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EXECUTIVE SESSION

PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE,

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

wAsHrNGToN, D.C.

INTERVIEW OF: ]AMES CLAPPER

Monday, JuLy t7, 2Ot7

Washington, D.C.

The interview in the above matten was held in Room HVC-304, the

Capitol, commencing at 9:34 a.m.

Pnesent: Representatives Rooney, Wenstrup, Schiff, Sewe11, and

SwalweIl.

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Appeanances:

Fon the PERMANENT SELECT C0f,4I4ITTEE 0N INTELLIGENCE:

ALSO PRESENT:

WALTER ZAMPELLA, LEGISLATIVE LIAISON

For lAJvlES CLAPPER:

KENNETH L. WAINSTEIN

MAIA MILLER

Cadwalander, Wickersham & Taft LLP

700 Sixth Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 260AI

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I Good monning, all. rf we're neady, r'11 nead a

statement on behalf of the committee and then we'11 begin.
This is a transcribed interview of Dinector James Clappen. Thank

you for speaking to us today. Fon the recond, I am t

of the House Penmanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

AIso fon the necond, as you can see, I'11 have everyone do an

introduction going down the now, beginning with my colleague.

, HPSCI, majority.
MR. ROONEY: Tom Rooney from Flonida.

-DR. WENSTRUP: Bnad Wenstrup from Ohio.

MS. SEWELL: Terri Sewell, Alabama.

MR. SWALWELL: Eric Swalwell, Califonnla.

T
, minority.
Thank you. Before we begin, I want to say a few

things- fon the record. The questioning wilI be conducted by membens

and staff. Durj.ng the course of this interview, membens and staff may

ask questions duning thein allotted time peniod. Some questions may

seem basic, but that is because we need to clearly establish facts and

understand the situation. Please do not assume we know any facts you

have pneviously disclosed as pant of any other investigation on review.

During the counse of this interview, we wiII take any breaks that
you desire, There is a reponten making a necord of these proceedings

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so we can easily consult a written compilation of your answers. The

neponter may ask you to spell certain tenms on unusual phrases you might

use and may ask you to slow down on nepeat youn answens. We ask that
you give complete and fulsome replies to questions, based on your best

necollection.
Right now, we are cleared fon the Top Secnet/SCI level, and

everyone in this noom is also cleaned to that leve1.

If a question is unclear or you are uncertain in youn response,
please let us know. And if you do not know the answer to a question
or cannot remember, slmply say so.

You are entltled to have a lawyen pnesent fon thls interview and
I see that you have brought counsel. Fon the recond, Ken, would you

please make your appearance?

MR. I^JAINSTEIN: f8n Wainstein, Davis PoIk. Good nronning..

Thank you.

This intenview will be transcribed. Because the neporter cannot

necond gestures, we ask that you answen verbally. If you forget to
do this, you might be reminded to do so.
Consistent with the committee's rules of procedure, you and youn
counsel, if will have a reasonable opportunity to inspect
you wish,
the transcnipt of this interview in onden to determine whether youn
answers were conrectly transcribed. The transcript will remain in the

committee's custody. The committee also nesenves the right to request

you return for additional questions should the need arise.
The process for the intenview is as foIlows, sin: The majority

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will be given 60 minutes to ask questions, immediately followed by the

minority will be given 60 minutes to ask questions. Thereafter, we

will take a 5-minute bneak, aften which the majonity will be given 20

minutes to ask followup questions, and the minonity will be given 20

minutes to ask followup questions, with a hand stop, per your schedule,

at 12:30 today. These time limits will be strictly adhered to by all

sides, with no extensions being granted. Time will be kept for each
pontion of the intenview, with wannings given at the S-mlnute and

1-minute mark, nespectively.

To ensure confidentiality, we ask that you do not discuss the
interview with anyone other than youn attorney. Our record today wilI
reflect that you have not been compelled to appean. You are reminded

that it is unlarful to deliberately provide false information to

Membens of Congness or staff.

Lastly, the record will neflect that you ane voluntarily

participating in this interview, which wil} be under oath.
Director Clappen, do you understand all these instnuctions?
MR. CLAPPER: Most of it, but I just have to telI everybody I'm

a little hard of hearing, so I need you to speak up.' I couldn't hear

most of what you said, but that's okay.
Okay, sir, will do.
MS. SEWELL: So long as your lawyer did.
MR. CLAPPER: The lawyen heand it.
That's good enough, sin.
Would you please raise youn right hand to be sworn, sir? Sin,

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do you swear or affirm everything you ane about to say is the tnuth,
the whole tnuth, and nothing but the truth?
MR. CLAPPER: I do.

I rhank you, sin.

And also a gentle neminder fon all: If you are speaking duning

this, please make sure to turn on the micnophone so the court neporter
can pnoperly tnanscribe.
0ven to you, Dr. WenstnuP.
MR. RooNEY: r'11 stara, I befone Dr. wenstnup goes.
Genenal, it's good to see you again. I just wanted to welcome
you and youn counsel. We are, as you know, conducting a senles of
interviews with people to discuss the Russian involvement in oun last
election, along with myself, Mike Conaway on the majonity si.de, and

Tney Gowdy, along with the assistance today of Bnad.

like to do is tny to make the Intelligence Community

What we'd

better for the future, not just for this committee, but for youn
successon and the successons in the other agencies that are in change

of gathering the intelligence for this country for national security

purposes, as you know.
hle have a dlfficult job comlng up, with the reauthorization of
things like 702. So making sure that we can convince our colleagues
upstairs why things like unmasking, on how to maybe betten do unmasking,
you know, should be pant of maybe what our report shows. And so if
you could help us with those type of things today, I think that we would

gain the most insight and value.

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As I've been sayingtowitnesses inthe past, oun job here is not

to conduct a cnlminal investigation. Our Job is to wnite a nepont
dealing with the Intelligence Community and how to make lt betten. Any
cniminal activity that is gained on discovered should be unden the
punview of Robent MueIIer. And if we even find anything in this
committee, oun charge is to turn that infonmation over to Mn. Mueller
and the lustice Department.

So, while we may talk about hene things like collusion, it would

be in the breadth of how that affected Russian involvement in oun

election process, if any. But more things 1ike, you know, the hacking
and the pnopaganda and the things that we have talked about ad nauseam,
both privately and publicly. So I want to make that absolutely clean
so that, you know, despite what we see in the news sometimes, what oun
nole is on this committee and how we are to make the Intelligence
Community better, somethlng that you've dedicated a 1ot of your 1lfe
to.
And so, with that, to stant off with our side, the majority's
questions, I'fi going to turn it oven to Bnad, and then I'11 follow up
after that. But the ranking member.
MR. SCHIFF: I just wanted to join in welcoming you, Director.

We appneciate youn long yeans of senvice to the community. Welcome

back. A lot has happened since you left, much of which we want to get
youn expert opinion on, given youn many decades of senvice in this area.
You know, I just want to add on an additional note on my colleague's
point, in tenms of the issue of collusion.
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One of the four areas that we've been charged with investigating
is whether the Russians had the help of any U.S. pensons in what they
did. And while Bob Muellen will have the nesponsibility of pnosecuting
anyone who rnay have been involved with that, we have the nesponsibility
of telling the American people exactly what happened and who was
involved, if any U.S. people wene involved. Bob MueIIen is only likely
to be able to speak through an indictment, if he brings an indictment.
It will be oun job to give the public a full accounting of what happened,
whether charges are brought or not.
And one of the aneas, we'11 certainly want to ask your thoughts

on the dnafting of the unclassified and the classlfied assessment, but

we'11. also ulant to get your advice, given what youthat's in the
know

public domain since you left, about the meeting with Donald, lr. and
some of the othen allegations. We'll be intenested to get youn

insights into where we might look to find further evidence that eithen
allegations. So we'11 be looking
corroborates on disproves the public
forwand to asking you questions on that subject as we1l.
With that, I'1I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chain.
DR. ITIENSTRUP: Thank you.

EXAMINATION

DR. WENSTRUP: And, sir. I appneciate you belng

again, welcome,
hene today. You know, as I look at what we're trying to accomplish

here, I look at it the same way I do in my militany noIes, and that's

you want to do an after-action review, you want to have lessons leanned,

and you want to take cornective measunes vlhene needed. And in that

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pnocess, you look at the procedunes that have been taken and how
assessments ane made. You've been doing this a long time, and I
appreciate that.
So I want to start with tnying to get an idea of what DNI's role

in assessing and responding to Russian hacking of U.5. political

entities was. l,lhat was the DNI's role in responding to the hacking?
MR. CLAPPER: WelI, respondlng to the hacking ls actually a

policy matten. The Intelligence Community's nesponsibility, I

believe, was to tee up the informatlon that we gathened as we gathened

it it evolved as we gained mone insight. But doing something

and as

about it is neally the realm of the policymaker.

DR. WENSTRUP: So, with that in mind, okay, so the Russian nole
in hacking U.S. political entities, it was first reported in July of
2876 and publicly acknowledged by you and Secretary lohnson on Octoben

7th of 2OL6. And why wasn't an Intel.Iigence Community-wide assessment

of these activities ondened until December, when you acknowledged it
publicly befone?

MR. CLAPPER: t^lelI, we had done a lot of reponting on it, not to

the magnitude of the Intelligence Community assessment that was ordered

up by President Obama the first week in December. But I think the track
record will show there had been a Iot of reporting on that. Centainly,
we had reported lt ln the PDB and had rendered numerous briefings as

the situation evolved over tlme.

DR. WENSTRUP: 5o why were you doing the neponting if you wenen't

doing an assessment of it, just reporting it?

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MR. CLAPPER: We1I, r think --

DR. WENSTRUP: Because the assessment wasn't ordered until
December.

MR. CLAPPER: The assessment is a term of ant that is used as a

panticulan type of nepont that we would issue as a community. So an

Intelligence Community assessment; a sense of the community memorandum

is another vehicle; or a National Intelligence Estimate.

I wouldn't nead a lot into the nomenclature of the report
And so

that we eventually nendered and published on the 6th of Januany.

DR. WENSTRUP: We1l, this has a significant amount of gravity,

the whole notion. And even if the pnesident hadn't specifically

ondered an assessment and given this gravity of the Russian threat,
I'm just cunious as to why you, as DNf, didn't onder a neview and report
to infonm the Amenican people prion to the 2016 election when, you know,
one of youn specific efforts as DNI was youn transpanency initiative.
MR. CLAPPER: Well, in the could have, would have, should have
department, I could agnee that maybe we should have pulled
I guess
people's coat sleeves earlier in a more public way. We had a lot of
debate about that, then the debate which nesulted in the statement which

I thought was pnetty fonthcoming and pnetty dinect that Jeh lohnson
and I made on the 7th of Octoben.

The issue, of course, at least I think in the administnation's

mind, was if we publicized this, do we magnify it and do we dignify
what the Russians ane doing? Would the administnation then be seen
as putting its hand on the scale? So we had aII those kind of debates.

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And with the benefit of 2O/2O hindsight, yoU can say, well, penhaps

we should have done -- been mone public earlien.

I do think in the context of something that could be done by way

of a lesson learned would be to penhaps make it

DR. WENSTRUP: We11, I think it would have been transparent. You

just used the term "hand on the scale. " In what way would you be putting
the hand on the scale?
MR. CLAPPER:I think the Pnesident -- not me. The President,
President Obama felt I think somewhat constrained by the appeanance
of, for example, his making a public statement about it, and whethen
that would be construed as on intenpneted as weighting the balance scale
in favor of Secretany Clinton.
DR. WENSTRUP: WeIl, that's a matten of opinion, f guess, as to
whether he thinks it would show favoritism to one or the othen.
MR. CLAPPER: It is exactly that, sir. It is a matter of opinion.

DR. WENSTRUP: It is. But transparency would tend to balance

those scales, I would think.

But on November 7th, you slgned a letter to me, and lt was a
blpantisan letter that I had sent you, but you sent a letter back to
me and the othens. And in that, you stated -- and this is Novemben

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7th, before the election -

What specific intelligence informed these assessments at that

time ?

MR. CLAPPER: WeIl, I would have to have access to the

contemporany neporting that I had available at the time, and I don't
have that off the top of my head. What we were seeing at this point,
and I think what pnobably influenced that nesponse, was the
neconnoitering, if I can use that term. At that point, I think it was
around'some ! stutes whene we'd seen R0ssian activity, which was

attributed to the Russians reconnoitering, not necessanily extracting

on attempting to manipulate data, in various voten -- predomlnantly

voter registration databases. The number of States went up. f don't

know exactly what the count was when that letter was put togethen, but
that's pnimanily what f think influenced that letter.
And, as it tunned out, one of the judgments in the Intelligence
Community assessment was that we didn't see any evidence of actual

manipulation of voter ta11ies. That's not to say -- nor did we attempt

to make a pnonouncement about what impact any of the Russian

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interfenence activity, as we reponted out on the 6th of January, had

on individual voten decisions. We could not make a judgment about

that.
DR. WENSTRUP: WeI1, that would be pretty difficult to be able
to make a judgment.
MR. CLAPPER: WeIl, not only difficult, we don't have -- the
Intelllgence Communlty doesn't have the authonity on the expentise and

capability to do that.
DR. WENSTRUP: Yes. I think you'd have to talk to eveny voten

in America --
MR. CLAPPER: ExactIy.

DR. WENSTRUP: -- to be able to establish that, and that seems

like a far stnetch.
So ane you aware of any evidence that the vote outcome of the 2016
Presidential election was manipulated through cyben means?

MR. CLAPPER: NO.

DR. WENSTRUP: Was Pnesident Putin successful in his effont to

undermine the credibility of the electoral pnocess, in your opinion?
MR. CLAPPER: I believe -- I believe he absolutely was. I
believe that they were successful beyond thein expectations in terms
of sowing doubt and discord about the veracity or sanctity of our
election pnocess --
DR. WENSTRUP: Is thene anythlng factual?
MR. CLAPPER: -- which I think was thein finst objective.

DR. WENSTRUP: Is there anything factual?

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MR. CLAPPER: Well, how do you mean?

DR. WENSTRUP: Well, you Just sald that it didn't .- thene's no

evidence that the vote outcome was manipulated, but you feel that this
is -- I take it --
MR. CLAPPER: I think the ensuing contnovensy and the controvensy

that was contemponany kind of makes that point.

I have an utterance
Do

that I can quote from Putin himself that says that? No.
DR. ITIENSTRUP: So you're saying factually, he undenmined the
credibility of the electoral pnocess?
MR. CLAPPER: That's my belief.
DR. WENSTRUP: That's an oplnlon. Is that connect?
MR. CLAPPER: YES.

DR. WENSTRUP: Because, I mean, f haven't met anybody that said,

oh, I changed my vote because of what the Russians did. So, again,
that's opinion. It centainly isn't a fact, though.
anothen
MR. CLAPPER: I do think, though, it did create doubt about the

sanctity and secunity of our -- of the process. I do --

DR. WENSTRUP: And that's why we'ne hene.

MR. CLAPPER: I do believe that.

DR. WENSTRUP: And that's pant of why we'ne hene, because thls

is important to all Amenicans that the process is one to be trusted.

5o, based on the administnation's public statements and actions,
is it fair to conclude that the Russian hacking of U.S. political
entities, which began in July of 2AL5, became a highen priority fon
the Intelligence Community aften the election?

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MR. CLAPPER: No, I wouldn't saythat. What I would say is -- I

think this penhaps gets to your question -- is thene has been a centain
amount of ambient involvement by the Russians, which goes back to the
60s, whene they have monitored and in vanious ways tnied to influence
the outcome of the election.
The difference here was this, as it evolved, was the most direct,
aggressive in lts scope, and the multifaceted actions they took wene

unpnecedented.

DR. WENSTRUP: WeIl, the neason I ask that question is because

I'm looking at this letter fnom Novemben 7th, which doesn't seem to
cneate the level of concern and pniority that we saw aften the election.
MR. CLAPPER: Rlght.

DR. WENSTRUP: Wou1d you agree that -- was that due to new

evidence or --
MR. CLAPPER: Yes, yes.

DR. WENSTRUP: Such ASI

MR. CLAPPER:

DR. WENSTRUP: So you mentioned that Russia/Soviet Union,

they've tnied to interfene with us in many ways for decades.

HR. CLAPPER: Right.

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DR. WENSTRUP: And I think we would all agree with that.

What would you sayto the notion of whene Russia is today with
their attempts -- and this ls just to get youn opinion, if we could.
I use the tenm for Russia in this election, it's heads I win/tails you
lose, if Mrs. Clinton wins, then they have weakened her in many
because

ways and tried to take away some of hen cnedibility. If DonaId Trump

wins, he's illegitimate.

So, in my opinion, they succeeded no matten who wins, and I'd be

curious to get your opinion on their tactics.

MR. CLAPPER: WeI1, you can make that argument. I think they
believed -- I mean,.the finst point, I think they had thnee objectives:
One was to sow discond. Secondly, because of the significant personal
animus that Putin had for both the Clintons, both President Clinton
and Secnetany Clinton, so anything you do to undenmine hen. And, in

fact, at one point they kind of -- neading the polls, they believed
that she was going to win, and then thein focus seemed to turn to how

could they undermine a potential Clinton Presidency.

I do think, though, they thought that Pnesident, now President

Trump would be with. He is a buslnessman. He'd be mone

easier to deal
willing to negotiate and make deals. And I don't think it was anything
more sophisticated than that that sont of guided their objectives.
DR. WENSTRUP: 0n December 5th, your national intelligence
officer fon Russia briefed this committee, and I'm going to give you

a quote hene: "In terms of favoring one candidate oven anothen, you

know, the evidence is a little bit unc1ean. "

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Was this accurate and a complete assessment?

MR. CLAPPER: No,it wasn't. And as we explained at the hearing
I think we had on the 10th of January, she and many others in the
community wene not aware of this veny, veny sensitive information I

DR. WENSTRUP: A couple more questions, referring to that

testimony then.
AIso, it was stated: It's unclear to us that the Kremlin had a
particulan -- that they had a panticulan favonite or they wanted to
see a particulan outcome. That is what the neponting shows.

So was this accurate and a complete assessmenti

MR. CLAPPER: WeII, at that time, no.

that
evidence all kind of came together there about that -- at about that
time, as I necollect.
DR. WENSTRUP: 5o those weren't accurate statements at that time,
including we did not have a clean -- we did not have clear evidence
to suggest that there was a desire for a particulan outcome?

MR. CLAPPER: That's -- weII, you know, I'd have to go back and
look again, do a chronology of when we knew -- what we knew when.
Again, the -- I think our end assessment was that thein appnoach

evolved. Thein objectives evolved. Finst, sow discond. Tremendous

animus towards Mrs. C1inton. And as things evolved, and when it became

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evident that Pnesident Tnump was a serious candidate, then I think their
approach evolved as well.
DR. WENSTRUP: So you talk about timeline, and that was December

5th, and you're saying that those statements weren't accurate at that
time.
MR. CLAPPER: They wene not completely accurate as -- in 1lght
of what we gathened and assessed after that.
DR. WENSTRUP: So wene you awane th was coming to
bnief the committee on Decemben 5th?

I don't know -- and, you know, we've sent a lot of

MR. CLAPPER:

people from the community up hene to brief a lot of people.

DR. WENSTRUP: I would think that would be something you'd know

about.
MR. CLAPPER: I believe I did know about it.
DR. WENSTRUP: So was thene a decision on youn part on the part
of anyone in the administnation to not provide Congness with the latest
intelligence on this issue or not pnovide her with the latest
intelligence on this issue?
l,lR. CLAPPER: No, there wasn 't .

DR. WENSTRUP: I mean, that's a pretty.important hearing she's

coming in for.
HR. CLAPPER: Right.
DR. WENSTRUP: And wouldn't she be saying, do f have the latest
intelligence? How does this like that?
go unchecked
MR. CLAPPER: Well, again, I have to -- I would have to audit when
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individual people were read in on certain accesses.

DR. WENSTRUP: We1I, I would centainly like to know that, because

oneof the things we're tnying to do here is come fonth with best
practices. This committee has a significant no1e. And if we're
sending people from your department over here and they're not up to

speed, that's an injustice to us and the Amenican people, i.n my opinion.

So why was the national intelligence officer for Russla not pnivy
to this compantmented reporting?

MR. CLAPPER: In fairness, my experience has been, certainly was

over the 5-and-a-half years I was DNI, that as we gained mone

infonmation, as we gained accesses, as we saw what was evolving, we

would brief up more people who needed to

this infonmation. So
know

it centainly wasn't an intent to deceive or not to be complete.

DR. WENSTRUP: So do we need to somehow implement withln the

agency a cniteria that 1f someone is coming to testify befone the

Intelligence Committee hene in the House of Representatives that they
be bnought up to speed --
MR. CLAPPER: WeIl, what we could do --
DR. I'IENSTRUP: -- on does that happen automatically?

MR. CLAPPER: it happens. As time unfolds and you acquine

WeII,
more infonmation, that's the nature of the intelligence business.
You're always deallng with incomplete facts.

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I've seen other cases whene, as lnfonmatlon evolved, as we

But
acquire more infonmation, et cetena, not just on this but in othen
instances, now, we could centainly set up a formal vetting system where
all bniefings before they come up hene are thoroughly vetted by a

committee on something like that. Now, that would slow

responsiveness, because my experience has been that when something

happens, people are very anxious to get whateven information we have.

So --
DR, WENSTRUP: I'd rather have accurate responslveness than
inaccunate response. So --
MR. CLAPPER: Well, it is -- we do the best -- my expenience, you

know, we do the best we can.

DR. WENSTRUP: We1I, I might have to suggest to the agency today
that if it's not enough of a pnionity, coming to the House Intelligence
Committee, to to speed before you get here, I don't know what
be up
is. And if the NIO for Russia didn't have enough access to infonm an
accunate judgment, I'm wondening what percentage of the Intelligence
Community analysis on Russia duning that time was effectively obsolete
at the time lt was given to us. And I'1I move on fnom there.

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MR. CLAPPER:

DR. WENSTRUP:

MR. CLAPPER:
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DR. WENSTRUP:

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MR. CLAPPER: I
DR. WENSTRUP:

MR. CLAPPER:

DR. WENSTRUP: IT
With that, I yield to Mn. Rooney.
MR. ROONEY: Thank you.

Genenal, f'm going to stant sort of bnoad and then tny to nannow

in on just a few things if I have time. The ranking member talked about
the agreed-upon parameters of our investigation, so I'd like to sort
of start with the focus there. And I know some of these might seem
overly broad, but if you could help us, that would be appneciated.
We talked about, a little bit about cyber activity and the Russian

role in that, and thein active measunes directed against us duning this
last campaign. You had mentioned briefly with regand to oun voting
capabilities and that you don't believe -- conrect me if I'm wrong,
if what I'm saying is wrong -- that you don't believe that they
penetrated our actual machines, precinct by precinct on State by State.
Is that an accurate -- as fan as evenything you know before you left,

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is that tnue?
MR. CLAPPER: WelI, we didn't do an assessment of aLL SO,QOO
polling places ln the United States, non could we. The statement that
we made in the assessment was based on looking at the Russians and their
activity and thein behavion. And we didn't see any evidence of them,

you know, influencing or manipulating voter tallies.

Now, the neconnoitening they did is cunious. Whethen that was,

you know, data gathening, information gathering fon the futune, f don't
know.

MR. ROONEY: 5o when you were there, you didn't see any evidence
of it, but did you see evidence of like an effort of them to do that?
hlhen you talk about data gathening, what --
MR. CLAPPER:

MR. ROONEY: Right

MR. CLAPPER:

MR. ROONEY: In your opinion, knowing from youn body of wonk oven
government senvice over the yeans, what do you anticipate that the
Russians ane going to tny to do next, in the next election cycle, on

soon? I mean, this is stnictly, you know, speculation on your part,

but as far as tnying to help us, you knoul, prepane fon with data
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gathening, and obviously we saw and we've heand a 1ot of testimony over
the last few months about pnopaganda and what they've tried to do there.
But I'm talking about specific cyber activity that the Russians have
tnied to accomplish and whene you think that that's going with them.
MR. CLAPPER: WeIl, I can't envision them falling off on

something that for them was veny successful with very mlnimal
nesounces. So I would expect them to be even -- to be emboldened, as

I've said publicly before, and more aggresslve about influencing

elections. And I don't think they'ne going to cane too much whethen
it's Democrats on Republicans.
Thein pnincipal objective nemains consistently undenmining the
falth, trust, and confidence of the Amenican public of the electonate
in our system, and I think they'll continue to do that. And I have
to believe that there was a reason, although we didn't -- we couldn't
ascribe it. We don't know. We didn't have, at least that I sawJ

MR. RO0NEY: Do you think it could possibly be to prepane fon an

election in the future, even if they didn't --

MR. CLAPPER: I think they will want to have the option of furthen
disnuption, if fon whatever reason they make a detenmination at the
time that's in their interests.
MR. ROONEY: l.lhat other cyber activity did you see when you were

in office with regard to this election cycle, did you see aside from
what we were just talking about?

I
 I 25

MR. CLAPPER:

Of course, this all the other thlngs they dld klnd

1s apant fnom

of in the cyben rea1m, uhich is social media tnolIs, fake news plants,
and, of counse, mone traditional but much more slick and sophisticated

than in the past was the propaganda pnomulgated by the RT Netwonk.

l4R. ROONEY: And I assume, just like with fishing thnough the

data, that you don't believe that in the futune that that's going to
cease eithen, that this is what we have to expect?

I'lR. CLAPPER: No, that's what the Russlans do. It's almost
genetic with them. They are impelled to gathen as much infonmation,
whether it has immediate utility to them on not, but for futune -- fon
futune use.
MR. ROONEY: Iit's a question, I asked this of Jeh Johnson,
know

but I wonder if you'd weigh in. Do you see any role for the way that
we conduct at the State leve1 and local Ievel, the way that we conduct

oun election process in protecting ourselves, do you have any advice

with regard to cyben activity, moving forward?
MR. CLAPPER: Wel1, the Department of Homeland Security put
out -- and it in panalIel, not pant of, but in panal1e1 to
was the
Intelligence Community assessment -- a pamphlet on cyber best

I
 r 26

pnactices, which was intended, I believe it was -- the plan was to

distrlbute it to eveny Member in the Congress, both 1n the Senate and
the House, as well as to State election commissions and other State
election officials, to promote/necommend cyber enhancements,

cybensecunity enhancements.
Fnank1y, maybe I was naive, but I was kind of taken aback by the
pushback that leh got fnom many, many State officials who did not want

the Feds messing with State and loca1 election apparatus, And there

was a 1ot of contnoversy when the recommendation -- when Jeh posited

the to include the election appanatus, if I

recommendation can call
it that, as a part of oun cnltical infrastnuctune, a lot of pushback

from the States on that.

MR. ROONEY: Right. He addressed weII. And I think it
that as

basically came to the point that the Feds ane thene if they need them,
but not necessanily, you know, a mandate, but I hear what you'ne saying.
On point number two, with regand to the parameters, which the

ranking member mentioned in his opening, deals with collusion and the

Russian activities, including links between Russia and individuals

associated with political campaigns. You had testified in the past
that you sah, no evidence of collusion between the Tnump campaign and

the Russian Government. Is that still the case on has that changed?

MR. CLAPPER: WeIl, f,or it's not. I neven saw any direct
empinical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was

plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election.

That's not to say that there weren't concerns about the evidence we

I
 I 27

were seeing, anecdotal evidence,

But I do not recall any instance whene

I had dinect evidence of the content of these meetings. It's just the
frequency and prevalence of them was of concern.
MR. ROONEY: When you talk about anecdotal evidence of
emissanies, of people that wene pant -- dld you say part of the campaign
or associated with it?
MR. CLAPPER: WelI, associated with. I mean, lots of
folks -- the campaign had kind of a high tunnover thene, so --
MR. ROONEY: And when you talk about meetings, we've met with some
people in this room that were -- I guess that would fall into the
category of emissaries or have some peripheral role in the campaign
who had met with people of Russian origin.

I guess just trying to figure out with negard to this pant of the
parametens, what exactly should the Intelligence Community take fnom
a campaign that may have emissanies on people in its univense meeting
with members of the Russian wonld vensus not seeing dinect empirical
evidence of collusion? How ane we to answer that parameten for the
futune, moving forward?
lv1R. CLAPPER: I'm not sure I understand youn question.
MR. ROONEY: I'm not sure f understand how I'm asking it eithen.
I mean, I guess the point is on the question is, is at what time is
collusion collusion and at what time is it just people that may have

an affiliation with the campaign meeting on talking with, whether it

I
 I 28

be the Russian ambassador on somebody that's of Russian onigin, and

when should that be taken as something that rises to the leve1 of an

Intelligence Community concern?

MR. CLAPPER: That's a gneat question, and I asked -- I really

can't answer it othen than the sort of viscenal neaction to why all
these meetings with the Russians. They ane what I consider are an

existential threat to this countny, a country that is not intenested

in furthening oun intenests, centainlyr on cooperating with us. Maybe

f'm biased. You know, I'm a Cold Wan warrior and all that, but -- so

that was of to me.

concern
And certainly, it's penfectly legitimate for get-acquainted
meetings, for example, with -- you know, with the ambassadon on with
the projected officials in the next administnation. But I think there
is a line thene between that and violating the pninciple that in this
country we tnaditionally have one President and one administration at
a time. And I will teII you I had concerns about that as I watched
all this before I left.
MR. ROONEY: I assume you're speaking of the Genenal F1ynn

discussion with the --

that's one, yeah. Yeah. That's one case.
MR. CLAPPER: We1l,

MR. ROONEY: I want to talk about -- I'1I skip oven the thind for

a second and talk about briefly the fourth and then some specific
questions with regand to the last election.
tJith the possible leaks of classified information that took place
neganding the Intelligence Community assessment of these matters, can

I
 I 29

you talk about that, and then maybe I'11 have some specific followup
questions ?

MR. CLAPPER: WeII, I don't -- I mean, leaks are bad, and I have

spoken of this many times, publicly and in my testimony befone the

Senate Judiciary Subcommittee chaired by Senator Gnaham, made the point

that leaks can be very damaging. They jeopardize sounces, methods,

and tnadecraft, and can in some instances put assets' lives at risk.
So leaks ane bad.
I don't know who was responsible fon these leaks . Fon the recond,
I didn't leak anything.. And that was certainly one of the banes of
my existence during my time as DNI.

MR. ROONEY: With regard to leaks -- if this sounds repetitive,

just say so -- you stated just now that you don't believe -- that you

anen't responsible fon the leaks. You bad. And

think that they ane

you said that you don't know who was responsible fon those leaks. Is

that correct?
MR. CLAPPER: That is cornect.

MR. ROONEY: I want to talk about -- because I want to go back

to leaks in a second, but befone that I want to talk about this

dossier -- dossier, dossier -- that Chnistopher Stee1e put together
that you'ne familiar with that had the connection with the FBI's
investigation of coondlnatlon between the Russians and the associates
of Pnesident Trump. hJhen did you first become aware of the dossier
and 1ts contents?
MR. CLAPPER: I finst became awane of it when lohn Brennan called

I
 30

me and called my attention to it. And it would have been -- it was

after we started the preparatlon of the assessment. So it would have

been sometime maybe the second week of December. I can't put an exact
date, but that -- I do remember distinctly getting a phone call fnom

John to tell me about the dossien.

MR. R0ONEY: Was the matenial in the dossien shared with the DNI
fon review and comment?

MR. CLAPPER: WeIl, the only -- I don't know what you mean by

review and comment. The only issue that came up here was how to handle

it, whether to it into the fonmal nanratlve of the

inconporate
Intelligence Community assessment on not. And we decided to enclose
a one-and-a-half-page summary of it, but not as a fonmal part of the
Intelligence Community assessment, in the highly classified vension
of it.
MR. ROONEY: Before that, did the Intelligence Community, as far
as you're aware, tnyto validate any of the dossier's sources on
subsources on contents? I know you say that you added it.
MR. CLAPPER: Yeah. And the reason we handled it that way was

pnecisely because we could not conrobonate

I
MR. ROONEY: Do you personally believe what's in thene as --
MR. CLAPPER: I

I
 I 31

The Intelligence Community at large didn't

take that on. That would be a responsibility of, if anyone, would be

the FBI.

MR. ROONEY: So I know that you've testified to this before on

mentioned it, and I know that this is sont of controvensial, this whole
scene, but adding those, what did you say, a page and-a-ha1f or two
pages when it was not connoborated the tnaditional way ,nd I
and there's a contnoversy over this, was the
reason why you included it to just let the administnation know that
it was out there, on did you include it fon some other reason?
l4R. CLAPPER: No, the only purpose was to make sune that the

President-elect was aware it was out there. And when we went up to

brief him and his team on the 6th of January, we had delibenately planned
ahead of time that we'd bning this up, but neck down just to him and

to Directon Comey.
And the main purpose was just to alent him that it was out there.
We felt, you know, a duty if you wiII, that he should know.
to wann,

MR. ROONEY: Do you feel like in your time in office that that

would be a nonmal thing to do like fon any President?

MR. CLAPPER: WelI, this whole situatlon --

MR. ROONEY: Right, but --

MR. CLAPPER: -- is veny abnonmal. f've neven seen anything like

I
 r 32

it in my history, and I've wonked for -- in the tnenches of intelligence

for eveny President since and including John Kennedy. I've never seen

anything like it.

MR. R0ONEY: Do you remember any other time in the past where you
would have included stuff that was not necessanily corroborated intel
to a Pnesident?
MR. CLAPPER: Yes, as long as it was so charactenized. Sune.

I've been asked about this befone. And yes, I had occasion to bnief
Pnesldent Obama when thene was stuff out thene, however unconnobonated,

but just we thought he should know about it.

MR. ROONEY: How many people were thene when you briefed the
Pnesident on Pnesident-e1ect at this point?
MR. CLAPPER: On the ICA?

MR. ROONEY: Yes.

MR. CLAPPER: WeII, it was the foun of us: Adminal Rogens,

Director Comey, John Brennan, and myself. And then it was

Pnesident-elect Trump, Vice Pnesident-elect Pence, Mike Flynn, Reince

Pniebus. That was who was sitting at the main confenence table. And

thensitting along the sidelines was Mlke Bossent, Mike Pompeo, Sean

Spicer. I think that's it.

MR. R0ONEY: 0kay.

MR. CLAPPER: Tom Bossert, excuse me.

MR. ROONEY: So, based on that and getting back to the leaks --
MR. CLAPPER: Now, just one additional point. That was fon the
largen general bniefing. And then when that was over, I think Jim Comey
 I 33

said, you know, we have one more thing we'd like to discuss with you,
but we'd like to do it on a one-on-one basis.
MR. ROONEY: And it was at that point you discussed the extra
pages, or --
MR. CLAPPER: hle didn't discuss it.
MR. RO0NEY: 0h, that was something different?
MR. CLAPPER: This was -- we bniefed the bnoad, the flndings of
the Intelligence Community assessment.

MR. ROONEY: Right.

MR. CLAPPER: And at the end of that, aften -- which went on fon
an hour, I guess. At the end of that, we then -- I think it was -- and

the plan was either I on Directon Comey would pnopose necking down fon

one additional aspect that we just wanted to brief on a restnicted

basls.
MR. ROONEY: That was the Christopher Stee1e information?
MR. CLAPPER: Right.

MR. ROONEY: And so who was -- so were these people that you named
befone, wene they given that intelligence too?
MR. CLAPPER: No. Well, they had -- we left a copy of the report
up there, of the --
l,lR. ROONEY: So they all had access to it.
MR. CLAPPER: -- hlghly classified vension, which we kept ln the
FBI spaces, if anyone wanted to read it.
MR. ROONEY: 5o the meeting aften the meeting, who was thene?
MR. CLAPPER: It was only, as far as I know -- I wasn't thene.

I
 I 34

The nest of us 1eft. As far as I know, it was only Dinector Comey and

the President-elect.
MR. ROONEY: Did you pensonally discuss the dossien on any of the
othen intelligence related to Russian hacking? You alneady said that
you didn't leak it to the jounnalists, so I assume that's a no, conrect?

MR. CLAPPER: I'm sorny?

MR. ROONEY: Did you discuss the dossier on any othen

intelligence related to Russia hacking of the 2016 election with
journalists ?

MR, CLAPPER: NO.

MR. ROONEY: Dld you confinm or corroborate the contents of the

dossien with CNN jounnalist lake Tappen?
MR. CLAPPER: hlel1, by the time of that, they already knew about
it. By the time it was -- it was after -- I don't know exactly the
sequence there, but it was pretty close to when we briefed it and when

it was out all over the place. The media had it by the way. We were
kind of behind the power cunve, because the media, many media outlets
that I undenstood had that, had the dossier for some time, as did people
on the HilI.
MR. ROONEY: Do you have any idea how they had it, how they got
it?
MR. CLAPPER: ThE MCdiA?

MR. ROONEY: Yes.

MR. CLAPPER: I do not.

MR. ROONEY: Llke lake Tappen and those guys. tJhen did you first
 I 35

become aware of the late December conversations between Genenal F1ynn

and Ambassadon Kislyak?

MR. CLAPPER: Sometime after the New Year's holiday. It would

have been the first week in Januany. I can't pin the date down,
And

but it was Tuesday, !,lednesday, or Thunsday of that week. I don't know

the exact day.
lvlR. ROONEY: Do you know who told you about the convensation?
l4R. CLAPPER: Bob Litt, my genenal counsel.

MR. ROONEY: Nhat was youn response when he told you?

MR. CLAPPER: WeII, f was -- I was kind of disturbed about it,

frankly. We had just done -- announced sanctions on the 29th of
December, you know, closing the dachas, expelling 35 of their
intelligence openatives, and sanctioning some other people. So it was

disconcerting, I'11 put it that way, to learn of that conversatlon.

MR. ROONEY: Right. Did you shane that --
MR. CLAPPER: Especially for me, since I have a long history with

Mike Flynn.
MR. ROONEY: Well, and as you say, I mean not to editonialize
hene, but, you know, given our nelationship with Russia oven the.
decades, I think that, as you testified and as you stated eanlier, it's
certainly not something that, you know, General Flynn should have been

doing, not being a member of the government.

Dld you ever brief Presldent Obama on the phone call, the
Flynn-Kislyak phone calls?
MR. CLAPPER: No.

r
 T 36

MR. ROONEY: Did you brief President Obama on any other

intelligence lnvolving the Trump campaign or tnansition team?

MR. CLAPPER: WeIl, we had -- by bnief, I would include PDB

anticles that wene neponted. And, of counse, 0DNI has a nesponsibility

fon the PDB. So thene was a series of reponts thnough the summer and

into the faII about, in general, activity, that sort of thing.

Russian

The only time I actually had a briefing on the subject, if you

want to call it that, was when the Intelligence Community assessment

came out, we sent it to the White House first, my recollection is the

morning of the 5th of Januany. And then that afternoon I had a hearing

with the Senate Anmed Services Committee. I nemember that very

distinctly. And then the next day -- because we felt obliged, since
Pnesident Obama had tasked us, to brief him finst.
And then the next day, we bniefed the Gang of Eight hene in the
eanly morning, and then flew up to New Yonk and bniefed the

Pnesident-elect and his team on the 6th of Januany.

MR. RO0NEY: Do you know how Deputy Attorney General Yates

leanned of the Flynn-Kislyak phone calI?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I surmise that --

I so ilm assuming it was done unden that basis.

MR. ROONEY: So you weren't with hen when she leanned of it? Do

you know that?

MR. CLAPPER: Was I physically with her?

I
 I 37

MR. ROONEY: YeS.

MR. CLAPPER: NO.

MR. ROONEY: okay. On January 12th of 2Qt7, do you know how many
people had knowledge of the Flynn-Kislyak phone ca1ll
MR. CLAPPER: How many people?

MR. ROONEY: Yes.

MR. CLAPPER: No, I don't.

MR. ROONEY: Okay.

MR. CLAPPER:

MR. ROONEY: Yeah. No, the neason for this line of questioning
is we're obviously tnying to figure out how something like this becomes

available to people in the Washington Post and Davld Ignatius and the
like. Do you have --
MR. CLAPPER: That's a gneat question.
MR. ROONEY: Okay. So you don't --
I don't have any --
MR. CLAPPER:

MR. RO0NEY: -- have any guidance on that?

MR. CLAPPER: I would -- I guess the inference, though, it could

have been from a lot of sources.

MR. ROONEY: Yes. And that's going to lead me into my next line
of questionlng, which f'm nunning out of time. So I'm going through
any questions hene, a }ot of which you've alneady answered, so if you'd
just give me a second so I can skip over.

r
 I 38

When Vice President I think elect at that point Pence defended

Genenal Flynn on televlsion, publlcly clalming that Flynn told him the

calls wenen't nelated to sanctions, did you have any communication with
Vice Pnesident-elect Pence negarding the nature of those calls after
he made those statements?

[10:33 a.m. ]

I
 I 39

I did not. I think that

MR. CLAPPER: No, appeanance, if I
nememben conrectly, was on the 17th of Januany.

MR. ROONEY: Right.

MR. CLAPPER: And I was very alarmed by it aften being aware

of -- and all I saw, by the way, hras a gist of the conversation. I

But I t^tas very concerned about lt.
I felt that that needed to be naised with the White House.
And I did bneach that with - - I it with both John Bnennan
discussed

and ultimately Director Comey about -- I think I did that -- I had that

discussion the evening of the 19th of January. But I did not raise
it dinectly with the Vice President-e1ect.
MR. ROONEY: Okay. Finally, I want to talk about unmasking,

because obviously, you know, we've -- I'm the new subcommittee chairman

on the NSA, along with Mr. Himes, and, you know, we've got a tough lift
this faIl with neauthonization.
And, you know, obviously, whethen it's people on the left or
people on the right, people are suspicious of the work that you guys

do in the Intelligence Communlty, and that, you know, people ane neadlng

our emails and listening to our phone calls or, you know, in this case
unconstitutionally being outed or unmasked, you know, when gathering

evidence.
So to help us potentially wlth regand to the neauthorization,
we've got a 1ot of information with regand to people maybe at youn level
on Cabinet level who can request -- and I'm not saying you do this,

I
 I 40

but I'm saying that we've seen a wide variance on what the reason why

somebody would be unmasked.

And excuse the sont of, you know, snarkiness of this, some people

say, I want this penson unmasked because I want them unmasked, and it's
approved. And this mlght be mone appropriate fon Admiral Rogens,
but -- and some people give a detailed expl.anation of why this person

should be unmasked.
Moving forward, do you think that 7O2 should be reauthorized with

amendments that give mone detalI or stay the same with regand to how

a U.S. person is unmasked on a nequest for unmasking?

To be mone clear, should the Congress neauthonize 702 with a mone

stringent explanation of why a U.S. penson should be unmasked, even

somebody as high as a Cabinet leve1 position? 0n should thene be mone

uniformity, do you think, in the nequest and how it's requested?

MR. CLAPPER: Yeah. Curnently, the -- for me, there's -- and I

made unmasking nequests not every day, but fairly often when I
was -- during the 6 and a half yeans I was DNI and befone all this came

up. And really, whateven rationale people wnite, it really boils down
to one thing, which is to undenstand the context of the panticular
SIGINT repont you're reading.
So when thene ane refenences to U.S. penson 1, U.S. person 2, and

U.S. person 3, et cetera, it's a little hand to figune out the

significance of that report, And, of course, U.S. person 1 will be
a different U.S. person 1 the next report. So it's hand to read these
things anecdotally on just scan through them and dnaw, you know, the

I
 I 41

conclusions fnom them.

The other point impontant to rememben is that what occasions an
unmasking nequest ls collection on a vali.d, foneign tanget, who
appanently is in some sort of contact with a U.S. person.
So I did my share of unmasking. I don't know what the records

were. I didn't keep reconds, because the practice -- the process now
is that the original collecting agency is the one to whom you make a
nefernal when you want to -- if you're an official wanting an unmasking.
And so, for me, since most of the unmasking requests that I made

were a collection derived from Section 7O2 of the FISA Amendment Act,

and so NSA would be the bean counter for that.

The only exceptlon -- now, the questlon 1s, should thene be a mone
nigorous pnocess for that, where, fon example, you put the DNI ln change
of appnoving or not unmasking requests. Rlght now, the only population

that the DNI has responsibility fon governing when it comes to unmasking
ane Membens of Congress.

And you'11 recall the long -- the discussion we had in this

committee which eventuated in an lntelligence Community dlnective,
that I believe I signed out before I left, which memorialized the famous

Gates memonandum in 1992 governing incidental collection of Membens

of Congress. But that is the only group of people that the DNI, fon
example, has any governance authority over.
MR. ROONEY: But do you think -- and this is my final
question -- do you think that the justification for -- I get the whole
U.5. person number 1, if it doesn't make sense in the context of what

I
 I 42

you're reading, that lt needs to be unmasked fon your sake of

understanding what you'ne reading.
8ut do you think that -- and what was youn justification when

you'd say, okay, U.S. person numben 1, I want this penson unmasked?

Did you give details as to why --

MR. CLAPPER: No. No, I didn't.

MR. ROONEY: Do you think that you should have and people at your
level?
MR. CLAPPER: !'1e11, given the responsibilities of the DNf , I felt
that if I for unmasking of this -- normally it would be all the
asked

people mentioned in one report, all the U.S. pensons. It was to

understand the context, to undenstand the significance. And that
would be kind of the standand justification.
I think, frankly, it would be hard to write a detailed
justification given the ambiguity of these reports when you read them

baldly when they mention U.S. penson 1, 2, 3, et cetena.

MR. ROONEY: Thank you, General.

Adam.

Over to the minonity.

MR. SCHIFF: Thank you, Mr. Chainman.

I'm going to go back over some of the aneas that you've been asked
about and then I've got a few areas in addition befone my colleagues.
The Kremlin pnefenence fon Donald Tnump, you mentioned thene wene

thnee -- basically thnee motives the Russians had: The finst was to
sow discond; the second was to harm Hillary Clinton any way they could;

I
 I 43

and the thind was a preference fon Donald Tnump.

I've heand at least one of my colleagues, not here today but in

the past, publicly cast doubt on that third conclusion that the Russians
affirmatively wanted to help Donald Trump. And I think the basis of
it is that bniefing that we received from bniefers who may not have
been read in to the most sensitive intelligence, and some of the
intelligence may not have been manifest until after that briefing.
And I thlnk my colleague has, you know, a good point. It wouldn't

have been the first time where we had a bniefing fnom people who were
not nead into things and where we got a misleading impression. And

I don't think thene was my motive on intent behind it, but that is an

issue.
But I want to get to the core piece, which is, you know, what will
ultimately go into oun report, and that is the IC's ultimate conclusion
that one of the motives was to help -- afflrmatlvely help Donald Tnump.

Do you have any -- do you have confidence in that assessment based on --

MR. CLAPPER: I do.

MR. SCHIFF:

MR. CLAPPER: I do.

MR. SCHIFF: And you mentioned that -- and this I'm interested
in as weII, because I think Directon Comey testified to the same thing,
that the basis for the preference for Donald Trump was largely that
this was a businessman and they had good history of working deals with
business people.
MR. CLAPPER: That, and as Directon Comey also pointed out, you

I
 I 44

know, it kind of stanted with a very strong animus for the Clintons,
panticularly fon Hillary Clinton, who Putin pensonally held
responsible fon fomenting what he considened an attempted colon
nevolution in 2011. Plus, he felt just disrespected by both of the
Clintons. So it stanted with that.
And then -- so just about anybody besides Hillany Clinton, I

think, would probably be appealing to the Russians. And the fact that
he was not a politician, a businessman, a dealmaker, et cetena, I think,
and, you know, he apparently had pnion dealings in Russia, made him
mone appealing to them than certainly she did.
MR. SCHIFF: Isn't it likely also, though, that the candidates'
respective positions on key natlonal secunity interests of the Russians
would have played into thein decision-maki.ng?

MR. CLAPPER: WelI, I think so. I thinkr'you know, obviously

they're very interested in being free of the sanctions. When you look

at it, the sanctions, in tenms of impact on the Russian GDP, is actually

not all that gneat,1.5 to 2 percent maybe, but I think it had more
to do with the image, the optic of being sanctioned and being sanctioned
so unlformly by the United States and certainly Eunopean countries.
So they wanted to be free of that.
MR. SCHIFF: So the receptivity to potentially revisiting the
sanctions that Mn. Tnump expressed on the campaign trail, that would
have been attnactive to the Russians?

MR. CLAPPER: Centainlyr Y€s, it would have.

MR. SCHIFF: And if the Russians got any message from the Trump

I
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campaign that they would also be receptive to a repeal of the Magnitsky

Act, would that also have been attractlve to the Russians?

MR. CLAPPER: Yes, and, of counse, that's slnce come out ln light
of the meeting.
Iv1R. SCHIFF: And the Magnitsky Act, was that something of veny

pensonal distaste to Hr. Putin?

MR. CLAPPER: Yes. Yes, it was. And I also think that, again,
going back to why the resentment about sanctions is because it did have
pensonal impacts on many of his oligarchal buddies, and fon that matter,
himself.
5o it had less to do, I think, with impact on Russia as much as
or more impact on him and his cnonies, on top of, you know, the Panama

Paper publication and the anti-doping nepont, which he took as personal

affronts. So for all those reasons, he found Mr. Trump much mone
appealing.
MR. SCHIFF: Would Mn. Trump's position, his comments belittling
NATO, also have been attractive to the Russlans?
MR. CLAPPER: 0h, sure, absolutely.
MR. SCHIFF: And likewise, his support fon Brexit on funthen
departunes fnom the European Union, is that consistent with Russian --
MR. CLAPPER: Absolutely. The Russians ane veny bent on driving
wedges between and among European nations and a wedge between Eunope

as a collective and the United States.

MR. SCHIFF:

I
 I 45

MR. CLAPPER: I
MR. SCHIFF:

MR. CLAPPER: r

MR. SCHIFF: I want to tunn to the comments that you made today,

but also in the past, with nefenence to what you obsenved on the issue
of collusion. I think you testified at some point in the Senate, on
maybe it was said ln an open statement, that you wenen't necessarlly

in the chain of information that was being developed by Directon Comey

and his investigation. Can you explain that?

MR. CLAPPER: Right. Finst, we didn't have any evidence of

collusion certainly that met the evidentiany thneshold that would make

its way into the Intelligence Community assessment. That was point

I
 I 47

one. There was nothing in the assessment,

I arluding to any collusion.

My pnactice as DNI was to defer both to Director Muellen and then
Directon Comey on whether one -- to tell me about
when and what

sensitive cniminal investigations, if they devolved to that,

particulanly involving U.S. pensons.

MR. SCHIFF: Now, Directon Comey testified in open session in

Manch that he began a counterintelligence lnvestigation of Tnump

campaign associates in July of last year.

MR. CLAPPER: Right.

MR. SCHIFF: Were you awane in JuIy of last yean that he had opened

that investigation?
MR. CLAPPER: What I of at that point only were the
was aware
financial activities for Tnump associates. That's all I knew about
in the way of an investigation on the pant of the FBI. I leanned that
informally from Director Comey.

MR. SCHIFF: And what financial activities ane you referning to?
MR. CLAPPER: WeII, I don't know what they wene. It was

questionable business deals, involving people who wene allegedly Tnump

associates, with the Russians.

MR. SCHIFF: But the details of those business transactions or
what Mn. Comey was investigating was not something that would have been
brought to your attention?
MR. CLAPPER: ft b,ras not shaned with me, no.

MR. SCHIFF: And whatever evidence Mr. Comey would have

I
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developed between JuIy of last yean and the time you left on the issue

of collusion would not necessarily have been shaned with you?

MR. CLAPPER: hlelI, there's two conditions here: Eithen he had
evldence and didn't share it or he hadn't developed evidence yet, and

I don't know Lrhat the facts are thene.

MR. SCHIFF: But he wasn't bniefing you on the pnogress of his
investigation ?

MR. CLAPPER: No.

MR. SCHIFF: I just -- I ask because f want to set the limits of

what you would have been awane of at the time that you wene the DNI.
5o if thene was evidence of collusion, it would not necessarily have

been brought to youn attention?

MR. CLAPPER: Again, I left it to the discnetion of the directons,

both directors that I wonked with, of the FBI to make that judgment

as to whether and when and what to tell me about such investigations,

panticularly if it was going to evolve into a cnlminal investigation.
MR. SCHIFF: Now, the Steele dossien contained a numben of
neports of intenactions between Trump campaign people and the Russian
Govennment and Russian individuals, and those were based on sounces

and on subsounces. That dossier included neports of, you know,

salacious activity in hotel nooms with the now President.

But they also contained reports that Trump campaign people wene

meeting with Russians and agreeing to neceive damaging information

about Hillary Clinton in exchange fon relief from sanctions. That was

also part of this, the memorandum, wasn't it?

I
 I 49

MR. CLAPPER: I believe so.

MR. SCHIFF: And in that respect, thene wene neports of actual
collusion that could be conroborated or not corrobonated, but there
wene neponts of collusion?
MR. CLAPPER: I believe that's right.
MR. SCHIFF: And neports -- you said that some of the dossierl
in the sense that some of the language used by
Mr. Steele's sounces about the Russian derogatony view of Secretany
Clinton was

MR. CLAPPER: Right.

MR. SCHIFF: -- about the Russian denogatory view towards

Secretary Clintoni
MR. CLAPPER: Correct.

MR. SCHIFF: And Mn. Steele himself was someone known to U.S.
inteI, wasn't he?

MR. CLAPPER: Yes. He was certainly known to the FBI. He'd

been, what I believe they consldened, a cnedible source fon at least

I
MR. SCHIFF: And fnom what you know, the FBI thought highly of
Mr. Steele?
MR. CLAPPER: I can't say that. f can just say that I do know
they considened him a cnedible sounce.
MR. SCHIFF: And the repont -- the dossier reponts of an agreement
on a sought-aften agreement between the Trump campaign people and the
Russians to tnade dirt on Hillany for sanctions nelief, is that, in

I
 I 50

your view, cornoborated at least in part by what we now know about the

Don, Jp., PauI Manafort, and lared Kushner meeting with Russian

repre sentatives?

MR. CLAPPER: It would appear so.

MR. SCHIFF: Pnlon to going to the meeting wlth the Presldent
where the pnesence of the meeting was necked down so that the dossien
could be bniefed to the President, did you have a discussion with
Dinector Comey and others prior to that about whether to bnief the
Pnesident on the dossien?
MR. CLAPPER: Yes, we did.

MR. SCHIFF: ANd --

MR. CLAPPER: And the agreement of us, at the end
was that one

of it, when the briefing seemed to come to an end, that one of us would
suggest to the President-elect -- I think lim actually did it -- that
we neck down, that we had something additional to discuss with him,

but we thought it should be done on a one-on-one basis.

MR. SCHIFF: And why was it felt that that ought to be done on

a one-on-one basls?
MR. CLAPPER: WeII, again, you know, we were trying to be

defenential to what was in this report. It was pretty salacious, and

just thought that was a better -- a more discrete way to handle it.
Again, since we

MR. SCHIFF: But it was --

MR. CLAPPER: And the main point was to let him know of its

I
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exlstence.
MR. SCHIFF: And it was the consensus view of those who were in
that pne-meeting discussion that whethen it could be connoborated on
not, it was impontant for the President to at least know of its
existence ?

MR. CLAPPER: Yes. We -- we, Dinector Rogens, Comey, Brennan,

and f, caucused on that ahead of time and came to that agreement and

how we would handle it.

MR. SCHIFF: And how was it determined that Mn. Comey should be
the one to deliver --
MR. CLAPPER: Because the source was an FBI sounce, and we thought
that was the logical one of us to speak to it.
MR. SCHIFF: Aften the meeting, did you get any readout fnom

Director that part of discussion went?

Comey about how

MR. CLAPPER: Not much. He told me laten that the

Pnesident-elect was very defensive about it.

MR. SCHIFF: Dinecton Comey testified in open session about a

numben of meetings with the President, including one in which he was

asked by the Pnesident to dnop the Flynn case. Did Mn. Comey
theneafter ever discuss with you that meeting with the President?
MR. CLAPPER: The only discussion I had with Dinecton Comey about

that whole subject was on I was out to the Bureau

the 27th of Januany.
fon their farewell for me. And I had met briefly with Directon Comey
before the ceremony, and he had just neceived appanently a phone call
from President Trump asking him to dinner. And he was, as I said

I
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public1y, he was uneasy with that.

MR. SCHIFF: Did he tell it?
you why he was uneasy with
MR. CLAPPER: Because he thought it impacted the optic, if not

the substance, impacted his autonomy, the independence of his Bureau

and of its director.
him as
MR. SCHIFF: And I know this was after you had left, but did he

ever foIlow up with you to teII you how that meeting went?
MR. CLAPPER: No, he did not.
MR. SCHIFF: Did anyone else even report to you that they thought
the President had asked them to do somethlng they considered
inappnopriate ?

MR. CLAPPER: Anyone else besides this case? This instance?

Besides --
MR. SCHIFF: Besides what you've already said about Director
Comey, did anyone ever neach out to you from the IC to teIl you that

they thought that something they were being asked to do, eithen by the
President on by their superions in the IC, was inappropriate?
MR. CLAPPER: I don't think so. It doesn't come readily to mind,

no

mR. SCHIFF: You wene asked about the Flynn conversation. And

that conversation was with the Russian ambassadon?

MR. CLAPPER: Right. The one in question, on the 29th of

Decemben, was with the ambassadon, yeah.
MR. SCHIFF: At the time that the sanctions wene imposed, the

Russians didn't react. They didn't nespond. Was that contnany to

I
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your expectation?
MR. CLAPPER:

MR. SCHIFF: And was an effort made to find out why the Russians
didn't neact?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, we -- I think oun antenna was up certainly

as, you know, what's the explanation fon that, and we soon leanned it.
MR. SCHIFF: And by you soon leanned it, what ane you nefenning
to?

MR. CLAPPER: l,lelI, the conversation that General Flynn had the

same day essentially neutering -- my chanactenization -- the sanctions

that had just been imposed.

MR. SCHIFF:

MR. CLAPPER: I

MR. SCHIFF:

MR. CLAPPER:

MR. SCHIFF:

MR. CLAPPER:

r
 54

MR. SCHIFF: Would it be logical -- if you're looking for an

explanation fon the neason why the Russians didn't nespond, their
atypical neaction to these sanctions, and you find a conversation with
a Russian ambassadon, would it be loglcal to want to know who that
Russian ambassadon was talking to?
MR. CLAPPER: Yes. And, of course, he had been. -- I believe
it was known that Mike Flynn was talking to Kislyak befone the 29th
of Decemben.
MR. SCHIFF: So an unmasking nequest to find out r.rho the Russian
ambassador was talking to to explain why the Russians wene not

nesponding to U.S. sanctions, that would have been a legitimate

unmasking nequest?

MR. CLAPPER: WeIl, I think it's -- it would be legitimate, in

my mind, for just about any U.S. penson -- I mean, this has been a

standard thing we've done going back to the Soviet era,

SO

it wouldn't have been done specifically.

I don't know the cincumstances of the unmasking, you know.
That's a better question to dinect to the FBI or the DOl.
MR. SCHIFF: But if the Russians are talking to U.S. persons and

you'ne tnying to understand why the Russians didn't nespond, why the

I
 I 55

Russians acted very atypically, it would be necessary to know who they

were talking with to tny to figure that outl

MR. CLAPPER: WeII, as I say, Congressman Schlff, the explanation
evinced itself pnetty early. So we dldn't have to dwe1l for a long
time on tnylng to agonize oven, gee, why they'd behave that way, which
is, you know, very non-typical fon them. We didn't have to wait very
Iong fon an explanation, at least the one that was satisfactory to me.

MR. SCHIFF: I mean, the reason I ask the question obviously, is,
numben one --
MR. CLAPPER: I mean, and part of this, you have to allow for,
weIl, Russia is a bureaucracy too. It would take them some time to
identify the names of people and prepane a notification to the United
States.
it's through the normal diplomatic pnocesses by which you PNG
And

people. It wouldn't necessanily be something that would happen

ovennlght. But it certalnly was curious that after the 29th, the 30th,
the 31st, they dldn't react as we would have expected them to.
MR. SCHIFF:

I
I
MR. CLAPPER: I
MR. SCHIFF:

MR. CLAPPER: I
 I 56

MR. SCHIFF: And the second conflation is thene's no evidence

that I've seen in this connection that any unmasking nequest was
inappnopriate; indeed, it would've been negligent not to find out why
the Russians didn't respond the way they did.
MR. CLAPPER: That's my view.

MR. SCHIFF: But the unmasklng is being conflated with the

leaking, whlch ls lmpnoper. But to use the unmasking as anothen neason
not to neauthonizeTO2, a statute that wasn't implicated, is yet anothen
neason, in my view, that 702 is being assailed on a basis that really
doesn't apply hene.
MR. CLAPPER: That's night, Schiff, And
Congnessman

unfortunately, this stuff is pnetty arcane and technical. And I don't

think the public gets into this, into the details and the technlcal
aspects to understand the differences between a Title I FISA and the
resultant unmasking and a section 7OZ FI,SA Amendment Act unmasking.

And those ane pnetty arcane.

MR. SCHIFF: Let me tunn to a couple othen incidents that have

happened since you left that I'd like to get youn insights on. The

first involves a man named Ponter Smith, who necently passed away.
He's the subject of a couple open source reponts. And the reporting
is that he was attempting to gather opposition neseanch from foneign

I
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hackers, likety Russian hackens, pertaining to the Hillary Clinton

emails.
The allegation is also that he was ln touch with Michael Flynn

and othens associated with the campaign, and he was putting wond out

essentially to these foreign hackers that he would be interested in

these stolen emails, this dirt on Hillary, and what's more, he could

be a conduit back to the campalgn.

For the Russian hackens getting this message, Russian hackens

that may be working either in concert with the Russian Government or

on an ad hoc basis with the Russian Govennment, how would the Russian

Government likely receive that inquiry? Would they see that as an

opportunity? What kind of response would you think they would take?
MR. CLAPPER: Well, purely speculation, but just knowing

Russians ane oppontunistic to a fare thee weII, and also, by the way,
thein services are very competltive. We saw that in the nun-up to the
election. 5o any way the Russians and any one of their services saw

an oppontunity to exploit, to gain insight, to gain infonmation that

they could use for leverage 1ater, they would.
MR. SCHIFF: Now, the assessment indicates that the

MR. CLAPPER: Yes, and with deniability, because

I
 I 58

MR. SCHIFF:

MR. CLAPPER:

MR. SCHIFF:

MR. CLAPPER:

I
MR. SCHIFF:
 I 59

MR. CLAPPER:

MR. SCHIFF:

MR. CLAPPER:

MR. SCHIFF: Okay. WeII, we'I1 try to follow up on those lines

of inquiny. Thank you.

Similar questlons with nespect to the public allegations about

a meeting between Donald Tnump, Jn., PauI Manafont, Jared Kushnen --
MR. CLAPPER: And othErS.

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MR. SCHIFF: -- and others, with Veselnitskaya, Rinat

Akhmetshinr a translaton, a Bnitish pnomoter Goldstone, we don't know

even who the identity of the interpreten is. What would be necessany

to find out the identity of the intenpreten who uras pnesent in that
meeting?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, if -- weII, centainly the other participants

might -- one of them might know who the translator was. Perhaps the

Russian attorney would know that on the othen Russian pensonage thene,

the former military officer.

f don't know if thene ane any kind of records kept by the Secnet
Service, because I think at the time of the meeting he was the
nominee -- Pnesident Trump was then thq nominee. So I don't know, but
Secnet Senvice would have some necond of who was entering Trump Tower.
MR. SCHIFF: The meeting, as it's
laid out in the emails,
been

pnovides evidence that the Russians reached out to Donald Trump, Jr.,

claiming to have dirt on Hillary Cllnton. They did so in a tnail that

begins with the Russian chief prosecutor, goes to a Russian oligarch,
goes from the oligarch who did business with Donald Trump to the
ollganch's son, the pop singer, through the pop singer's agent to Donald
Tnump, JF., and also potentially dinectly to Rona, the President's
assistant.
'
Is that chain indicative of Russian tradecraft? l,lould the
Russians be likely to use cutouts in an approach to the campaign?
MR. CLAPPER: It centainly is. And this whole thing to me was

the typical soft approach, which is kind of typical of Soviet Russ'ian

I
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tnadecraft. And I thlnk the flnst -- thetn finst obJective

entnance

here was determine interest on the pant of Donald Trump, ln. Would
he take the bait, which he did. And that's pnobably all they wanted

to accomplish fon this initial meeting.

MR. SCHIFF: And part of that -- the message he would have gotten

back would have been Donald Trump, Jn., saying he would love to get

the information. But also would it also have been a message that he
neached out and brought other high-Ieve1 people in the Trump campalgn
into the meeting at neally a critical time when the candidate is seizing
the nomination?
PlR. CLAPPER: I think that simply senved to amplify in the eyes
of the Russians the intense interest in gathering dirt on Hillany
Clinton, going to him. But he then brought in other senior officials
in the campaign. So I think from their standpoint, they kind of struck
gold there.
Again, I think their only objectlve was to determine a leve1 of
interest, and it turned out -- it appeared to be pnetty intense.
MR. SCHIFF: And what's the implication of their bringing up the
Magnitsky Act duning that meeting whene they're responding to the
campaign intenest and dirt on Hillary Clinton?
MR. CLAPPER: WeIl, all I know is what I'm reading in the media,
Congressman. It appeans to me that that was an objective, and perhaps

what was intended was at some point some sort of quid pro quo fon relief
of the Magnitsky Act in neturn fon dlnt on the opposition candidate.
MR. SCHIFF: Now, if this was the initial approach, as you

I
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suspect, what would you expect to fo1low? !,Jhat would the Russians'
next step Ilkely be?

MR. CLAPPER: WelI, they wi1l, f would guess -- again,

stereotypical pattern hene would be they would look fon some othen way,

some I don't know what that is, to follow up on -- given

othen means, and

the intenest. Now, again, this -- I'm punely -- I'm speculating hene.
I honestly don't know.
But it r*ould be strange to me if making this soft approach -- and,

of counse, they did, you know, a very intricate daisy chain of

personages involved in it, that they found that there was great interest

in this, that they wouldn't have followed up and taken advantage

somehow.

I don't know -- again, I'm speculating, and I'm only

Now,

extrapolating based on what I know of how the Russians typically do

these things.
MR. Jr.'s email, he suggested the best
SCHIFF: Now, in Donald,
time would be late summen. This meeting was in June. At the end of
luIy, the Russians began dumping the stolen Hillary Clinton emails.
Could the dumping of the emails have been the Russian nesponse, on would
you expect thene to have been an effont to further cunry favor with
the campaign by a mone direct we're doing this fon you, we'ne giving
this to youi
MR. CLAPPER: l,lell, f 'm -- again, I'm extnapolating here, but I
would think they r^rould want to achieve as much levenage as possible
and make sune that there was a nelationship between the attempt at

I
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reaching out and thein delivery in retunn fon some commitment, I guess,

on Magnitsky relief. But, again, I don't know this. I don't have any
evidence of it. f'm just -- I'm surmising.
MR. SCHIFF: And if you were, again, to go about trying to

determine what the IC might have in its holdings on this subject, you
would want to get whatever -- you would want to search the IC database

for the oligarch, the ollgarch's son, the Russian lawyer, the Russian
interpreten, if we can find the identity of the interpneten, and the --

MR. CLAPPER: I assume the special counsel is doing that.

MR. SCHIFF: tJe11, we need to do the same. And I suppose with

the Russian lobbyist, who's a dual citizen. Then you would use the

other procedures that you mentioned before in order to gather insight

into whether --
MR. CLAPPER: 1l1e11, dual cltlzen is a littIe dlffenent categony,
since, you know, he can be subpoenaed and all that, I would think.
MR. SCHIFF: Ane there any othen steps that we should take in
terms of what the IC may be in possession of that would help us detenmine

whether thene wene subsequent steps the Russians took to fol}ow up on

the initial meeting?

MR. CLAPPER: I can't -- off the top of my head, I can't

WeII,
think of any, Congressman Schiff. I think that if a specific -- as
specific as can be -- as lt can be made, which ls hard hene. But
certainly, we do know some of the individuals involved in the meetlng,
and if there are any electronic reflections of communications, either
by phone on email for many of them.

I
 I 64

Centainly, the lawyer' s presence here would govenn that. I would

pensonally be interested in that, you know, what was the basis for her

visa. I believe she was here at the time as an attorney repnesenting

a company that was involved in a money laundening count proceeding.
So I would certainly be interested to -- I think it would be intenesting

to sont of play that out.

MR. SCHfFF: Lastly, I want to, before I hand it off to my

colleagues, ask you about public neponts that the administnation may

give back these pnoperties that were a pant of the sanctions over the
Russian hacking. How would the Russians interpnet that? First of
aII, what can you te1I us about how those facilities were being used?

Were they being used to spy on --

MR. CLAPPER:

That's what they

used it fon. And so, to me, it's, you know, why do that? What have
the Russians done to deserve that?
MR. SCHIFF:

MR. CLAPPER: Oh, yeah, for years.

HR. SCHIFF: And if we were to give those pnoperties back without

obtaining anything fon it, what message are the Russians likely to get
fnom that?

MR. CLAPPER: I.le11,I think they'd -- I think they'd feel like

a majon concession that they didn't do anything for to gain. And they

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 I 65

neally can't reciprocate because the companable -- the analogous

pnoperty in the -- in is -- doesn't compare.
Russia
MR. SCHIFF: I'm going to hand it over to my colleagues. Do you

want a break at all before we continue? We are about an hour and a

half in.
MR. CLAPPER: That would be a good idea. I'm an older guy.

By the way, f do need to add to the recond. On the attendees at

the Tnump Towen briefing on the 5th of Januany, the other attendee was
Ted Gustano, who was the designated bniefen fon Pnesident-eIect Trump.

He was also present since he was the custodian fon the hand copy neport.
I just want to add that to the recond.
MR. ROONEY: The minonity's time ends at 20 til, but we'II
centainly delay that so long as the witness needs to take a bneak, and

then we'11 go night into our 20-minute/20-minute redirects.

Thank you.

IBrief necess. ]

MR. ROONEY: A11 night.

will go to a quarter of and then we'11
ble

get into our 20-minute/20-nlnute. Sir, lf you want to take anothen

bneak in 2O minutes, we can do that.
MR. CLAPPER: Well, I have a commltment at the SSCI to do the same

thing all aftennoon. So I would llke to get --

MR. ROONEY: Yeah. Well, I don't have any othen questions. I

do want to make one thing before the minority continues on their line
of questions for the next 20 minutes with negand to Title I vensus 702.

I am fully awane that they ane not the same thing. And I'm fully

I
 I 66

aware that when we'ne talking about 7O2 we're talking about collecting
on foreignens that goes through the FISA count, wheneas Mr. Kislyak
was hene, and General Flynn is an Ameni"can citizen who was here. I
get that.
I'm saying that if you don't think that oun job is immensely harden
for reauthorizing 7O2 because of the unmasking of that, which wasn't
7Q2, and I understand that, then I think that we probably need to powwow

together as an Intetligence Committee and figune out how we'ne going

to move forwand.

I think lt's going lt lncreasingly mone difflcult,

to make

regardless of the fact that it was Title I and not7O2. We're having
trouble in oun own committee getting people to agnee whether or not
702 should be neauthonized.
So people upstains, as you know, on youn side of the aisle and

on oun sideof the aisle, think that thene's a govennment conspiracy

with people like General Clapper listening to our phone calls and
reading our emails.
And to minimize that as -- so that we don't undenstand that this
was7O2 vensus Tltle I, I think misses the whole point that we've got
an extnemely difficult task ahead of us this falI in trying to allow
the Intelligence Community to keep gathening this infonmation.
And I get that it was Title I in this case, but they don't cane

upstains. And I hope that you undenstand that. I hope that you
understand that f undenstand that. And, you know, your exchange with

General Clappen that this was, you know, some kind of mispenception

I
 I 67

on my pant misses the point politically that we're going to have a really
tough job with reauthorization, regandless of if it was Title I vensus

702.

SoI just want to make the minority clean, and I hope that you
understand that I know. And as Trey Gowdy said in the open heaning,

nobody out on the countryside gives a hlll of beans what 782 vensus

Title I is. It is our Job to get that neauthonized. And I hope that
we can, but it's going to be veny difficult with unmaski.ng of U.S.

citizens to the press.

MR. SCHIFF: And, Tom, f'm not nefenning to you. I understand

what you're saying, and I'm not suggesting you don't appreciate the
difference between the two. I am saying that I think it's pant of oun
responsibility, you know, both here but also upstairs, to make sune

people understand that unmasklng ls not the same thing as leaklng,

because right now they think it's the same thing.
MR. ROONEY: I agnee.

MR. SCHIFF: And I still -- and maybe you have stuff that we
haven't seen, but I still haven't seen the evidence of a systemic
problem with unmasking. So while thene's been a lot of talk about

unmasking, and the White House likes to talk about unmasking, my

concern ls that the effort to push the unmasking issue is realIy
damaglng prospects for 7O2 when we haven't seen a pnoblem wlth 702.

And so I am concerned that all this gets conflated. And I think

we'ne in the best position in this committee to be making the case.

And so I think we've got to do all we can to say, you know, what 702

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is used fon, what teaking ls and how that's different fnom unmasking;

and that, you know, the case-ln-chief here, centnal assault on 702 was
oven Mike Flynn, which had nothing to do with 702. And so that's my

concern. But I --
MR. R0ONEY: I agree. I'm just all have to be
saying that we
wonking together. And whether or not unmasking -- the line of
questioning of what I was trying to say with unmasking deals with the
fact that, you know, maybe it will be an argument fon the people upstairs
that unmasking is important if we somehow tighten it up a bit with how
people request an unmasking to go fonward.
So I think all these things ane things that we should be discussing

togethen as a committee to try to get reauthonization. And that's why

I asked that question of Genenal Clapper with negard to how people ane

unmasked, because I honestly want toif it can be done betten.

know

And so we'11 talk about this at a laten date, but I just -- I appreciate

what you said.

MR. SCHIFF: And, Tom, I hope you know, f'm not trying to cast
any aspensions on you.
MR. ROONEY: WeII, I aPPneciate that.
MR. SCHIFF: You'ne a gneat member of the committee, and I think
you've taken alI this veny seriously.
I feel like being the subcommittee chairman
MR. RoONEY: L'1e11,

to the NSAthat it's going to faIl on myself and lim to try to convince
oun colleagues upstains why it's a good thing to reauthonize, and I
think that we've got a huge hurdle to cross. So I'm pnobably showing

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 I 69

some frustration.
MR. SCHIFF: If we have any problem, I am mone than wllling to
blame lim Himes, but only because he's not here.
MR. ROONEY: Thank you.

MR. SCHIFF: Dinecton, just one last question before I turn it

over to my colleague. Who would hold the secunity cleanance for
White House pensonnel? There's been an issue naised about whether
Jared Kushner should continue to have his cleanance. Who would be the
holder of that cleanance?
MR. CLAPPER: l.Je11, the NSC would. I mean, again, I'm responding

based on my knowledge of the prior administnations. I don't know how

anything works now in this administration. But the National Security
Council staff would hold the clearances for people assigned there.
MR. SCHIFF: And in youn experience, let's say this didn't --

MR. CLAPPER: We11, I should say, in the case of notatlonals, you

know, detailees from various components as opposed to sort of the

permanent cadne, their cleanances would pnobably be held by the

donatlng donon agency. But would 1t have to be approved, vetted and

approved by the NSC, and, again, that's --
MR. SCHIFF: So would it be an elenent of the IC, though, that

would be the doing the neview of someone's clearance if thene was naised

a question about whether they should retain that clearance?

MR. CLAPPER: WelI, in the case -- yes, in the case of Mike F1ynn,
at least before, when he was in retined status aften DIA, his cleanance
would still be held by DIA. As a matter of fact, I know that fon a

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fact.
MR. SCHIFF: But you don't know who in particular holds the
clearance fon Mr. Kushner?
MR. CLAPPER: I do not, because he's not a government employee
prion to his appointment as an advison. So I don't know who would hold

it.
In your experience, and taking someone who is not
MR. SCHIFF:

the President's son-in-law, just an ondinany public senvant, if they

failed to disclose multiple meetings with Russians, if the allegations
were correct that he had a discussion about setting up a secnet back

channel with the Russians thnough Russian diplomatic facilities, and

participated in a meeting to get -- to invite Russian Government

involvement in the U.S. election, would that penson ever continue to
hold a clearance?
MR. CLAPPER: it would centainly cause great concern on the
We1l,
part of -- if lt wene just a, you know, civil senvice employee, fon
example, who wene to do that, and at a minimum, at least suspend the
cleanance and investigate the facts and circumstances of those
contacts.
Perhaps they were innocent; penhaps it was just an undenstandable

failune of memory. You know, those things would have to be

adjudicated. until those were cleared up, and since thene appeans
But
to be a pattern of it, I think that would be of concenn to a
cleanance -granting entitY.
MR. SCHIFF: With that, I yield to Ms. Sewel1.

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 I 7L

MS. SEWELL: So, Directon Clapper, my question is really -- I

have thnee questions really. The finst question is reganding how would

you characterize the nature of the Russians' intenference in oun

election ?

WouId you characterize -- I mean, given the fact that -- what you
knew prion to lanuany 20th and now subsequently what has been publicly
leaked or alIeged, how would you chanacterize the nature of Russia's
interfenence? Would you specifically constitute it a hostile act?
You have obviously --

MR. CLAPPER: A what}

MS. SEWELL: A hostile act.

MR. CLAPPER: Oh.

MS. SEI'IELL: Would you -- given youn years of experience and

exposure to this type of -- you said earlier that you had never seen

anything like this. So can you help us charactenlze --

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I will tell you how it stnuck me. In my

S0-plus yeans in the intel business, I've seen a lot of bad

cnap -- that's a technical tenm -- and none that disturbed me mone than
this.

I r remember being --
in your mind --
lvlS. SEIdELL: There's no doubt

MR. CLAPPER: -- actually being nauseous. It just viscerally

affected me like nothing I've even expenienced since I got ln the intel
business in 1953.

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MS. SEWELL: So would you say that thene's no doubt --

MR. CLAPPER: So, it is an assault on us. It's an attempt
yes,
to undermine one of the basic pillars of this country. And evenyone,
regardless of party affiliation, panty stnipes, ought to be concenned
about that.
MS. SEIIELL: And what do you think is an appropnlate response?

MR. CLAPPER: Nell, I considen the sanctions that we ultimately

did take on the 29th -- announced on the 29th of Sanuary, as menely

a first step. And I think the expectation was that thene would be mone
things done to penalize the Russians after that. But that was a good

initial step, but there should have been a lot mone.

M5. SEI,IELL: Do you feel like this curnent administration is

doing what lt should do ln an approprlate response to thls intenfenence?

MR. CLAPPER: WeIl, no, I haven't seen them do anything other than
to Putin. The Pnesident asked him, did you do it?
ask And Putin, of
counse, said no. lust asking kind of bothered me.

[11:38 a.m.]

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MS. SEWELL: Is thene any doubt in youn mind that the interference
was not only punposely done by the Russians, but authonized by the
highest levels of the Kremlin?
MR. CLAPPER: No doubt in my mind,

MS. SE!'IELL: I know that our President has said that he thinks

lt's Russia, lnterfered. Howwould you respond --

and othens have also
MR. CLAPPER: That was news to me when he made the speech in

Poland, that thene were others involved. WeII, I don't -- I was not
awane of any evidence of anybody else being involved in this other than
the Russians. ft was them and nobody else that wd had evidence of.
MS. SEWELL: Since the dissemination of the assessment and the
inauguration, more information about the Russian meddling has emerged.
Most necently, you were quoted ln the medla saylng that you don't
believe that the emails associated with the meeting that DonaLd Tnump,
ln. had took with the Russian Government lawyers ane the only evidence
of collusion between Dona1d Tnump and the Russians. To the contrary,
you explained - - and I think this was in Ciphen Bnief . To the contrany,
you explained that the Russian offer to provide the Tnump campaign with
negative matenials about their competitons centainly comports with
traditional Russian tradecraft to give leverage and influence any way
that they could.
In this classified venue, why do you believe that mone evldence

of collusion will emergel

MR. CLAPPER: WeII, I don't knowthat it wi1l, but I find it hand

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to believe that the entire boundary of evidence here is just bound up

tn those -- in that emall exchange in early lune of 2Ot6. I just find
that hand to believe that that it. That was a one-time anecdote,
was

and nothing else happened. I find that hand to accept.

MS. SEWELL: Do you believe that -- how would you chanactenize

Donald Jr.'s -- Donald Tnump, Jn.'s accepting this meeting? t^Jas it

concenning to you that he accepted it? Do you think that it's something

that most folks, given the same circumstances, would?

MR. CLAPPER: I mean, his reaction, "I love itr " I think it kind

of, to me at least, speaks volumes.

MS. SEWELL: Was it pnoblematic?
MR. CLAPPER: Yes, it was.

MS. SEWELL: How else would you characterize sont of the

development ?

MR. CLAPPER: I guess it does -- it does pnove one thing, that

we wene not surveilling Trump Tower, because we would have known about

that contemporaneously.

MS. SEWELL: So my othen question really is about the emails that

we neceived from lared -- well, what we know about the backdrop from
Kushnen, the son-in-1aul, wlth respect to sont of back-channel contact
with Russian officials. You commented publicly that, quote,'"My
dashboard wanning light was clearly on, and I think that was the case
with all of us in the Intelligence Community. Very concenned about

the nature of these appnoaches to the Russianr " end quote.

MR. CLAPPER: Yes, and I think lohn Brennan spoke to that when

I
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he testified befone your committee about the concerns we had, not

understanding necessarlly the content of these lntenactlons wlth the
Russians, but centainly what we wene anecdotally seelng. lust
these -- the meetings were a source of concenn to all of us. 5o that
was my comment. And this is befone I left the govennment.

MS. SEWELL: Right.

MR. CLAPPER: That my dashboard wanning lights were on just

because of that.
M5. SEWELL: Since the neponter was asking about classified
information, you were unable to confirm or respond in detail. I

r
MR. CLAPPER:

And so that's one thing that became directly visible, where we

were awane of the content of such an engagement between Flynn and

Kis1yak.
 I 76

so it made you wonden.

You know, I think any responsible official in a position like DNI on

National Secunlty Adviser, we ane all concerned about it.
MS. SEWELL: I know that on March 5th you were asked whethen

intelligence exists that could deflnitely answen the question of

whethen thene was collusion, and you said that thene was nO evidence

of collusion at the time.

MR. CLAPPER: WeII, the context of that conversation with Chuck

Dodd on Meet the Press was - - that was right after the Pnesident's tweet
about surveilling Tnump finst point was
Towen. And so that was -- the
to deny that. I did consult with both Directon Comey and f think spoke
with Rick Leggett just to be sune.
And then what I did say, that we didn't have any evidence of
collusion, that was -- found its way into the Intelligence Communlty
assessment. And thene ls nothing ln there, tn certainly the hlghly
classlfied version on the unclasslfled version, about that.
MS. SEWELL: Do you stiIl stand --

MR. CLAPPER: The inference is thene, but I wasn't -- as I said,

I was not awane, to my knowledge, of any direct content knowledge of
collusion between the Tnump camp and the Russians.

MS. SEWELL: And since then, you have given the context of aII
the stuff that's been coming out in the public domain, you did say in
the Ciphen Brief that, quote, "I'11 Leaveit up to the special counsel
to determine whether the legal threshold of collusion was bFeached,
but from this layman's point of view, it centainly appeans that way
 I 77

to me. "

Can you elaborate on what led you to --

MR. CLAPPER: No, I can't. I think the statement stands -- it
speaks for itself. I don't --
MS. SEWELL: Do you stand by that?

MR. CLAPPER: I can't make a judgment about what the Iegal

thneshold, lega1 definition of -- or if thene is one, collusion here.
I can't judge that. It just looks kind of funny to me, you know, walks
like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's pnobably collusion. But I'm just
a layman. And I'm out of the govennment, I'm a private citizen. I
don't have access to, thank God, the classified infonmation anymore.
M5. SEWELL: No, but you have 30-plus yeans of experience in the
IC. And what you're saying, if I can just infen, is that --
tlell, collusion is -- again, that is a Iegal,
MR. CLAPPER: much

more of a legal tenm, and I'm not competent to make that call.

MS. SEWELL: But at the veny Ieast, wouLd you be concerned about

the pattenn that we've been seeing out of this adminlstnation?

MR. CLAPPER: Sune, absolutely. I'm very concenned about it.
MS. SEWELL: l4y last question. To the extent that we really

should be forward leaning, because we know that you' ve said and IC has
said that the Russians will do this again, what necommendations would

you make to us, as policymakens --

MR. CLAPPER: l,'1e11, a number of things.
MS. SEWELL: -- to get at this?
MR. CLAPPER: One, we absolutely positively must secure our

I
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voting appanatus.
MS. SEhIELL: And does that mean imposing minimum standards of,
you know, secunity, cybersecunity standards?
MR. CLAPPER: WelI, f mean, that would have to be legislated, I
think.
M5. SEITIELL: Right, night.
MR. CLAPPER: That's not something that can be done just via the
executive bnanch.
MS. SEWELL: No, I hean You.

MR. CLAPPER: But that's point one. secondly is educating the

public, which is of the objectives we had by publishing the
one

unclassified version of the Intelligence Community assessment.

Fnustnating to some because, well, it didn't have all the
substantiating information.

So those ane two I think we must do. I also think it

big things
might be -- as I alluded earlien, it might be useful -- in fact, I think
thene may be news accounts I've nead about your authorization act, which
injects on requires some mandatory reporting --
MS. SEWELL: Yes
MR. CLAPPER: -- on the pant of the Intelligence community, which

should be made public on a timely basis if thene is any evidence that

the IC detects of such intenference.

MS. SEWELL: Yes, but we would limit that to Federal elections.

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MR. CLAPPER: Rather than getting involved and agonizing oven the
politics of to go public on such intenfenence.
whether and when
MS. SEWELL: You think it should just be mandatory?

MR. CLAPPER: Yes. Then thene's no doubt, and we won't have the

pulling and hauling between the parties over whether it's appropriate
to report or not, on the accusations that were made by some on the HiIl
that the Intelllgence Conmunity was being used as a too1.
lvlS. SEWELL: Do you think that thene's sufficient checks and
balances cunnently betureen the Depantment of Homeland Security, the
FBI,ODNI, thene's enough that we could neally get to the heart of
potential cyber attacks that woul.d happen, or do you think that we need

to put in more belts and suspendens types of provislons that --

MR. CLAPPER: WeII, I'm not sure how you legislate you need to
gain insight faster. You know, I think we dld a reasonably good Job

under a veny, veny turbulent, controversial, politically fnaught

campaign. And I don't know that I could necommend to you, othen than
ensuning that if there is evidence detected of interference that that
be promptly neported publicly.
MS. SEWELL: Thank you.

MR. SWALWELL: Thank you, Director Clapper.

When you briefed President-elect Trump about Russia's
lnterfenence campalgn, how would you descnibe hls response or
undenstanding of it?
MR. CLAPPER: WeIl, first of aII, he was veny solicitous,
courteous, solicitous, even complimentary duning the houn,

I
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houn-and-a-half we were there. He really couldn't push back very much

against the -- on the cyben and fonensic evidence, because it was, as

laid out by Adminal Rogers, pretty, pnetty compelling. So we didn't

hean anything about the A00-pound guy in his bed in New Jersey or any

of that stuff.
He did allow as how he didn't believe in

SoI would say it was a professional exchange. He got off on

wouldn't it be gneat if we could get along with the Russians? I said,
yeah, sune, lf we found some convengence of our interests. But I'm
in the trust but venify camp when it comes to Russia. I mean, maybe
I've just been anound too 1ong.

I'tR. SWALWELL: Would you descnibe his neaction to receiving the

nepont as matching his public statements anound Russia's interference
campaign?

HR. CLAPPER: I,M SONNY?

MR. SWALWELL: Would you describe his reaction to neceivlng the
nepont from you and the IC privately, does it comport with or match

his public statements?

MR. CLAPPER: No, it didn't, when he chanactenized us, i.nferned
that we wene Nazis in his press confenence I think on the 10th of
January, which caused me to call him. And amazinglY, he took my call.
I just -- I just felt I had to defend the Intelligence Community against
a characterization like that.

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 I 81

MR. SWALWELL: What was his neaction to that?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, he was -- you know, he just said, well, you

understand how I feel about this dossier. And what he wanted me to

do is put out a public statement completely nebutting the dossier, which

I couldn't and wouldn't do.

MR. SWALWELL: What did he ask specifically for you to do?

MR. CLAPPER: I'm sorry?

MR. ShIALWELL: So he asked you to put out a statement rebutting
the dossien?

MR. CLAPPER: Yes, he did. And I put out a statement explaining

all that, by the way.
MR. STJAL!'IELL: And to your knowledge, did he ask anyone else to
put out a statement rebutting the dossier?
MR. CLAPPER: WeI}, I've read that he appnoached DNI Coats and

Dlrecton Rogers about lt,-- well, I guess that had to do with

about
rebutting the -- or curtailing the FBI investigation. I guess I
misspoke there. So no, I don't -- I guess I can't -- I can't necall

a case of which you're asking.

MR. SWALWELL: Have any parts of the dossien been proven to be

false, to your knowledge?

MR. CLAPPER: No. Much of it has not been connobonated as tnue

either.
MR. SWALWELL: That's conrect.

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 I 82

trlR. CLAPPER:I don't necaIl him reciting the names.

!lR. SWALWELL: He told you thene were
MR. CLAPPER: Yes.

MR. SI{ALWELL: Ane you familian with General Flynn in 2015 going

to Moscow for an RT celebration?

MR. CLAPPER: I heand about it from DIA.
MR. SWALWELL: And with your knowledge in the Intelligence
Community and at ODNI, what type of understanding would a former DIA

dinector have as to who RT was and what their connection to Russia's

intelligence senvice was?
MR. CLAPPER: WeII, Mike was a caneer intelligence officen in the
Anmy, and, you knoul, I salute his senvice in the Army. But he centainly
knew, you know, what the -- on he should have known the Russians. f
do think the Russians, even duning the time he served as dinector of
DfA, were wooing him.
MR. SWALWELL: hlhat makes you say that?

MR. CLAPPER: I was wooed by the Russians when I was director of

DIA In the early nlneties, you know. And they had me come into thelr
headquarters just like he bnagged he was the finst one ever. WeI1,

no, I did in L992, and f'm sure there were othens befone me. And the

Russians do that.
And I think he felt he had a special cachet with the Russians,
because he had - - particulanly with the GRU, because he had both Special

Openations and intelligence backgnound. And he was unique that way,

I
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at least in modenn tlmes, of a DIA director that had those cnedentials.

so r think he felt that he -- he could do business with the Russians.
And that's based on discussions r had with him when he was stirl

director
MR. SWALLTIELL: What did you make, just as a layperson, of Genenal
Flynn sitting next to Vladimin Putin at an RT dinner?
MR. CLAPPER: WeII, I was certainly taken aback by it. I
wondered what was he doing thene. My undenstanding from DrA was he

didn't exactly nepnesent -- because they briefed him up, which is a

courtesy that is offened to former dinectors of agencies -- briefed
him up, at his request, befone he went.
r don't know that he explained to them what the purpose of this
tnip was and whetherit was paid for, all that. My impression is they
didn't tel} him that -- he didn't tell the DIA that.
MR. SWALT^IELL: And I guess not with -- as a laypenson, somebody

with intelligence experience, an expert opinion in the field, what do

you make of him neceiving payment fnom RT to give a speech there? rs
that part of the Russian way or the soft appnoach?

MR. CLAPPER: It's pretty -- I believe, at least

well-known what
in lntelligence annals, what RT is neaIIy all about. ft's
predominantly funded by the Russian Government as it's considered a
propaganda arm. And the cEO of RT ls a friend, a confldante of putln's.
MR. SWALWELL: FinaIIy, Director, over youn S0-plus years of
service to oun countny and in the community, when you look at the number
of contacts that Dona1d Tnump, his family, his campaign, and his

I
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businesses had with Russia prlor to the election, during the

tnansitlon, and dunlng the eanly part of his adminlstnatlon, can you
put that in context with othen campaigns that you've observedi
MR. CLAPPER: WeII, I, first of all, wasn't in a position
necessanily to obsenve campaigns --
MR. SWALWELL: I guess has anything like this even landed on your

radar?
MR. CLAPPER: -- as this one, going back over that 50-p1us yeans.
I just -- as I said, my dashboard wanning lights were on just because
of the number of these meetings that we sont of anecdotally detected,
just by virtue of collection activitles on fonelgn tangets. And it
was of concenn.
MR. SWALWELL: Wene thene countnies other than Russia?

MR. CLAPPER:I don't know of a case. Again, my database hene

|sn't equally comprehensive, going back over the history of our
political campaigns, but I certainly am not aware of nor have I read
of that much engagement with panticularly oun primany adversary, the

nation-state that poses an existential thneat to this countny, and has

embarked on a very aggnessive modernizatlon campaign of their strategic

weaponry, which -- and they only have one advensary in mind for.
They'ne in vlolation of the INF Treaty. So, in the context of that,
it makes you wonder.

MR. SI^,,ALWELL: Wene there countries othen than Russia that you

saw the Trump campaign communicating with?

MR. CLAPPER: YCS.

I
 I 85

MR. SWALWELL: I.lho?

MR. CLAPPER: I
llR. SWALWELL: llhat was the natune of those contacts?
MR. CLAPPER: I don't know.
MR. SWALWELL: Any other country?
plR. CLAPPER: But,
again, I'm -- at least my mental database hene, I don't -- I can't
dredge up fon you the content of those meetings.
MR. SWALWELL: Thank you.

And I thank Mr. Rooney for extending the time.

EXAMINATION

a Dinector, thank you for being here. My name is

I'm a memben of the maJorlty staff. I Just wanted to follow up on
several items that we've discussed so fan hene today, and I'11 try to
be as concise as I can.

Was it earlier that you did, in fact, discuss the

youn testimony

so-caIled dossien with CNN jounnalist lake Tapper?

MR. CLAPPER. WeIl, after it was out, yeah.
a And by out, what do you mean by that?
MR. CLAPPER, Well, once it was public. It wasn't -- you know,

lt wasn't like this ls an fntelligence Community document or anything.

This was out in the media.
a And what wene the nature of those convensations?
lvlR. CLAPPER. I don't remember specifically.

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 I 86

a Did you discuss the dossier with any other --

MR. CLAPPER. I -- I probably sald much of what I sald here,
may

that it was not a part of oun nepont, and the reason was because we
could not conrobonate the second-, third-orden assets that were used,
apparently, to put the dossien together.
a Did you discuss --
MR. CLAPPER. Oun pnimary purpose -- I do nememberthis -- was that
we felt obliged to alent then Pnesident-elect Trump that it was out

there.
a Did you discuss the dossier with any other Journallsts
besides Mn. Tapper?
MR. CLAPPER. I could have. I don't nemember specifically talking
about the dossien.

a Now, you mentioned eanlien that you issued a public

statement in connection with youn subsequent phone call with President
Trump after the dossier leaked.

MR. CLAPPER. Right.

a Andin that statement, you said that the Intelligence

Community had not made any judgment that the informatlon in this

document is neliable, correct?

MR. CLAPPER. Yes, I think that's what I said.

a So, in retnospect, even though, given that you hadn't

validated on made any judgment on the infonmation, do you sti1l believe
it was the conrect decision to include this as an annex to a
compartmented nepont bniefed to the President and President-elect?

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 I 87

MR. CLAPPER. Yes, I do.

a And is that because of the duty to wann or fon some othen

neason?

MR. CLAPPER. No, that was the basic reason. It was that he should
know about it. And, as I said earlier, we did have discussion about
whether should that report have been included in the report, the formal

assessment ltself. And our judgment was not to do that, because of

the inability to conroborate, either rebut on confinm much of what was

in that dossier. But yeah, f do think, for reconds purposes, it was

impontant that it at least be appended to the classified version.

a And subsequently, have you ever chanacterized that decision
to include the dossier as an annex to the ICA as a model or exemplar
for IC professionals to follow going forward?
MR. WAINSTEIN: It wasn't annexed. I believe it was a summary.

That is not the whole --

I: night. That's night.

That's
MR. CLAPPER. WeIl, I think fon the highly classified

vension -- weII, what -- that's a gneat question. What's a model fon

what is an abnonmal, unusual, unique situation here? And so the reason
we didn't formally include it was because of tnadecraft concerns that
mainly centered around veracity or the inability to verify the veracity
of the sources.
,"I'
a Now, it's been youn nepeated testimony today, as I
understand it, that there was no -- you're not aware of any dinect

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evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign durlng your
senvice as DNI. Is that conrect?

,vtR. CLAPPER. That ' s right .

a And tils. Sewell bnought up earlien in an intenview you did
in litanch with Chuck Todd of NBC, whenein you said thene was no evidence

of that included in our repont, which you testified?

MR. CLAPPER. Yes, that's night. We didn't have evidence of

collusion that met -- that found its way into the neport. I did make
that statement.

a And then, after followup questions from Mr. Todd --

MR. CLAPPER. I said, not to my knowledge.

a -- you said: At the time, we had no evidence of such

collusion.
MR. CLAPPER. That's night.
a I believe --
And then subsequently,

MR, CLAPPER. That met the evidentiany bar. Again, you know, I

know it's cool to take individual sentences, but you got to understand

the context of the entire exchange with Chuck Todd.

a lJell, aften you sald, there 1s no evidence of that lncluded
in the nepont, he said, I understand that, but does it exist? And you

said, not to my knowledge.

MR. CLAPPER. That's night.

a asked: If it existed, it would have been in
And you wene

this nepont? You answened, this could have unfolded or become

available in the time since I left the government, implying that it

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was not available prion to lanuany 20th.

MR. CLAPPER. No. It could have been available, but not made

available to -- it could have been -- it could have existed, but not

made available to me, or it could not have existed. I don't know.

a But you subsequently followed up, because he sont of asked

several questions on this point, that at the time we had no evidence

of suchcolluslon. That ls what you told hlm, correct?
MR. CLAPPER. That's night. We had no evidence that met the
evidentiany thneshold of the confidence levels that we were striving
fon in that community assessment.

a But at that timer you didn't provide that additional caveat

about confidence levels, conrect?
MR. CLAPPER. Well, I think I did. If I necall the
transcnipt -- I'11 have to go back and re-read the transcript.
a On Manch 6, you gave an interview to ABC News, where you

said there uJas no evidence whatsoever at the time of colluslon between

the Trump campaign and the Russians. Do you recall telling that to
ABC News, Brian Ross?

MR. CLAPPER. I didn't have any evidence -- I don't care how you
want to caveat it -- of collusion.

a Right. So in Manch -- that's sont of the question I'm

hoping to get some clanlfication on -- is on two successive days in
March, you said at the tlme, whether on not it existed, you dldn't have
any evidence of collusion. And I 'm wondering what's changed fnom then

until now, whene it's gone fnom no evidence to sort of no direct

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evldence ?

MR. CLAPPER. Wel1, I don't see a neal difference- That's just

an adjective. I don't get what you'ne getting at here.

a f'Il move on. So --

MR. CLAPPER. And there's certainly been evidence suggestive of
it that's come out. Witness the lune meeting and the lead-up -- and

the email exchanges.

O t'1e11, that was actually the next thing f was going to ask

you about. When did you first become aware of the meeting between Tnump

campaign ofFicials, including Donald Tnump, Jn., and the Russian Lawyer
that's been widely neponted in the pness?

MR. CLAPPER. WeIl, I think I saw it on television wheneven it came

out, last weekend or wheneven it was.

a So you wenen't aware of that meeting prion to January 20th?
MR. CLAPPER. No, I was not.

a So any discussion about a quid pro quo on the assessment

that thene would be additional evidence out thene, that's based on your

judgment as an intel professional, not from any evidence, right?

MR. CLAPPER. Exactly. As I said, I just find it hard to believe

that thene was just this one anecdote, this one email trail fon oven
6 days and the meeting, and that was it, nothing else happened. I just

find that kind of hand to believe.

a And the same for the assessment that these individuals were

perhaps acting as cutouts to the Russian or secunity

Govennment

services, that's just an assessment based on what you've read in the

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open press?

MR. CLAPPER. Yes, that's a judgment that I've made and othens have
as weII, expenienced intelligence officers.

MR. CLAPPER.

MR. CLAPPER.

MR. CLAPPER.

I
MR. CLAPPER.

a
 I 97.

MR. CLAPPER.

I
MR. CLAPPER.

a You also stated that you didn't personally brief the

President onthis information. Is that conrect?
MR. CLAPPER. I did NOt.

a Do you know whethen he was bniefed on that conversation?

MR. CLAPPER. I don't know for sure. I can't testify to that.
a You also said eanlier that you expected - - aften the

measures of our govennment were announced on the 29th, you expected

the Russlan Government to necipnocate by expelling the same numben of
U.S. pensonnel from Russia. Is that right?
MR. CLAPPER. That's right.
a

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 I 93

MR. CLAPPER. I
a

MR. CLAPPER.

a Tunning to the ICA, my undenstanding is that the date of

last infonmatlon was Decemben 29th, and that it was published on

January -- sent to the White House on January 5th, and published and
briefed all around on lanuany 6th.
Can you just tell us what happened between Decemben 29th and

January 5th or 6th?

MR. CLAPPER. Well, I don't --

a Other than the New Year's ho11day.
MR. CLAPPER. -- know exactly the date, but what the main -- oun

main involvement at ODNI was to pnovide top coven fon the people, the

ce1l of people,
who wene putting this together, and to see if thene

were any intennal problems, intennal obstacles, and pnovide top cover

to allow them to get their to get this done.

work done and
And so they wonked over holidays and all that in orden to
finish -- finish the ICA, because Pnesident Obama made it veny clean
he wanted it done before the end of his administration. So we hustled

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to get it -- to comply with that direction.

a Can you elaborate on what you mean by provide top cover?
Top cover against what sort of fine?
MR. CLAPPER. Critics, outsldens, anybody that wanted to inject
themselves, eithen internal on external to the community, and allow

them to -- give them the latitude. And we didn't give them any
editorial windage on the conclusions on the wniting of it. We had to

orchestrate some very sensitive cleanance accesses among the thnee

agencies who wene involved.

a And what was your role in neviewing, editing, adjudicating

any disputes with nespect to the ICA?

MR. CLAPPER. Very minimal, other than make sure it got done. I
did nead a draft of it, just fon ovenall awareness and quality of the
work and did the -- you know, the evidence, that did it comport on an

evidentiany basis with what the stneam of nepontlng that we'd been

seeing
And, again, I tnied to -- I guess the only issue was the one

confidence leveI that Admiral Rogens pensonally lowened. That was not
an institutional ca11. That was his own pensonal calI, and that's his
prerogative.

a And did you make any pensonal edits, adjustments,

recommendations ?

MR. CLAPPER. I did NOt.

a And do you necaIl roughly when you had the opportunity to
review the ICA?

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MR. CLAPPER. I know of lune -- the 4th of June,

2:30 on the 5th
I guess. I don't know when it was. I reviewed lt. I knou I stayed
qulte late to nevlew lt, because f was golng to bnief Pnesident obama
on it on the 5th. So probably the 3nd or 4th.
a And just for the recond, that's Januany, not June, night?
MR. CLAPPER. Yes. If I said June, f misspoke. Januany.
a So the fCA was directed on or about Decemben 9th?
MR. CLAPPER. It was sometime during the first week of Decemben.

I don't nememben the exact date.

a And you mentioned that President Obama wanted it done prion

to him leaving office

MR. CLAPPER. Exactly.

a In my undenstanding, it's not -- or often, whethen we like

it or not, intel pnoducts can sometimes take quite a bit longer. What

was his reason for directing a hard date as to when the repont had to
be neleased?
it out befone the end of his tenm to pass
MR. CLAPPER. He wanted

on to the next administration. He wanted all the repontlng, on as much

as we could gathen up in that timefname, and put it together in one

repont, as opposed to all these separate stneams of reporting we had.
Get it all in one p1ace. And he wanted to hand -- his intent was to
hand it off to. the next administration, to the President-e1ect and
Pnesident Tnump and to the Congress. And he also mandated that, to
the maximum extent possible, that we issue an unclassified version fon
the benefit of the public.

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 I 95

a And given that the nepont was directed by the President on

on about December 9th, and the date of infonmatlon was December 29th,
was there any concenn that oven that 2@'day peniod that, given how

quickly lt was put together, that something might be missed or inconnect

on nushed in any way?

MR. CLAPPER. WeII, you always have that concenn. It doesn't

matten how long the nepont-- such a document takes. And thene is no

fixed timeline fon length of time it takes to do an ICA.

a But thene was in this case, night?
HR. CLAPPER. I'm sonrY?

a fixed timeline in this case, night?

There was a

MR. CLAPPER. No, I'm just saying thene is no fixed dead -- there's

no fixed rule book on how long it takes to do an Intelligence Community

assessment.

a So was there any concern about havlng a flxed timeline in

this case?

MR. CLAPPER. WeIl, sure. I mean, the Intelligence Community

operates unden tight deadlines all the time. And, you know, you always

ane concenned about that, you know, that you've compnomised accunacy

or completeness, sure. But we've done estimates that take months that
you have the same concenn.

f : r think we just have a couple minutes left. r'm going

to tunn it over to my colleague, I to ask our last questions.
I rhanks, I
,YI
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a And thank you, General Clapper, for being here, and fon youn

many yeans of senvice to our country.

Real qulck, golng back in tlme a little blt, at the end of 26L5

there h,as a WaIl Stneet lournal antlcle neganding NSA collection of

U.S. penson infonmation related to llembers of Congness or staff. The

week aften that article, you came in with Admiral Rogers and you briefed
the committee on the inaccunacies of the article and setting the necord
straight.
And at that briefing, I think majority, minonity, you and Adminal
Rogers aII agreed on the necessity of Gates pnocedures.
MR. CLAPPER. 0f what?

a The Gates procedures.

MR. CLAPPER. Yes.

a So, kind of tying it back into the idea of the sanctity,

as you mentioned earlier, of oun electlons, but also one of the great
things about oun country is the peaceful tnansitlon of powen.

Do you think th'at we should have a similan type of pnocedures

related to the U.S. Presidential transition team or even Presidential

campaigns, whene the dissemination of that type of information should
be infonmed to Congress?

MR. CLAPPER. It should be neponted to Congress?

A lt's just your opinion.

MR. CLAPPER. I don't know. Again, this whole evolution is a veny

unusual situation. I mean, I can undenstand a congresslonal intenest

in lt, so I guess -- I mean, I wouldn't have any reason to oppose that.

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Put it that way.

A Thank you. Then so fast forwardlng in time, on March 1st,

2OL7, the New Yonk Tlmes published an article statlng that the obama
administration nushed to preserve intelligence on Russian election
hacking. And I'm quoting frorn the article hene. It says that, "Some

White House officials scnambled to spnead information about Russian

efforts to undenmine the Presidential election and about possible

contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Tnump and

Russians across the government. "

So is this article accurate?

f'1R. CLAPPER. The opposlte was true.

a The opposite was true?

MR. CLAPPER. Yes. Because of the sensitivity, panticularly for

the super-duper classified version of that report, the interest was

mone in protecting it. So the places that had access to it were

basically the three contributing agencies and ODNI.

a 5o thene was no effort on behalf of the administration --
MR. CLAPPER. No, not that I'm aware of.
a -- to send this stuff all acnoss the government?

MR. CLAPPER. NO.

A Okay. And then my final question, there was an earlien line

of questioning negarding searching through NSA stones using U.S. penson
identifiers. it happened to make me think about the ability for
And

NSA to seanch in its stores using U.S. person identifiers, specifically

in the 7A2 collection, which is an issue. This U.S. person query line
 I 99

of questioning has centainly been discussed over the past few yeans.
Would you please explain, over your counse as being DNI, why, if
Congness wene to put in some sont of probable cause requirement on
change the way the Intelligence Community is able to search in its 702
data, how that would impact the Intelligence Community negatively?

MR. CLAPPER. We1I, it would -- the immediate impact I can think

of is whether, if there is an extnemls situation, unless there were,

you know, some safety valve there whene if for whatever neason that,
you know, you have to -- you want to have that outlet in case of a

cincumstance Ilke that.

A And also, just to follow up, do you know negarding the

dossier that was discussed earlier, do you know who paid Mn. Steele
to conduct the information or the investigation that would lead to the
dossier?
MR. CLAPPER. I don't know -- well, if thene was -- if thene was

payment'fon the document, and I don't know that, it would probably have
been the FBf. But, again, you'd have to ask them. I don't know
personally if thene was some compensation arnangement there or not.
Thank you, sir.
MR. SCHIFF: Thank you, Directon. I just have a couple mone
questions, then I'11 hand it off to my staff. We're almost at the end.
You mentloned that while Mike Flynn was the director of the DIA

that the Russian intel agencies, GRU on othens, had made an effort
to -- and I can't remember the tenm you used fon it.
MR. CLAPPER: Woo.

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 I 100

MR. SCHIFF: To woo him.

MR. CLAPPER: As they had me when I was dlrecton of DIA.

MR. SCHIFF: What efforts dld they make to woo Michael Flynn?

And you mentioned that he thought that he might have some special

ability to cultivate that nelationship. Can you descnibe that for us?
MR. CLAPPER: That is simply my amateur analysis., because he was

very big on engaging with the GRU. He visited thene and had the GRU

chief visit him. I did the same thing when I served as director of
DIA in the eanly nineties, and had an engagement with the Russians,
tried to partnen with them, which was completely unsuccessful.
So I have a very jaundlced vlew of deallng with the Russlans. And

I tried to impart some fatherly advice to Mike Flynn when he was engaging
with them, because I said, you know, my own experience when I was the
dinector of DIA.

MR. SCHIFF: Now, the GRU is one of the two main agencies that
was involved in the hacking of emails. Do you know whethen Mr. Flynn,
after he left the DIA, maintained any relationship with GRU?

MR. CLAPPER: I dO NOt.

MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether, when he went to Moscow on the

RT-supponted trip, whether he also had GRU meetlngs?

MR. CLAPPER:I don't know that. It would have not been unusual,
I think, for him, as a formen dinector of DIA, to have met with the
GRU. I doubt if they did. hleIl, I don't know. But, again, I don't
know that he did.
MR. SCHIFF: Can you teII us a litt1e bit about the circumstances

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in which Mike Flynn left the DIA?

MR. CLAPPER: We1I, bean in mind I'd known him a long time and

r was a co-officiant at his pnomotion ceremony to thnee-star genenal

in the woman's Memonial, and he worked for me fon about 11 months at
ODNI, and was fine.
He went to DIA, and he had issues there. And my concern was his
lmpact on the Agency. And Dr. Mike Vickers, who was my successor as
Under Secretany of for Intelligence, was -- for him, it was
Defense

a case of flat-out insubondination. So Mike Vickens and I had a numben

of discussions about it, and he was adamant about endingMike Flynn's

tenure as DNr -- as DrA director. As a Defense agency, he kind of had
the primacy thene.
5o we met with General Flynn -- I think this was in early 20t4,
r'11 say about Febnuary of 2ot4 perhaps -- and lald lt out fon General
Flynn. And he actually took it very well. He was very gnacefur about
it. At no time was there any discussion about his stnident views on
ISIS. That neven came up. It wasn't a topic of discussion, and it
wasn't -- it didn't bear on the decision to curtail his time as DrA
director. We told him he could stay until the summer of 26L4, so he
could get his 3 yeans in as a lieutenant-generaI, which is the minimum
you need to netire in that grade.
So it was some months laten, I thlnk July of 2Ot4, when he had
a magnificent farewell, netirement and awand cenemony for him, which
both Dn. Vickers and I panticipated. And he seemed fine.
MR. SCHIFF: So you mentioned he had issues at DIAand that also

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thene was an issue of insubordination with Directon Vickers. What wene

the issues at DIA?

MR. CLAPPER: WeIl, his rather ernatic management style, just

constantly changing things. His neorganization of DIA, which wasn't
a bad idea. It actually presaged CIA's modennization, which Dinector

Pompeo, he doesn't like that tenm, but, anyway, the neonganization at

CIA and the setting up mission centers. And so it was a good idea,

but it was -- the execution was very -- was bad, and it was very hard
on the employees.
And then, of course, there was the infamous F1ynn facts, where

General F1ynn was convlnced that the Iranian Dankan Iphonetic] was

behind the Benghazi attack, which wasn't the case, and he kind of
pounded the employees there to go find some evidence that would back
up his supposition. So he had cases like that. But he was -- it was

just bad for the Agency and, you know, the morale of the employees was

going down.
MR. SCHIFF: In what r,lay was he insubordinate to Directon
Vickers ?

MR. CLAPPER: f don't know the exact issues, but it centened

anound the Defense Clandestine Service, which was a big important

initiative fon Dn. Vickens. And you'd best talk to him about it.
MR. SCHIFF: The explanation that he gave fon being pushed out
was that tnuthfully about the thneat posed by ISIS,
he was speaking
and that that was evidently, in his view, inconsistent with the
political nanrative the White House wanted to te11. Did you ever see

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any evtdence of that?

MR. CLAPPER: No. That wasn't -- that was not a factor for me,
and nothing -- you know, I didn't think he said anything untoward about

that.
MR. SCHIFF: And either during on aften his departure, did he

demonstrate any bittenness towands the IC as a result of how he left

the IC?

MR. CLAPPER: tdeIl, not that I was aware of at the time. That's
as I necounted. The last time f actually had contact with him ata11,

pensonal contact, was the cenemony I think in July of 2Ot4.'

And I never -- the next time I had any contact with him, I had

two telephone conversations with him during the tnansition, which wene
professional and courteous.
MR. SCHIFF: Did he ever demonstnate a particular grudge towands
the CIA?
MR. CLAPPER: WeIl, he had issues with the CIA when he senved in
Afghanistan. And that was pant of the article that he had his name

on, which was quite critical of intelligence in and of Afghanistan.

And I think thene was perhaps at that time some animus towards CIA.
MR. SCHIFF: Let me hand it oven to staff now.

BY

A Sin, I just have two quick questions. My colleague asked

you about the short timeline you had in the IC to prepare the
Intelligence Community assessment of Russian intenfenence. Sin, do

you have any reason to believe the ICA contains unsupponted

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 104

conclusions ?

MR. CLAPPER. NO.

a And you stand by its findings?

MR. CLAPPER. I do. I did and do.
a You mentioned also that, as you sit here today, you're not
aware of dinect evidence of collusion. In the email exchange outlining
the meeting between the Russian Govennment lawyen and senior Tnump

campaign officials, is that evidence of at least an intent to collude?

MR. CLAPPER. Well that's -- agaln, fnom a layman's perspective

only, that's what it appears to me.

A And we look forwand to, as a commlttee, exploning those
issues, that if, in fact, damaging naterial is passed, as it was implied
in the email, and if the campaign took any actions in response to that,
does that sound like collusion?
MR. CLAPPER. WelI, again, from a layman's perspective, if -- yes,

it does.
Thank you. Thank you very much, sir.

BYI
a I Just have one questlon.
MR. CLAPPER. Do you have a micnophone? I can't hean you.

a I'm sorry. Getting away from collusion, fnom an

intelligence penspective, from a HUMINT necnuitment cycle,
counterintelligence, as you'ne watching these contacts and looking at
it fnom the Russian objective, are you seeing thein objectives being
met ?

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 I 105

MR. CLAPPER. We11, I can't -- f don't know, you know,

specifically, because f don't have any insight into that sont of thing
now. I pnobably wouldn't have even if I had access to classified
information.
But certainly, the approach they took here is very
steneotypically Soviet/Russian practice. A soft appnoach, plausible
deniability, determine if there is interest, which thene was, and
that's pnobably all they wanted to detenmine for that encounter.

a And the ICA dealt with an entire influence campaign, not

one activity, but an entire campaign.
l.'lR. CLAPPER. Right

a When you look at the campaign and you look at the Russians

establishing a netwonk, that would lnclude, fnom youn expenience, both

people who may knowingly be cooperating, may unknowingly be

coopenating, may think they'ne building wonld peace, et cetena, but

meanwhile that can aII, from Putin's perspective, all work to

accomplish his objectives?

MR. CLAPPER. Yes. And I think John Bnennan has spoken to that,
that people can be recruited and coopted, penhaps unwittingly, until
it's too late. And that is, again, the soft approach that Russians

have long used.

I have no othen questions. Thank you.

I rhat's 1t, sin. Thank you.

MR. SCHIFF: Directon, thank you very much fon your service and

fon coming in again.

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MR. CLAPPER: Sune. Thank You.

[Whereupon, at 12:32 p.m., the interview was concluded]