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FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JUNE 11, 2014 

Serial No. 113–77 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TED POE, Texas 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

RAU ́ L LABRADOR, Idaho 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

RON DeSANTIS, Florida 

JASON T. SMITH, Missouri 

[Vacant] 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

JUDY CHU, California 

TED DEUTCH, Florida 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

KAREN BASS, California 

CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana 

SUZAN DelBENE, Washington 

JOE GARCIA, Florida 

HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York 

DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

SHELLEY HUSBAND, Chief of Staff & General Counsel 

PERRY APELBAUM, Minority Staff Director & Chief Counsel 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

JUNE 11, 2014 

Page 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary ................................. 1 

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......... 3 

WITNESS 

Honorable James B. Comey, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 6 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 9 

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Material submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member, Committee on the 

Judiciary ............................................................................................................... 61 

(1) 

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 2014 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:09 a.m., in room 

2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Bob Goodlatte 

(Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Goodlatte, Coble, Chabot, Bachus, Issa, 

King, Gohmert, Jordan, Poe, Chaffetz, Gowdy, Labrador, Holding, 

DeSantis, Conyers, Nadler, Scott, Lofgren, Jackson Lee, Cohen, 

Johnson, Pierluisi, Chu, Richmond, DelBene, Garcia, Jeffries and 

Cicilline. 

Staff Present: (Majority) Shelley Husband, Chief of Staff & General Counsel; Branden Ritchie, Deputy Chief of Staff Director & 

Chief Counsel; Allison Halataei, Parliamentarian & General Counsel; Kelsey Deterding, Clerk; Caroline Lynch, Counsel; Robert 

Parmiter, Counsel; Brian Northcutt, Counsel; (Majority) Perry 

Apelbaum, Staff Director & Chief Counsel; Danielle Brown, Parliamentarian; and Aaron Hiller, Counsel. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Good morning. The Judiciary Committee will 

come to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare 

recesses of the Committee at any time. We welcome everyone to 

this morning’s oversight hearing of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. And I will begin by recognizing myself for an 

opening statement. 

Welcome, Director Comey, to your first appearance before the 

House Judiciary Committee since your confirmation as the seventh 

Director of the FBI. We are happy to have you here with us today, 

and I commend your distinguished service to our Nation and am 

confident you will continue to serve honorably at the helm of the 

FBI. 

As we all know, last week marked the 1-year anniversary of the 

first leak of classified material by Edward Snowden, a criminal betrayal of his country and arguably the most significant leak in U.S. 

activity. Over the past year, the House Judiciary Committee conducted aggressive oversight of the NSA bulk collection program and 

spearheaded House passage of the USA FREEDOM Act. This bipartisan legislation reforms controversial national security programs and provides expanded oversight and transparency of America’s intelligence gathering. Although the leaks by Edward 

Snowden may have been the impetus for Congressional reforms, 
2 

the passage of this bipartisan legislation in no way condones or excuses his actions. The detrimental consequences of what he did 

may not yet be fully realized. 

But I want to thank Director Comey and the men and women of 

the FBI for working closely with the Members of this Committee, 

House Intelligence, and leadership to craft the USA FREEDOM Act 

reforms in such a way as to preserve vital intelligence-gathering 

capabilities while simultaneously achieving the goal of ending bulk 

data collection. 

Today we also note another dark day in American history. Exactly 1 year and 9 months ago, our diplomatic mission in Benghazi, 

Libya, was attacked by terrorists. Four Americans, including our 

ambassador, were killed. The Obama Administration initially attempted to blame the attack on a video critical of Islam. We all 

now know that that was not the case, and that the attack was premeditated and carried out by Islamist militants. 

In August 2013, we learned that the Justice Department had 

filed criminal charges against several individuals for their alleged 

involvement in the attacks. However, as of today, no one has been 

apprehended. 

I am interested in hearing more from Director Comey about the 

status of the FBI’s investigation. I know you may be reticent to 

comment on what is an ongoing investigation, but the American 

people deserve to know whether we can expect the FBI to bring to 

justice the terrorist killers who murdered four of our citizens. 

I am also interested in hearing more about the FBI’s investigation into the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative 

groups. Last year, your predecessor, Robert Mueller, informed the 

Committee that the FBI was investigating this matter and, in fact, 

was hesitant to answer questions because there was an ongoing 

criminal investigation. 

But, earlier this year, unnamed officials leaked to The Wall 

Street Journal that no criminal charges were expected in the IRS 

matter. And on Super Bowl Sunday, President Obama stated that 

there was ‘‘not even a smidgeon of corruption’’ in connection with 

the IRS targeting. But then on April 8th of this year, before this 

Committee, Attorney General Holder claimed that the investigation 

is still ongoing, an investigation led by longtime Obama and Democratic National Committee donors. On May 21, before the Senate 

Judiciary Committee, you also declined to answer questions about 

the matter, explaining that the investigation is ongoing. 

Frustration is mounting over this scandal, and basic facts are unknown or contradicted by this Administration. Is there an investigation? Has there been any progress? What is its status? Why do 

the Justice Department and FBI continue to assert that an investigation is ongoing despite the President’s assertion that no crime 

was committed? Do you disagree with him? 

The facts and circumstances surrounding this investigation led 

the House to approve a resolution calling on the attorney general 

to appoint a special counsel. How can we trust that a dispassionate 

investigation is being carried out when the President claims that 

no corruption occurred? I hope you will be able to shed some light 

on that for us today. The American people certainly deserve no 

less. 
3 

Finally, I wish to discuss General Holder’s reestablishment of the 

Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee, or DTEC. DTEC was 

first established by Attorney General Janet Reno in the aftermath 

of the Oklahoma City bombing to disrupt homegrown terrorism 

threats. In reforming the unit, Attorney General Holder said, 

‘‘Tragic incidents like the Boston Marathon bombing and activeshooter situations like Fort Hood provide clear examples that we 

must disrupt lone-wolf-style actors aimed to harm our Nation.’’ And 

that the unit was necessary to respond to the changing terrorist 

threat, notably the reduced risk posed by Al Qaeda’s core leadership. 

While I agree that the disruption of domestic terror threats is a 

worthy goal, I take serious issue with the notion that America faces 

a reduced risk from Al Qaeda. Ironically, the incidents cited by 

General Holder, the Fort Hood shooting and Boston bombing, belie 

the claim that Al Qaeda and other foreign terrorist extremism is 

on the decline. 

The question, then, is, what and whom does the Attorney General really intend to target via the DTEC? He appears to have answered that question in part by stating that, ‘‘We must also concern ourselves with the continued danger we face from individuals 

within our own borders who may be motivated by a variety of other 

causes, including antigovernment animus.’’ 

Would a group advocating strenuously for smaller government 

and lower taxes be included in the Attorney General’s definition of 

a group with antigovernment animus? 

Given that the Administration appears to have used the IRS to 

intimidate its political opponents, the reestablishment of the DTEC 

should cause us all to sit up and take notice. 

Director Comey, I look forward to hearing your answers to these 

and other important topics today as well as on other issues of significance to the FBI and the country. 

And at this time it is my pleasure to recognize the Ranking 

Member of the Committee, the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers, for his opening statement. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Chairman Goodlatte. We welcome you, 

Director Comey, for your first appearance before the House Judiciary Committee since taking office on September 4th, 2013. 

I have great confidence personally in your commitment to fairness and to the rule of law. And in 1996, as assistant United States 

Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, you were appointed 

lead prosecutor in the Khobar Towers bombing case in Saudi Arabia. 

In 2002, as United States Attorney for Southern District of New 

York, you handled a wide variety of complex, high-profile cases 

while helping the district return to some measure of normalcy in 

the aftermath of the attacks of September 11th. 

In 2004, serving as Deputy Attorney General of the United 

States, you refused to certify the Bush administration’s lawless 

dragnet surveillance program. And then confronted senior White 

House personnel at the hospital when the Administration sought to 

gain approval from Mr. Ashcroft directly. 
4 

So time and time again, you have demonstrated your basic commitment to the rule of law, even in exigent and dramatic circumstances. 

So that is why I am pleased you are here and at the helm of the 

FBI on this, the first anniversary of our public discussion of the 

government’s domestic surveillance programs. 

Last month, the House passed H.R. 3361, the ‘‘USA FREEDOM 

Act,’’ which I had a significant role in bringing forward. This legislation designed to end domestic bulk collection across the board. It 

applies to Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, the FISA pen register 

authorities, and National Security Letter statutes. 

I am proud to have voted in favor of the only measure to pass 

the House that rolls back any aspect of government surveillance 

since the passages of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 

1978. 

But bulk collection is only one aspect of the problem with government surveillance. Over the past few years, our early difficulties 

with National Security Letters notwithstanding, the new FBI has 

proven a responsible custodian of the new legal authorities granted 

to the Bureau after September 11th. 

For the most part, it uses the tools Congress has provided in the 

manner intended for them to be used. But the FBI is an end user 

of massive amounts of data acquired under FISA and other authorities without a warrant or individualized suspicion. This raises, 

of course, serious privacy and civil liberty concerns. 

Director Comey, you are a standard bearer in the struggle to rein 

in unlawful surveillance. And I hope that you will continue to work 

with this Committee to help us restore a measure of public trust 

in this area. 

Although we have spent much of the last decade focused on 

counterterrorism, it is critically important that the Bureau balance 

its national security function with its traditional law enforcement 

mission. And in this vein, Mr. Director, I would like to discuss with 

you the scourge of gun violence in this country. 

Yesterday’s shooting at Reynolds High School in Oregon is at 

least the 74th school shooting since the tragedy in New Town, Connecticut in late 2012. 

The FBI maintains the National Instant Background Check System, and the Bureau is often called upon to participate in the investigation of high profile shootings because I believe that a more 

complete background check system would help stem the tide of violence, I look forward to your views in this matter. 

And similarly, we face many threats from overseas. The FBI 

plays a fundamental role in confronting extremist violence here at 

home as well. 

The Bureau has called the so-called sovereign citizen movement 

a growing domestic threat. According to the Anti Defamation 

League, between 2009 and 2013, there were 43 violent incidents 

between law enforcement officials and antigovernment extremists. 

Thirty police officers have been shot, 14 have been killed. To these 

numbers, we must now add the two officers shot and killed this 

past Sunday in Las Vegas. 

These are not isolated incidents. Director Comey, Congress has 

empowered the Federal Bureau of Investigation with considerable 
5 

authority, including Federal hate crimes legislation, to root out this 

extremism. 

I would like to hear more about how the Bureau puts these laws 

and resources to use, and would like also to have you discuss the 

topic of overcriminalization. The United States represents 5 percent of the world’s population, but incarcerates more than 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. The Bureau of Prisons is strained to 

the breaking point. I would like to know why then the FBI often 

recommends Federal prosecutions in cases that are already being 

prosecuted in the State court so that an offender faces trial on the 

same facts in two separate jurisdictions. 

The FBI plays a critical role in protecting our Nation’s computer 

networks from cyber criminals. We must do more to prevent the infiltration of our cyber systems from economic and financial criminals. And I would like to hear about the challenges presented by 

the international aspect of these crimes. 

And finally, I applaud Deputy Attorney General Cole’s recent announcement on the recording of Federal custodial interviews and 

your support of this new policy. This new presumption—and I conclude here—that all Federal Bureau of Investigation custodial 

interviews will be recorded. And it helps all sides of the case. Prosecutors will finally be able to share recorded confessions with the 

jury and suspects who feel they have been treated unfairly will be 

able to fall back on recorded evidence. 

There are few exceptions to the official rule that gives me pause, 

but I want to see this new policy in action. And I look forward to 

learning more about the FBI priorities today. 

I am going to use my communications with you after this hearing 

to fill in any questions that may not be able to be covered within 

the questioning period. I thank you. And I thank the Chairman of 

the Committee and yield back any balance of time. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Conyers. 

And, without objection, all other Members’ opening statements 

will be made a part of the record. 

We thank our only witness, the Director, for joining us today. Director Comey, if you would please rise, we will begin by swearing 

you in. 

[Witness sworn.] 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you very much. 

And let the record reflect that Director Comey responded in the 

affirmative. 

On September 4, 2013, James B. Comey was sworn in as the seventh Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Director 

Comey began his career in the United States Attorney’s Office for 

the Southern District of New York as an assistant United States 

attorney. Later he became an assistant United States attorney in 

the Eastern District of Virginia. Director Comey returned to New 

York City after the 9/11 terror attacks and became the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. In late 2003, he was 

appointed to be the Deputy Attorney General under U.S. Attorney 

General John Ashcroft. 

Director Comey is a graduate of the college of William and Mary 

and the University of Chicago Law School. 
6 

Director Comey, we welcome you to your first appearance as FBI 

director before the House Judiciary Committee and look forward to 

your testimony. Your written statement will be entered into the 

record in its entirety, and we ask that you summarize your testimony in 5 minutes. And you may begin. Thank you, and welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE JAMES B. COMEY, 

DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Conyers. 

It is good to be back before you after an 8-year break. 

I am here representing and expressing the gratitude of the people of the FBI. You have long supported them in a bipartisan basis. 

One of the challenges I discovered when I became Director was the 

impact of the so-called sequestration on my troops. Heard about it 

everywhere I went. And we now have been adequately funded, 

thanks to the support of the people in this room, and we are very 

grateful for it because we have much to do. 

We are a national security and law enforcement organization. I 

am going to say a few words about counterterrorism, but I actually 

want to start and say a few words about cyber. As Mr. Conyers and 

yourself, Mr. Chairman, have mentioned, cyber touches everything 

the FBI is responsible for. For reasons that make sense, cyber is 

not a thing, it is a vector. We as Americans have connected our entire lives to the Internet. It is where our children play, it is where 

our healthcare information is, it is where our finances are, it is 

where our social lives are, our government secrets, our infrastructure. Almost everything that matters is connected to the Internet. 

And soon our refrigerators will be and our sneakers and the rest 

of our lives. 

Because of that, it is where the people who would do us harm, 

hurt our kids, steal our identities, steal our information, steal our 

secrets or damage our infrastructure come to do those bad things. 

So it touches everything the FBI is responsible for, and in ways 

that are difficult to imagine. 

I thought of a way to explain it to the American people when I 

was in Indiana recently. And a sheriff was showing me a bullet 

that had been fired from John Dillinger’s Thompson submachine 

gun. And it occurred to me that Dillinger and his ilk had given 

birth to the modern FBI in the ’20’s and ’30’s because they heralded the arrival of a totally new kind of crime: The combination 

of asphalt and the automobile allowed criminals to commit crimes 

with shocking speed all across the country. And we needed a national force to respond to that. And that was the FBI. 

This cyber vector is that times a million. John Dillinger could not 

do 1,000 robberies in the same day in all 50 states from his pajamas in Belarus. That is the challenge we now face with cyber. It 

blows away normal concepts of time and space and venue. The 

criminals, the spies, the terrorists have shrunk the world because 

they can move at the speed of light through the Internet. We have 

to shrink that world as well. 

So I know sitting here only 9 months in that my tenure of 10 

years is going to be dominated by making sure we equip, deploy, 

and train to respond to that threat. That we shrink the world the 

way the bad guys have and respond across counterterrorism, crimi-
7 

nal, counterintelligence. And we are well on the way, thanks to the 

work of my predecessor to do that. I hope you saw some of the good 

work we have done with respect to the Chinese, with respect to 

botnets and massive criminal enterprises over the last couple 

weeks. 

This stuff is no different than someone kicking in your front door 

and stealing things that matter to you or stealing a company’s 

most precious property by kicking in the front door. We have got 

to treat it that way and send a message that we will find you and 

touch you significantly wherever you are in the world because we 

are not going to put up with this just because it happened in cyberspace. 

So I thank you for your support and your attention to that issue. 

It is going to dominate what I do over the next 10 years. 

Briefly, counterterrorism. You, Mr. Chairman, mentioned the 

threat from Al Qaeda. I do see the threat from core Al Qaeda diminished, thanks to the good work especially of our men and 

women in uniform in the AfPak region. But at the same time, I see 

the progeny of Al Qaeda, these virulent franchises of Al Qaeda 

thriving in the poorly-governed or ungoverned spaces around the 

Gulf, in north Africa, around the Mediterranean. This remains a 

huge diverse and significant threat to us. Through Al Qaeda in the 

Arabian Peninsula, the Islamic Maghreb, this ISIL group that has 

been much in the news, and many others. We wake up every morning worrying about it, and go to bed every night worrying about it. 

I am particularly worried about the confluence of that virulence 

among these progeny of Al Qaeda with Syria. Syria has become the 

breeding ground, the training ground for thousands of jihadis 

around the world, including dozens and dozens from the United 

States. All of us who know history can draw a line from Afghanistan in the 1980’s to 9/11. We are determined not to allow a line 

from today’s Syria to be drawn to future 9/11s. We are determined 

to anticipate the Diaspora of terrorist that is going to happen at 

some point out of Syria and respond to it aggressively in advance. 

And as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, we also face a challenge 

from these people we call homegrown violent extremists. Some call 

them lone wolves—I don’t like the term; it conveys dignity they 

don’t deserve. But these are people who are not directed by Al 

Qaeda but are inspired and trained, again through the information 

available on the Internet to then emerge from their basement or 

their bedroom and do something terrible, something we spend a 

great deal of time worrying about. 

And domestic terrorism, Mr. Chairman, I think, as the Members 

of this Committee know, is something the FBI has long worked. My 

domestic terrorism operations unit has been busy for the last 20 

years. Nothing has changed for us in that regard. It is something 

we spend a lot of time worrying about, and apply resources to make 

sure we anticipate and address. 

As I said, we are a national security organization. 

Counterterrorism is part of that, counterintelligence is a big part 

of that. Something we can’t talk about in open session because 

most of that work is done in the shadows. But it is an important 

part of our work done extremely well all around the world by my 

folks. 
8 

And we are also a law enforcement organization. We are out 

there every day trying to lock up violent criminals, people who 

would harm your kids, corrupt public officials, and all manner of 

bad guys that touch our criminal investigative responsibilities that 

remain combined with our national security responsibilities in 

ways that make sense to me. 

And I will close just by saying, as you and Mr. Conyers have alluded to, lots of folks are asking good questions these days about 

government power, and that is a great thing. People should be 

skeptical of government power. I am. I think the country was 

founded by people who were very skeptical of government power, 

so they divided it among three branches to balance it. I think it is 

great that people ask questions. 

I think one of my jobs is, to the extent I can, to answer those 

questions. And I hope folks will give me the space and time in 

American public life to listen to the answers. Because there is an 

angel in the details of my work. There is a reason why it matters 

that I be able to get lawful process to search and get content of 

some bad guy who is emailing about a terrorist plot or a criminal 

enterprise. There is a reason I need to be able to track with lawful 

process the location through a cell phone of someone who has kidnapped a child or is fleeing from justice. 

All those things matter a great deal. Those details matter. And 

I believe those details reflect our government working as it should. 

Hard for me to find that space in time in the windstorm I live in 

right now. 

And last, thank you, again, on behalf of the people of the FBI. 

We don’t have a lot of stuff. We don’t have aircraft carriers, we 

don’t have satellites. I got amazing people. That is the magic of the 

FBI. Thank you for the resources for me to be able to hire those 

folks. It was a thrill for me to see new agents at Quantico last 

week and new intelligence analysts. That is the lifeblood of this 

great institution, and it is what makes it a thrill and an honor for 

me to be the Director. 

So I look forward to your questions. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Director. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Comey follows:] 
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Mr. GOODLATTE. We will now proceed under the 5-minute rule 

with questions. And I will begin by recognizing myself for 5 minutes. 

As I indicated in my opening statement, we have questions about 

the IRS targeting investigation. So my first question is, is there an 

ongoing investigation into the IRS targeting of conservative 

groups? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, sir. Very active investigation. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Can you explain why there is an investigation, 

given that the President said there was not even a smidgeon of corruption? 

Mr. COMEY. I mean no disrespect to the President or anybody 

else who has expressed a view about the matter. But I don’t care 

about anyone’s characterization of it. I care and my troops care 

only about the facts. There is an investigation because there was 

a reasonable basis to believe that crimes may have been committed. And, so we are conducting that investigation. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. So he was simply wrong about that. 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know what he meant or in what context he 

said it. And, as I said, I don’t mean any disrespect to the President 

of the United States. I have tremendous respect for the person and 

the office. But it doesn’t matter to me what someone says about it. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Can you give us any indication of the conduct 

of that investigation? Who is heading it up and what we might expect in terms of information being made available to these groups 

and to the Congress and the public to assure them that this type 

of activity is being addressed and that someone will be held accountable if corruption is, indeed, found to lay at any one person’s 

doorstep? 

Mr. COMEY. I can only say a little because, as you know, Mr. 

Chairman, by law and policy and long tradition, I can’t comment 

on an open investigation. I think for good reason. We don’t want 

the bad guys to know where we are going, we don’t want to smear 

good people that we might have to investigate. So that is true of 

everything we do, not just this case. 

The matter is in my Washington field office. The accountable executive is the head of my Washington field office, a terrific executive named Valerie Parlave. But I can tell you it is active. It is 

something I get briefed on on a regular basis. But I can’t say more 

about where we are or what we have done for the reasons I said. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Department of Justice Office of Inspector 

General has indicated that in the beginning of 2010, the FBI reversed course on a longstanding policy of providing, among other 

things, Office of Inspector General access to grand jury information 

in furtherance of their reviews. 

I am aware that you were asked about this recently before the 

Senate Judiciary Committee, and you pledged to avoid stonewalling 

the OIG and to find out more about this. 

This Committee relies heavily on the work of the office of the inspector general in order to fulfill our oversight duties. Can you assure us that you will resolve this dispute in an expeditious manner 

and allow the OIG to effectively carry out its mission? 

Mr. COMEY. I agree with you, Mr. Chairman. I think the inspector general is essential. I have a great deal of respect for the per-
27 

son who holds that office now, who I have known for a long time 

as a colleague. I have told him, look, the inspector general is a pain 

in the rear, but it is a vital pain in the rear. It is kind of like the 

dentist: It makes me better to have the inspector general robust 

and fully informed. 

This is an issue that is a legal issue as to what we are allowed 

to share with respect to grand jury material and what are called 

Title 3 wiretaps ordered by a Federal judge. I want to share fully 

and completely with him, but I also don’t want to violate the law. 

So I think where we are now is we have asked the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, just tell us what we can do. 

And if it is okay under the law, we will make sure we give it to 

them. And if it is not, we will have to talk about whether we 

should change the law. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. In your testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, you said you would find out more about this. Have you 

found out more about this since that testimony? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, sir. I left that hearing and immediately went 

back and talked to my new general counsel about it. And dove into 

the legal issue a little bit. And found out that there was a difference of view as to what the law permitted here. And, as you 

know, at the core of our being at the FBI is we want to follow the 

law. So we are going to ask for the guidance from the Justice Department. Tell us what the law is and we will follow it. And if it 

needs to be changed, obviously, the Department will approach you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. And is that something that you can share with 

us as well when you receive that determination from the Department of Justice? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. Certainly. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. We would be very interested in knowing what 

their position is on this and whether any action is necessary on our 

part. 

A number of companies have recently announced that they intend to start notifying customers when law enforcement requests 

data through a subpoena unless the request is accompanied by a 

court-ordered gag order and despite the fact that this disclosure is 

expressly prohibited on the face of the subpoena. 

Is this a change in practice? And how do you expect it to impact 

your investigations? 

Mr. COMEY. This is a trend that I am seeing and worried about 

across not just the FBI, but Federal law enforcement and State and 

local law enforcement. That part of the windstorm that we are all 

in with respect to government authorities is leading more and more 

providers to say, where in the past they would have just decided 

not to tell someone, a potential pedophile or a drug dealer, that we 

had asked with lawful process for their records, now they are inclined more and more to tell the person. That is a real problem for 

reasons that are obvious and something that we have to grapple 

with. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. And have you seen significant instances of 

prominent companies actually notifying targets of investigations 

like for child abuse, sexual assault, or drug trafficking, that this information has been requested by subpoena? 
28 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. Examples have been reported to me where to 

avoid letting the bad guy know, the process was withdrawn. And 

then the investigators had to figure out some other way to track 

this guy where we don’t alert him. As I said, we also don’t want 

to smear the innocent by having people—— 

Mr. GOODLATTE. So the lack of cooperation impeded the ability 

to go after some suspected criminals. 

Mr. COMEY. That is what I have been told. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. We would be very interested in your apprising 

us of the continued problems that this causes for the agency, and 

ways you think we may be helpful in that regard as well. 

Thank you, Mr. Director. 

It is now my privilege to yield to the gentleman from Michigan, 

Mr. Conyers, for his questions for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CONYERS. Director Comey, yesterday’s shooting in a high 

school in Oregon is the 74th school shooting since the attack on 

Sandy Hook elementary school in 2012. 

Can you tell me what your agency is doing to address gun violence and what ways can the Judiciary Committee here be of help 

to you? 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you, Mr. Conyers. In a bunch of different 

ways. First, I will mention that my behavioral analysis unit, who 

are the big brains at Quantico, who think about crime every day, 

made famous in the ‘‘Silence of the Lambs’’ movie, we have a group 

of people there who are doing nothing but thinking about what are 

the markers of this behavior, these mass shootings, mass casualty 

events? What are the indicators, what are the clues? And then 

pushing that information out to State and local law enforcement to 

help educate folks on what they might spot. So they are studying 

and looking for discriminators that we can help people with. 

We are also doing training around the country with State and 

local law enforcement to help them learn to respond to these kinds 

of incidents. One of the key things we have been training on is, it 

is a terrible thing that we have to think about this, but to make 

sure that you always leave a lane open to the school so that an ambulance can get through all the police cars. Because what normally 

happens is first responders come up, jump out of their cars, and 

the way is blocked. 

We had a mass stabbing event in Pittsburgh about a month ago, 

and the chief had gotten that training, kept the lane open, and kids 

were saved because kids were able to get out right away and go 

to the hospital. So we are doing a lot of that kind of training. 

And then in terms of our work, we do a tremendous amount of 

violent gang work in an effort to try and reduce violence in cities 

like Detroit, Chicago, and many other places. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, we have a problem, it seems to me, with the 

background check requirement. Because there is general feeling 

that it ought to be expanded. Do you have a view that you can discuss with us on that this morning? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t in general or particular. We run the National 

Instant Background Check System, as you know. One of the key 

elements of that system has been mental health records that has 

been much in the news, especially since Sandy Hook. I know it is 

something that across the country, State governments are trying to 
29 

get better at, figuring out what records they can push to us so that 

when someone is buying a weapon that that is checked in a way 

that produces a result that is useful. 

But beyond that, the policy questions are really for the Department of Justice. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, there are a number of people in the legislature here that feel that the background check requirement should 

be expanded and be made more exclusive. And we are trying desperately to get that examined here in the legislature. And we may 

be calling on you or someone in the FBI to give us their considered 

judgment on which direction to go. 

Now, it is true, we have ended bulk collection in the general 

sense through the USA FREEDOM Act. But I remain concerned 

about large collections. And there are some privacy advocates that 

are concerned about it. 

Under the law as exists today, can you describe how much information the FBI could collect within a single Section 215 order? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know that sitting here I can quantify. The 

legislation that the House passed that you have mentioned makes 

good sense to me and bans the use of 215 or National Security Letters or pen registered trap and traces to collect in bulk. And so I 

don’t think there is a particular number except we couldn’t collect 

an amount of records that was untethered to a particular selection 

term as defined in the legislation. 

Mr. CONYERS. Now, the Section 702 of FISA is focused on nonUnited States persons outside of the United States. But the government does obtain large amounts of information about United States 

persons through this authority. Does the Federal Bureau of Investigation use information obtained under Section 702 in criminal investigations? 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The time of the gentleman has expired. But Director Comey should answer the question. 

Mr. COMEY. Can I use 2 seconds? Because I am new, I want to 

make sure I don’t talk about something that is classified. Let me 

just check. 

The answer is we do have contact with information collected 

under 702. I think to talk about the details we would need to be 

in a classified setting. 

Mr. CONYERS. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. 

Coble, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. COBLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Comey, good to have you with us. Mr. Comey, last year, I 

asked your predecessor, Director Mueller, about the Benghazi investigation. Of course, the Chairman touched on it in his opening 

statement as well. 

I said to him then, I say to you now, the entire scenario continues to stick in my craw. I think it has been done very ineptly— 

I am not suggesting you are guilty of this, but someone has not 

done a good job, in my opinion. 

Let me refer to a Huffington Post article which states that on October 18th, 2012, New York Times reporter David Kirkpatrick 

spent 2 leisurely hours with a guy named Abu Khattala in a crowd-
30 

ed luxury hotel sipping a strawberry frappe on the patio was scoffing at the threats coming from American and Libyans governments. 

Do you share my frustration, Mr. Director, in that the media can 

gain access to this guy and we can’t lay a glove on him? 

Mr. COMEY. I am not sure I would express it—— 

Mr. COBLE. Assuming we haven’t laid a glove on him is my 

thinking. 

Mr. COMEY. I wouldn’t express it as frustration because I have 

been in this business a long time and I know that sometimes journalists can get access to people that we in law enforcement can’t. 

And so frankly it doesn’t surprise me. 

Mr. COBLE. I recall when Mrs. Clinton appeared before a Senate 

hearing in response to one of the questions by the Senators she 

said, What difference does it make? 

It is my belief, Mr. Comey, that any issue, be it obscure, indirect, 

or directly involved with Benghazi does indeed make some difference. Do you concur? 

Mr. COMEY. I take the Benghazi matter very, very seriously. It 

is one that I am very close to, briefed on on a regular basis, one 

we are putting a lot of work into and that we have made progress 

on. But, again, the details of which I can’t talk about for the reasons I mentioned earlier—— 

Mr. COBLE. I can appreciate that. 

Mr. COMEY. But it is something I take very, very seriously. 

Mr. COBLE. And I can understand how you cannot go into great 

detail with us. But I am glad to hear you say—I have the fear, Mr. 

Comey, that with the passage of each day we are one step further 

removed from resolving the Benghazi thing. And that would not be 

pleasing at all to any American, I don’t think. 

Mr. COMEY. And to me as well, sir. 

One thing you have got to know about the FBI, we never give 

up. So sometimes things take longer than we would like them to, 

but they never go into an inactive bin. 

Mr. COBLE. Well, even though I am expressing some criticism, I 

am very high on the FBI. So put me down as one of your cheerleaders. 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. COBLE. Let me talk about the Attorney General for a minute. 

He has issued directives in the area of marijuana enforcement, including the division on the diversion of assets for the investigation 

and prosecution of persons, businesses, and financial institutions in 

States where marijuana has obtained some legal status. I presume 

that would include Colorado and the State of Washington. 

Does this policy affect FBI investigations involving violent crime 

and drug trafficking which oftentimes spills over State and international borders? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t think so. I am not familiar with the policy 

sitting here, which I think means it doesn’t have much of an impact. My troops have not mentioned it to me. My answer is I don’t 

think so, sir. 

Mr. COBLE. I thank you, sir. 

I yield back Mr. Chairman. 
31 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Chair thanks the gentleman and recognizes the 

gentleman from New York, Mr. Nadler, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director Comey, National Security Letters permit the FBI to obtain, among other things, basic telephone records, email subscriber 

information, basically all the stuff you could get under Section 215 

order under FISA. 

The President’s review group on intelligence communication technologies was unable to identify a principled reason why NSLs 

should be issued by FBI officials when Section 215 orders must be 

issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and recommended that all statutes authorize the use of NSLs should be 

amended to require the use of the same oversight minimization, retention, dissemination standards that currently govern the use of 

Section 215 orders. 

Now we have done that in the House version of the USA FREEDOM Act. Given the overlap with Section 215, are NSLs necessary? 

And why does instances with the FBI choose to use an NSL instead 

of Section 215. 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you, Mr. Nadler. NSLs are essential to the 

basic building blocks of our national security investigation work. 

Just as grand jury subpoenas are the basics building blocks in 

criminal work. They are very different than 215. In fact, they can 

only give us information in very limited circumstances that you alluded to. Subscriber information, ISP identification, no content. 

Mr. NADLER. Metadata. 

Mr. COMEY. Credit records. Some financial records. 

Mr. NADLER. Metadata. 

Mr. COMEY. Metadata. 

Mr. COMEY. Sure. Right. But not in any kind of bulk fashion, as 

you said. 

So, yes, there are basic building blocks of our investigations. 

I had a great discussion with the President’s review group about 

this. I think they are well intended but dead wrong. And I said 

that to them respectfully. I don’t see there is any reason—they 

asked for a principled reason. I said, why on Earth would we make 

it harder to get a National Security Letter, which I need in my 

most important matters involving spies and terrorists, than to get 

a grand jury subpoena in a bank fraud investigation? That doesn’t 

make any sense to me. They need to be overseen. They are overseen by tremendous layers within the FBI. 

Mr. NADLER. So you think that the—or do you think that the restrictions in National Security Letters in pen and trace that were 

included in the USA FREEDOM Act version passed by the House 

to make sure that NSLs could not be used as an end run around 

our Section 215 restrictions, they are okay? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. Makes total sense to me. We didn’t use it that 

way anyway. 

Mr. NADLER. Okay. Now in the H.R. 3361, the USA FREEDOM 

Act bill that the House passed, the FBI will be required to base its 

use of—as will the NSA—will be required to base its use of section 

215 on a ‘‘specific selection term.’’ 

How does the definition of ‘‘specific selection term’’ limit the government’s ability to obtain information? 
32 

Some critics, for example, have said that under the way it is defined in the bill, you could ask for every call detail record in a 

given area code, or in a given ZIP Code. Do you regard that as 

true? 

Mr. COMEY. No. I think given the language and the clear legislative intent that you all have demonstrated that that would not be 

permitted under that. But a lot of people, thoughtful people, have 

said they would like to have different language defining selector 

term. I am happy to discuss it. What I want to do is just make sure 

we don’t accidentally, in defining selection term, bar some of the 

things I think everybody would want me to be able to do with a 

National Security Letter. 

Mr. NADLER. Do you think that if the Senate tightened that definition, so long as it didn’t do what you just said, that would be 

okay? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. So long as it didn’t accidentally preclude things 

that I think make total sense. If a terrorist is in a hotel and I don’t 

know what room he is in, I need to be able to use lawful process 

to find out who is in every room so we can figure out, okay, he is 

now in 712. I got to be able to do that. So I just wouldn’t want to 

accidentally forbid that kind of thing. But I have no interest in 

using to collect in bulk. So if there is other language, I am happy 

to discuss it. 

Mr. NADLER. Can you give us any idea of how many NSLs are 

issued in a given year? And how can we supervise them? 

Mr. COMEY. I think the number—it is in the thousands. I think 

it is, like, 17,000 a year. Because of the basic building blocks of 

nearly all of our national security investigations. Probably not 

nearly as many as grand jury subpoenas are issued, but thousands 

of them. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you. My last question, since I see the yellow 

light is on. On May 30th of this year, the House passed an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations Bill that 

would prohibit the use of funds to compel a journalist to testify 

about confidential sources. 

On June 2nd, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of 

James Rosen, a New York Times reporter who could face jail time 

for refusing to name his confidential source. 

Forty-nine States and the District of Columbia offer some form 

of protection to reporters who refuse to testify about their sources. 

Can you give us your opinion of a proposed Federal shield law? 

And how do we protect freedom of the press and allow sources? I 

mean, much of our reporting, much of our knowledge of what has 

happened in the last 40 years wouldn’t be there without confidential sources. And yet this Administration has really clamped down 

on those confidential sources. 

So what do you think about a Federal shield law? And how can 

we assure that despite secrecy requirements we still get the information we need? 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Time of the gentleman has expired. The Director will be permitted to answer the question. 

Mr. COMEY. I am an enormous fan of a robust press. And I think 

it is appropriate to try and balance my need to investigate the most 
33 

serious offenses in the United States and the need to have a robust 

press. 

I am not up to speed enough on the shield law, and it is really 

not a view the FBI should offer anyway; that is for the Department 

of Justice. But there has got to be a way to accommodate that. 

There shouldn’t be a situation where we can’t ever investigate the 

most important cases and touch the media. But we have got to protect the news-gathering function. And so other than that principle, 

I really don’t have a view on the law itself. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you. I yield back the time that has been 

seized back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank the gentleman. 

And recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Issa, for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director, as you know, in the news, there has been a lot of coverage of the fact that the FBI had and has had since 2010 a database of 1.1 million records or pages of records on nonprofit organizations, and that those records were sent based on communication 

that included Lois Lerner and individuals working for you. Before 

we began today, I understand from you that you said that you had 

returned those records? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ISSA. So the FBI no longer has records? 

Mr. COMEY. That is correct. I understand we returned them 

sometime within the last few days or a week. 

Mr. ISSA. Isn’t it true that those records were determined to include 6103 taxpayer ID information? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know whether it was determined, but that 

was an issue that I read about and have heard quite a bit about. 

Mr. ISSA. The Department of Justice sent us information asking 

for us to return the information that we had received under subpoena. And said the basis was that it contained 6103 information. 

Do you believe that to be true? 

Mr. COMEY. I think that is right. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ISSA. For the IRS to release 6103 information to your organization, you are not authorized to receive it as a database to be 

used. So wouldn’t that be a violation of the law under 6103? 

Mr. COMEY. My recollection from my days, again, as a prosecutor, is 6103 something we were very careful about to protect private taxpayer information. And there is a number of legal hurdles 

that have to be jumped over, including a judicial order to share 

6103 information. 

Mr. ISSA. So the fact is that under the guise of giving information 

that was publicly available under GuideStar, Lois Lerner did, in 

fact, send a database that included 6103 information to the FBI in 

2010. Isn’t that true? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know who sent it. 

Mr. ISSA. Department of Justice gave us emails. Have you seen 

the emails that were back and forth? Those emails included Lois 

Lerner as an author. 

Let me go through some quick questions that are important to 

the FBI. 

Did the FBI request this database from the IRS? 
34 

Mr. COMEY. No. 

Mr. ISSA. Since you have returned it, does that mean that the 

FBI never had a valid reason to have it and you do not have a reason to have a database of taxpayer individual information on nonprofits? 

Mr. COMEY. My understanding is, again, this was 4 years ago, 

is that there was a valid basis for them to send public information. 

Mr. ISSA. If public information is available through the 

GuideStar Web site, why would you need the database? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know, sitting here. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. Would you answer that one for the record? I 

would appreciate it. 

On what basis are internal memos available that would show 

there was a reason to have in searchable format this information 

rather than if it was publicly available? And obviously the 6103 

was not publicly available. But if it was publicly available, why you 

would need a database, a searchable database rather than, in fact, 

go to the same place the public goes? 

Do you know today of any reason that the FBI, on an ongoing 

basis, would need any nonpublic information from taxpayers including the information from non-profits or not for profits? 

Mr. COMEY. In that particular context, I don’t. We use it in lots 

and lots of investigations unrelated to that and get court orders to 

get it. 

Mr. ISSA. Of course when you get court orders, then you have a 

reason that is specifically stated in the court order. 

At this time, do you have ongoing investigations that were begun 

in 2009, ’10, or ’11, that concerned referrals from the IRS for nonprofits to the FBI? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know of any from ’9, ’10, that period of time. 

I am not saying there aren’t any, I am just not aware of any. 

Mr. ISSA. At this time, have you, to the best of your knowledge, 

relinquished—or would I have to go to Justice, is the obvious question—but have you relinquished, pursuant to the subpoena, all 

emails and documents related to Lois Lerner and transfers from 

the IRS, which was the subject of our subpoena? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know the status of it. Subpoena to the FBI 

you are asking about? 

I don’t know the status of it. I am sure if we complied, we did 

our absolute best to be fully compliant. 

Mr. ISSA. Do you agree that—and you mentioned the robust oversight of not Congress, but, in fact, of the press—do you believe that 

the American people should inherently be suspicious or concerned 

when taxpayer-identifiable information is transferred from the IRS 

to the FBI without a warrant? 

Mr. COMEY. American people should always want to know that 

their taxpayer information, that private information is being protected according to the law. That is why as a prosecutor, I remember taking it so very seriously. 

Mr. ISSA. To your knowledge, what did the FBI do with this database in the last more than 3 years that it had it in its possession? 

Mr. COMEY. I have asked. My understanding is an analyst in our 

criminal investigation division looked at an index of it to see what 

it was. And then parked it to see if DOJ was going to ask us to 
35 

do anything with it, and they never did. So it sat in her—I don’t 

know whether her desk or her file for the last 4 years. 

Mr. ISSA. So in closing, Mr. Chairman, then would it be safe to 

assume that if the FBI did not ask for it, had no purpose for it, 

and Lois Lerner and the IRS encouraged the FBI to take it, that 

it was part of a coordinated effort to try to produce an investigation 

that never materialized? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know enough to answer that. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. ISSA. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Scott, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And welcome from Richmond. 

When employers try to get background information for prospective employees, we have heard complaints that the information is 

incomplete, people lose the opportunity for jobs because the information is not complete. 

What is the FBI doing to upgrade the information? 

Mr. COMEY. This is information in our database. 

Mr. SCOTT. Some of it is in your database, some of it the States. 

A lot of times the disposition of a case is not included. So it looks 

like it may have been a conviction, but you don’t know. 

If you can get back to me—— 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know enough to answer right here. 

Mr. SCOTT. Okay. Sex trafficking. If a 40-year-old has sex with 

a 14 year old, that is rape. Is the crime diminished because it is 

paid for? 

Mr. COMEY. Is it diminished because it is paid for? 

Mr. SCOTT. Right. 

Mr. COMEY. The child is still violated. 

Mr. SCOTT. Is the FBI now recognizing such encounters as rape 

and investigating and bringing prosecutions for cases as rape? 

Mr. COMEY. I think so. 

Mr. SCOTT. Does the FBI have a process for dealing with the 

child victims? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SCOTT. And what is that process? 

Mr. COMEY. Our office of victims of crime spends a great deal of 

time working with our sex trafficking investigations to make sure 

that the kids are treated like the victims that they are and they 

are their gateway into services provided by whatever the locality 

is in which we rescue the child. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. There is a term called ‘‘organized retail 

theft,’’ where gangs go up and down the interstate, drop in at a retail outlet, clean out a couple of shelves, and run. 

What is the FBI doing to address organized retail theft? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know enough to answer, Mr. Scott; it is not 

something I am familiar with. 

Mr. SCOTT. Individual ID theft is—we have these breaches of 

data that are actually valuable because usually, if you only steal 

about a couple thousand dollars from each account, nobody investigates it. 
36 

What is the FBI doing to deal with ID theft where they grab a 

credit card, your name, milk it for a couple thousand dollars, and 

keep going? 

Mr. COMEY. Probably, it is not a focus of a lot of our work unless 

it is connected to an organized criminal group. We try to triage our 

resources and spend most of the resources on the more complicated 

intrusions. And then offer training. That is another big gap that we 

as a country have to address, offer training to the State and local 

law enforcement so they can respond to crimes that involve digital 

evidence or the Internet. 

Mr. SCOTT. A lot of the ID theft crosses State lines, certainly jurisdictional lines, so the local police would be virtually incapable of 

dealing with it. Are you making sure that there is a national investigation when you have these breaches and people use the credit 

card information? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, we certainly are with respect to the large-scale 

intrusions and the massive identity thefts that have been in the 

news a lot. With respect to the smaller, individual cases, if we don’t 

connect it to a more sophisticated ring, we try to hand it to our 

State and local partners and give them the training and the expertise they need to be able to work it. 

Mr. SCOTT. The gentleman from California and a couple of others 

have asked about the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service. I am aware from lawyers that some liberal 

groups have also been allegedly targeted. Are you investigating 

those, too? 

Mr. COMEY. I want to be careful what I say about the investigation we are doing with respect to the IRS. 

Mr. SCOTT. Well, let me just make that, just use that as a statement and not a question. 

Mr. COMEY. Okay. 

Mr. SCOTT. Medicaid and Medicare fraud, what is the FBI doing 

to reduce Medicaid and Medicare fraud? 

Mr. COMEY. Unfortunately, it is a big part of our work across the 

country, especially in pockets where we have a significant amount 

of Medicaid fraud, Medicare fraud. I was just in Tampa visiting my 

troops. They do a lot of that work there. So it is a major focus of 

our criminal investigative work around the country. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

And finally, there are challenges in dealing with—you don’t like 

the term ‘‘lone wolf,’’ but how do you prevent crimes from happening before they happen if there is only one person involved? 

Mr. COMEY. Very difficult. And there again the very bright people in my behavioral analysis unit are trying to push out to local 

police departments markers, because as we look back at the history 

of these cases, you can almost always find something that somebody saw. Either they saw in person, or they saw on the Internet, 

in social media some marker that this person was radicalizing. So 

we try to alert our partners so they can focus on that, and we try 

and maintain a robust presence in the online world where some of 

these people will go to try and get the training that they are looking for to do these terrible things. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank the gentleman. 
37 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Iowa Mr. King for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director Comey, I thank you for your testimony. I would recommend that your staff clip that 5 or 6 minutes of your opening 

statement out and put that up on the Internet and perhaps use it 

as a training for other members that might come before the Judiciary Committee. That was an excellent opening statement. 

Mr. COMEY. Well, thank you, sir. 

Mr. KING. And I recall your testimony—— 

Mr. COMEY. I married a woman from Iowa. That made all the 

difference. 

Mr. KING. It made a difference to me as well then. 

I recall your testimony from back in 2005, and it is received in 

a positive fashion, too, and I would just reiterate some of this that 

I have lifted out, and it is June 8, 2005. You say you want to catch 

a terrorist with his hands on the check instead of his hands on the 

bomb, you want to be as many steps ahead of the devastating event 

as possible through preventative and disruptive measures, using 

investigative tools to learn as much as we can as quickly as we can, 

and then incapacitating the target at the right moment, and then 

these salient words: Tools such as enhanced information-sharing 

mechanisms and surveillance, pen registers, requests for the production of business records, and delayed-notification search warrants allow us to do just that. 

I take it that you stand on that statement today from what I 

have heard—— 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. KING [continuing]. And from the actions that you have followed through on in that period of time. I am thinking about the 

USA FREEDOM Act, and I would ask you, could you describe 

whether you believe that it makes us safer, and, if so, how? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, as a country, in a way—well, let me stay with 

your question. It doesn’t make us safer, but I don’t believe it makes 

us any less safe, and there are corresponding benefits to it, offering 

some assurance to people who have legitimate questions about 

their privacy, so I think it leaves us no less safe than we were. 

Mr. KING. And do you have more confidence in the private sector 

holding metadata as opposed to the government? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t have more confidence in them if they are 

holding it in bulk, but the phone companies are pretty good at 

holding their records because they want to hit us all for bills, so 

they are pretty good at keeping that record, so I have confidence 

they will keep those in the way they always have. 

Mr. KING. What would be the most dated metadata that you 

know of that was used to help resolve a crime or prevent one? 

Mr. COMEY. That is a good question. I don’t know in particular. 

Under the original 215 program, data was kept for 5 years, and so 

the experts who know more than I said it was useful to have that. 

The critical period was within 18 months. 

Mr. KING. So we can’t quite pinpoint whether that additional 31⁄2

years was valuable or not? 

Mr. COMEY. I can’t, sitting here. 
38 

Mr. KING. The 18-month period of time, let me go back to this, 

would you see merit to being able to negotiate with the private sector to go into that data beyond 18 months? Can you foresee that? 

Mr. COMEY. It could happen. There could be cases where it is 

useful, where you discovered something that is older and you need 

to go check it. 

Mr. KING. But the FREEDOM Act, USA FREEDOM Act, forecloses that opportunity? 

Mr. COMEY. Right. For the purposes of that particular metadata 

program, yes, it does. 

Mr. KING. And so it is possible that there is data beyond the 18 

months that could be critical to an investigation, and it would be 

about things that were considered by the people you referred to as 

experts who asked for 5 years of data? 

Mr. COMEY. It is possible, yeah. 

Mr. KING. Which most everything is. 

The southern border, persons of interest from nations of interest. 

What can you tell us about how that situation might have changed 

over the last 4 or 5 years? Are we getting more or less, and from 

what countries should we be most concerned about? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know enough 9 months in to give you an assessment of the numbers. It is a big focus of ours, but I would have 

to get back to you on the particulars of it. 

Mr. KING. Would you have a sense that those numbers are increasing or decreasing? 

Mr. COMEY. I have a sense that it is increasing. It is a particular 

worry for me with respect to Syria because I can no-fly a bad guy 

to try and keep him from going to Syria, but he may look to cross 

into Mexico to get out and then come back the same way across the 

land border. That is just one of the ways in which I worry about 

it. 

Mr. KING. And do you have a number on what percentage of illegal drugs that are consumed in America come from or through 

Mexico? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t. It is very high, north of 80 percent I would 

estimate sitting here. 

Mr. KING. And when the DEA says 80 to 90 percent, that would 

seem consistent with your response? 

Mr. COMEY. Sounds about right. 

Mr. KING. And do you have any data that you could share with 

us that might indicate the violence in, let’s say, south of the United 

States, from there on down into Central America, the violence rates 

within those societies and how that might affect our society as we 

see the masses of people coming in here? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t, other than I have a sense even after 9 

months that it is a significant issue, especially in some of the countries in Central America. 

Mr. KING. And Americans will become victims. 

I thank you for your testimony. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair thanks the gentleman. 

Recognize the gentlewoman from California Ms. Lofgren for 5 

minutes. 
39 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Director Comey. I am heartened by your statement, and I appreciate 

your service to our country and your commitment to the rule of 

law. It is great to hear you. 

I think, you know, we are in an interesting time where obviously 

we want to pursue people who would do us harm, people who 

would violate the law. At the same time in a digital age, our expectations of privacy are shifting, and getting it right in terms of legislation is not an easy task. So I have some questions for you about 

databases. 

It is my understanding, but this is a question, not a statement, 

that the FBI’s Next Generation Identification database is going to 

include pictures for facial recognition; is that correct? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, mug shots. We are trying, piloting the use of 

mug shots along with our fingerprint database to see if we can find 

bad guys by matching pictures with mug shots. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Now, I further understand, but, again, this is a 

question not a statement, that in addition to mug shots, there 

would be civilian pictures as well in this database; is that correct? 

Mr. COMEY. That is not my understanding. As I understand it, 

what we are using is mug shots, arrest photos, another word for 

mug shots. 

Ms. LOFGREN. So there would not be pictures included from State 

DMVs in the database? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t think so. The NextGen identification, as I understand it, is about mug shots. I think there is some circumstances in which when States send us records, they will send 

us pictures of people who are getting special driving licenses to 

transport children or explosive materials or something, but as I understand it, those are not part of the searchable Next Generation 

Identification database, and if I am wrong about that, someone will 

whisper to me, or I will fix it later. 

Ms. LOFGREN. If that is not correct, please do let me know. 

Mr. COMEY. Okay. 

Ms. LOFGREN. And do we have an idea of what kind of false positive we would have in terms of matches using this photo-recognition technology software? 

Mr. COMEY. We don’t yet. That is why we are piloting it, to see 

how good is it and is it useful to law enforcement across the country, but I don’t know the answer to that. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Now, it has been reported, and again I don’t know 

if this is accurate, that the database when fully—I mean, obviously 

there is a pilot, but there is a plan if it works to fully expand it— 

that there would be approximately 52 million faces by the year 

2015 in the database. Do you know whether that figure is accurate? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Could you check and find out? 

Mr. COMEY. Sure. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Because what has been reported, and again this 

is contrary to what your reporting was, that there would be several 

million pictures that would not be mug shots, that would be coming 

from civilian sources, which is something that I am greatly interested in. 
40 

Mr. COMEY. And I saw some of the same media, and that is what 

led me to ask my folks, so what is the deal with this? And the explanation to me was that the pilot is mug shots because those are 

repeatable, that we can count on the quality of them, and they are 

tied to criminal conduct clearly. And so there was not a plan, and 

there isn’t at present, where we are going to add other non-mug 

shot photos. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Okay. 

Mr. COMEY. Again, if I have got that wrong, I will fix it with you. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I appreciate that. 

It is my understanding that the contractor who is building this 

Next Generation Identification database is a company called 

MorphoTrust, also built the State Department facial recognition 

database which contains 244 million faces. Will your Next Generation Identification system be capable of importing the State Department records or searching the State Department records; do you 

know? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know. I have not heard of that as either a 

current capability or an intended capability. I will get back to you 

on that. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I would appreciate that very much. The reason 

why yesterday we had a vote on the appropriations bill that passed 

to prohibit the collection of and retention of drivers’ license plates 

on cars, and it is not—that is in plain sight, but I think one of the 

issues that we need to get right, and we would welcome your input 

on this, is that things that are in plain sight that we know are not 

private take on a different quality when they become part of a massive database that can be searched. And so if you walk outside your 

front door, you are in plain sight, you know your neighbor can see 

you, but you don’t really expect that that would be photographed 

and be part of a massive database so that the government could 

know where you are at any given time. And so the pictures, the 

identifiers on vehicles, useful to law enforcement, but where do we 

draw that line of privacy for the American people? 

So I would be very interested in your thoughts on that. Obviously 

we are out of time now, but if you could provide your best judgment on where that line should be drawn, I would be greatly appreciative. 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas 

Mr. Gohmert for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Director, for being here. We appreciate you taking on the job you have 

taken on, which includes such unpleasant tasks as having to come 

talk to us. But thank you for being here. 

You had mentioned in your opening statement about Syria being 

a breeding ground for terrorism. I had met with some Libyans who 

had originally been rebels in the so-called Arab Spring and they 

were telling me that there are terrorist camps springing up all over 

eastern Libya, that that is an area that came through to me in 

Egypt. Are you aware of any terrorist training camps springing up 

in Libya these days? 
41 

Mr. COMEY. It is not something I know a lot about, and it is 

probably not something I want to talk about in open session, even 

the little I do know. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, since you had mentioned Syria, I wanted to 

see if you knew anything about Libya, because these are people 

that they said before the radicals took so much in charge of their 

rebel efforts, that they were quite active. 

But, anyway, we know that on the border, particularly Texas, 

with Mexico, there is this mass influx of particularly children. And 

I keep hearing from people that have been there, that have been 

working with them, articles that are being published, the information is pretty basic, even though a spokesman for the Administration says they don’t know why there is this huge influx, they keep 

saying that they are hearing that amnesty is coming, they will not 

be sent home, and apparently, as I am hearing from border patrolmen, they are not being allowed to do their job and secure our border. 

I got a report from some Border Patrol that from October 2008 

to April of 2014, Texas identified a total of 177,588 unique criminal 

alien defendants booked into Texas county jails, and that those 

177,000 have been identified through the Secure Communities Initiative with 611,234 individual criminal charges. And so I am wondering, even though apparently, what I am hearing from the Border Patrol, they are not being allowed to do their job and to protect 

America’s borders, is the FBI stepping in and picking up the slack 

and at least of the tens of thousands that are pouring in being able 

to check to see their criminal backgrounds? 

Mr. COMEY. It is something I have read about in the media. 

Given our responsibilities and authorities, it is not something that 

I have focused on or that I believe we are focused on significantly. 

But lots of other agencies that I think are, but not the FBI. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, Department of Homeland Security is supposed to be, but they are not letting the border patrolmen do their 

job. They are being told with the massive numbers, don’t turn them 

away, let them come in. This is what I am hearing from Border Patrol, let them come in, and then, of course, it is in the media, they 

are being shipped around the country to be cared for. 

But I would suggest, Director, since you are in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and we know that this massive hundreds of thousands of crimes have been committed by people coming in illegally just in Texas, that it is something the FBI has got 

to pick up the slack on. If the border is not going to be protected 

by Homeland Security, then it is going to fall directly on DOJ, and 

I know it may not be wanted, but it is happening. 

Let me ask you, shifting gears, your predecessor was not aware 

that the mosque in Cambridge, Boston area, the Islamic Society of 

Boston founded, signed the papers, by a guy named Al-Almoudi, 

that the FBI did a great job proving up a case where he is now 

doing 23 years for supporting terrorism. Looking back on the 

Tsarnaev heads-up that Russia gave us, what questions do you 

think would be appropriate to ask in the mosque that FBI just 

never did? They went there, according to Director Mueller, in their 

outreach program, but not to question about whether or not 

Tsarnaev had been radicalized. What questions do you think would 
42 

be appropriate in a mosque, if you think they are appropriate, 

when you get notice of somebody being radicalized? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, the particular is one I don’t know well enough 

to answer, but in general we want to be able to ask whatever questions are logical leads for us to follow no matter where it is. Whether it is a mosque or a church or a grocery store, if we have a reason 

to ask a question, we want to be able to ask it. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, that mosque has ties to radicalism, and it 

hasn’t been followed up, I can tell you, by the FBI, and I would 

urge you to do that. It is a radical hotbed. 

And I appreciate your time here today, Director. Yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia Mr. Johnson 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Sir, thank you for your service to the Nation. We are living during a time where we encounter threats to our national security on 

a daily basis, and we are fortunate to have agencies like the FBI 

protecting us. Recently, however, the question has come up as to 

whether the relationship between the government’s interest in 

prosecuting the unauthorized disclosure of classified information 

and the public’s interest in a free press, and that has been knocked 

off balance. Has the FBI ever used journalists as a cover for their 

agents, and, if so, can we get a commitment that that won’t happen 

again? 

Mr. COMEY. Yeah, not to my knowledge. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. Journalists continue to find themselves in the crosshairs of programs ostensibly designed to catch 

terrorists. What measures has the FBI taken to ensure that journalists are not targeted and that they remain free to do their work 

without fear? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, we have an extensive set of rules that govern 

how we interact with the media during any investigation, whether 

it is national security or criminal, that are contained within our investigation and operations guide, and then we have a set above 

that of Department of Justice regulations that the Attorney General has promulgated, and so we follow that very, very carefully. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Since the Attorney General released revised guidelines regarding 

the gathering of information from journalists, has the FBI been involved in surveillance of journalists, and does it coordinate with 

NSA on these issues? 

Mr. COMEY. To my knowledge, no, we have not been involved in 

surveillance of journalists, and the same with respect to the NSA. 

Mr. JOHNSON. All righty. 

On another note, in many reverse stings, FBI agents, using confidential informants, decide on the amount of drugs, including ones 

that trigger harsh mandatory minimum penalties. Research demonstrates that these triggering amounts impact minorities disproportionately. Given the possibility of that bias, unconscious or 

not, whether or not it plays a role in the decisions of what to 

charge a target with, isn’t it prudent to instruct your agents in 

terms of this issue how to avoid the consequences of any bias in 

that regard? 
43 

Mr. COMEY. Well, bias is something I think we have to worry 

about in all human affairs, and especially when you have the law 

enforcement power that we exercise, so it is something we talk a 

lot about inside the FBI to make sure that our culture is one rooted 

to every possible extent throughout the organization in being blind 

to color, to orientation, to origin, and following the facts. 

The charging decisions in drug cases that you mentioned aren’t 

made by the FBI, those are made by Federal prosecutors, so that 

is not something the FBI agent is going to drive. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, yeah, recognizing the power of prosecutors to 

decide on the charges to indict upon, if there is still a lot of discretion with agents when it comes down to persons whom they are investigating and decide to arrest, what to charge them with, and 

those decisions need to be subject to some care and some oversight 

by superiors in that department. 

Mr. COMEY. I agree very much. 

Mr. JOHNSON. All right. Thank you, and I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair thanks the gentleman. 

Recognize the gentleman from Ohio—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE [continuing]. Mr. Jordan for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Director, thank you for being here. Thank you for 

what you do. Your opening statement is one of the best I have 

heard. Appreciate what you and your agents do every single day. 

Do you believe, Director, that the Attorney General should name 

a special prosecutor in the investigation of the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t think that is something for the FBI Director 

to comment on. 

Mr. JORDAN. Every single Republican in the House said we 

should; 26 Democrats in the House said we should, including Ms. 

DelBene and Mr. Garcia. Bipartisan, overwhelming bipartisan majority said that we, in fact, should do that based on what we have 

heard and learned about this investigation over the last year, but 

you don’t believe we should do that? 

Mr. COMEY. No, I said I don’t believe it is something the FBI Director should be opining on. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. Let me go back to where Mr. Issa was just 

a few minutes ago. We learned from Freedom of Information requests from Judicial Watch that a Department of Justice attorney 

Richard Pilger met with Lois Lerner back in October of 2010. We 

interviewed Mr. Pilger, and we discovered in that interview that 

disks of information were given to the FBI from the Internal Revenue Service. In fact, we got a letter on June 2nd, just a little over 

a week ago, from the Department of Justice telling us that there 

were 21 disks that were provided by the Internal Revenue Service 

to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the fall of 2010 containing 1.2 million pages of information. Two days later we got another letter where basically the same Mr. Kadzik of the Department of Justice said, Oops, we forgot to tell you something, 21 

disks, 1.2 million pages of information, and some of that information included confidential information protected by Internal Revenue Code section 6103. 
44 

So we got a database that you have had for 4 years, which—not 

according to us, but according to Department of Justice lawyer Mr. 

Kadzik and the IRS—contained information that is confidential, 

against the law, and you have had this database, an illegal database, for 4 years. Did you use that database during any of that 4- 

year time span? 

Mr. COMEY. No. 

Mr. JORDAN. Not at all? 

Mr. COMEY. My understanding is the only thing that was done, 

the analysts looked at the table of contents to see what was on it. 

Mr. JORDAN. And you are sure about that? 

Mr. COMEY. As sure as I can be. I read the same thing you read, 

and so I have asked—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Remember, we got the email from Mr. Pilger to Lois 

Lerner that says this: The FBI thanks Lois. The FBI says raw format is best because they can put it into their systems like Excel. 

This is direct communication from Mr. Pilger and Lois Lerner, the 

lady who is at the center of this entire scandal. So you got it in 

the format you wanted it in, and you are saying you didn’t use it, 

and you have had this for 4 years and didn’t use it? 

Mr. COMEY. That is my understanding, yep. 

Mr. JORDAN. We know things like Catherine Engelbrecht in 

Texas, who had six visits from the FBI—two in person, four over 

the phone—while her application for (c)(4) status was pending, and 

you are telling us none of this information was used to target people like Catherine Engelbrecht? 

Mr. COMEY. That is what I am telling you. 

Mr. JORDAN. And when did you turn this information back? 

Mr. COMEY. Sometime within the last few days, I think. 

Mr. JORDAN. When did you first learn you had this database that 

was never used, that was an illegal database of 1.2 million pages 

21 disks? When did you learn that you had this information? 

Mr. COMEY. Me personally? 

Mr. JORDAN. Yes. 

Mr. COMEY. What is today, Wednesday? I think Monday. 

Mr. JORDAN. So the FBI has had this. The new Director didn’t 

know you had this for the last 4 years? You just learned a week 

ago? 

Mr. COMEY. No, I don’t think anything was being done with it. 

It was sitting with this intelligence analyst in the Criminal Division. 

Mr. JORDAN. Do you know if there was a court order used to obtain this database which contained illegal, confidential taxpayer information? The only way you can get personal and confidential taxpayer information is a court order. Do you know if a court order 

was used to get this? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t think one was. I think the disks were sent 

by the IRS. 

Mr. JORDAN. The Justice Department would just say, IRS, send 

us the information, and the IRS just sent over illegal, confidential 

taxpayer information, no court order involved at all? 

Mr. COMEY. My understanding is there was no court order. They 

sent us the disks, which was represented to us to be publicly available information. 
45 

Mr. JORDAN. What kind of conclusion do you think the American 

people are going to reach when they understand now that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had 1.2 million pages of information 

which contained confidential taxpayer information, you have had it 

for 4 years, and they are supposed to believe this was never used 

in any way to target people when we have examples like Catherine 

Engelbrecht and True the Vote who got 6 visits from the FBI while 

her application was pending at the Internal Revenue Service, and 

they are supposed to believe, you know what, we just had it, we 

didn’t know about it, and we gave it back; sorry, no harm no foul? 

That is what they are supposed to believe? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, they should believe that because I am saying 

it, and because of what they know about the FBI. 

Mr. JORDAN. So let me go back to the first question, the very first 

question. Twenty-six Democrats, every single Republican in the 

House said, we need a special prosecutor. As the Chairman said in 

his opening statement, your organization on January 13—at least 

according to the Wall Street Journal—your organization, the FBI, 

leaked to the Wall Street Journal saying no one was going to be 

prosecuted. I am just saying what the Wall Street Journal—— 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know why they said an FBI person leaked 

that. 

Mr. JORDAN. That is what the Wall Street Journal said. 

No one is going to be prosecuted; the President says there is no 

corruption, not even a smidgen; the person heading the investigation Ms. Bosserman, the attorney heading the investigation, is a 

maxed-out contributor to the President’s campaign; and now we 

know 1.2 million pages of confidential taxpayer information has 

been in the hands of the FBI, given to them by Lois Lerner in the 

format the FBI wanted, and you are saying the FBI, the head of 

the FBI, the Director of the FBI shouldn’t comment on whether we 

need a special prosecutor or not? 

Mr. COMEY. Yeah, I think that is right. I don’t think the FBI Director should be offering a view on that. What I care about is do 

my folks think there is any—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I think the American people would like a special 

prosecutor, Director. 

Mr. COMEY. I am sorry? 

Mr. JORDAN. I think the American people would like a special 

prosecutor as evidenced by the fact that we had 26 Democrats join 

every single Republican say that very thing. 

Mr. COMEY. Well it may be so. I am not arguing one way or the 

other. I am just telling you I don’t think given my role it is something I should be offering a view on. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Puerto Rico Mr. Pierluisi for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PIERLUISI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director, welcome to the Committee. I commend you on your demeanor and responsiveness at this hearing up to now. 

As I did when the DHS Secretary appeared before the Committee 

last month, I would like to outline a narrative and then ask you 

to comment. 
46 

Mr. COMEY. Okay. 

Mr. PIERLUISI. Puerto Rico is home to fewer than 4 million American citizens. In 2009, there were about 900 homicides on the island. In 2010, there were nearly 1,000 homicides, and in 2011, 

there were over 1,100 homicides, an average of more than 3 a day, 

the most violent year in the territory’s history. In each year our 

homicide rate was twice as high as any State. Most murders in 

Puerto Rico are linked to the drug trade. Puerto Rico is within the 

U.S. customs zone and is used by organizations transporting narcotics from South America to the U.S. mainland. 

Given the crisis, I examined the level of resources that DOJ and 

DHS were dedicating to combat drug-related violence in Puerto 

Rico and came away discouraged because the Federal law enforcement footprint on the island was inadequate. I have done everything possible to impress upon officials the need for an improved 

Federal response to drug-related violence in Puerto Rico both for 

its own sake and for the sake of communities in the U.S. mainland 

and on the eastern border and so on. 

Starting in 2012, my message finally began to register, particularly at DHS. The agency created a task force charged with taking 

steps to reduce Puerto Rico’s murder rate. The Coast Guard has 

substantially increased the amount of time it ships and patrol aircraft spends conducting counterdrug operations off Puerto Rico. 

Last year I surged 30 agents to the island where they made hundreds of arrests and seized vast quantities of drugs and firearms, 

and CBP, once it assumed control of the counterdrug TARS program earlier this year, repaired the radar in southern Puerto Rico 

that had been rendered inoperable since 2011. 

I know DOJ agencies have also enhanced their efforts, as the 

U.S. attorney for Puerto Rico confirmed this very week when I met 

with her. I have been particularly impressed with Illegal Firearms 

and Violent Crime Reduction Initiative, a joint DOJ-DHS effort 

now in place throughout much of Puerto Rico. I have also been impressed by other initiatives in which the FBI plays an important 

role, like the anticarjacking initiative and the creation of seven 

strike forces, consisting mostly of local vetted officers that target 

drug traffickers and violent criminals in high-crime areas on the island, including public housing. 

As a result of these enhanced Federal efforts, the number of 

homicides this year is on pace to be 40 percent lower than in 2011. 

Nevertheless, Puerto Rico’s murder rate is still the highest in the 

country, averaging two homicides a day. 

Now is the time for the Federal Government to build upon its recent success to redouble its efforts and not to relent. By the way, 

Congress has been clear on this point. The 2015 DOJ funding bill 

directs the Attorney General to assess the adequacy of current law 

enforcement personnel and resources assigned to Puerto Rico, and 

to identify resources necessary to close enforcement gaps in future 

subjects at budget submissions. I am told, though, by reputable 

sources that while the FBI does great work in Puerto Rico, there 

are not nearly enough agents, given the severity of the public safety crisis we are facing on the island. 
47 

Would you comment on my narrative and tell me if the FBI will 

either increase or at least surge on a temporary basis the number 

of agents it has in Puerto Rico? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, thank you, sir. My first comment is your passion is justified. 

Mr. PIERLUISI. Thanks. 

Mr. COMEY. There is a significant problem with violent crime, 

drug-related violent crime, in Puerto Rico. It was something I 

didn’t know much about before taking this job, and I am worried 

a lot of folks don’t understand the nature of the problem. 

I think it was my second day as FBI Director I went down to our 

command center to watch as my hostage rescue team and a bunch 

of my SWAT teams participated in a huge takedown in one of the 

housing projects. As you know, the problem is centered in the housing projects, so it is something we spend a lot of time on. 

Not knowing that you and I were going to meet today, last week 

I sent a note to the whole office in San Juan thanking them for 

all the work they have been doing on public corruption, violent 

crime of all sorts. So it is something that we are very focused on. 

Whether we are going to put more agents there or not, I can’t 

tell you sitting right here, but as you know about us, every 6 

months we do a review of our threats and where our resources are 

against those threats. That process is going on right now. I don’t 

know the answer sitting here. 

Mr. PIERLUISI. Thank you. 

Mr. COMEY. But it is something we are very focused on. We have 

got some things going on right now that I can’t talk about that you 

will read about soon, more effort by us to try and lock up some of 

these bad guys. 

Mr. PIERLUISI. I look forward to it. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Time of the gentleman has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas Mr. Poe for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. POE. Thank the Chairman. 

The tenor of my questions has to do with about Federal Government agencies’ intimidation against citizens, whether it is legal or 

illegal, and whether agencies working together to intimidate citizens. And specifically I want to talk about one of my constituents, 

Catherine Engelbrecht. 

She and her husband run a manufacturing small business. They 

started King Street Patriots and True the Vote, two different organizations. They filed in July of 2010 with the IRS for nonprofit status. Since they did that, and I know you don’t have this information in front of you, but let me read to you what happened to them 

after that was filed. 

The FBI domestic terrorism unit first inquired about the organization. What in the world is the FBI terrorism unit? It sounds terrible. What is that? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, it is not terrible. It is men and women—— 

Mr. POE. I mean, it sounds very serious. It is not a terrible organization. 

Mr. COMEY. Well, it is our domestic terrorism operations unit, 

which we have had for a long time, to try and investigate people 
48 

who want to engage in acts of violence here in the United States 

not connected to an Al Qaeda-type group. 

Mr. POE. And I appreciate what you said. I don’t mean it is a 

terrible unit. I just mean it sounds serious. They certainly were 

concerned about it. 

That was in 2010. 2011, they are inquired by the FBI domestic 

terrorism unit again. 2011 January, personal audit of Engelbrecht 

Enterprises by the IRS. March, the IRS questions the nonprofit application. May, the FBI general inquiry, King Street Patriots. October, True the Vote, IRS questions nonprofit application. 2011, in 

June, December, but also in November, FBI inquired three more 

times with King Street Patriots. February of 2012, the IRS questions them again. 2012, in February, King Street Patriots, the IRS 

questions their application and asks them questions about where 

they have been, what meetings does Catherine Engelbrecht speak 

at, who has she spoken to, who is she speaking to in the future, 

and copies of the speeches are requested and who attended all of 

these meetings. Once again they are investigated, like I said, in 

February, King Street Patriots, same situation. And then the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms investigates. They audit 

Catherine Engelbrecht’s business. 

We filed a letter of inquiry, Freedom of Information Act, with the 

Justice Department asking if they were under criminal investigation. Quick response: No, they are not under criminal investigation. 

July, OSHA audits them. December, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality audits them. IRS in December questions them 

again. In March of 2013, IRS asked them more questions. And then 

finally the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms questioned 

them, a second unscheduled audit. 

Now, based on that information, is it illegal for different government agencies to work together to intimidate some individual or 

business? 

Mr. COMEY. Without legitimate investigative purpose? 

Mr. POE. Sure. And as the Justice Department said in their letter to me that they are not under investigation. 

Mr. COMEY. My problem is I don’t know enough about the situation to comment. I don’t know whether those dots are all connected. 

I hope their encounters with my folks were pleasant and professional. I expect that they were, but I don’t know enough to say. 

Mr. POE. I understand. But does that raise any suspicion to you? 

It is interesting all these different government agencies over a certain period of time, they all just suddenly or start investigating an 

organization that Justice Department said is not under criminal investigation. Doesn’t this look a little suspicious? 

Mr. COMEY. I can imagine them wondering about it, but based 

on what you have said, I don’t know enough about their business—— 

Mr. POE. I understand. 

Mr. COMEY. I just can’t say. 

Mr. POE. Okay. 

Mr. COMEY. Yeah. 

Mr. POE. Just a general hypothetical. It just seems to me that 

it looks like there might be a coordinated effort here by different 

departments. If there is a coordinated effort, hypothetical, take this 
49 

case away, hypothetical, is that some violation of Federal law for 

different agencies to work to intimidate, let us say? 

Mr. COMEY. It was, as you said, without proper investigative purpose, it is terrible, and I suspect it is unlawful in some respect, but, 

again—— 

Mr. POE. You don’t know? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know, but I know the FBI, and—— 

Mr. POE. Yeah, I guess. 

Mr. COMEY. I can’t comment beyond that. I can’t imagine that we 

would be part of some effort to try and intimidate someone without 

lawful investigative purpose. I just can’t see it. 

Mr. POE. I thank the Chairman. I have other questions I would 

like to submit for the record. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The gentleman will be permitted to do so under 

the rules of the Committee. 

Mr. POE. Thank you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee Mr. Cohen for 5 minutes. 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

First of all, it is very good to see you here. I was pleased with 

your appointment. The last time I saw you, I think, was when you 

were here concerning hearings about the Justice Department and 

some unusual circumstances in which you were heroic in your duties to the Constitution, and to your job and to justice. So it is really commendable that you were appointed and you are serving. 

We have had the last few days in Congress moments of silence. 

A moment of silence has almost become a regular ritual for 

killings. We had one yesterday for the school shooting in Oregon, 

we lost a child. We had one the day before for the killing of law 

enforcement folks in Nevada. The student who was killed at Seattle 

Pacific about 3 or 4 or 5 days earlier didn’t get a moment of silence 

because we weren’t here, but they are constantly happening, and 

I think since Newtown there have been, I think, 74 shootings in 

schools. 

What can Congress do to provide the FBI and law enforcement 

in general tools to reduce gun violence and these type tragic 

deaths? Do you have any recommendations for us of something that 

we can get accomplished that law enforcement would find an important element? 

Mr. COMEY. Yeah, with respect to the FBI, we are trying to do 

a lot of different things, and again, as I began, I thanked you for 

the budget support we have been given. We are applying those resources to train, to try and push out clues and indicators about 

what might indicate someone about to go and do one of these 

things. There is a lot of different things we are doing. 

I mentioned earlier one of the challenges I am told that we face 

in our national instant background check system is getting good 

mental health records from the States, and the States are working 

to try and get their acts together to give us. But I can’t sit here 

and suggest a particular legislative fix at this point, but I agree 

with you, I call whenever a law enforcement officer is killed in the 

line of duty in the United States. I have been on this job 9 months; 

I make way too many calls. And we lost two great people with fam-
50 

ilies to a brutal execution in Las Vegas, so I share your pain in 

that. 

Mr. COHEN. Are there certain guns you think should not be allowed, or cartridges, chambers, whatever, cartridges that may be 

unnecessary for people to enjoy sport and shooting that might be 

used more for mass killings? 

Mr. COMEY. You know, that is something I am not expert enough 

to answer and really isn’t something for the FBI to answer. 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you, sir. 

Public corruption, you have said, is your top criminal priority. In 

2010, the Supreme Court found honest services statute unconstitutional, and the efforts to resurrect that have stalled. I am concerned about public trust and public authority in government. Do 

you have any thoughts about how we can or should pass a new 

honest services statute and/or other—would that be an important 

tool to you in fighting public corruption? 

Mr. COMEY. It has long been an important tool, so that would be 

good to see. We are still making these cases, unfortunately and fortunately, I guess. The reason it is such a high priority for us is it 

is work we are uniquely good at and unfortunately we are uniquely 

needed to do everywhere in the country. 

Mr. COHEN. You haven’t studied the statute per se and the Supreme Court decision? 

Mr. COMEY. I remember the decision. I used to use the statute 

when I was a line prosecutor in Virginia and New York, but beyond 

that I don’t know enough to comment on particular legislation. 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you. 

You are building a new building or having a new building built. 

Mr. COMEY. I hope so. 

Mr. COHEN. Right. When do you expect that to be finished? 

Mr. COMEY. It is a GSA project. They have told me 5 to 7 years. 

I look at the clock and think I have 9 years and 3 months to go. 

I hope it will be, because we so badly need it, but it is sometime 

in my tenure. 

Mr. COHEN. So it is some time away, and it is during your tenure. I would hope that you would consider recommending or acting 

in such a way to name that building for somebody that reflects the 

modern FBI, and somebody who the American public would have 

faith and reinstill faith in the FBI because they are a person who 

would be part of the new FBI and the new way we do things and 

in your tradition of respecting the Constitution and the rule of law. 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. COHEN. You are welcome. 

Thank you. And I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from South 

Carolina Mr. Gowdy for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director, you have excellent agents in South Carolina, and I 

know it would mean the world to them if you ever had a chance 

to tell them that one of their fellow citizens in South Carolina appreciates their work. There is a gentleman by the name of Jim 

Lanneman in particular that really is a credit to the Bureau. 
51 

Mr. COMEY. Okay. Well, I haven’t been there yet. I am visiting 

all 56. By the end of this year. I will be in Columbia, and I will 

find that guy and embarrass him. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, I probably just did embarrass him. Let me 

know when you are visiting. I will make sure Senator Graham is 

not in the State so you don’t have to worry about serving any warrants while you are there. 

Jimmy Jordan asked you about the IRS targeting scandal. I am 

not going to ask you about it because you can’t comment, and it 

is not fair for me to ask you a series of questions where you have 

to say you can’t comment. I just want to make an observation to 

maybe try to help you understand where Jimmy is coming from. 

You used to be in a courtroom where you had challenges for 

cause, and you had peremptory challenges. And I have never argued that because a prosecutor was politically engaged and active 

or maxed out to a particular political party, I have never argued 

that that was a challenge for cause. Of course that person can still 

be fair. But out of the universe of all potential Federal prosecutors, 

why anyone would pick someone in a sensitive investigation that 

involves political targeting with that background just mystifies me. 

And, again, I am not going to ask you to comment, I am just 

going to ask you to think about the fact that we do have a special 

prosecutor statute where there is a conflict, or where it furthers 

the interest of justice, and when you have a chief executive who 

put, in my judgment, the Department of Justice and the Bureau in 

a very awkward position by saying there is not a smidgen of corruption when the investigation is not over, and when you have a 

prosecutor that has deep political ties, I would just ask you in the 

quietness of your own soul to reflect upon whether or not we can 

ever have a fact pattern that warrants a special prosecutor if it is 

not this. 

What, in your judgment, are the limits of prosecutorial discretion? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, certainly the law is a clear limit. You operate 

that discretion within the law, and then obviously you have a sense 

of integrity and fair dealing that should be at the core of all Federal prosecutors, of our culture. I am no longer a Federal prosecutor, but you know the Federal prosecutor culture. That is an important limit on discretion. That is probably the short answer. 

Mr. GOWDY. Do you think that there is a difference between the 

exercise of prosecutorial discretion and the wholesale failure to enforce a certain category of law? 

Mr. COMEY. Potentially. Yeah, I don’t know what you are referring to, but sure. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, when your agents are asked by a member of 

the grand jury about drug amounts, you and I both know they are 

going to tell the truth; and when they are asked by a judge about 

drug amounts, they are going to tell the truth; and when they are 

asked by a probation officer about drug amounts, they are going to 

tell the truth. And we do have mandatory minimums. Some people 

like them, some people don’t, but it is still the law. And I am troubled when any Attorney General, regardless of political affiliation, 

directs a group of prosecutors to no longer include in the charging 

document the drug amount. 
52 

Surely there is a limit on what prosecutorial discretion is. And 

I will ask it differently. There are certain laws that forbid conduct, 

a possession of child pornography; there are certain laws that require conduct, like registering for Selective Service; and there are 

certain laws that require you to make reports to Congress. Surely 

prosecutorial discretion is not available in all of those categories of 

law. 

Mr. COMEY. Well, as you know, in the Federal system there is 

tremendous prosecutorial discretion. It is one of the reasons that 

the sentencing guidelines and some of the mandatory minimums 

may have been imposed. But I guess I don’t know with each of 

those categories you gave. I would imagine there is a certain 

amount of discretion, a prosecutor has discretion, as to whether to 

even commence a prosecution. 

Mr. GOWDY. I agree with that, but if Congress said, Director, we 

want you to file a report by July the 1st of each year about how 

many 924(e)s you prosecuted, I don’t know that you can get away 

with saying, in the exercise of my discretion, I am not going to comply with that law. And politics is one thing, the law is something 

else, and when we use the word ‘‘prosecutorial discretion’’ to excuse 

the failure to enforce a category of law, I think we are doing a real 

disservice to the concept of prosecutorial discretion, and I think we 

are doing a disservice to our Republic. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair thanks the gentleman, recognizes the 

gentlewoman from California Ms. Chu for 5 minutes. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you. 

Director Comey, I am concerned about the individuals who have 

been placed on watch lists, such as the no-fly list, and that are 

placed there based on mistakes and incorrect information. The consequences for wrongful inclusion on the no-fly list can be devastating. People are stigmatized as terrorists, barred from commercial flight altogether, detained, interrogated, and subject to longterm investigation. These people may lose the ability to obtain employment that requires travel or because the government shares information about the individual’s inclusion on the watch list with a 

prospective employer. 

There have been numerous government audits which suggest 

that watch list entries have a high error rate, like the DOJ’s inspector general reports. The most recent 2014 IG report suggests 

that there are still concerns regarding the agency’s processes and 

procedures. The report found redundant and inefficient processes 

that clogged the system, and says that the FBI averages 44 business days to add suspected terror suspects referred by other agencies, but it takes twice as long, 78 days on the average, to remove 

cleared suspects, former suspects. 

Director Comey, I believe that defending our Nation against terrorism is important, but I also think that we have to carefully balance that with our civil rights and liberties under the law. What 

specific steps is the FBI doing to ensure that innocent Americans 

are not incorrectly placed on the no-fly list, and what reforms are 

being made to ensure that those who are erroneously placed on the 

list are quickly removed? 
53 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you. First of all, I agree with you, the 

premise, it is important to protect our liberties. I know we have an 

extensive process that we go through before someone can get on the 

list to make sure we have got it right, and as you said, I am aware 

there is a process to remove someone if there is a mistake or the 

matter has been closed in some fashion. I don’t know enough to respond to your concern about the time lag or what improvements 

are needed. 

Ms. CHU. Could you respond to us in writing? 

Mr. COMEY. Sure. 

Ms. CHU. Well, let me then ask about hate crime tracking. After 

the 9/11 attacks, hate crime and violence committed against individuals in the Sikh, Hindu, and Arab American communities have 

increased. In recent years there have been violent anti-Sikh attacks 

across the country, including the horrific massacre at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, that took the lives of six worshippers. 

In March 2013, there were 100 Members of Congress, including 

myself, that sent a letter to the FBI and Attorney General Holder 

urging the FBI to include the religious groups and Arab Americans 

in hate crime tracking; for instance, tracking them as Sikh, or antiSikh, or anti-Hindu or anti-Arab crimes rather than an all-encompassing category. We welcomed the FBI’s announcement last year 

that it will be expanding the hate crime incident report used by 

law enforcement to include crimes motivated by bias against Sikhs, 

Hindus, and Arab Americans as well as other religious groups. 

So, Director Comey, could you please provide us with an update 

on the status of the revisions to the hate crime tracking program 

and when you expect the updates to be completed? 

Mr. COMEY. I will have to give you the particulars in writing, but 

I am aware of the issue, and I know that we have made progress 

in updating them to include the categories you talked about, and, 

most importantly, to train our State and local counterparts about 

this, because they are the ones who supply the data to us about 

what these categories mean, why they matter. I know there has 

been a tremendous amount of training going on, but I will have to 

follow up to give you the particulars on it. 

Ms. CHU. Okay. We would look forward to having that in writing, 

because we understand the decision has been made, but it has not 

yet been implemented. 

Then could I ask about this Task Force on Domestic Terrorism? 

Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he would revive it to 

stop violent attacks inside the U.S. motivated by a variety of 

causes like antigovernment animus to racial prejudice. I understand the FBI, DOJ, and U.S. Attorney’s office, Attorney General’s 

office, will make up the task force’s Domestic Violence Terrorism 

Executive Committee. Can you detail how the task force will expand on the FBI’s efforts to detect and prevent hate-based violence? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t think it is going to affect me at all because 

this is something we have been doing all along and care an awful 

lot about. What I think this is is an effort that came from the U.S. 

attorney community and is a product of their desire to see coordination within their community and with non-DOJ entities to make 

sure everyone is meeting on a regular basis to coordinate. Now, the 
54 

fact is we do that already. I think they are just looking to be more 

involved or to improve it. But I asked my domestic terrorism guys 

the next morning when I heard about this, and I don’t think it is 

going to change our life at all because we have been doing this, and 

this is work we care a lot about. 

Ms. CHU. Could you respond to that in writing as well, though? 

Mr. COMEY. Sure. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The time of the gentlewoman has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Idaho Mr. Labrador for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you. Good morning. I actually really enjoyed your presentation and your answers. I like your forthrightness, and I have enjoyed listening to you. 

Mr. COMEY. Sure. I will have to get over this. 

Mr. LABRADOR. You will eventually. You said you still have 9 

years to go, so. 

As Deputy Attorney General under the Bush administration, you 

refused to reauthorize the warrantless wiretapping program, which 

I actually commend you. I think that was a courageous move on 

your part. You stated that you were asked to be part of something 

that is fundamentally wrong. My question is was it fundamentally 

wrong because it wasn’t authorized by Congress, or was it fundamentally wrong because it was not constitutional? 

Mr. COMEY. That situation involved programs—and I am still 

going to be careful about it because I don’t know what part of it 

has been declassified—where I concluded there was not an adequate legal basis under the Constitution or under a statute or some 

other legal basis for continuing it. 

Mr. LABRADOR. So in that occasion, did you have a problem with 

the Constitution—even if it would have been authorized by Congress. Because I understand the Bush administration later sought 

authority from Congress, and I think mostly in part because of 

your statements. If it would have been authorized by Congress, do 

you still think that it would have been constitutional, or was it just 

the legal authority that you were looking for? 

Mr. COMEY. I am searching back in my memory now. I am not 

sure I can remember well enough to answer because there were different angles, different varieties to the issue. 

Obviously, I am someone, as you all are, who devoted my life to 

the rule of law, and there had to be an adequate legal basis for 

something either in the Constitution or in a statute by Congress. 

If Congress had acted, and the congressional action had not been 

challenged on a constitutional basis or overturned, I think that 

would have been an adequate footing. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Okay. Now, severe abuses of this program have 

actually come to light, including NSA analysts listening to overseas 

calls of U.S. Soldiers to their girlfriends and wives in the States. 

But when the wiretapping was challenged, the Solicitor General 

promised the Supreme Court that if any of the info was ever used 

in a court, the defendant would be notified. 

But last year a Reuters report found that DOJ officials are using 

NSA-gathered intelligence as leads for criminal cases without informing the defendant of the origin of the case and misleading Fed-
55 

eral prosecutors about its origins. Do you believe that such use of 

NSA intercepts are lawful? 

Mr. COMEY. That is a complicated question, one I am trying to 

parse to make sure I don’t talk about anything that is classified in 

an open setting. I can speak for the FBI. I think the way in which 

we interact with information collected by the NSA or by the FBI 

is entirely lawful. And I also understand—I don’t know the history 

you are talking about well enough to comment—but that it is now 

the practice where someone is notified in the circumstances you 

talked about. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Well, the reports are that they were supposed to 

be notified, and in some cases they have not been notified. 

And would you investigate any of these allegations if it is true 

that some of these people were not notified? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know whether it would be FBI jurisdiction to 

investigate it. I suspect there is an inspector general who would 

have jurisdiction to investigate it. That is probably the most I can 

say based on what I know from your question. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Okay. Maybe we should have a conversation 

about this. I think that this is an area of concern that some of us 

have about the NSA. I think there have been some abuses. And obviously, we are all concerned about Fourth Amendment protections, 

and from your testimony, it sounds like you are as well. So hopefully we can work together on this. 

And I actually have no more questions, so I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. DESANTIS. [Presiding.] Gentleman yields back. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana Mr. 

Richmond for 5 minutes. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Thank you, Director. 

Let me just say thank you for being here, and that I have the 

utmost confidence in my SAC in New Orleans, Louisiana, which is 

Michael Anderson, and my new U.S. attorney. 

Part of what you brought out in talking about public corruption, 

and in your statement you are talking about the people’s confidence 

in the system, more or less. Something that erodes all of our confidence in Louisiana in the system is the fact that every couple of 

months now we are getting someone released from prison who was 

actually innocent because of prosecutorial misconduct. And because 

public confidence is so important, at what point does intentional 

acts of prosecutorial misconduct rise to the level of public corruption? 

Mr. COMEY. That is a great question. I am not sure I would call 

it public corruption, but willful misconduct in prosecuting someone 

who you knew to be innocent or violation of the rules of law can 

be criminal conduct. The label, frankly, doesn’t matter; it could be 

criminal conduct. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Is it something that you would commit to looking 

into? And I think it is very important for inner-city communities 

to have that confidence to step up in terms of being witnesses, to 

place their confidence in the system to know that the system is on 

the up and up. And I think that every day we have someone released because of an intentional Brady violation or something of 
56 

that nature, I think it is something that I would like you all to look 

into. So I would hope that you are open to doing that. 

The other thing I would like to bring up is that I think there was 

an article maybe a year ago that talked about whether the FBI 

tracks criminal conduct by their informants. So do you all do that? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Do you tolerate certain acts as acceptable as long 

as it is leading to catching a bigger fish? 

And I will let you know where I am going with this. Almost like 

Fast and Furious that my colleagues still bring up, which I was 

concerned about also, but if you look at the drug trade in innercity communities, even though a drug dealer becomes an informant 

and helps us lead to bigger fish, he is still out there on the street, 

he is still creating addicts, and he is still creating crack babies, although my colleagues on the other side of the aisle don’t take it 

that far, they stop at guns. I am also worried about that in the 

drug trade, and I think that I see it in my community. And I just 

wanted to see if you all have approached it like that or have conversations about continuing to let informants roam streets and do 

what they do. 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. It is something we worry about a great deal in 

two ways. Obviously, unfortunately, the way the world works is the 

best view of criminal activity is also going to come from a criminal. 

So a lot of the people who are necessarily our informants have done 

bad things before they became informants. So we study that very 

carefully to figure out who should be an informant. 

And then obviously we are very worried about our informants 

committing criminal acts after they are working with us, and that 

is subject to a regime called ‘‘otherwise criminal activity,’’ where if 

an informant is going to continue to be involved in criminal activity, there are a whole bunch of complicated layers of review to 

make sure that we approve that or disapprove it, because we don’t 

want people working for the FBI committing crimes unless it is absolutely necessary, and it is carefully monitored as part of trying 

to take down a bigger fish. 

Mr. RICHMOND. And I would hope you keep in mind the things 

I said earlier. 

The other part of my question about public corruption is when 

the investigation starts to affect political elections, and I will just 

give you an example I raised with the Attorney General, which is 

the D.C. mayoral race, where the investigation came out that the 

mayoral candidate was under investigation, which the Attorney 

General defended and said it just happened to be that time, and 

it came out. 

But then I can point to the North Carolina mayor, who was indicted, who Federal agents gave money to years ago, and we allowed him to stay in office, run for mayor, get elected, then indict 

him. And now it will cost the taxpayers a special election, and who 

knows what he has done in the meantime. 

I am worried about individual SACs or U.S. Attorneys being able 

to play politics with it when, if we know someone is a bad actor, 

we act on it immediately, or, if we are not going to affect elections, 

let us not affect elections. So that is a big concern of mine. 
57 

But let me just thank you for the job you do and the fact that 

your agents lay their lives on the line every day. 

But I am very concerned about our inner-city communities and 

the fact that every day we are dealing with weapons of mass destruction in terms of assault weapons and so forth. And as we get 

the small drug dealers, let us get the big ones, too. Thank you for 

what you do. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Gentleman yields back. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina 

Mr. Holding for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HOLDING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director Comey, I think your previous experience as a career assistant United States attorney is going to be some of the best experience that you have for making a successful directorship of the 

FBI. I recall when you were the DAG, I was an assistant United 

States attorney, and it was your previous experience as a line assistant that made your tenure as DAG so successful. You were certainly widely regarded as a prosecutor’s prosecutor, and you 

brought to bear your experience of how things actually work in the 

field to make the Department of Justice work better for the U.S. 

attorney’s offices. And I think you will do the same for the FBI. 

So in your experience as an assistant, and certainly in your supervisory experience as a U.S. attorney and as the Deputy, and 

from what you are hearing from your troops in the FBI, how important is cooperation in a Federal investigation of any variety? 

Mr. COMEY. Critical. It is the coin of the realm in the Federal 

system, as you know from your own experience. 

Mr. HOLDING. And how important do you think minimum mandatory sentences are in getting that cooperation from defendants? 

Mr. COMEY. Significant. Been a very useful tool in eliciting that 

cooperation in my career. 

Mr. HOLDING. So when a defendant is looking at a minimum 

mandatory of 5 years or 15 years or 30 years, and that defendant’s 

only opportunity to get out from under that minimum mandatory 

sentence is to provide substantial cooperation to the government, 

you think that is an inducing factor for that defendant to cooperate? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, I do. I have seen it hundreds of times. 

Mr. HOLDING. So if assistant U.S. attorneys are deprived of that 

tool in their toolbox of getting cooperation, do you think that will 

have an impact on Federal law enforcement, on your ability as a 

Federal law enforcement officer to get your cases successfully completed? 

Mr. COMEY. Sure. If they lose the tool, yeah, sure. 

Mr. HOLDING. Again, talking about your tenure as a line assistant, I seem to recall that you were involved with Project 

Triggerlock in Richmond, which was going after convicted felons 

who are caught with a firearm or a single piece of ammunition and 

using the Federal firearms laws to take these criminals, violent felons, off the street in a wholesale fashion. 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. 

Mr. HOLDING. Triggerlock was successful. 
58 

Mr. COMEY. We called it in Richmond Project Exile. But it was 

the same concept is trying to send a very powerful message to 

criminals: You better not carry a gun. 

Mr. HOLDING. And when you were the Deputy, you oversaw the 

implementation of Project Safe Neighborhoods throughout the U.S. 

attorney community, which was the same thing of going after violent felons; just catch them with a firearm or a single piece of ammunition, you can put them away for a minimum of 5 years, up to 

life in prison, correct? 

Mr. COMEY. Yeah. We did that across the country. 

Mr. HOLDING. And is it your recollection that the decline in crime 

rates across the country where that program was implemented 

was—the decline was related to the implementation of Project Safe 

Neighborhoods? 

Mr. COMEY. I have always thought so. Academics tell me it is a 

complicated question, but I have always thought that when you 

send a message to drug dealers and felons as strong as we sent, 

it changes behavior, which drives crime down. 

Mr. HOLDING. Also in your experience as an assistant, and as a 

U.S. attorney, and as the Deputy, and certainly in your role now, 

is it your experience that Federal prosecutors prosecute nonviolent 

drug offenders on a regular basis? 

Mr. COMEY. Not my experience. In fact, I don’t know that I have 

ever in the offices I worked done that. 

Mr. HOLDING. If you were told that in Federal prisons, more than 

50 percent of the occupants of Federal prisons are nonviolent drug 

offenders, would that surprise you? 

Mr. COMEY. More than 50 percent? 

Mr. HOLDING. Yes. 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know the stats, but that would surprise me. 

Mr. HOLDING. That statistic has been alleged several times by 

Members of this Committee, and I find it absolutely unbelievable. 

I don’t think it is accurate, because in my experience of being in 

a U.S. attorney’s office for 10 years as an assistant, a first assistant, and a United States attorney, out of the thousands of cases, 

I never recall us going after a nonviolent drug offender. 

Mr. COMEY. Sometimes we would, to flip them into a gang, if I 

was working a gang case. But, yes. 

Mr. HOLDING. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Gentleman yields back. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from Texas for 5 

minutes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I am over here. 

Mr. COMEY. Sorry. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me thank the Chairman and let me thank 

the Ranking Member as well for the yielding of the time and just 

to put on the record for my colleagues that we were in a Homeland 

Security markup, and, therefore, I did not hear the—have the wisdom of the questions asked and maybe answered by my colleagues. 

I am going to start out first to congratulate you for your service. 

We on the Judiciary Committee have interacted with the FBI over 

the years and many Directors, and we know how important the responsibilities that you have are. 
59 

We also know how important it is to have an agency with such 

high esteem to reflect the diversity of America. Can you give me 

the outreach and the diversity numbers that you have with respect 

to women, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians? 

Mr. COMEY. With respect to within our population? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Yes. 

Mr. COMEY. Sitting here, I can’t give you the exact figures, but 

it is not good enough, and the representation is below that in the 

workforce for similar cohorts. But I can get you the numbers. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Would you get me the numbers? 

What internal effort now is being suggested or implemented 

under your leadership to answer your own question that it is not 

good enough? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, first and foremost, the Director, me, talking 

about it a lot. I sent a message to all of 36,000 of my employees 

explaining why I care about diversity and why it matters. I believe 

it is a matter of effectiveness and doing the right thing. And so I 

sent them all that email to try and drive my view into this great 

organization. 

And then on a more tactical level, where the rubber hits the 

road, is in our recruitment efforts at colleges of different sorts, job 

fairs of different sorts. I mean, it is a complicated answer, but 

there is a lot going on. We have progress to make. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I would like to get those numbers, and I 

would like to work with the FBI on its outreach approach. 

Second small point that I want to make is that you have SACs 

in our local areas. Let me thank you for the service of the SAC. 

One of the most important aspects of their work is letting the local 

community know what they do. So I encourage you to encourage 

your SACs, when a Member of Congress calls for them to join them 

at a town hall meeting or a university, which is nonpartisan, let 

them realize that part of their work as a SAC is to be engaged with 

the community. That is where they are, and it is very important. 

I hope that you will view that as an important role, not taking 

away from investigations, but an important role. 

Mr. COMEY. I agree very much with that. I speak to all my SACs 

once a week, and one of the things I have told them repeatedly is, 

you are my representative in each of your communities, so get out 

there, know people, speak to people. 

The more you know the FBI, I think the more you like. We just 

have to get out there and talk to folks. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I think you are very right. 

Now I want to pose a question. I am from Texas, and we have 

been dealing with a case that seems to have gotten caught in quagmire. Alfred Wright, a 28-year-old African American male from 

Jasper, Texas—and you may be familiar with Jasper, Texas, which 

was the site of the James Byrd killing—whose body was found 18 

days after it was first reported in a location that had allegedly been 

searched more than 17 days before by local law enforcement. He 

was an honors graduate, and well liked and beloved, from a family 

that was well respected in the area. 

I recognize that this may be an ongoing investigation, but what 

I am going to request is a general briefing on the general parameters, because here is what I am hearing, Mr. Director, that this 
60 

has gotten caught up in a scale of injustice that is almost unbelievable, which includes local officials. People are suspicious and suspect of even Federal law enforcement as to whether or not there 

is a too close and chummy a relationship. And I do not make these 

allegations; I make this in the form of an inquiry. So it is Alfred 

Wright, and I do want to get a briefing if you have any assessment 

of it at this time. 

The other is the Robbie Tolan case, which I believe this is a case 

of a young man shot on his own front lawn, with his parents saying 

that this is his house and his car, by a police officer in Bellaire, 

Texas. Unfortunately, this officer, under the State system, was acquitted. We are asking for a re-investigation, which would include 

the FBI. I will pass on to you this letter, and I am also going to 

ask unanimous consent to put this letter into the record that I 

have sent, and also the letter again regarding Mr. Alfred Wright. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Without objection. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
61 
62 
63 
64 
65 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me finish my questions on two points. 

What kind of work the FBI is doing on police, local police abuse 

cases, and do you take those seriously? 

And, secondarily, with respect to your priorities in investigation, 

I think Mr. Holder made one point, I want to make another. But 
66 

in your investigation in drug cases, do you prioritize with cartels 

and major actors versus the local guy on the street with a crackpossession situation that may wind up in the Federal system, but 

is not going to harm anybody but himself? 

If you could answer those two questions, I would appreciate it. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Time of the gentlelady has expired, but if you 

want to take those, we will certainly let you do that. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the gentleman for his courtesy. 

Mr. COMEY. With respect to the drug cases, you are exactly right. 

Our focus is on the international groups or the gangs that are 

dominating a particular community. As I said to the earlier question, if we are working a lower-level offender, it is in order to make 

the bigger case against the international group or the street gang. 

And with respect to the civil rights cases, police brutality cases, 

police corruption cases are an important part of our civil rights investigative priority. As you may have seen, we recently indicted a 

bunch of people from the sheriff’s office in Los Angeles. It is work 

we do around the country. So it remains, unfortunately, but it is 

a necessary, important part of what we do. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Director Comey. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. Gentlewoman’s time has expired. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. My I ask to put just a correct name. I said 

the name incorrectly, and I just wanted to make sure that I put 

the gentleman’s name correctly in the record for this letter. So I 

just ask the gentleman to yield. 

The gentleman’s name that I was speaking of, so the FBI Director would have it, would be Robbie Tolan, I am so sorry, T-o-l-an. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Without objection, name should be entered into 

the record. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Chair now recognizes himself for a period of 5 

minutes. 

Thank you, Director, for your testimony. 

News reports suggest that the FBI is, in fact, probing the scandal 

at the Veterans Affairs Administration. Can you confirm those reports? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. Our Phoenix office has opened a criminal investigation. 

Mr. DESANTIS. I would just encourage you to probe that. What 

I don’t want to see happen, if there is some type of fraud committed and these veterans died, I don’t want to see these government officials end up with a pension and the bonuses. I want to 

see them be held accountable. So please do that. 

In terms of the Benghazi and the perpetrators, would you say at 

this point that finding the perpetrators and bringing them to justice is purely a matter for law enforcement vice military at this 

point? 

Mr. COMEY. I would say, as in any case, especially terrorism 

cases, all instruments of U.S. power are brought to bear. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But is it your understanding? Because it is my 

understanding that the Administration’s position is that they do 

not have the legal authority to lethally engage Ansar al-Sharia or 
67 

whoever you want to say committed those attacks. Is that your understanding? 

Mr. COMEY. It is not something that I am in a position to comment on just because it is not my remit. But also I don’t want to 

talk about how I am approaching that investigation because I don’t 

want to give anything away to the bad guys. 

Mr. DESANTIS. No, I understand, but I think that—we run into 

a problem when they are making those claims that they don’t have 

the authority to respond, but what happened leading up to that 

was the President authorized force to overthrow Gaddafi in Libya. 

There was no congressional authorization for that for sure. 

And so they said they had the authority to do that unilaterally, 

but then somehow you would not have the authority to seek a reprisal attack against somebody that massacred four Americans, including our Ambassador. So that legal view, that may not be something you can comment on, that does not square with me. I mean, 

it seems to me that the Libya intervention was the weaker case 

versus responding to the Benghazi terrorists, especially given the 

2001 AUMF. 

There are reports that the FBI had noticed that we had been 

starting to see Islamic militants, I guess, who are U.S. Citizens 

leaving Minnesota to go wage jihad in Syria. And then there was 

also the report a couple weeks ago about a U.S. citizen suicide 

bomber who was from Fort Pierce, Florida, that actually committed 

a suicide attack in Syria. 

So you spoke about the problems that Syria could eventually 

present for us, but if some of these folks are motivated to go over 

there and wage jihad, how would you characterize the threat of 

jihad, those types of people attacking Americans here in the homeland? 

Mr. COMEY. It is a significant concern of ours, which is why we 

try to identify. And if people are going to go over to fight jihad with 

one of these groups, Al Qaeda-affiliated groups, we want to find 

them and lock them up before they go, because once they go and 

get the worst kind of training and develop the worst kind of relationships, then they are a particularly difficult challenge because 

they are Americans, right, and they can flow back and do very bad 

things here. 

So this Syria problem is something not just the FBI is focused 

on, all parts of the U.S. Government are focused on this. 

Mr. DESANTIS. What tools do you use if somebody has not actually committed an act of violence, they are radicalized? How would 

you look to kind of stop them? Would you look at financial transactions, material support statute? Because obviously we want to 

get them before they strike. But I just want to know, do we 

have—— 

Mr. COMEY. All of the above. All of the above. Typically we 

charge them with either attempting to provide material support to 

a designated terrorist organization or conspiring to supply material 

support, or there are a number of other statutes, but that is the 

core of it. Frankly, we will use anything we can to stop these people from going over there and becoming further radicalized. 

Mr. DESANTIS. My final question is there is an indictment, now 

a guilty plea, of conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, has writ-
68 

ten very critical books about President Obama; of course, a movie. 

And it was for campaign finance that he had reimbursed some donors who had given money, about $20,000, New York Senate race, 

to a candidate who lost by 35 points. And I think the conduct, he 

committed it, so I am not suggesting that. But the decision to eventually charge him criminally, the FBI had put out a statement 

from, I think, one of the local offices in New York that they came 

across D’Souza’s impropriety through a routine review of the FEC 

reports. 

But I think you know that if you just review an FEC report, all 

you would see was the name and the amount of donation. There 

would be no indication that you would have reimbursed anybody. 

And so if it was just a routine review, it doesn’t seem to me that 

that would be sufficient to trigger that type of an inquiry. 

And so can you explain to me how a routine review of an FEC 

filing would have led to a straw donor reimbursement indictment? 

Mr. COMEY. I guess I don’t want to talk about the particular 

case, but I could imagine circumstance in which if you saw a bunch 

of checks to a candidate all coming from a similar business or 

seemed connected to a particular person, that might lead to inquiry 

being made which would expose that kind of straw donation 

scheme. But I don’t know the case well enough, and I couldn’t comment on it anyway. 

Mr. DESANTIS. I mean, I think that has not been my experience. 

I mean, there will be families who will donate, Republicans and 

Democrats, and if that would be enough to trigger it, I think you 

would see more. You don’t see this many cases being brought criminally. And I know that is not your decision, but I would like to 

maybe explore that with you some more some other time in private. 

My time has expired, and the Chair now recognizes the 

gentlelady from Washington for 5 minutes. 

Ms. DELBENE. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

And thank you, Director, for all of your time today and for your 

service. 

I, as well as my colleagues, have been deeply disturbed by the 

recent revelations of egregious misconduct at VA medical facilities. 

And I know that the Department of Justice continues to consult 

with the Veteran Affairs Office of the Inspector General on their 

review. At this point they are looking at 69 VA facilities. 

I wanted to understand do you think you are going to look more 

broadly, given that there are other facilities engaged beyond the 

Phoenix issues? And is there a greater role you expect the FBI to 

play or other resources you think that are important as we continue this investigation? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, thank you for the question. It is not something 

that I can answer at this point, and I don’t think I would answer 

anyway about a criminal investigation. 

We will follow it wherever the facts take us. The Phoenix office 

is where we have opened it because that was the primary locus of 

the original allegations. We are working it with the VA IG, and we 

will follow it wherever the facts take us. 

Ms. DELBENE. Thank you. This is a very, very important issue, 

so thank you for your work there. 
69 

Last month the White House released the findings of its Big 

Data and Privacy Working Group review, and one of the recommendations made by the report was that Congress should 

amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, what we call 

ECPA, to ensure that the level of protection for online digital content is consistent with that provided to physical materials. But 

ECPA was written in a time before email and cloud computing 

have changed the way we live and work, and our current law affords more protections for a letter in a filing cabinet than email on 

a server. 

So I was pleased that the Administration has recognized that 

this law has been very outdated, and I wanted to ask whether you 

agree that we need to update ECPA and that policy. 

Mr. COMEY. My sense is that the Administration has communicated that, as you said. 

There is an outdated distinction. For email, over 180 days, I 

think, under the 1980 statute is treated as something that you 

could in theory obtain without a search warrant. We don’t treat it 

that way. We go get a search warrant from a Federal judge no matter how old it is. So a change wouldn’t have any effect on our practice, but I have heard the concern, which makes sense to me. 

Ms. DELBENE. I think it is very important we actually have a bill 

called the Email Privacy Act, H.R. 1852, and it would make meaningful updates to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to address this issue, to require law enforcement to obtain a warrant in 

order to gain access to the contents of email or documents, pictures, 

and other information that have been stored in the cloud. And this 

bill already has 216 cosponsors, something I think very important, 

to keep our laws up to date in this area. 

I also wanted to echo concerns raised by my colleagues about the 

Bureau’s work to deal with human trafficking. These are horrendous crimes. In Washington State, we have seen operations cross 

country through the Innocence Lost Initiative recover juveniles and 

young adults being victimized by prostitution, and that is commendable work, but we haven’t made inroads yet in how to make 

a dent in Internet-facilitated trafficking of children on Web sites 

like Backpage and others. The prevalence is very staggering, and 

human costs here are truly unspeakable when this activity is allowed to continue. 

So are there tools that the FBI can use to combat online trafficking of children? And what are the challenges that you face in 

prosecuting these cases of trafficking, and what can we do to help 

that? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, a huge part of what we do to try and protect 

and rescue kids is through investigations online. So I have got people all over the country doing that as we speak. 

One of our challenges is the increased use of encryption and 

anonymizers online, especially the people who would harm children. And so sometimes folks of goodwill say, isn’t it terrible that 

the government wants to be able to break encryption or find identities on the Internet? No, it is not. With lawful authority and the 

involvement of a court, I need to be able to do that. But it is a technical challenge for us that is increasingly difficult, so that is something that we are working on. 
70 

The Backpage issue is a challenging one because there are certain First Amendment issues that may be implicated by some of 

these publications online, but I don’t want to say more about it at 

this point on that. 

Ms. DELBENE. Thank you. And thank you for your time. 

I yield back, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. CHABOT. [Presiding.] The gentlelady yields back. 

The Chair would now recognize himself for 5 minutes to ask 

questions. 

As my colleagues have indicated, we all appreciate you being 

here, Mr. Director. And we have something in common: We both 

are graduates of the College of William and Mary. 

Mr. COMEY. I know. 

Mr. CHABOT. You graduated, I believe, in 1982? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. 

Mr. CHABOT. I graduated in 1975. So I was thinking that perhaps at the end of this hearing, perhaps we could get a quick shot 

and sent it to our alma mater. 

Mr. COMEY. Be great. 

Mr. CHABOT. See what heck they do with it. Probably not much. 

Mr. COMEY. Wonder who those old guys are. 

Mr. CHABOT. When I was there, we were the Indians. 

Mr. COMEY. Me, too. 

Mr. CHABOT. Became politically incorrect, and we became the 

Tribe. And I think we are now the Griffins, Which, whatever the 

heck—— 

Mr. COMEY. I think we are still the Tribe, but our mascot is the 

griffin. 

Mr. CHABOT. Which is apparently a mythological figure that is 

half an eagle and half lion, I believe. 

Mr. COMEY. So I am told. 

Mr. CHABOT. So there you go. 

In any event, that is beside the point. We, again, welcome you 

here. 

I, first of all, would like to just bring up again—I had two hearings going on here at the same time, so I have been going back and 

forth—but relative to the China hacking, and the charges recently, 

and the military hackers particularly that were indicted for computer hacking and economic espionage and other offenses aimed at 

U.S. nuclear power industry and metals and solar products industries, for example. In particular it is my understanding that Alcoa, 

and U.S. Steel, and Westinghouse, and Allegheny Technologies and 

others were targeted by the military hackers. 

I happen to also be the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific and was just in China about a 

month ago. So we have a particular interest in this. 

In light of these attacks and the persistence of the threat of 

cyber espionage, if you could relate briefly what the FBI is doing 

about that. 

And, secondly, we are going to be introducing some legislation in 

the very near future which does a number of things which are unrelated to the FBI, but one thing which is related to the FBI would 

call for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of 

Homeland Security to expand the warnings that they are now giv-
71 

ing to American companies on how they are susceptible to cyber attacks and other types of attacks, the USB drives, travel, gifts, 

promises of employment, social media, and the rest. 

And we would look forward to working with you and your people 

on any modifications or anything that you think could be helpful, 

things we should add or leave out. We would welcome your cooperation in that effort, and just would like to see if you have any 

comments on that. 

Mr. COMEY. Well, thank you. I look forward to working with you 

on that. 

As I try to explain to folks, there are only two kinds of big companies in the United States: those who have been hacked by the 

Chinese and those who don’t know they have been hacked by the 

Chinese. It is an enormous problem, and they are trying to steal 

everything that is not nailed down, and maybe things that are 

nailed down. 

So we are devoting great resources to it through our National 

Cyber Investigative Task Force to try and track the intrusions and 

respond to them quickly. But therein lies the challenge: We have 

to get better at sharing information with the private sector at machine speed, because these bad guys are moving at the speed of 

light, and we in this country have to get better at facilitating private entities sharing information with us, because they will see 

things before we see them. And that back-and-forth is a huge part 

of the answer to this threat, but it is an enormous feature of the 

cyber work that the FBI does. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. Appreciate your response. 

Now, we know that China is probably the worst actor in this. Are 

there a handful of other bad actors that you would point out that 

we also need to be wary of? 

Mr. COMEY. Oh, sure. I mean, the Internet is a very dangerous 

neighborhood. There is a stack of bad actors from state-sponsored 

enterprises, terrorist groups, organized criminal groups, 

hacktivists. As I said at the beginning, because it is where our lives 

are, that is where bad people come. So it is a very complex challenge. There are other state actors that are significant players in 

this. I am not sure in an open hearing I want to point them out 

at this point, but you can guess. 

Mr. CHABOT. Okay. Thank you very much. 

And in the 48 seconds that I have left, I would just like to mention, and I know this has already been brought up, but relative to 

the IRS targeting certain groups because of their political leanings, 

Cincinnati, which I happen to represent, the First District of Ohio, 

that was the location of the IRS facility that was perhaps most directly involved. And there was some initial talk about, well, that 

is just those people out in Cincinnati; up here we don’t know what 

is going on. Correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that this 

is still under investigation—— 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. 

Mr. CHABOT [continuing]. By the FBI, but we certainly hope and 

expect the FBI to give this full consideration and that we get to the 

bottom of actually what happened here and prevent something like 

this from ever happening again. 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, sir. 
72 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. My time has 

expired. 

The gentleman from New York Mr. Jeffries is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

And thank you, Director Comey, for your testimony here today 

as well as for the tremendous service that you have provided to the 

American people. 

We have a gun violence problem in this country that really 

should shock the conscience of every single American. We have in 

this country 5 percent of the world’s population, but 50 percent of 

the world’s guns. It is estimated that in America there are more 

than 275 million guns in circulation, some of which are in the 

hands of either criminals or the mentally ill. 

We also know that since the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, 

more than 14,000 additional Americans, some of which live in the 

district that I represent, have been killed as a result of gun violence since the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, and that there 

have been more than 70 school shootings since December of 2012. 

Given the gun violence problem that we confront in America, is 

it fair to say that we need to do everything possible to thwart this 

growing issue? 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you. As you know, I have devoted nearly my 

entire Justice Department career to dealing with efforts to try and 

reduce gun-related violence, so I think it is an incredibly important 

topic. So I agree, whatever we can do to keep guns out of the hands 

of criminals or the mentally defective is worth doing. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Now, I respect the opinion that you have articulated earlier, which is that you don’t feel it is appropriate for you 

in your capacity to comment on legislative measures that this Congress can undertake to address what I think we all acknowledge 

is a significant threat to this country and to our health and our 

well-being. But what can you provide to this Committee in terms 

of recommendations as it relates to what Congress can do to help 

the FBI programmatically deal with the issue of gun violence in a 

more robust fashion? 

Mr. COMEY. As I said earlier, I will have to reflect on that with 

respect to the FBI. You are right, it is not a policy question, and 

the legislative questions are not for the FBI Director to opine on. 

One thing I can think of is we as a country have to get better 

at getting the records into our background check that would allow 

gun dealers to prohibit sales to people who have significant mental 

health issues, which is a challenge across the country. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Now, is it fair to say that currently we are not 

doing everything possible in this country to prevent those more 

than 275 million guns to find themselves in the hands of individuals who would commit acts of violence or in the hands of mentally 

ill individuals who might do our children or the people of America 

harm? 

Mr. COMEY. I think that is fair. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Okay. Now, you are familiar, I assume, with our 

Economic Espionage Act of 1996? 

And it is my understanding that this statute provides a criminal 

cause of action for knowing theft of trade secrets either for the eco-
73 

nomic benefit of someone other than the owner or by a foreign entity; is that right? 

Mr. COMEY. That is my understanding. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. And the Economic Espionage Act was the vehicle 

used to recently charge agents of the Chinese Government; is that 

right? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. In actually a bunch of different contexts, but in 

the particular case I am talking about, the cyber case, that was 

part of it. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Okay. Now, the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division 

is the entity that has got jurisdiction to prosecute trade secret theft 

cases; is that correct? 

Mr. COMEY. I think we do trade secret work both in our Counterintelligence Division and in our Criminal Division. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Okay. And it is my understanding that the number of trade secret theft cases has increased, I think, by greater 

than 60 percent between 2009 and 2013. And so I commend the 

FBI in terms of its increased activity. 

But there was also apparently a recent report of the Office of the 

National Counterintelligence Executive that estimated that annual 

losses to the U.S. economy from trade secret theft approximate either tens or hundreds of billions per year. Is that a statistic you 

are familiar with? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know the number, but that number is—a 

huge number is appropriate. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Now, given the massive nature of the economic security problem posed by trade secret theft, obviously it is important 

for us to make sure that your agency has all of the resources necessary to combat this issue. But it is also my understanding that 

there is no companion civil statute that provides U.S. companies 

with the opportunity on a civil track to deal with trade secret theft. 

Do you think that it would be reasonable for us in Congress to 

consider as an additional weapon in the toolbox to combat trade secret theft empowering United States companies to have a civil 

cause of action to help police this issue? 

Mr. CHABOT. The gentleman’s time has expired, but you can respond to the question. 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know enough to respond to the particular, but 

in general the fuller the toolbox in dealing with a threat of that 

size, the better. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Thank you. 

Mr. CHABOT. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentleman from Rhode Island Mr. Cicilline is recognized to 

5 minutes, and I believe this will be our final questioner this morning. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Director Comey, for being here and for your testimony. 

I really want to build on my friend from New York’s questions 

about gun violence, because I do think this is one of the most serious issues facing our country, and, regrettably, we seem to be 

working in a Congress that is committed to doing nothing about it 

and despite, I think, the efforts of a lot of us to enact sensible gun 

safety legislation. 
74 

But one of the things I know you know a lot about, Director, because of your leadership of Richmond’s Project Exile, is the success 

of programs. I mean, that really became a national model of investing in these efforts to reduce gun violence. And that, of course, developed Project Safe Neighborhoods, which was established under 

the Bush administration really to build upon your work and has 

been really proven to be a very effective program. Unfortunately, 

we didn’t provide funding for it in the bill we just passed. I offered 

an amendment to restore level funding of about $8.5 million, which 

just barely failed. 

But I would like your thoughts about whether or not our budget 

should include investments for programs like Project Safe Neighborhoods. Do you see that as an effective tool in helping to reduce 

gang and gun violence? 

Mr. COMEY. I am not in a position to comment on a particular 

budget matter, but, in general, it is hugely important. I find in my 

experience that criminals can change behavior with respect to 

guns. 

The problem we encountered in Richmond was the criminal gave 

no more thought to the gun than what pants or shoes he was going 

to wear that evening, and our goal was to make that an object of 

focus and stretch the link between a criminal and a gun, because 

most homicides are happenstance homicides. It is not a planned assassination, it is a disrespect or a disagreement that would be a fist 

fight becomes a shooting because the gun is in the waistband. So 

I think it is very important to send those messages to change behavior. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Director, you have a responsibility, obviously, as 

the Director of the FBI; you have jurisdiction over a wide range of 

efforts to combat gun violence. In particular, the FBI oversees the 

National Instant Criminal Background Check System. And while 

you have said you don’t think it is appropriate to opine about policy, of course, you have a responsibility to enact policy or support 

policy which enhances public safety and the national security of the 

United States. 

And I assume you would agree that a background check system 

for every purchase of a firearm that captured or prevented criminals from buying guns would enhance public safety and enhance 

national security of the United States. 

Mr. COMEY. I know from my whole life experience any time you 

are able to keep a gun out of the hands of a criminal, you have 

done a good thing. 

Mr. CICILLINE. And so it would make sense if, in fact, we required criminal background checks for every purchase of a firearm 

to achieve that objective. 

Mr. COMEY. That is where you cross me into. What I love about 

my job is I am not a policymaker. The Attorney General decides 

the policies of the Department of Justice. So I don’t want to express 

an opinion. 

Mr. CICILLINE. No, I am asking you as a chief law enforcement 

official. That would enhance public safety, to ensure that criminals 

don’t have the ability to buy a gun. 

Mr. COMEY. Right. If criminals don’t get guns, however you have 

done it, you have enhanced public safety. 
75 

Mr. CICILLINE. And similarly, you would also, I expect, concede 

that preventing those who are seriously mentally ill, such that having a firearm would pose a danger to themselves or others ought 

to be prevented from buying a firearm. 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. That would be a good thing. 

Mr. CICILLINE. And the best way to do that is to be sure that we 

have a robust system where accurate information is reported into 

the system to prevent seriously mentally ill individuals from purchasing a firearm. 

Mr. COMEY. I think that is right. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Recognizing, of course, the vast majority of people 

who suffer from mental illness are not violent and never have a 

firearm. 

But talking about that category of individuals I just described, 

what is the FBI doing in conjunction with State efforts to ensure 

that States are, in fact, sharing that information, that it is accurately put into the national database, and that we are actually preventing people with serious mental illness from purchasing firearms? 

Mr. COMEY. I think the answer is communicating constantly and 

talking constantly to our State partners to tell them what records 

we can accept, what form they should be in, what would be useful 

to us. 

But the job really lies with the States in getting their acts together to figure out what records they can supply and then supplying them. But I know there is a vibrant dialogue between my 

folks at CJIS, which runs the background check system, and the 

States to try and facilitate the flow of those records. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Well, I look forward to continuing to work with 

you on this issue. I think this is a very critical issue for our country 

when you see some of the most recent examples of terrible gun violence that has been caused by someone with a very serious mental 

illness who should not have access to a firearm. And we have got 

to work together in a bipartisan way to make sure that that happens. And I thank you again for your testimony. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. CHABOT. The gentleman yields back. 

And we have no more questioners, so that concludes today’s hearing. We thank the Director for joining us. 

And, without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days 

to submit additional written questions for the witnesses or additional materials for the record. 

And if there is no further business to come before the Committee, 

we are adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:49 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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