chairman thank you for your welcoming me to the committee I apologize for being late but I also want to say what a privilege it is to hear your testimony this morning and to know that you and agents and officers who work with you are at their posts keeping this democracy safe and it is a reminder to me what's at stake when our partisan politics can't even keep our government open and you guys are still doing your work and it's an inspiration to me and I hope to the people that whoever is watching this at home and in that spirit actually director Coates I wanted to start with something that you ended with which was in observation about concerns that the IC has about political uncertainty in Europe and the ability for European democracies to push back on what you described his autocratic tendencies can you say a little bit more about that clearly Europe has seen Russian aggression in hybrid ways significant cyber incidents in trying to influence not only their their view of our alliance but their own view of their their own alliance within Europe seeking to sow divisions between countries and between Europe and the United States it's interesting that some time ago at a meeting with NATO intelligence officials the question was raised by the director did any of the 29 countries of Europe not see Russian influence in their countries and particularly in the political processes of those countries not one person raised their hand said I have not seen that all 29 have seen some type of influence from the Russia's so it's a persistent threat and a pervasive threat that the EU needs to address and we address with them through our NATO coordination but I think the warning is there I think the the nations are aware of the threat we see some some issues that threaten some of the some of the Alliance coalition turkey is a member of the might of NATO and yet we're having some issues with Turkey there in a very Geo strategic point in the world and we've been happy to have them with NATO so we'd like to keep them there I don't know if I'm directly answering yes I said what you are what about within the domestic politics of those countries the autocratic impulses you know whether aligned with Russia are not aligned with Russia well I think there's a lot of wariness about aligning with Russia whether you're your author terian leadership or not we have seen some some countries leaning in that direction raising issues as to the strength of of the Alliance a lot of that is related to the economy to trade matters to a number of issues beyond just just the just the military in a minute I have left it's okay I wanted to switch to potential of dual use capabilities that China may attain through its one road and one belt and Road initiative recently there were reports that China may press Pakistan for military access as Pakistan Falls more and more into China's dad I'm concerned about data access China may control through digital infrastructure projects and countries around the world what is the eye sees assessment of potential dual use aspects of China's belt and road initiative and what threats do they pose to US interests well I'd like to also Ken where I'd say well you can look at the globe it's called one belt one Road in its global and you can look at the map and see a lot of strategic places where China has a real interest in perhaps a dual effort to not only provide infrastructure support loan support for ports airports of roads a lot of infrastructure loans for to hell with their economy but also interests in placing strategic military positions we've seen that take place off the Horn of Africa we've seen China looking at difference and if you look at the spots where they're where they're they're engaging and you see some geopolitical and military aspects and with that so it is it is dual and I'd like to turn a general Ashleigh to give you a better detail of what that looks like so we can talk at a classified session about the nature of the relationship with Pakistan and I think we can illuminate what you're seeking there in terms of dual use technologies there's a multitude of things out there and it's not necessarily germane to the belt and Road initiative it's where they're investing and part of that investment is how they're garnering intellectual capital globally but think about quantum from a communication standpoint from a computing standpoint from a sensing standpoint what those advanced sensors could do if you look at genetics bioengineering so there's a multitude of things whether it gets into human engineering it gets into how do you cure diseases but at the same time there's kind of the flip side in the Pharos I expect of that and so there is a plus and a negative side to the risk and the medical there's a agricultural aspects of that which are very positive but could have a negative impact as well so there's a number of things in terms of advanced technologies where they are investing that have dual use capabilities that will really mature over the course of the next decade senator blunt thank you chairman thanks to all of you I want to join everybody in thanking you for what you do and the important service that you provide in securing our freedom and the Freeman freedom of lots of other people general Ashleigh I know we lost a st. Louis --n in Syria as part of your defense intelligence operation and certainly reached out to their family and to the families of all who serve who put themselves at that level of risk director Cardillo in the actually I saw the 60 minutes over the weekend talked about small satellite data about all the commercial imagery available I think if there's as you've come for what's your last likely appearance in this job before this committee if there's a legacy that you're leaving that's bringing the commercial data community in in a way that we're taking advantage of what's out there that we don't have to produce ourselves but as we do that what concerns do you have about cyber activity that might in some way impact that data or the data that we get in other places what how would you describe your concerns about cyber as it relates to commercial data that you've made great steps in using and the other geospatial that we produce ourselves that may be disrupted before it gets analyzed with information that's not really there thank senator for the question I don't think there is a more important issue on my desk or I would offer the desk of my colleagues here and that is at the heart of our profession is integrity and credibility reliability that's how we get invited to meetings that's how we get invited back to meetings to provide a sense of confidence to those that we serve to help them make decisions what you just described is both an opportunity that's the connection with new partners non-traditional sources small and large companies and universities etc every one of those connections is also a threat or a risk because if if I'm now plugged in to this new source to gain benefit understanding coherence I'm also plugging into every aspect of vulnerability that they have so we work on this very very hard I obviously count on the experts at NSA and FBI on the on the digital domain and the hygiene that's necessary I will also say because it was brought up before this issue of deep fake as that technology in advances and it will I do worry about as a community that needs to seek the truth and then speak the truth in a world in which we can't agree on what's true our job becomes much more difficult and so go back to your question we have to do a better job at protecting what we do so that when we do show up you have the confidence you know where it came from you know how we handled it you know who did or didn't affect or manipulated and so again it's it's it's an issue that's in the center of my desk and and all of our concerns in in your plans one more question for you director in your plans for geospatial the Western the development of that new facility replacing a 75 year old facility in st. Louis which is fully redundant with what happens in Springfield Virginia the difference you're looking at there I think 40% of the space and that plan is unclassified how does how does how does IC work in an unclassified environment and how would you how would you calculate success in your future view of how that works and why would it work that way implying some new ground an unclassified space and a classified facility short answer is very carefully I'll expand so some four years ago when I stepped into this privileged position I challenged our team to think differently about our value proposition in a world that is much more open now in which there's many more sources of information some good and some not so good and so I coined a phrase that we need to succeed in the open I modified that a few months later with some help of my teammates I said what we really need to do is succeed with the open and to your point about our new campus in st. Louis which we couldn't be more excited about by the way the infrastructure is closer to 100 years old but this is much more than an infrastructure project I think of this as a new canvas it's almost 100 acres we can reimagine our profession on that canvas part of that reimagine ation needs to be engagement with that open community in a way that's protected and that's knowing about who and we're plugging into so we couldn't be more excited about the ability to take the opportunity that we have in st. Louis now to redefine that value proposition in a more open world in a more connected world in a world in which we're taking on sources that we know when sources that we need to double and triple-check and so the 40% you rep you you referenced is just an estimate that we have now but we just want to build into that infrastructure knowing that we're going to have to work not just in but with the open and so that's why we've laid out that marker at the beginning and Journal neck Sony how does this fit into what you do the whole idea of gon of individual personal geography all the things that we didn't use to have access to that we have access to now and only using it but using it with confidence so I think your initial question with regards to the data security is a very important one in the terms of how do we ensure the integrity and assurance of the data that director Cardillo and the the men and women of the NGA have to be able to leverage every single day in support of a number of different requirements whether or not it's policymakers it's it's forward forces deployed our job is to assist in that and to make sure that that data is well protected and and we can rest assured that when we leverage it it's the right time at the right place and the right data that we need to be able to utilize thank you thank you chairman senator Harris mr. chairman if I could just add something here Robert caudillo is finishing up 30 plus year career of working with the intelligence community he's just one of our crown jewels and we hate to see him moving on to maybe greener pastures and easier times but he's just been a terrific partner with this team and I just want to recognize his contributions has just been exceptional and he won the best-dressed of any of us on the panel award this morning he does that every time I just want you to know that damn senator Harris Thank You mr. chairman and I join with my colleagues and thanking each of you and the men if your agencies for honoring the oath of it they have taken and often with great sacrifice so thank them please from all of us this question is for directors Haspel coats in general Ashley and it's about North Korea what would you say is the current state of this threat from North Korea and perhaps we can start with Director Hospital well briefly of course the regime is committed to developing a long-range nuclear or missile that would pose a direct threat to the United States it is positive that we have managed to engage them in a dialogue they have taken some voluntary measures to close a site dismantle a site but ultimately the objective is to lessen that threat by getting them to declare their program and then ultimately dismantle the program I think others can probably add to that dr. Coates well I affirm what director Haspel has just just said I think we we continue to go into this situation eyes wide open we want to employ the best of assets we can to understand what the Koreans are thinking North Koreans are thinking and what they're doing we have capabilities which we can talk about in a in a secure session in terms of how we gather that information and how we assess that to give to our policymakers and to give to the negotiating partners relative to where we're going with North Korea we be hold to the stated premise that denuclearization is is the goal which has to be achieved but I will at that point just say I want to ensure the American people and ensure everybody listening here that we are fully engaged in in providing the essential intelligence needed relative to the negotiations that are going on and in this setting can you say at least since you've been in the position you've been in that their threat in terms of their ability to strike the United States is diminished in any way I think the assessments we've made up to this particular point hold obviously as I mentioned in my opening statement that over this past year we have not seen any evidence they have not done missile seen a nuclear missile testing or launching so that's the position we're in right now but again we we keep an open eyes and open ears to exactly what's going on the technology that they demonstrated from a technical standpoint there showed a capability to have an ICBM function still exists there still is a substantial military capacity that Kim jong-eun wields seventy percent of his forces are along the DMZ so the capabilities and threat that existed a year ago are still there and director has and Thank You general director Haspel North Korea has obviously a terrible record of human rights and they're deeply isolated obviously from the international community and this is the result of many policies intentional probably mostly do you believe that North Korea values the legitimacy that comes with direct diplomatic engagement with the United States yes I think our analysts would assess that they value the dialogue with the United States and we do we do see indications that Kim jong-un is trying to navigate a path toward some kind of better future for the North Korean people are you aware of any intelligence suggesting that his behaviors and their human rights record has improved in any substantial way over the last couple of years it's obviously something we monitor to the degree possible I do think that a vision for North Korea that further brings them into the community of nations would have a positive effect on our ability to influence them on important things like human rights but over the last couple of years have you seen any change in their behaviors I I don't think I can point to any specific changes over the last couple of years thank you and then director Coates changing the subject and I talked with you a bit about social media and can you tell us has the I see do we have a written strategy for how we're going to counter the influence operations that target social media in the United States we are fully engaged in that issue we have regular communication among the various sectors of the intelligence community and much of that is shared both verbally and in written form so there is a written strategy not a written single strategy where we're always looking at how we can best to address this it's a fluid situation we had an earlier discussion relative to our engagement with private sector social media companies thank you my time is running out can you tell us do you have any intention of having a written strategy that will be agreed to and understood by all members of the IC as it relates to the collective responsibility and individual responsibilities for addressing forints influence on social media in the United States as I said it's it's a fluid situation we are making significant progress on that in terms of one specific specific written strategy something that has to will have to be looked at in a continuum of change so I'm not exactly sure why written strategy you would give us anything more single strategy that would complete have to be modified daily but but you can you can be assured that it is a top priority as we've talked about before it is something that we are working on and we've seen very significant progress and when you go back and read the transcript of what we talked about before you underst I actually have the transcript from February 13th of 2018 when you and I had this discussion at our last worldwide threats hearing or at least a previous one when I asked you then would you provide us and would there be a written strategy for how the IC is dealing with these threats so can you tell us has there been any advancement on that point since February of 2018 I'll be happy to get back to you with that thank you you were referring to 2017 is that my understanding 2018 okay thank you senator cotton thank you all very much for your appearance and your continued service to our nation and for all the men and women who work in your organization serving our country we've talked a lot about Huawei and ZTE today and the potential threats they pose let's just make this concrete for Americans watching at home you can raise your hand if you respond yes to my questions how many of you would use a telecom product made by Huawei and ZTE a senator I would personal I would think we ought to talk about these kinds of things in a segment a closed session these these are not all yes and no answers and I think that there's information here that we could be better described in a closed session than an open session like a professional who's once been on a debate stage and not liked raise your hand questions I'll simply say for the written record though that I saw no hands go up and while I'll defer to the closed session I suspect if I asked a fairer question which is how many of you would recommend that people who are not heads of intelligence agencies like your neighbors or church members or high school friends used Huawei and ZTE there also be six no votes of confidence director coats in September the House Intelligence Committee voted by voice vote which I presume means it was bipartisan not controversial to send to you several dozen of their transcripts and their investigation into Russia's interference in our 2016 election so they could release those pending your classification review where does that review stand that's another issue which I would like to discuss in a closed session Thank You director Haskell we've spoken some about Isis today and the threat of Isis if they were to reform one ongoing threat from Isis is that the Syrian democratic forces have a number of detainees from Isis do you know how many detainees the SDF currently hold could you turn your microphone on please sorry about that senator we do know the number in this forum I'll say that they they have hundreds of foreign fighters the IC as a whole was working very very hard to make sure we know who those are returned people to their country of origin and to make sure that even as Isis as we continue to make gains against them on the battlefield that these foreign fighters do not are not able to return to the fight you carry and I can be more specific this afternoon in terms of the exactly could you speak broadly about the types of detainees are we talking about which soldiers are we talking about major external operations planners bomb makers that sort of thing all of the above senator so it would be very bad for our nation if those detainees were released I think it would be very bad and IC has taken great pains to categorize and make sure who we know who these individuals are and we of course are working very closely with our foreign allies to do just that Thank You director hospital I'd like to stay with you turn our attention to Russia since I know you have a lot of experience with that nation President Putin has publicly stated that they're working on novel nuclear weapon systems like a nuclear-powered cruise missile hypersonic glide vehicles and underwater nuclear-powered torpedo and just last month he announced Russia's successful test of a hawkish hypersonic glide vehicle which he called a new intercontinental strategic system is it the case that some of these systems are being designed to explicitly evade the constraints of the New START treaty senator I believe and I can go into more detail this afternoon and I'm sure general Ashley would like to add but I believe some of these systems have in fact been in development long before New START treaty general Ashley do you have anything to add actually if I could get back real quick to your wall way then I'll come back to that one when you look at the technology stuff and I think Huawei and ZTE are great examples but I think the other complexity is the question really is do you know what's in your phone not just is it a Huawei or ZT phone do you know who provided the chips the software everything goes in your phone we're tracking everything that that you just addressed in terms of Putin I'm not sure if any of that violates the New START treaty because right now I know that the Russians are in compliance and what news as you know New START lays out for the for the systems that can deliver it's about 700 they can have 1550 in the number of warheads and they can have 800 in the latter category in terms of other systems I'm not aware that this violates and I'll take that one for a little research as well and we may be able to get that to you in the close session this afternoon thank you director has full one final follow-up questions so even if these systems don't violate the New START treaty I believe that both this and the past administration has said that Russia is violating the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty the Open Skies treaty the Chemical Weapons Convention the biological weapon conventions the Vienna document and is no longer adhering to the presidential nuclear initiatives is there any treaty that Russia has with the United States to which they are currently adhering well the Russians obviously would have a different interpretation but I do believe that you're correct in terms of State Department's assessment of Russian compliance with those treaties thank you senator Wyden thank you very much I want to apologize to all our distinguished panel we had a major hearing in the Finance Committee I'm going to start with the matter of Saudi Arabia and the late mr. khashoggi I'm very concerned that the DNI statement for the record barely mentions the threat posed by Saudi Arabia to the rule of law around the world director Haspel the Senate unanimously passed a resolution stating its belief that the crown prince was responsible for the murder of US resident and journalist Jamal khashoggi is that correct senator we can go into a little bit more detail this afternoon but as you know during the fall months we spent a significant amount of time briefing and providing written products on our assessment of what happened to mr. Jamal Khashoggi as you know and as the Saudi regime itself has has acknowledged 15 individuals traveled to Istanbul and he was murdered at their consulate and it was a premeditated murder on 2 October of the trial in Saudi Arabia I believe has begun but in terms of further detail on our assessment of involvement I'll hold it till the afternoon was effectively madam director the Senate unanimously passed a resolution that the crown prince was responsible with the Senate Roman senator it's it's my job to provide the intelligence to support the sentence deliberations and I think we've done that very adequately in this case and we'll continue to do that and we continue by the way to track this issue and to follow it very closely question for you director ray and maybe other panel members in my home state there are alarming indications that the Saudi government has helped Saudi nationals accused of serious crimes flee the country and this strikes us as an assault on the rule of law right here in the United States my question for the director director ray will you look at this and come back with any suggestions about what the FBI can do and just so you know what has troubled me so much is what looks like evidence that the Saudi government helped these individuals who've been charged with really serious crimes in my home state rape and manslaughter help them with illicit passports possibly the prospect of private planes to get out of the country will you look at this and come back with any suggestions about what the bureau can do here senator I appreciate the question I will say I've actually had occasion to visit the Portland field office and not only to meet with all of our employees there but all of our state and local partners across your state and I'd be happy to take a close look at anything you want to send our way on this subject could you get back to me within ten days you know we are trying to up the ante here to really get these people back you know my my sense is like a lot of other things people have a full plate I've requested travel records we will be in touch with your office but I would like a response within ten days to show that this is the priority that is warranted well senator of course we have a lot of priorities as I'm acutely aware but I'd be happy to take a look at the information that you have and work with you're off we we have a lot of priorities but the notion that Saudi Arabia can basically say it is above the law and that's what it looks like to the people of my home state is just unacceptable so I will be back at this and you and I have talked about matters before and both of us have strong views and that will certainly be the case here let me ask one other question for you director Haspel and director Coates to change the subject to Russia and particularly these Trump Putin meetings according to press reports Donald Trump met privately with Vladimir Putin and no one in the US government has the full story about what was discussed director Haspel and director Coates would this put you in a disadvantaged position in terms of understanding Russia's efforts to advance its agenda against the United States question for you two and then I'm out of out of time thank you for letting me have them response Jenna well senator clearly this is a sensitive issue and it's an issue we ought to talk about this afternoon I look forward to discussing that in a closed session mr. chairman my my time is up to me from an intelligence perspective it's just Intel 101 that it would help our country to know what Vladimir Putin discussed with Donald Trump and I want to respect the rules Thank You mr. chairman senator Cornyn when I reflect on the number of people who lost their lives as a result of man-made causes of World War two by some estimates as many as 39 million people when we introduced the atomic bomb in Nagasaki and Hiroshima and think about how much more efficient we've gotten when it comes to killing one another potentially and I wanted to ask you about weapons of mass destruction and counter proliferation if the theory behind mutually assured destruction and deterrence is that none of the so-called rational actors let's say Russia China for example would use nuclear weapons because they realize what that consequences that would be we know we have less than rational actors that are either have acquired nuclear weapons thinking about North Korea certainly Pakistan and India austerity staring at each other both of whom have nuclear weapons I worry that we we are not spending as much time as we need to be focusing on what is the most lethal threat to our nation and also to the world I just let me ask you specifically about Russia we know Russia continues to be in a material breach of the terms of the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty most recently our NATO allies have concluded that Russia's in the process of developing a ground-launched cruise missile that's a direct threat to euro-atlantic security I personally think it's important for us to adequately fund nuclear modernization programs including the development of a low-yield warhead and enhance the capabilities of critical missile defense systems I would also point out that China is not bound by the standards imposed by the INF treaty further putting the u.s. in a compromising position director Coates does the intelligence community assess that a complete withdrawal from us of the u.s. from the INF treaty would pose a significant national security risk to the United States well that risk is there whether we are within we see Russia within the bounds of the restraints on that or whether we don't because we know Russia has violated the terms of that treaty and has that capability and China so whether we withdraw or not they're still going to have that capability that's correct and director hospital perhaps this would be a question for you if the u.s. withdraws from the INF treaty and I'd welcome anybody's comment on the panel if the u.s. withdraws from the INF treaty does the IC assess that Russia will place INF range missiles in Cuba or will they attempt to exert pressure in some other way the senator what I can say and perhaps we can go into more detail this afternoon is we do see that Russia is very concerned about our decision to withdraw we do see also consideration of ways they can push back due to their own concerns about our forward posture in Eastern Europe I think I'll leave it there for now and we can elaborate this afternoon I'll ask if general actually would like to add something yeah I would say that and we get in some more detail this afternoon that their their actions are not consistent with the ground-launched cruise mode so that you already spoke about it has already been fielded operationally so it is in it is in utilization and available there are actions and what they would do I think would be symmetric to anything we did to move additional capabilities forward and then those particulars symmetric actions we can talk about in our closed session would anybody on the panel care to talk about the Lightning's statement with regard to put it production of at low yield warhead maybe general ashley i don't know who would be the appropriate person the comment of whether we should be developing correct yeah I'll have to leave that to the policymakers what were you alluded to is our ability to kill and some of the weapons that we've developed and then the utilization and a strategy that we've heard in the past from the Russians of non strategic nuclear weapons and whether or not a rational actor would use those kinds of weapons in the field we know that the Russians have a first use policy the threshold where they think that the Kremlin would be at risk is probably what would drive that first use whether that see that as an escalatory control measure that they would put into place I'll leave it to the parties policy folks to determine you know the utilization of one of those weapons when we talk about the use of nuclear weapons specifically one of the things that you know the threshold is pretty high on their use which is why we see the manifestations of things like hybrid war and if you look at great power conflict kind of flatlined after World War Two and things that have taken place in the world order there's been kind of the outgrowth of Bretton Woods that the other thing that has come to bear on keeping great power conflict at bay has been the development of nuclear weapons Thank You mr. chairman thank you to all six of you for being here thanks to your officers and to your to their families you lead in represent a community of folks who often have family disruptions and there aren't folks who know to thank them so on behalf of this committee and the American people Thank You general naka Soni when you were confirmed before the Armed Services Committee I asked you a question about whether or not Russia or China had ever suffered a sufficient response to their cyber aggressions to a warrant behavior change on their behalf and you said no they had not at this point in a classified setting how would you answer in a non classified setting how would you answer that question today so senator I think the way that answer the question is first of all what has changed since you and I talked last year is the fact that I think that from our work collectively across the interagency in the government we have been able to show effectiveness against primarily in this case the Russians as we take a look at our midterm elections whether or not that spawns long term behavior change I think that's still to be determined but starting this afternoon we can talk a little bit more about some of the things we have seen thank you for your work on that and your success and I know director Coates you're gonna give us some briefing on that this afternoon as well I know that a number of people on the committee have been anxious to get a more fulsome report of some of the successes of the IC from early November and I would just like to publicly say whatever portion of that that we can Declassified for the American people to know the successes of the US government and of your community I would urge that kind of declassification or possible director ray can you you have many priorities at the bureau but can you talk about threats we face with the long term tech war Tech race maybe against China and domestically when you think about Bureau priorities looking at different Chinese actions inside the United States how do you rank those priorities well first I would say that the as I said earlier that I think China writ large is the most significant counterintelligence threat we face we have economic espionage investigations for example that's just one piece of it in virtually every one of our 56 field offices and the number of those has probably doubled over the last three or four years and almost all of them not all of them but almost all of them lead back to China in addition to go anywhere near sufficient resources for all those investigations many of us used to ask director Comey about jihadi threats against the United States and we would regularly say is the bureau sufficiently resourced and we were told that as long as the US was active killing jihadis or partnering with allies in Syria to kill what is jihadis who were sucked there he thought there were sufficient domestic resources in the bureau for counterintelligence and for corporate espionage purposes are you sufficiently resourced well I would say this if the Congress were to entrust us with more resources I can assure you we would put them to very good use we've talked about deep fakes a couple of different times today our intelligence community is a product of history 17 agencies is not the way anybody would design it from scratch but that doesn't necessarily mean a reorganization is always simplifying oftentimes you create more complexity when you're trying to get rid of some of the duplicate if functions that we have across different agencies but when you think about the catastrophic potential to public trust and to markets that could come from deep fake attacks are we director Coates and director hospital in particular are we organized in a way that we could possibly respond fast enough to a catastrophic deep fakes attack we certainly recognize the threat of emerging technologies and the speed at which that threat increases we clearly need to be more agile we need to partner with our private sector we need to resource our activities relative to dealing with these known technologies and unknown technologies which we know we're going to appear anytime soon because it's just a very quickly evolving flood of technological change that it poses a major threat to the United States and something that the intelligence community needs to be restructured to address we are in a process of transformation right now which incorporates six major pillars that we have to put resources and activity against in fast cyber trusted agile workforce artificial intelligence private sector partnerships data management acquisition agility all six of these are major issues which we have to transform we cannot rely on status quo where we are now we're the best in the world we have to stay the best in the world but we've got real competitors and technology is giving them the opportunity to shorten that gap very very significantly and so we have a dedicated commitment to this transformation - it's called I see 2025 what do we have to be in 2025 but not let alone 2019 and 2020 and we are using that throughout the all 17 agencies in terms of how we have to adapt to that and that's a major change that this IC has to go through but we're we're in fully intent on making it happen thanks director before the Chairman gavels not a rookie director hospital are you confident that we could respond fast enough I think director Coates captured it very well I would say that well the I see is is large and unwieldy and in some respects I don't think in my 34 year career I've seen better coordination or synchronization or collaboration among the agencies to try and stay abreast of the technological challenges I hear that and I've been reading Intel daily now for 18 months and the pace of upgraded game on the part of the community is a real testament to all of your leadership but I still think the asymmetric exposure we have where the barrier to entry for deep fakes technology is so low now lots of entities short of nation-state actors are going to be able to produce this material and again destabilize not just American public trust but markets very rapidly and I think we need to be thinking about not just I see 2025 but I see 2021 2020 2019 if I could real quick just go back to our opening question from the chairman where you said are you concerned about our protection of data so how do you get deep fakes that are really really good lots of data that's how you train your algorithms so it goes back to kind of where we started the ability to protect that information to preclude the training of those algorithms to a degree where you cannot tell the difference and again our challenge is how do you build the algorithm to identify the anomaly because every deep fake has a flaw at least now they do thanks general Thank You mr. chairman I just want to make one final brief and commend drug coats on the ongoing efforts to make sure that we get through the backlog on the security clearance reform Jim and I have worked on this very hard we appreciate the progress you've that had been made I hope is we can I think we're about down to about 500,000 I think that still we can do much much better and my hope would be that particularly any federal employee that might have had some level of a credit dinging due to the shutdown would not be penalized through that sort of security clearance process from again actions quite frankly that they had no ability to meet and to remediate it was our responsibility we will continue to operate it carefully with you also you've played a major role in all of this we have made some progress it's not enough it's not fast enough shut down deferred some tasks that we could have accomplished if if the process was was opened and hopefully we won't have to go through that again let's try it over here and I thank the vice chairman for his comments I promised all of you ample time for nutrition in between sessions and I think we have accomplished that I want to thank you for your testimony today in open session the intelligence community is always prided itself on making the impossible happen you go where others cannot you find what cannot be found you discover and uncover and create this committee has been privileged to see behind closed doors some of the truly fantastic innovations that are the products of your drive to accomplish impossible missions sometimes these come from the minds of in-house geniuses sometimes they're the fruits of successful collaboration with contractors these public-private partnerships have always been at the core of American success stories however as with any good competition our adversaries have watched carefully and they seem to be catching up director coach you note in your statement for the record that for 2019 and beyond the innovations that drive military and economic competitiveness will increasingly originate outside the United States as the overall US lead in science and technology shrinks the capability gap between commercial and military technologies evaporates and foreign actors increase their efforts to acquire top talent companies data and intellectual property via little isset or illicit means innovation is a global race and we must think about it think about how to foster a greater innovation at home mitigate potential risks and maintain our competitive edge there's no easy path but if we concede the innovation race not only our not only our global competitiveness but our national security will in fact be at risk we need to make sure we are monitoring and acting on the threat information as quickly as possible and getting the information of the people who need it the most the federal government should educate the private sector on threats which we are and enable a regulatory and financial environment that enables innovation in turn the private sector needs to listen better and be constructive and thoughtful partners the simple truth is that we need each other and only through collaboration can we regain in our lead the architecture of government must change and our partnerships must grow in closing please convey to the convey this committee's gratitude to the men and women of the intelligence community for the work that they do on a daily basis the American people should know that their hard work dedication and innovation are crucial to protecting this country and the democratic principles on which we stand although the threats we now face are dynamic varied in numerous I'm confidence the intelligence community will continue delivering on their mandate to reduce uncertainty in an increasingly uncertain world with that this portion of the hearing is adjourned and we'll gather again at one o'clock you

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Id: KM37V03s6js

Length: 151min 32sec (9092 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 29 2019