63

reaching out and their delivery in return for some commitment, I guess,
on Magnitsky relief. But, again, I don't knowthis. I don't have any
evidence of it. I'm just -- I'm surmising.

MR. SCHIFF: And if you were, again, to go about trying to
determine what the IC might have in its holdings on this subject, you
would want to get whatever -- you would want to search the IC database
for the oligarch, the oligarch's son, the Russian lawyer, the Russian
interpreter, if we can find the identity of the interpreter, andthe --

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

MR. SCHIFF: Well, we need to do the same. And I suppose with
the Russian lobbyist, who's a dual citizen. Then you would use the
other procedures that you mentioned before in order to gather insight
into whether --

MR. CLAPPER: Well, dual citizen is a little different category,
since, you know, he can be subpoenaed and all that, I would think.

MR. SCHIFF: Are there any other steps that we should take in
terms of what the IC may be in possession of that would help us determine
whether there were subsequent steps the Russians took to follow up on
the initial meeting?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I can't -- off the top of my head, I can't
think of any, Congressman Schiff. I think that if a specific -- as
specific as can be -- as it can be made, which is hard here. But
certainly, we do know some of the individuals involved in the meeting,
and if there are any electronic reflections of communications, either

by phone or email for many of them.


29

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

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I don't -- I mean, leaks are bad, and I have
spoken of this many times, publicly and in my testimony before the
Senate Judiciary Subcommittee chaired by Senator Graham, made the point
that leaks can be very damaging. They jeopardize sources, methods,
and tradecraft, and can in some instances put assets’ lives at risk.
So leaks are bad.

I don't know who was responsible for these leaks. For the record,
I didn't leak anything. And that was certainly one of the banes of
my existence during my time as DNI.

MR. ROONEY: With regard to leaks -- if this sounds repetitive,
just say so -- you stated just now that you don't believe -- that you
aren't responsible for the leaks. You think that they are bad. And
you said that you don't know who was responsible for those leaks. Is
that correct?

MR. CLAPPER: That is correct.

MR. ROONEY: I want to talk about -- because I want to go back
to leaks in a second, but before that I want to talk about this
dossier -- dossier, dossier -- that Christopher Steele put together
that you're familiar with that had the connection with the FBI's
investigation of coordination between the Russians and the associates
of President Trump. When did you first become aware of the dossier
and its contents?

MR. CLAPPER: I first became aware of it when John Brennan called


Appearances:

For the PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE:

ALSO PRESENT:

WALTER ZAMPELLA, LEGISLATIVE LIAISON

For JAMES CLAPPER:

KENNETH L. WAINSTEIN

MAIA MILLER

Cadwalander, Wickersham & Taft LLP
70@ Sixth Street, N.wW.

Washington, D.C. 20001


72

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

MR. CLAPPER: So, yes, it is an assault on us. It's an attempt
to undermine one of the basic pillars of this country. And everyone,
regardless of party affiliation, party stripes, ought to be concerned
about that.

MS. SEWELL: And what do you think is an appropriate response?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I consider the sanctions that we ultimately
did take on the 29th -- announced on the 29th of January, as merely
afirst step. And I think the expectation was that there would be more
things done to penalize the Russians after that. But that was a good

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

MS. SEWELL: Do you feel like this current administration is
doing what it should do in an appropriate response to this interference?

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

[11:38 a.m.]


83

at least in modern times, of a DIA director that had those credentials.
So I think he felt that he -- he could do business with the Russians.
And that's based on discussions I had with him when he was still
director.

MR. SWALWELL: What did you make, just as a layperson, of General
Flynn sitting next to Vladimir Putin at an RT dinner?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I was certainly taken aback by it. I
wondered what was he doing there. My understanding from DIA was he
didn't exactly represent -- because they briefed him up, which is a
courtesy that is offered to former directors of agencies -- briefed
him up, at his request, before he went.

I don't know that he explained to them what the purpose of this
trip was and whether it was paid for, all that. My impression is they
didn't tell him that -- he didn't tell the DIA that.

MR. SWALWELL: And I guess not with -- as a layperson, somebody
with intelligence experience, an expert opinion in the field, what do
you make of him receiving payment from RT to give a speech there? Is
that part of the Russian way or the soft approach?

MR. CLAPPER: It's pretty well-known what -- I believe, at least
in intelligence annals, what RT is really all about. It's
predominantly funded by the Russian Government as it's considered a
propaganda arm. And the CEO of RT is a friend, a confidante of Putin's.

MR. SWALWELL: Finally, Director, over your 5@-plus years of
service to our country and in the community, when you look at the number

of contacts that Donald Trump, his family, his campaign, and his


individual people were read in on certain accesses.

DR. WENSTRUP: Well, I would certainly like to know that, because
one of the things we're trying to do here is come forth with best
practices. This committee has a significant role. And if we're
sending people from your department over here and they're not up to
speed, that's an injustice to us and the American people, in my opinion.

So why was the national intelligence officer for Russia not privy
to this compartmented reporting?

MR. CLAPPER: In fairness, my experience has been, certainly was
over the 6-and-a-half years I was DNI, that as we gained more
information, as we gained accesses, as we saw what was evolving, we
would brief up more people who needed to know this information. So
it certainly wasn't an intent to deceive or not to be complete.

DR. WENSTRUP: So do we need to somehow implement within the
agency a criteria that if someone is coming to testify before the
Intelligence Committee here in the House of Representatives that they
be brought up to speed --

MR. CLAPPER: Well, what we could do --

DR. WENSTRUP: -- or does that happen automatically?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, it happens. As time unfolds and you acquire
more information, that's the nature of the intelligence business.

You're always dealing with incomplete facts.


78

voting apparatus.

MS. SEWELL: And does that mean imposing minimum standards of,
you know, security, cybersecurity standards?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I mean, that would have to be legislated, I
think.

MS. SEWELL: Right, right.

MR. CLAPPER: That's not something that can be done just via the
executive branch.

MS. SEWELL: No, I hear you.

MR. CLAPPER: But that's point one. Secondly is educating the
public, which is one of the objectives we had by publishing the
unclassified version of the Intelligence Community assessment.

Frustrating to some because, well, it didn't have all the

substantiating infornation. [Ts

So those are two big things I think we must do. I also think it
might be -- as I alluded earlier, it might be useful -- in fact, I think
there may be news accounts I've read about your authorization act, which
injects or requires some mandatory reporting --

MS. SEWELL: Yes.

MR. CLAPPER: -- on the part of the Intelligence Community, which
should be made public on a timely basis if there is any evidence that
the IC detects of such interference.

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


36

MR. ROONEY: Did you brief President Obama on any other
intelligence involving the Trump campaign or transition team?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, we had -- by brief, I would include PDB
articles that were reported. And, of course, ODNI has a responsibility
for the PDB. So there was a series of reports through the summer and
into the fall about, in general, Russian activity, that sort of thing.

The only time I actually had a briefing on the subject, if you
want to call it that, was when the Intelligence Community assessment
came out, we sent it to the White House first, my recollection is the
morning of the 5th of January. And then that afternoon I had a hearing
with the Senate Armed Services Committee. I remember that very
distinctly. And then the next day -- because we felt obliged, since
President Obama had tasked us, to brief him first.

And then the next day, we briefed the Gang of Eight here in the
early morning, and then flew up to New York and briefed the
President-elect and his team on the 6th of January.

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

learned of the Flynn-Kislyak phone call?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I surmise that -- (i

T So I'm assuming it was done under that basis.

MR. ROONEY: So you weren't with her when she learned of it? Do
you know that?

MR. CLAPPER: Was I physically with her?


43

and the third was a preference for Donald Trump.

I've heard at least one of my colleagues, not here today but in
the past, publicly cast doubt on that third conclusion that the Russians
affirmatively wanted to help Donald Trump. And I think the basis of
it is that briefing that we received from briefers who may not have
been read in to the most sensitive intelligence, and some of the
intelligence may not have been manifest until after that briefing.

And I think my colleague has, you know, a good point. It wouldn't
have been the first time where we had a briefing from people who were
not read into things and where we got a misleading impression. And
I don't think there was my motive or intent behind it, but that is an
issue.

But I want to get to the core piece, which is, you know, what will
ultimately go into our report, and that is the IC's ultimate conclusion
that one of the motives was to help -- affirmatively help Donald Trump.
Do you have any -- do you have confidence in that assessment based on --

MR. CLAPPER: I do.

ve. SCHIEE: -- (s

MR. CLAPPER: I do.

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

MR. CLAPPER: That, and as Director Comey also pointed out, you


68

is used for, what leaking is and how that's different from unmasking;
and that, you know, the case-in-chief here, central assault on 702 was
over Mike Flynn, which had nothing to do with 702. And so that's my
concern. But I --

MR. ROONEY: I agree. I'm just saying that we all have to be
working together. And whether or not unmasking -- the line of
questioning of what I was trying to say with unmasking deals with the
fact that, you know, maybe it will be an argument for the people upstairs
that unmasking is important if we somehow tighten it up a bit with how
people request an unmasking to go forward.

So I think all these things are things that we should be discussing
together as a committee to try to get reauthorization. And that's why
I asked that question of General Clapper with regard to how people are
unmasked, because I honestly want to know if it can be done better.
And so we'll talk about this at a later date, but I just -- I appreciate
what you said.

MR. SCHIFF: And, Tom, I hope you know, I'm not trying to cast
any aspersions on you.

MR. ROONEY: Well, I appreciate that.

MR. SCHIFF: You're a great member of the committee, and I think
you've taken all this very seriously.

MR. ROONEY: Well, I feel like being the subcommittee chairman
to the NSA that it's going to fall on myself and Jim to try to convince
our colleagues upstairs why it's a good thing to reauthorize, and I

think that we've got a huge hurdle to cross. So I'm probably showing


39

MR. CLAPPER: No, I did not. I think that appearance, if I
remember correctly, was on the 17th of January.

MR. ROONEY: Right.

MR. CLAPPER: And I was very alarmed by it after being aware
of -- and all I saw, by the way, was a gist of the conversation. J
aut twas very concerned about it.
I felt that that needed to be raised with the White House.

And I did breach that with -- I discussed it with both John Brennan
and ultimately Director Comey about -- I think I did that -- I had that
discussion the evening of the 19th of January. But I did not raise
it directly with the Vice President-elect.

MR. ROONEY: Okay. Finally, I want to talk about unmasking,
because obviously, you know, we've -- I'mthe new subcommittee chairman
on the NSA, along with Mr. Himes, and, you know, we've got a tough lift
this fall with reauthorization.

And, you know, obviously, whether it's people on the left or
people on the right, people are suspicious of the work that you guys
do in the Intelligence Community, and that, you know, people are reading
our emails and listening to our phone calls or, you know, in this case
unconstitutionally being outed or unmasked, you know, when gathering
evidence.

So to help us potentially with regard to the reauthorization,
we've got a lot of information with regard to people maybe at your level

or Cabinet level who can request -- and I'm not saying you do this,


71

MS. SEWELL: So, Director Clapper, my question is really -- I
have three questions really. The first question is regarding how would
you characterize the nature of the Russians’ interference in our
election?

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

MR. CLAPPER: A what?

MS. SEWELL: A hostile act.

MR. CLAPPER: Oh.

MS. SEWELL: Would you -- given your years of experience and
exposure to this type of -- you said earlier that you had never seen
anything like this. So can you help us characterize --

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I will tell you how it struck me. In my
5@-plus years in the intel business, I've seen a lot of bad
crap -- that's a technical term -- and none that disturbed me more than
his, Sy
a
| I remember being --

MS. SEWELL: There's no doubt in your mind --
MR. CLAPPER: -- actually being nauseous. It just viscerally
affected me like nothing I've ever experienced since I got in the intel

business in 1963.


49

a

MR. CLAPPER: I believe so.

MR. SCHIFF: And in that respect, there were reports of actual
collusion that could be corroborated or not corroborated, but there
were reports of collusion?

MR. CLAPPER: I believe that's right.

MR. SCHIFF: And reports -- you said that some of the dossier ill

ls in the sense that some of the language used by

Mr. Steele's sources about the Russian derogatory view of Secretary

MR. CLAPPER: Right.

MR. SCHIFF: -- about the Russian derogatory view towards
Secretary Clinton?

MR. CLAPPER: Correct.

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

MR. CLAPPER: Yes. He was certainly known to the FBI. He'd
been, what I believe they considered, a credible source for at least
|

MR. SCHIFF: And from what you know, the FBI thought highly of
Mr. Steele?

MR. CLAPPER: I can't say that. I can just say that I do know
they considered him a credible source.

MR. SCHIFF: And the report -- the dossier reports of an agreement
or a sought-after agreement between the Trump campaign people and the

Russians to trade dirt on Hillary for sanctions relief, is that, in


open press?
MR. CLAPPER. Yes, that's a judgment that I've made and others have

as well, experienced intelligence officers.

Q

MR. CLAPPER. [iy

MR. CLAPPER.

wR. CLAPPER. SS [Ty

|


1

N

7th, before the election -

What specific intelligence informed these assessments at that
time?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I would have to have access to the
contemporary reporting that I had available at the time, and I don't
have that off the top of my head. What we were seeing at this point,
and I think what probably influenced that response, was the
reconnoitering, if I can use that term. At that point, I think it was
around ‘some | States where we'd seen Russian activity, which was
attributed to the Russians reconnoitering, not necessarily extracting
or attempting to manipulate data, in various voter -- predominantly
voter registration databases. The number of States went up. I don't
know exactly what the count was when that letter was put together, but
that's primarily what I think influenced that letter.

And, as it turned out, one of the judgments in the Intelligence
Community assessment was that we didn't see any evidence of actual
manipulation of voter tallies. That's not to say -- nor did we attempt

to make a pronouncement about what impact any of the Russian


will be given 60 minutes to ask questions, immediately followed by the
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minutes to ask followup questions, and the minority will be given 20
minutes to ask followup questions, with a hard stop, per your schedule,
at 12:30 today. These time limits will be strictly adhered to by all
sides, with no extensions being granted. Time will be kept for each
portion of the interview, with warnings given at the 5-minute and
1-minute mark, respectively.

To ensure confidentiality, we ask that you do not discuss the
interview with anyone other than your attorney. Our record today will
reflect that you have not been compelled to appear. You are reminded
that it is unlawful to deliberately provide false information to
Members of Congress or staff.

Lastly, the record will reflect that you are voluntarily
participating in this interview, which will be under oath.

Director Clapper, do you understand all these instructions?

MR. CLAPPER: Most of it, but I just have to tell everybody I'm
a little hard of hearing, so I need you to speak up. I couldn't hear
most of what you said, but that's okay.

| Okay, sir, will do.

MS. SEWELL: So long as your lawyer did.

MR. CLAPPER: The lawyer heard it.

HT hat's good enough, sir.

Would you please raise your right hand to be sworn, sir? Sir,


—
a

MR. CLAPPER: [i
ne. ScHreF: es
mR. CLAPPER: [I [iS

MR. SCHIFF: I want to turn to the comments that you made today,
but also in the past, with reference to what you observed on the issue
of collusion. I think you testified at some point in the Senate, or
maybe it was said in an open statement, that you weren't necessarily
in the chain of information that was being developed by Director Comey
and his investigation. Can you explain that?

MR. CLAPPER: Right. First, we didn't have any evidence of
collusion certainly that met the evidentiary threshold that would make

its way into the Intelligence Community assessment. That was point


77

to me."

Can you elaborate on what led you to --

MR. CLAPPER: No, I can't. I think the statement stands -- it
speaks for itself. I don't --

MS. SEWELL: Do you stand by that?

MR. CLAPPER: I can't make a judgment about what the legal
threshold, legal definition of -- or if there is one, collusion here.
I can't judge that. It just looks kind of funny to me, you know, walks
like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's probably collusion. But I'm just
a layman. And I'm out of the government, I'm a private citizen. I
don't have access to, thank God, the classified information anymore.

MS. SEWELL: No, but you have 30-plus years of experience in the
Ic. And what you're saying, if I can just infer, is that --

MR. CLAPPER: Well, collusion is -- again, that is a legal, much
more of a legal term, and I'm not competent to make that call.

MS. SEWELL: But at the very least, would you be concerned about
the pattern that we've been seeing out of this administration?

MR. CLAPPER: Sure, absolutely. I'm very concerned about it.

MS. SEWELL: My last question. To the extent that we really
should be forward leaning, because we know that you've said and IC has
said that the Russians will do this again, what recommendations would
you make to us, as policymakers --

MR. CLAPPER: Well, a number of things.

MS. SEWELL: -- to get at this?

MR. CLAPPER: One, we absolutely positively must secure our


86

Q Did you discuss the dossier with any other --

MR. CLAPPER. I may -- I probably said much of what I said here,
that it was not a part of our report, and the reason was because we
could not corroborate the second-, third-order assets that were used,
apparently, to put the dossier together.

Q Did you discuss --

MR. CLAPPER. Our primary purpose -- I doremember this -- was that
we felt obliged to alert then President-elect Trump that it was out
there.

Q Did you discuss the dossier with any other journalists
besides Mr. Tapper?

MR. CLAPPER. I could have. I don't remember specifically talking
about the dossier.

Q Now, you mentioned earlier that you issued a public
statement in connection with your subsequent phone call with President
Trump after the dossier leaked.

MR. CLAPPER. Right.

Q And in that statement, you said that the Intelligence
Community had not made any judgment that the information in this
document is reliable, correct?

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

Q So, in retrospect, even though, given that you hadn't
validated or made any judgment on the information, do you still believe
it was the correct decision to include this as an annex to a

compartmented report briefed to the President and President-elect?


EXECUTIVE SESSION
PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE,
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

WASHINGTON, D.C.

INTERVIEW OF: JAMES CLAPPER

Monday, July 17, 2017

Washington, D.C.

The interview in the above matter was held in Room HVC-304, the
Capitol, commencing at 9:34 a.m.
Present: Representatives Rooney, Wenstrup, Schiff, Sewell, and

Swalwell.


so we can easily consult a written compilation of your answers. The
reporter may ask you to spell certain terms or unusual phrases you might
use and may ask you to slow down or repeat your answers. We ask that
you give complete and fulsome replies to questions, based on your best
recollection.

Right now, we are cleared for the Top Secret/SCI level, and
everyone in this room is also cleared to that level.

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

You are entitled to have a lawyer present for this interview and
I see that you have brought counsel. For the record, Ken, would you
please make your appearance?

MR. WAINSTEIN: Ken Wainstein, Davis Polk. Good morning.

| Thank you.

This interview will be transcribed. Because the reporter cannot
record gestures, we ask that you answer verbally. If you forget to
do this, you might be reminded to do so.

Consistent with the committee's rules of procedure, you and your
counsel, if you wish, will have a reasonable opportunity to inspect
the transcript of this interview in order to determine whether your
answers were correctly transcribed. The transcript will remain in the
committee's custody. The committee also reserves the right to request
you return for additional questions should the need arise.

The process for the interview is as follows, sir: The majority


34

The rest of us left. As far as I know, it was only Director Comey and
the President-elect.

MR. ROONEY: Did you personally discuss the dossier or any of the
other intelligence related to Russian hacking? You already said that
you didn't leak it to the journalists, so I assume that's ano, correct?

MR. CLAPPER: I'm sorry?

MR. ROONEY: Did you discuss the dossier or any other
intelligence related to Russia hacking of the 2016 election with
journalists?

MR. CLAPPER: No.

MR. ROONEY: Did you confirm or corroborate the contents of the
dossier with CNN journalist Jake Tapper?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, by the time of that, they already knew about
it. By the time it was -- it was after -- I don't know exactly the
sequence there, but it was pretty close to when we briefed it and when
it was out all over the place. The media had it by the way. We were
kind of behind the power curve, because the media, many media outlets
that I understood had that, had the dossier for some time, as did people
on the Hill.

MR. ROONEY: Do you have any idea how they had it, how they got
it?

MR. CLAPPER: The media?

MR. ROONEY: Yes.

MR. CLAPPER: I do not.

MR. ROONEY: Like Jake Tapper and those guys. When did you first


9:

wo

MR. CLAPPER.

Q Turning to the ICA, my understanding is that the date of

last information was December 29th, and that it was published on
January -- sent to the White House on January 5th, and published and
briefed all around on January 6th.

Can you just tell us what happened between December 29th and
January 5th or 6th?

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

Q Other than the New Year's holiday.

MR. CLAPPER. -- know exactly the date, but what the main -- our
main involvement at ODNI was to provide top cover for the people, the
cell of people,

FY who were putting this together, and to see if there

were any internal problems, internal obstacles, and provide top cover

to allow them to get their work done and to get this done.
And so they worked over holidays and all that in order to
finish -- finish the ICA, because President Obama made it very clear

he wanted it done before the end of his administration. So we hustled


88

evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign during your
service as DNI. Is that correct?

MR. CLAPPER. That's right.

Q And Ms. Sewell brought up earlier in an interview you did
in March with Chuck Todd of NBC, wherein you said there was no evidence
of that included in our report, which you testified?

MR. CLAPPER. Yes, that's right. We didn't have evidence of
collusion that met -- that found its way into the report. I did make
that statement.

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

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

Q -- you said: At the time, we had no evidence of such
collusion.

MR. CLAPPER. That's right.

Q And then subsequently, I believe --

MR. CLAPPER. That met the evidentiary bar. Again, you know, I
know it's cool to take individual sentences, but you got to understand
the context of the entire exchange with Chuck Todd.

Q Well, after you said, there is no evidence of that included
in the report, he said, I understand that, but does it exist? And you
said, not to my knowledge.

MR. CLAPPER. That's right.

Q And you were asked: If it existed, it would have been in
this report? You answered, this could have unfolded or become

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


16

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

What would you say to the notion of where Russia is today with
their attempts -- and this is just to get your opinion, if we could.
I use the term for Russia in this election, it's heads I win/tails you
lose, because if Mrs. Clinton wins, then they have weakened her in many
ways and tried to take away some of her credibility. If Donald Trump
wins, he's illegitimate.

So, in my opinion, they succeeded no matter who wins, and I'd be
curious to get your opinion on their tactics.

MR. CLAPPER: Well, you can make that argument. I think they
believed -- I mean, the first point, I think they had three objectives:
One was to sow discord. Secondly, because of the significant personal
animus that Putin had for both the Clintons, both President Clinton
and Secretary Clinton, so anything you do to undermine her. And, in
fact, at one point they kind of -- reading the polls, they believed
that she was going to win, and then their focus seemed to turn to how
could they undermine a potential Clinton Presidency.

I do think, though, they thought that President, now President
Trump would be easier to deal with. He is abusinessman. He'd be more
willing to negotiate and make deals. And I don't think it was anything
more sophisticated than that that sort of guided their objectives.

DR. WENSTRUP: On December Sth, your national intelligence
officer for Russia briefed this committee, and I'm going to give you
a quote here: "In terms of favoring one candidate over another, you

know, the evidence is a little bit unclear."


5

oo

MR. SCHIFF:

MR. SCHIFF:

MR. CLAPPER:

MR. SCHIFF:


100

MR. SCHIFF: To woo him.

MR. CLAPPER: As they had me when I was director of DIA.

MR. SCHIFF: What efforts did they make to woo Michael Flynn?
And you mentioned that he thought that he might have some special
ability to cultivate that relationship. Can you describe that for us?

MR. CLAPPER: That is simply my amateur analysis, because he was
very big on engaging with the GRU. He visited there and had the GRU
chief visit him. I did the same thing when I served as director of
DIA in the early nineties, and had an engagement with the Russians,
tried to partner with them, which was completely unsuccessful.

So I have a very jaundiced view of dealing with the Russians. And
I tried to impart some fatherly advice to Mike Flynn when he was engaging
with them, because I said, you know, my own experience when I was the
director of DIA.

MR. SCHIFF: Now, the GRU is one of the two main agencies that
was involved in the hacking of emails. Do you know whether Mr. Flynn,
after he left the DIA, maintained any relationship with GRU?

MR. CLAPPER: TI do not.

MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether, when he went to Moscow on the
RT-supported trip, whether he also had GRU meetings?

MR. CLAPPER: Idon't knowthat. It would have not been unusual,
I think, for him, as a former director of DIA, to have met with the
GRU. I doubt if they did. Well, I don't know. But, again, I don't
know that he did.

MR. SCHIFF: Can you tell us a little bit about the circumstances


79

MR. CLAPPER: Rather than getting involved and agonizing over the
politics of whether and when to go public on such interference.

MS. SEWELL: You think it should just be mandatory?

MR. CLAPPER: Yes. Then there's no doubt, and we won't have the
pulling and hauling between the parties over whether it's appropriate
to report or not, or the accusations that were made by some on the Hill
that the Intelligence Community was being used as a tool.

MS. SEWELL: Do you think that there's sufficient checks and
balances currently between the Department of Homeland Security, the
FBI, ODNI, there's enough that we could really get to the heart of
potential cyber attacks that would happen, or do you think that we need
to put in more belts and suspenders types of provisions that --

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I'm not sure how you legislate you need to
gain insight faster. You know, I think we did a reasonably good job
under a very, very turbulent, controversial, politically fraught
campaign. And I don't know that I could recommend to you, other than
ensuring that if there is evidence detected of interference that that
be promptly reported publicly.

MS. SEWELL: Thank you.

MR. SWALWELL: Thank you, Director Clapper.

When you briefed President-elect Trump about Russia's
interference campaign, how would you describe his response or
understanding of it?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, first of all, he was very solicitous,

courteous, solicitous, even complimentary during the hour,


40

but I'm saying that we've seen a wide variance on what the reason why
somebody would be unmasked.

And excuse the sort of, you know, snarkiness of this, some people
say, I want this person unmasked because I want them unmasked, and it's
approved. And this might be more appropriate for Admiral Rogers,
but -- and some people give a detailed explanation of why this person
should be unmasked.

Moving forward, do you think that 702 should be reauthorized with
amendments that give more detail or stay the same with regard to how
a U.S. person is unmasked or a request for unmasking?

To be more clear, should the Congress reauthorize 702 with a more
stringent explanation of why a U.S. person should be unmasked, even
somebody as high as a Cabinet level position? Or should there be more
uniformity, do you think, in the request and how it's requested?

MR. CLAPPER: Yeah. Currently, the -- for me, there's -- and I
made unmasking requests not every day, but fairly often when I
was -- during the 6 and a half years I was DNI and before all this came
up. And really, whatever rationale people write, it really boils down
to one thing, which is to understand the context of the particular
SIGINT report you're reading.

So when there are references to U.S. person 1, U.S. person 2, and
U.S. person 3, et cetera, it's a little hard to figure out the
significance of that report. And, of course, U.S. person 1 will be
a different U.S. person 1 the next report. So it's hard to read these

things anecdotally or just scan through them and draw, you know, the


52

publicly, he was uneasy with that.

MR. SCHIFF: Did he tell you why he was uneasy with it?

MR. CLAPPER: Because he thought it impacted the optic, if not
the substance, impacted his autonomy, the independence of his Bureau
and of him as its director.

MR. SCHIFF: And I know this was after you had left, but did he
ever follow up with you to tell you how that meeting went?

MR. CLAPPER: No, he did not.

MR. SCHIFF: Did anyone else ever report to you that they thought
the President had asked them to do something they considered
inappropriate?

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

MR. SCHIFF: Besides what you've already said about Director
Comey, did anyone ever reach out to you from the IC to tell you that
they thought that something they were being asked to do, either by the
President or by their superiors in the IC, was inappropriate?

MR. CLAPPER: Idon't think so. It doesn't come readily to mind,
no.

MR. SCHIFF: You were asked about the Flynn conversation. And
that conversation was with the Russian ambassador?

MR. CLAPPER: Right. The one in question, on the 29th of
December, was with the ambassador, yeah.

MR. SCHIFF: At the time that the sanctions were imposed, the

Russians didn't react. They didn't respond. Was that contrary to


57

hackers, likely Russian hackers, pertaining to the Hillary Clinton
emails.

The allegation is also that he was in touch with Michael Flynn
and others associated with the campaign, and he was putting word out
essentially to these foreign hackers that he would be interested in
these stolen emails, this dirt on Hillary, and what's more, he could
be a conduit back to the campaign.

For the Russian hackers getting this message, Russian hackers
that may be working either in concert with the Russian Government or
on an ad hoc basis with the Russian Government, how would the Russian
Government likely receive that inquiry? Would they see that as an
opportunity? What kind of response would you think they would take?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, purely speculation, but just knowing
Russians are opportunistic to a fare thee well, and also, by the way,
their services are very competitive. We saw that in the run-up to the
election. So any way the Russians and any one of their services saw
an opportunity to exploit, to gain insight, to gain information that
they could use for leverage later, they would.

MR. SCHIFF: Now, the assessment indicates that the

MR. CLAPPER: Yes, and with deniability, because


53

your expectation?

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

MR. CLAPPER: Well, we -- I think our antenna was up certainly
as, you know, what's the explanation for that, and we soon learned it.

MR. SCHIFF: And by you soon learned it, what are you referring
to?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, the conversation that General Flynn had the
same day essentially neutering -- my characterization -- the sanctions

that had just been imposed.

a
ee TT)
es

Po
eS


82

MR. CLAPPER: I don't recall him reciting the names.

MR. SWALWELL: He told you there were

MR. CLAPPER: Yes.

MR. SWALWELL: Are you familiar with General Flynn in 2015 going
to Moscow for an RT celebration?

MR. CLAPPER: I heard about it from DIA.

MR. SWALWELL: And with your knowledge in the Intelligence
Community and at ODNI, what type of understanding would a former DIA
director have as to who RT was and what their connection to Russia's
intelligence service was?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, Mike was a career intelligence officer in the
Army, and, you know, I salute his service inthe Army. But he certainly
knew, you know, what the -- or he should have known the Russians. I
do think the Russians, even during the time he served as director of
DIA, were wooing him.

MR. SWALWELL: What makes you say that?

MR. CLAPPER: I was wooed by the Russians when I was director of
DIA in the early nineties, you know. And they had me come into their
headquarters just like he bragged he was the first one ever. Well,
no, I did in 1992, and I'm sure there were others before me. And the
Russians do that.

And I think he felt he had a special cachet with the Russians,
because he had -- particularly with the GRU, because he had both Special

Operations and intelligence background. And he was unique that way,


9

N

|

MR. CLAPPER.

Q You also stated that you didn't personally brief the
President on this information. Is that correct?

MR. CLAPPER. I did not.

Q Do you know whether he was briefed on that conversation?

MR. CLAPPER. I don't know for sure. I can't testify to that.

Q You also said earlier that you expected -- after the
measures of our government were announced on the 29th, you expected
the Russian Government to reciprocate by expelling the same number of
U.S. personnel from Russia. Is that right?

MR. CLAPPER. That's right.

Q

|


47

one. There was nothing in the assessment, Po
| alluding to any collusion.

My practice as DNI was to defer both to Director Mueller and then
Director Comey on whether one -- when and what to tell me about
sensitive criminal investigations, if they devolved to that,
particularly involving U.S. persons.

MR. SCHIFF: Now, Director Comey testified in open session in
March that he began a counterintelligence investigation of Trump
campaign associates in July of last year.

MR. CLAPPER: Right.

MR. SCHIFF: Were you aware in July of last year that he had opened
that investigation?

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

MR. SCHIFF: And what financial activities are you referring to?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I don't know what they were. It was
questionable business deals, involving people who were allegedly Trump
associates, with the Russians.

MR. SCHIFF: But the details of those business transactions or
what Mr. Comey was investigating was not something that would have been
brought to your attention?

MR. CLAPPER: It was not shared with me, no.

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


| Good morning, all. If we're ready, I'll read a
statement on behalf of the committee and then we'll begin.

This is a transcribed interview of Director James Clapper. Thank
you for speaking to us today. For the record, I am i,
HR © the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Also for the record, as you can see, I'll have everyone do an
introduction going down the row, beginning with my colleague.

| Scr, 2 jority.

MR. ROONEY: Tom Rooney from Florida.

DR. WENSTRUP: Brad Wenstrup from Ohio.

MS. SEWELL: Terri Sewell, Alabama.

MR. SWALWELL: Eric Swalwell, California.

EE | ory.

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

things for the record. The questioning will be conducted by members
and staff. During the course of this interview, members and staff may
ask questions during their allotted time period. Some questions may
seem basic, but that is because we need to clearly establish facts and
understand the situation. Please do not assume we know any facts you
have previously disclosed as part of any other investigation or review.

During the course of this interview, we will take any breaks that

you desire. There is a reporter making a record of these proceedings


70

fact.

MR. SCHIFF: But you don't know who in particular holds the
clearance for Mr. Kushner?

MR. CLAPPER: I do not, because he's not a government employee
prior to his appointment as an advisor. So I don't know who would hold
it.

MR. SCHIFF: In your experience, and taking someone who is not
the President's son-in-law, just an ordinary public servant, if they
failed to disclose multiple meetings with Russians, if the allegations
were correct that he had a discussion about setting up a secret back
channel with the Russians through Russian diplomatic facilities, and
participated in a meeting to get -- to invite Russian Government
involvement in the U.S. election, would that person ever continue to
hold a clearance?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, it would certainly cause great concern on the
part of -- if it were just a, you know, civil service employee, for
example, who were to do that, and at a minimum, at least suspend the
clearance and investigate the facts and circumstances of those
contacts.

Perhaps they were innocent; perhaps it was just an understandable
failure of memory. You know, those things would have to be
adjudicated. But until those were cleared up, and since there appears
to be a pattern of it, I think that would be of concern to a
clearance-granting entity.

MR. SCHIFF: With that, I yield to Ms. Sewell.


56

MR. SCHIFF: And the second conflation is there's no evidence
that I've seen in this connection that any unmasking request was
inappropriate; indeed, it would've been negligent not to find out why
the Russians didn't respond the way they did.

MR. CLAPPER: That's my view.

MR. SCHIFF: But the unmasking is being conflated with the
leaking, which is improper. But to use the unmasking as another reason
not to reauthorize 702, a statute that wasn't implicated, is yet another
reason, in my view, that 702 is being assailed on a basis that really
doesn't apply here.

MR. CLAPPER: That's right, Congressman Schiff. And
unfortunately, this stuff is pretty arcane and technical. AndIdon't
think the public gets into this, into the details and the technical
aspects to understand the differences between a Title I FISA and the
resultant unmasking and a section 702 FISA Amendment Act unmasking.
And those are pretty arcane.

MR. SCHIFF: Let me turn to a couple other incidents that have
happened since you left that I'd like to get your insights on. The
first involves a man named Porter Smith, who recently passed away.
He's the subject of a couple open source reports. And the reporting

is that he was attempting to gather opposition research from foreign


105

MR. CLAPPER. Well, I can't -- I don’t know, you know,
specifically, because I don't have any insight into that sort of thing
now. I probably wouldn't have even if I had access to classified
information.

But certainly, the approach they took here is very
stereotypically Soviet/Russian practice. A soft approach, plausible
deniability, determine if there is interest, which there was, and
that's probably all they wanted to determine for that encounter.

Q And the ICA dealt with an entire influence campaign, not
one activity, but an entire campaign.

MR, CLAPPER. Right.

Q When you look at the campaign and you look at the Russians
establishing a network, that would include, from your experience, both
people who may knowingly be cooperating, may unknowingly be
cooperating, may think they're building world peace, et cetera, but
meanwhile that can all, from Putin's perspective, all work to
accomplish his objectives?

MR. CLAPPER. Yes. And I think John Brennan has spoken to that,
that people can be recruited and coopted, perhaps unwittingly, until
it's too late. And that is, again, the soft approach that Russians

have long used.

Ht shave no other questions. Thank you.

| That's it, sir. Thank you.

MR. SCHIFF: Director, thank you very much for your service and

for coming in again.


30

me and called my attention to it. And it would have been -- it was
after we started the preparation of the assessment. So it would have
been sometime maybe the second week of December. I can't put an exact
date, but that -- I do remember distinctly getting a phone call from
John to tell me about the dossier.

MR. ROONEY: Was the material in the dossier shared with the DNI
for review and comment?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, the only -- I don't know what you mean by
review and comment. The only issue that came up here was how to handle
it, whether to incorporate it into the formal narrative of the
Intelligence Community assessment or not. And we decided to enclose
a one-and-a-half-page summary of it, but not as a formal part of the
Intelligence Community assessment, in the highly classified version
of it.

MR. ROONEY: Before that, did the Intelligence Community, as far
as you're aware, try to validate any of the dossier's sources or
subsources or contents? I know you say that you added it.

MR. CLAPPER: Yeah. And the reason we handled it that way was

precisely because we could not corroborate hii

MR. ROONEY: Do you personally believe what's in there as --


26

practices, which was intended, I believe it was -- the plan was to
distribute it to every Member in the Congress, both in the Senate and
the House, as well as to State election commissions and other State
election officials, to promote/recommend cyber enhancements,
cybersecurity enhancements.

Frankly, maybe I was naive, but I was kind of taken aback by the
pushback that Jeh got from many, many State officials who did not want
the Feds messing with State and local election apparatus. And there
was a lot of controversy when the recommendation -- when Jeh posited
the recommendation to include the election apparatus, if I can call
it that, as a part of our critical infrastructure, a lot of pushback
from the States on that.

MR. ROONEY: Right. He addressed that as well. And I think it
basically came to the point that the Feds are there if they need them,
but not necessarily, you know, a mandate, but I hear what you're saying.

On point number two, with regard to the parameters, which the
ranking member mentioned in his opening, deals with collusion and the
Russian activities, including links between Russia and individuals
associated with political campaigns. You had testified in the past
that you saw no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and
the Russian Government. Is that still the case or has that changed?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, no, it's not. I never saw any direct
empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was
plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election.

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


38

When Vice President I think elect at that point Pence defended
General Flynn on television, publicly claiming that Flynn told him the
calls weren't related to sanctions, did you have any communication with
Vice President-elect Pence regarding the nature of those calls after
he made those statements?

[10:33 a.m.]


62

suspect, what would you expect to follow? What would the Russians‘
next step likely be?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, they will, I would guess -- again,
stereotypical pattern here would be they would look for some other way,
some other means, and I don't know what that is, to followupon -- given
the interest. Now, again, this -- I'mpurely -- I'm speculating here.
I honestly don't know.

But it would be strange to me if making this soft approach -- and,
of course, they did, you know, a very intricate daisy chain of
personages involved init, that they found that there was great interest
in this, that they wouldn't have followed up and taken advantage
somehow.

Now, I don't know -- again, I'm speculating, and I'm only
extrapolating based on what I know of how the Russians typically do
these things.

MR. SCHIFF: Now, in Donald, Jr.'s email, he suggested the best
time would be late summer. This meeting was in June. At the end of
July, the Russians began dumping the stolen Hillary Clinton emails.
Could the dumping of the emails have been the Russian response, or would
you expect there to have been an effort to further curry favor with
the campaign by a more direct we're doing this for you, we're giving
this to you?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I'm -- again, I'm extrapolating here, but I
would think they would want to achieve as much leverage as possible

and make sure that there was a relationship between the attempt at


80

hour-and-a-half we were there. He really couldn't push back very much
against the -- on the cyber and forensic evidence, because it was, as
laid out by Admiral Rogers, pretty, pretty compelling. So we didn't
hear anything about the 4@@-pound guy in his bed in New Jersey or any

of that stuff.

He did allow as how he didn't believe in CT

So I would say it was a professional exchange. He got off on
wouldn't it be great if we could get along with the Russians? I said,
yeah, sure, if we found some convergence of our interests. But I'm
in the trust but verify camp when it comes to Russia. I mean, maybe
I've just been around too long.

MR. SWALWELL: Would you describe his reaction to receiving the
report as matching his public statements around Russia's interference
campaign?

MR. CLAPPER: I'm sorry?

MR. SWALWELL: Would you describe his reaction to receiving the
report from you and the IC privately, does it comport with or match
his public statements?

MR. CLAPPER: No, it didn't, when he characterized us, inferred
that we were Nazis in his press conference I think on the 10th of
January, which caused me to call him. And amazingly, he took my call.
I just -- I just felt I had to defend the Intelligence Community against

a characterization like that.


32

it in my history, and I've worked for -- in the trenches of intelligence
for every President since and including John Kennedy. I've never seen
anything like it.

MR. ROONEY: Do you remember any other time in the past where you
would have included stuff that was not necessarily corroborated intel
to a President?

MR. CLAPPER: Yes, as long as it was so characterized. Sure.
I've been asked about this before. And yes, I had occasion to brief
President Obama when there was stuff out there, however uncorroborated,
but just we thought he should know about it.

MR. ROONEY: How many people were there when you briefed the
President or President-elect at this point?

MR. CLAPPER: On the ICA?

MR. ROONEY: Yes.

MR. CLAPPER: Well, it was the four of us: Admiral Rogers,
Director Comey, John Brennan, and myself. And then it was
President-elect Trump, Vice President-elect Pence, Mike Flynn, Reince
Priebus. That was who was sitting at the main conference table. And
then sitting along the sidelines was Mike Bossert, Mike Pompeo, Sean
Spicer. I think that's it.

MR. ROONEY: Okay.

MR. CLAPPER: Tom Bossert, excuse me.

MR. ROONEY: So, based on that and getting back to the leaks --

MR. CLAPPER: Now, just one additional point. That was for the

larger general briefing. And then when that was over, I think Jim Comey


98

Put it that way.

Q Thank you. Then so fast forwarding in time, on March ist,
2017, the New York Times published an article stating that the Obama
administration rushed to preserve intelligence on Russian election
hacking. And I'm quoting from the article here. It says that, "Some
White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian
efforts to undermine the Presidential election and about possible
contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and
Russians across the government."

So is this article accurate?

MR. CLAPPER. The opposite was true.

Q The opposite was true?

MR. CLAPPER. Yes. Because of the sensitivity, particularly for
the super-duper classified version of that report, the interest was
more in protecting it. So the places that had access to it were
basically the three contributing agencies and ODNI.

Q So there was no effort on behalf of the administration --

MR. CLAPPER. No, not that I'm aware of.

Q -- to send this stuff all across the government?

MR. CLAPPER. No.

Q Okay. And then my final question, there was an earlier line
of questioning regarding searching through NSA stores using U.S. person
identifiers. And it happened to make me think about the ability for
NSA to search in its stores using U.S. person identifiers, specifically

in the 702 collection, which is an issue. This U.S. person query line


13

interference activity, as we reported out on the 6th of January, had
on individual voter decisions. We could not make a judgment about
that.

DR. WENSTRUP: Well, that would be pretty difficult to be able
to make a judgment.

MR. CLAPPER: Well, not only difficult, we don't have -- the
Intelligence Community doesn't have the authority or the expertise and
capability to do that.

DR. WENSTRUP: Yes. I think you'd have to talk to every voter
in America --

MR. CLAPPER: Exactly.

DR. WENSTRUP: -- to be able to establish that, and that seems
like a far stretch.

So are you aware of any evidence that the vote outcome of the 2016
Presidential election was manipulated through cyber means?

MR. CLAPPER: No.

DR. WENSTRUP: Was President Putin successful in his effort to
undermine the credibility of the electoral process, in your opinion?

MR. CLAPPER: I believe -- I believe he absolutely was. I
believe that they were successful beyond their expectations in terms
of sowing doubt and discord about the veracity or sanctity of our
election process --

DR. WENSTRUP: Is there anything factual?

MR. CLAPPER: -- which I think was their first objective.

DR. WENSTRUP: Is there anything factual?


81

MR. SWALWELL: What was his reaction to that?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, he was -- you know, he just said, well, you
understand how I feel about this dossier. And what he wanted me to
do is put out a public statement completely rebutting the dossier, which
I couldn't and wouldn't do.

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

MR. CLAPPER: I'm sorry?

MR. SWALWELL: So he asked you to put out a statement rebutting
the dossier?

MR. CLAPPER: Yes, he did. And I put out a statement explaining
all that, by the way.

MR. SWALWELL: And to your knowledge, did he ask anyone else to
put out a statement rebutting the dossier?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I've read that he approached DNI Coats and
Director Rogers about it, about -- well, I guess that had to do with
rebutting the -- or curtailing the FBI investigation. I guess I
misspoke there. Sono, I don't -- I guess I can't -- I can't recall
a case of which you're asking.

MR. SWALWELL: Have any parts of the dossier been proven to be
false, to your knowledge?

MR. CLAPPER: No. Much of it has not been corroborated as true

either.


87

MR. CLAPPER. Yes, I do.

Q And is that because of the duty to warn or for some other
reason?

MR. CLAPPER. No, that was the basic reason. Itwas that he should
know about it. And, as I said earlier, we did have discussion about
whether should that report have been included in the report, the formal
assessment itself. And our judgment was not to do that, because of
the inability to corroborate, either rebut or confirm much of what was
in that dossier. But yeah, I do think, for records purposes, it was
important that it at least be appended to the classified version.

Q And subsequently, have you ever characterized that decision
to include the dossier as an annex to the ICA as a model or exemplar
for IC professionals to follow going forward?

MR. WAINSTEIN: It wasn't annexed. I believe it was a summary.
That is not the whole --

HB |stats right. That's right.

MR. CLAPPER. Well, I think for the highly classified
version -- well, what -- that's a great question. What's a model for
what is an abnormal, unusual, unique situation here? And so the reason
we didn't formally include it was because of tradecraft concerns that
mainly centered around veracity or the inability to verify the veracity
of the sources.

Q Now, it's been your repeated testimony today, as I

understand it, that there was no -- you're not aware of any direct


process, you look at the procedures that have been taken and how
assessments are made. You've been doing this a long time, and I
appreciate that.

So I want to start with trying to get an idea of what DNI's role
in assessing and responding to Russian hacking of U.S. political
entities was. What was the DNI's role in responding to the hacking?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, responding to the hacking is actually a
policy matter. The Intelligence Community's responsibility, I
believe, was to tee up the information that we gathered as we gathered
it and as it evolved as we gained more insight. But doing something
about it is really the realm of the policymaker.

DR. WENSTRUP: So, with that in mind, okay, so the Russian role
in hacking U.S. political entities, it was first reported in July of
2016 and publicly acknowledged by you and Secretary Johnson on October
7th of 2016. And why wasn't an Intelligence Community-wide assessment
of these activities ordered until December, when you acknowledged it
publicly before?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, we had done a lot of reporting on it, not to
the magnitude of the Intelligence Community assessment that was ordered
up by President Obama the first week in December. But I think the track
record will show there had been a lot of reporting on that. Certainly,
we had reported it in the PDB and had rendered numerous briefings as
the situation evolved over time.

DR. WENSTRUP: So why were you doing the reporting if you weren't

doing an assessment of it, just reporting it?


85

MR. SWALWELL: Who?

mR. CLAPPER: (

MR. SWALWELL: What was the nature of those contacts?

MR. CLAPPER: I don't know.

MR. SWALWELL: Any other country?

ve. CLAPPER: Dou,
again, I'm -- at least my mental database here, I don't -- I can't
dredge up for you the content of those meetings.

MR. SWALWELL: Thank you.

And I thank Mr. Rooney for extending the time.

EXAMINATION
a :

Q Director, thank you for being here. My name is ig.
I'm a member of the majority staff. I just wanted to follow up on
several items that we've discussed so far here today, and I'll try to
be as concise as I can.

Was it your testimony earlier that you did, in fact, discuss the
so-called dossier with CNN journalist Jake Tapper?

MR. CLAPPER. Well, after it was out, yeah.

Q And by out, what do you mean by that?

MR. CLAPPER. Well, once it was public. It wasn't -- you know,
it wasn't like this is an Intelligence Community document or anything.
This was out in the media.

Q And what were the nature of those conversations?

MR. CLAPPER. I don't remember specifically.


96

Q And given that the report was directed by the President on
or about December 9th, and the date of information was December 29th,
was there any concern that over that 20-day period that, given how
quickly it was put together, that something might be missed or incorrect
or rushed in any way?

MR. CLAPPER. Well, you always have that concern. It doesn't
matter how long the report -- such a document takes. And there is no
fixed timeline for length of time it takes to do an ICA.

Q But there was in this case, right?

MR. CLAPPER. I'm sorry?

Q There was a fixed timeline in this case, right?

MR. CLAPPER. No, I'm just saying there is no fixed dead -- there's
no fixed rule book on how long it takes to do an Intelligence Community
assessment.

Q So was there any concern about having a fixed timeline in
this case?

MR. CLAPPER. Well, sure. I mean, the Intelligence Community
operates under tight deadlines all the time. And, you know, you always
are concerned about that, you know, that you've compromised accuracy
or completeness, sure. But we've done estimates that take months that
you have the same concern.

HM | think we just have a couple minutes left. I'm going

to turn it over to my colleague, | | to ask our last questions.

ks,
’


64

Certainly, the lawyer's presence here would govern that. I would
personally be interested in that, you know, what was the basis for her
visa. I believe she was here at the time as an attorney representing
a company that was involved in a money laundering court proceeding.
So I would certainly be interested to -- I think it would be interesting
to sort of play that out.

MR. SCHIFF: Lastly, I want to, before I hand it off to my
colleagues, ask you about public reports that the administration may
give back these properties that were a part of the sanctions over the
Russian hacking. How would the Russians interpret that? First of
all, what can you tell us about how those facilities were being used?

Were they being used to spy on --

SS that's wnat they

used it for. And so, to me, it's, you know, why do that? What have

the Russians done to deserve that?

he. CHO: ey

MR. CLAPPER: Oh, yeah, for years

MR. SCHIFF: And if we were to give those properties back without
obtaining anything for it, what message are the Russians likely to get
from that?

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

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


60

MR. SCHIFF: -- and others, with Veselnitskaya, Rinat
Akhmetshin, a translator, a British promoter Goldstone, we don't know
even who the identity of the interpreter is. What would be necessary
to find out the identity of the interpreter who was present in that
meeting?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, if -- well, certainly the other participants
might -- one of them might know who the translator was. Perhaps the
Russian attorney would know that or the other Russian personage there,
the former military officer.

I don't know if there are any kind of records kept by the Secret
Service, because I think at the time of the meeting he was the
nominee -- President Trump was then the nominee. So I don't know, but
Secret Service would have some record of who was entering Trump Tower.

MR. SCHIFF: The meeting, as it's been laid out in the emails,
provides evidence that the Russians reached out to Donald Trump, Jr.,
claiming to have dirt on Hillary Clinton. They did so ina trail that
begins with the Russian chief prosecutor, goes to a Russian oligarch,
goes from the oligarch who did business with Donald Trump to the
oligarch's son, the pop singer, through the pop singer's agent to Donald
Trump, Jr., and also potentially directly to Rona, the President's
assistant.

Is that chain indicative of Russian tradecraft? Would the
Russians be likely to use cutouts in an approach to the campaign?

MR. CLAPPER: It certainly is. And this whole thing to me was

the typical soft approach, which is kind of typical of Soviet Russian


22

Me, CLAP: Ts ja
DR. WENSTRUP:

With that, I yield to Mr. Rooney.

MR. ROONEY: Thank you.

General, I'm going to start sort of broad and then try to narrow
in on just a few things if Ihave time. The ranking member talked about
the agreed-upon parameters of our investigation, so I'd like to sort
of start with the focus there. And I know some of these might seem
overly broad, but if you could help us, that would be appreciated.

We talked about, a little bit about cyber activity and the Russian
role in that, and their active measures directed against us during this
last campaign. You had mentioned briefly with regard to our voting
capabilities and that you don't believe -- correct me if I'm wrong,
if what I'm saying is wrong -- that you don't believe that they
penetrated our actual machines, precinct by precinct or State by State.

Is that an accurate -- as far as everything you know before you left,


$1

existence.

MR. SCHIFF: And it was the consensus view of those who were in
that pre-meeting discussion that whether it could be corroborated or
not, it was important for the President to at least know of its
existence?

MR. CLAPPER: Yes. We -~- we, Director Rogers, Comey, Brennan,
and I, caucused on that ahead of time and came to that agreement and
how we would handle it.

MR. SCHIFF: And how was it determined that Mr. Comey should be
the one to deliver --

MR. CLAPPER: Because the source was an FBI source, and we thought
that was the logical one of us to speak to it.

MR. SCHIFF: After the meeting, did you get any readout from
Director Comey about how that part of discussion went?

MR. CLAPPER: Not much. He told me later that the
President-elect was very defensive about it.

MR. SCHIFF: Director Comey testified in open session about a
number of meetings with the President, including one in which he was
asked by the President to drop the Flynn case. Did Mr. Comey
thereafter ever discuss with you that meeting with the President?

MR. CLAPPER: The only discussion I had with Director Comey about
that whole subject was on the 27th of January. I was out to the Bureau
for their farewell for me. And I had met briefly with Director Comey
before the ceremony, and he had just received apparently a phone call

from President Trump asking him to dinner. And he was, as I said


55

Russians acted very atypically, it would be necessary to know who they
were talking with to try to figure that out?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, as I say, Congressman Schiff, the explanation
evinced itself pretty early. So we didn't have to dwell for a long
time on trying to agonize over, gee, why they'd behave that way, which
is, you know, very non-typical for them. We didn't have to wait very
long for an explanation, at least the one that was satisfactory to me.

MR. SCHIFF: I mean, the reason I ask the question obviously, is,
number one --

MR. CLAPPER: I mean, and part of this, you have to allow for,
well, Russia is a bureaucracy too. It would take them some time to
identify the names of people and prepare a notification to the United
States.

And it's through the normal diplomatic processes by which you PNG
people. It wouldn't necessarily be something that would happen
overnight. But it certainly was curious that after the 29th, the 30th,

the 31st, they didn't react as we would have expected them to.

MR. CLAPPER: {i

MR. SCHIFF:

mR. CLAPPER: [


84

businesses had with Russia prior to the election, during the
transition, and during the early part of his administration, can you
put that in context with other campaigns that you've observed?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I, first of all, wasn't in a position
necessarily to observe campaigns --

MR. SWALWELL: I guess has anything like this ever landed on your
radar?

MR. CLAPPER: -- as this one, going back over that 5@-plus years.
I just -- as I said, my dashboard warning lights were on just because
of the number of these meetings that we sort of anecdotally detected,
just by virtue of collection activities on foreign targets. And it
was of concern.

MR. SWALWELL: Were there countries other than Russia?

MR. CLAPPER: I don't know of a case. Again, my database here
isn't equally comprehensive, going back over the history of our
political campaigns, but I certainly am not aware of nor have I read
of that much engagement with particularly our primary adversary, the
nation-state that poses an existential threat to this country, and has
embarked on a very aggressive modernization campaign of their strategic
weaponry, which -- and they only have one adversary in mind for.
They're in violation of the INF Treaty. So, in the context of that,
it makes you wonder.

MR. SWALWELL: Were there countries other than Russia that you
saw the Trump campaign communicating with?

MR. CLAPPER: Yes.


17

Was this accurate and a complete assessment?

MR. CLAPPER: No, it wasn't. And as we explained at the hearing
I think we had on the 16th of January, she and many others in the
community were not aware of this very, very sensitive information | |
a

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

Also, it was stated: It's unclear to us that the Kremlin had a
particular -- that they had a particular favorite or they wanted to
see a particular outcome. That is what the reporting shows.

So was this accurate and a complete assessment?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, at that time, no. (TT
lL

evidence all kind of came together there about that -- at about that
time, as I recollect.

DR. WENSTRUP: So those weren't accurate statements at that time,
including we did not have a clear -- we did not have clear evidence
to suggest that there was a desire for a particular outcome?

MR. CLAPPER: That's -- well, you know, I'd have to go back and
look again, do a chronology of when we knew -- what we knew when.
Again, the -- I think our end assessment was that their approach
evolved. Their objectives evolved. First, sowdiscord. Tremendous

animus towards Mrs. Clinton. Andas things evolved, and when it became


5!

©

MR. CLAPPER:

MR. SCHIFF:

MR. CLAPPER:

MR. SCHIFF: Okay. Well, we'll try to follow up on those lines
of inquiry. Thank you.

Similar questions with respect to the public allegations about
a meeting between Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner --

MR. CLAPPER: And others.


do you swear or affirm everything you are about to say is the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

MR. CLAPPER: I do.

Ht hank you, sir.

And also a gentle reminder for all: If you are speaking during
this, please make sure to turn on the microphone so the court reporter
can properly transcribe.

Over to you, Dr. Wenstrup.

MR. ROONEY: I'11 start, [MM before Dr. Wenstrup goes.

General, it's good to see you again. I just wanted to welcome
you and your counsel. We are, as you know, conducting a series of
interviews with people to discuss the Russian involvement in our last
election, along with myself, Mike Conaway on the majority side, and
Trey Gowdy, along with the assistance today of Brad.

What we'd like to do is try to make the Intelligence Community
better for the future, not just for this committee, but for your
successor and the successors in the other agencies that are in charge
of gathering the intelligence for this country for national security
purposes, as you know.

We have a difficult job coming up, with the reauthorization of
things like 702. So making sure that we can convince our colleagues
upstairs why things like unmasking, or how to maybe better do unmasking,
you know, should be part of maybe what our report shows. And so if
you could help us with those type of things today, I think that we would

gain the most insight and value.


76

You know, I think any responsible official in a position like DNI or
National Security Adviser, we are all concerned about it.

MS. SEWELL: I know that on March 5th you were asked whether
intelligence exists that could definitely answer the question of
whether there was collusion, and you said that there was no evidence
of collusion at the time.

MR. CLAPPER: Well, the context of that conversation with Chuck
Dodd on Meet the Press was -- that was right after the President's tweet
about surveilling Trump Tower. And so that was -- the first point was
to deny that. I did consult with both Director Comey and I think spoke
with Rick Leggett just to be sure.

And then what I did say, that we didn't have any evidence of
collusion, that was -- found its way into the Intelligence Community
assessment. And there is nothing in there, in certainly the highly
classified version or the unclassified version, about that.

MS. SEWELL: Do you still stand --

MR. CLAPPER: The inference is there, but I wasn't -- as I said,
I was not aware, to my knowledge, of any direct content knowledge of
collusion between the Trump camp and the Russians.

MS. SEWELL: And since then, you have given the context of all
the stuff that's been coming out in the public domain, you did say in
the Cipher Brief that, quote, "I'll leave it up to the special counsel
to determine whether the legal threshold of collusion was breached,

but from this layman's point of view, it certainly appears that way


eee
ee
hii The Intelligence Community at large didn't
take that on. That would be a responsibility of, if anyone, would be
the FBI.

MR. ROONEY: So I know that you've testified to this before or
mentioned it, and I know that this is sort of controversial, this whole
scene, but adding those, what did you say, a page and-a-half or two
pages when it was not corroborated the traditional way and |
FP and there's a controversy over this, was the
reason why you included it to just let the administration know that
it was out there, or did you include it for some other reason?

MR. CLAPPER: No, the only purpose was to make sure that the
President-elect was aware it was out there. And when we went up to
brief him and his team on the 6th of January, we had deliberately planned
ahead of time that we'd bring this up, but neck down just to him and
to Director Comey.

And the main purpose was just to alert him that it was out there.
We felt, you know, a duty to warn, if you will, that he should know.

MR. ROONEY: Do you feel like in your time in office that that
would be a normal thing to do like for any President?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, this whole situation --

MR. ROONEY: Right, but --

MR. CLAPPER: -- is very abnormal. I've never seen anything like


74

to believe that the entire boundary of evidence here is just bound up
in those -- in that email exchange in early June of 2016. I just find
that hard to believe that that was it. That was a one-time anecdote,
and nothing else happened. I find that hard to accept.

MS. SEWELL: Do you believe that -- how would you characterize
Donald Jr.'s -- Donald Trump, Jr.'s accepting this meeting? Was it
concerning to you that he accepted it? Do you think that it's something
that most folks, given the same circumstances, would?

MR. CLAPPER: I mean, his reaction, "I love it," I think it kind
of, to me at least, speaks volumes.

MS. SEWELL: Was it problematic?

MR. CLAPPER: Yes, it was.

MS. SEWELL: How else would you characterize sort of the
development?

MR. CLAPPER: I guess it does -- it does prove one thing, that
we were not surveilling Trump Tower, because we would have known about
that contemporaneously.

MS. SEWELL: So my other question really is about the emails that
we received from Jared -- well, what we know about the backdrop from
Kushner, the son-in-law, with respect to sort of back-channel contact
with Russian officials. You commented publicly that, quote, "My
dashboard warning light was clearly on, and I think that was the case
with all of us in the Intelligence Community. Very concerned about
the nature of these approaches to the Russian," end quote.

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


67

on my part misses the point politically that we're going to have a really
tough job with reauthorization, regardless of if it was Title I versus
702.

So I just want to make the minority clear, and I hope that you
understand that I know. And as Trey Gowdy said in the open hearing,
nobody out on the countryside gives a hill of beans what 702 versus
Title I is. It is our job to get that reauthorized. And I hope that
we can, but it's going to be very difficult with unmasking of U.S.
citizens to the press.

MR. SCHIFF: And, Tom, I'm not referring to you. I understand
what you're saying, and I'm not suggesting you don't appreciate the
difference between the two. I am saying that I think it's part of our
responsibility, you know, both here but also upstairs, to make sure
people understand that unmasking is not the same thing as leaking,
because right now they think it's the same thing.

MR. ROONEY: I agree.

MR. SCHIFF: And I still -- and maybe you have stuff that we
haven't seen, but I still haven't seen the evidence of a systemic
problem with unmasking. So while there's been a lot of talk about
unmasking, and the White House likes to talk about unmasking, my
concern is that the effort to push the unmasking issue is really
damaging prospects for 702 when we haven't seen a problem with 702.

And so I am concerned that all this gets conflated. And I think
we're in the best position in this committee to be making the case.

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


24

gathering, and obviously we saw and we've heard a lot of testimony over
the last few months about propaganda and what they've tried to do there.
But I'm talking about specific cyber activity that the Russians have
tried to accomplish and where you think that that's going with them.

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I can't envision them falling off on
something that for them was very successful with very minimal
resources. So I would expect them to be even -- to be emboldened, as
I've said publicly before, and more aggressive about influencing
elections. And I don't think they're going to care too much whether
it's Democrats or Republicans.

Their principal objective remains consistently undermining the
faith, trust, and confidence of the American public of the electorate
in our system, and I think they'll continue to do that. And I have
to believe that there was a reason, although we didn't -- we couldn't
ascribe it. We don't know. We didn't have, at least that I saw
OO eee
SCS

MR. ROONEY: Do you think it could possibly be to prepare for an
election in the future, even if they didn't --

MR. CLAPPER: I think they will want to have the option of further
disruption, if for whatever reason they make a determination at the
time that's in their interests.

MR. ROONEY: What other cyber activity did you see when you were
in office with regard to this election cycle, did you see aside from

what we were just talking about?


a1

conclusions from them.

The other point important to remember is that what occasions an
unmasking request is collection on a valid, foreign target, who
apparently is in some sort of contact with a U.S. person.

So I did my share of unmasking. I don't know what the records
were. I didn't keep records, because the practice -- the process now
is that the original collecting agency is the one to whom you make a
referral when you want to -- if you're an official wanting an unmasking.

And so, for me, since most of the unmasking requests that I made
were a collection derived from Section 702 of the FISA Amendment Act,
and so NSA would be the bean counter for that.

The only exception -- now, the question is, should there be a more
rigorous process for that, where, for example, you put the DNI in charge
of approving or not unmasking requests. Right now, the only population
that the DNI has responsibility for governing when it comes to unmasking
are Members of Congress.

And you'll recall the long -- the discussion we had in this
committee which eventuated in an Intelligence Community directive,
that I believe I signed out before I left, which memorialized the famous
Gates memorandum in 1992 governing incidental collection of Members
of Congress. But that is the only group of people that the DNI, for
example, has any governance authority over.

MR. ROONEY: But do you think -- and this is my final
question -- do you think that the justification for -- I get the whole

U.S. person number 1, if it doesn't make sense in the context of what


61

tradecraft. And I think the first entrance -- their first objective
here was determine interest on the part of Donald Trump, Jr. Would
he take the bait, which he did. And that's probably all they wanted
to accomplish for this initial meeting.

MR. SCHIFF: And part of that -- the message he would have gotten
back would have been Donald Trump, Jr., saying he would love to get
the information. But also would it also have been a message that he
reached out and brought other high-level people in the Trump campaign
into the meeting at really a critical time when the candidate is seizing
the nomination?

MR. CLAPPER: I think that simply served to amplify in the eyes
of the Russians the intense interest in gathering dirt on Hillary
Clinton, going to him. But he then brought in other senior officials
inthe campaign. SoI think from their standpoint, they kind of struck
gold there.

Again, I think their only objective was to determine a level of
interest, and it turned out -- it appeared to be pretty intense.

MR. SCHIFF: And what's the implication of their bringing up the
Magnitsky Act during that meeting where they're responding to the
campaign interest and dirt on Hillary Clinton?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, all I know is what I'm reading in the media,
Congressman. It appears to me that that was an objective, and perhaps
what was intended was at some point some sort of quid pro quo for relief
of the Magnitsky Act in return for dirt on the opposition candidate.

MR. SCHIFF: Now, if this was the initial approach, as you


27

were seeing, anecdotal evidence, (ins, (ij
Po But I do not recall any instance where

I had direct evidence of the content of these meetings. It's just the
frequency and prevalence of them was of concern.

MR. ROONEY: When you talk about anecdotal evidence of
emissaries, of people that were part -- did you say part of the campaign
or associated with it?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, associated with. I mean, lots of
folks -- the campaign had kind of a high turnover there, so --

MR. ROONEY: And when you talk about meetings, we've met with some
people in this room that were -- I guess that would fall into the
category of emissaries or have some peripheral role in the campaign
who had met with people of Russian origin.

I guess just trying to figure out with regard to this part of the
parameters, what exactly should the Intelligence Community take from
a campaign that may have emissaries or people in its universe meeting
with members of the Russian world versus not seeing direct empirical
evidence of collusion? How are we to answer that parameter for the
future, moving forward?

MR. CLAPPER: I'm not sure I understand your question.

MR. ROONEY: I'm not sure I understand how I'm asking it either.
I mean, I guess the point is or the question is, is at what time is
collusion collusion and at what time is it just people that may have

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


94

to get it -- to comply with that direction.

Q Can you elaborate on what you mean by provide top cover?
Top cover against what sort of fire?

MR. CLAPPER. Critics, outsiders, anybody that wanted to inject
themselves, either internal or external to the community, and allow
them to -- give them the latitude. And we didn't give them any
editorial windage on the conclusions or the writing of it. We had to
orchestrate some very sensitive clearance accesses among the three
agencies who were involved.

Q And what was your role in reviewing, editing, adjudicating
any disputes with respect to the ICA?

MR. CLAPPER. Very minimal, other than make sure it got done. I
did read a draft of it, just for overall awareness and quality of the
work and did the -- you know, the evidence, that did it comport on an
evidentiary basis with what the stream of reporting that we'd been
seeing

And, again, I tried to -- I guess the only issue was the one
confidence level that Admiral Rogers personally lowered. That was not
an institutional call. That was his own personal call, and that's his
prerogative.

Q And did you make any personal edits, adjustments,
recommendations?

MR. CLAPPER. I did not.

Q And do you recall roughly when you had the opportunity to

review the ICA?


48

developed between July of last year and the time you left on the issue
of collusion would not necessarily have been shared with you?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, there's two conditions here: Either he had
evidence and didn't share it or he hadn't developed evidence yet, and
I don't know what the facts are there.

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

MR. CLAPPER: No.

MR. SCHIFF: I just -- I ask because I want to set the limits of
what you would have been aware of at the time that you were the DNI.
So if there was evidence of collusion, it would not necessarily have
been brought to your attention?

MR. CLAPPER: Again, I left it to the discretion of the directors,
both directors that I worked with, of the FBI to make that judgment
as to whether and when and what to tell me about such investigations,
particularly if it was going to evolve into a criminal investigation.

MR. SCHIFF: Now, the Steele dossier contained a number of
reports of interactions between Trump campaign people and the Russian
Government and Russian individuals, and those were based on sources
and on subsources. That dossier included reports of, you know,
salacious activity in hotel rooms with the now President.

But they also contained reports that Trump campaign people were
meeting with Russians and agreeing to receive damaging information
about Hillary Clinton in exchange for relief from sanctions. That was

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


89

was not available prior to January 26th.

MR. CLAPPER. No. It could have been available, but not made
available to -- it could have been -- it could have existed, but not
made available to me, or it could not have existed. I don't know.

Q But you subsequently followed up, because he sort of asked
several questions on this point, that at the time we had no evidence
of such collusion. That is what you told him, correct?

MR. CLAPPER. That's right. We had no evidence that met the
evidentiary threshold of the confidence levels that we were striving
for in that community assessment.

Q But at that time, you didn't provide that additional caveat
about confidence levels, correct?

MR. CLAPPER. Well, I think I did. If I recall the
transcript -- I'll have to go back and re-read the transcript.

Q On March 6, you gave an interview to ABC News, where you
said there was no evidence whatsoever at the time of collusion between
the Trump campaign and the Russians. Do you recall telling that to
ABC News, Brian Ross?

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

Q Right. So in March -- that's sort of the question I'm
hoping to get some clarification on -- is on two successive days in
March, you said at the time, whether or not it existed, you didn't have
any evidence of collusion. And I'm wondering what's changed from then

until now, where it's gone from no evidence to sort of no direct


66

aware that when we're talking about 702 we're talking about collecting
on foreigners that goes through the FISA court, whereas Mr. Kislyak
was here, and General Flynn is an American citizen who was here. I
get that.

I'm saying that if you don't think that our job is immensely harder
for reauthorizing 702 because of the unmasking of that, which wasn't
702, and I understand that, then I think that we probably need to powwow
together as an Intelligence Committee and figure out how we're going
to move forward.

I think it's going to make it increasingly more difficult,
regardless of the fact that it was Title I and not 702. We're having
trouble in our own committee getting people to agree whether or not
7@2 should be reauthorized.

So people upstairs, as you know, on your side of the aisle and
on our side of the aisle, think that there's a government conspiracy
with people like General Clapper listening to our phone calls and
reading our emails.

And to minimize that as -- so that we don't understand that this
was 7@2 versus Title I, I think misses the whole point that we've got
an extremely difficult task ahead of us this fall in trying to allow
the Intelligence Community to keep gathering this information.

And I get that it was Title I in this case, but they don't care
upstairs. And I hope that you understand that. I hope that you
understand that I understand that. And, you know, your exchange with

General Clapper that this was, you know, some kind of misperception


90

evidence?

MR. CLAPPER. Well, I don't see a real difference. That's just
an adjective. I don't get what you're getting at here.

Q I'll move on. So --

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

Q Well, that was actually the next thing I was going to ask
you about. When did you first become aware of the meeting between Trump
campaign officials, including Donald Trump, Jr., and the Russian lawyer
that's been widely reported in the press?

MR. CLAPPER. Well, I think I saw it on television whenever it came
out, last weekend or whenever it was.

Q So you weren't aware of that meeting prior to January 20th?

MR. CLAPPER. No, I was not.

Q So any discussion about a quid pro quo or the assessment
that there would be additional evidence out there, that's based on your
judgment as an intel professional, not from any evidence, right?

MR. CLAPPER. Exactly. As I said, I just find it hard to believe
that there was just this one anecdote, this one email trail for over
6 days and the meeting, and that was it, nothing else happened. I just
find that kind of hard to believe.

Q And the same for the assessment that these individuals were
perhaps acting as cutouts to the Russian Government or security

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


35

become aware of the late December conversations between General Flynn
and Ambassador Kislyak?

MR. CLAPPER: Sometime after the New Year's holiday. It would
have been the first week in January. And I can't pin the date down,
but it was Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday of that week. I don't know
the exact day.

MR. ROONEY: Do you know who told you about the conversation?

MR. CLAPPER: Bob Litt, my general counsel.

MR. ROONEY: What was your response when he told you?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I was -- I was kind of disturbed about it,
frankly. We had just done -- announced sanctions on the 29th of
December, you know, closing the dachas, expelling 35 of their
intelligence operatives, and sanctioning some other people. So it was
disconcerting, I'll put it that way, to learn of that conversation.

MR. ROONEY: Right. Did you share that --

MR. CLAPPER: Especially for me, since I have a long history with
Mike Flynn.

MR. ROONEY: Well, and as you say, I mean not to editorialize
here, but, you know, given our relationship with Russia over the
decades, I think that, as you testified and as you stated earlier, it's
certainly not something that, you know, General Flynn should have been
doing, not being a member of the government.

Did you ever brief President Obama on the phone call, the
Flynn-Kislyak phone calls?

MR. CLAPPER: No.


11

And with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, you can say, well, perhaps

we should have done -- been more public earlier.

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

of a lesson learned would be to perhaps make it hii

DR. WENSTRUP: Well, I think it would have been transparent. You
just used the term "hand on the scale." In what way would you be putting
the hand on the scale?

MR. CLAPPER: I think the President -- not me. The President,
President Obama felt I think somewhat constrained by the appearance
of, for example, his making a public statement about it, and whether
that would be construed as or interpreted as weighting the balance scale
in favor of Secretary Clinton.

DR. WENSTRUP: Well, that's a matter of opinion, I guess, as to
whether he thinks it would show favoritism to one or the other.

MR. CLAPPER: It is exactly that, sir. It is amatter of opinion.

DR. WENSTRUP: It is. But transparency would tend to balance
those scales, I would think.

But on November 7th, you signed a letter to me, and it was a
bipartisan letter that I had sent you, but you sent a letter back to

me and the others. And in that, you stated -- and this is November


50

your view, corroborated at least in part by what we now know about the
Don, Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner meeting with Russian
representatives?

MR. CLAPPER: It would appear so.

MR. SCHIFF: Prior to going to the meeting with the President
where the presence of the meeting was necked down so that the dossier
could be briefed to the President, did you have a discussion with
Director Comey and others prior to that about whether to brief the
President on the dossier?

MR. CLAPPER: Yes, we did.

MR. SCHIFF: And --

MR. CLAPPER: And the agreement was that one of us, at the end
of it, when the briefing seemed to come to an end, that one of us would
suggest to the President-elect -- I think Jim actually did it -- that
we neck down, that we had something additional to discuss with him,
but we thought it should be done on a one-on-one basis.

MR. SCHIFF: And why was it felt that that ought to be done on
a one-on-one basis?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, again, you know, we were trying to be
deferential to what was in this report. It was pretty salacious, and
just thought that was a better -- a more discrete way to handle it.
Again, since ve I -- [i
Fe

MR. SCHIFF: But it was --

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


10

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I think --

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

MR. CLAPPER: The assessment is a term of art that is used as a
particular type of report that we would issue as a community. So an
Intelligence Community assessment; asense of the community memorandum
is another vehicle; or a National Intelligence Estimate.

And so I wouldn't read a lot into the nomenclature of the report
that we eventually rendered and published on the 6th of January.

DR. WENSTRUP: Well, this has a significant amount of gravity,
the whole notion. And even if the President hadn't specifically
ordered an assessment and given this gravity of the Russian threat,
I'm just curious as to why you, as DNI, didn't order a review and report
to inform the American people prior to the 2016 election when, you know,
one of your specific efforts as DNI was your transparency initiative.

MR. CLAPPER: Well, in the could have, would have, should have
department, I guess I could agree that maybe we should have pulled
people's coat sleeves earlier in a more public way. We had a lot of
debate about that, then the debate which resulted in the statement which
I thought was pretty forthcoming and pretty direct that Jeh Johnson
and I made on the 7th of October.

The issue, of course, at least I think in the administration's
mind, was if we publicized this, do we magnify it and do we dignify
what the Russians are doing? Would the administration then be seen

as putting its hand on the scale? So we had all those kind of debates.


44

know, it kind of started with a very strong animus for the Clintons,
particularly for Hillary Clinton, who Putin personally held
responsible for fomenting what he considered an attempted color
revolution in 2011. Plus, he felt just disrespected by both of the
Clintons. So it started with that.

And then -- so just about anybody besides Hillary Clinton, I
think, would probably be appealing to the Russians. And the fact that
he was not a politician, a businessman, a dealmaker, et cetera, I think,
and, you know, he apparently had prior dealings in Russia, made him
more appealing to them than certainly she did.

MR. SCHIFF: Isn't it likely also, though, that the candidates’
respective positions on key national security interests of the Russians
would have played into their decision-making?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I think so. I think, you know, obviously
they're very interested in being free of the sanctions. When you look
at it, the sanctions, in terms of impact on the Russian GDP, is actually
not all that great, 1.5 to 2 percent maybe, but I think it had more
to do with the image, the optic of being sanctioned and being sanctioned
so uniformly by the United States and certainly European countries.
So they wanted to be free of that.

MR. SCHIFF: So the receptivity to potentially revisiting the
sanctions that Mr. Trump expressed on the campaign trail, that would
have been attractive to the Russians?

MR. CLAPPER: Certainly, yes, it would have.

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


23

is that true?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, we didn't do an assessment of all 50,000
polling places in the United States, nor could we. The statement that
we made in the assessment was based on looking at the Russians and their
activity and their behavior. And we didn't see any evidence of them,
you know, influencing or manipulating voter tallies.

Now, the reconnoitering they did is curious. Whether that was,
you know, data gathering, information gathering for the future, I don't
know.

MR. ROONEY: So when you were there, you didn't see any evidence
of it, but did you see evidence of like an effort of them to do that?

When you talk about data gathering, what --

me. CLAPPER:
MR. ROONEY: Right.
MR. CLAPPER:
MR. ROONEY: In your opinion, knowing from your body of work over
government service over the years, what do you anticipate that the
Russians are going to try to do next, in the next election cycle, or

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

but as far as trying to help us, you know, prepare for with data


18

evident that President Trump was a serious candidate, then I think their
approach evolved as well.

DR. WENSTRUP: So you talk about timeline, and that was December
5th, and you're saying that those statements weren't accurate at that
time.

MR. CLAPPER: They were not completely accurate as -- in light
of what we gathered and assessed after that.

DR. WENSTRUP: So were you aware tha was coming to
brief the committee on December 5th?

MR. CLAPPER: I don't know -- and, you know, we've sent a lot of
people from the community up here to brief a lot of people.

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

MR. CLAPPER: I believe I did know about it.

DR. WENSTRUP: So was there a decision on your part or the part
of anyone in the administration to not provide Congress with the latest
intelligence on this issue or not provide her with the latest
intelligence on this issue?

MR. CLAPPER: No, there wasn't.

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

MR. CLAPPER: Right.

DR. WENSTRUP: And wouldn't she be saying, do I have the latest
intelligence? How does this go unchecked like that?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, again, I have to -- I would have to audit when


As I've been saying to witnesses in the past, our job here is not
to conduct a criminal investigation. Our job is to write a report
dealing with the Intelligence Community and how to make it better. Any
criminal activity that is gained or discovered should be under the
purview of Robert Mueller. And if we ever find anything in this
committee, our charge is to turn that information over to Mr. Mueller
and the Justice Department.

So, while we may talk about here things like collusion, it would
be in the breadth of how that affected Russian involvement in our
election process, if any. But more things like, you know, the hacking
and the propaganda and the things that we have talked about ad nauseam,
both privately and publicly. So I want to make that absolutely clear
so that, you know, despite what we see in the news sometimes, what our
role is on this committee and how we are to make the Intelligence
Community better, something that you've dedicated a lot of your life
to.

And so, with that, to start off with our side, the majority's
questions, I'm going to turn it over to Brad, and then I'll follow up
after that. But the ranking member.

MR. SCHIFF: I just wanted to join in welcoming you, Director.
We appreciate your long years of service to the community. Welcome
back. A lot has happened since you left, much of which we want to get
your expert opinion on, given your many decades of service in this area.
You know, I just want to add on an additional note on my colleague's

point, in terms of the issue of collusion.


73

MS. SEWELL: Is there any doubt in your mind that the interference
was not only purposely done by the Russians, but authorized by the
highest levels of the Kremlin?

MR. CLAPPER: No doubt in my mind.

MS. SEWELL: I know that our President has said that he thinks
it's Russia, and others have also interfered. Howwould yourespond --

MR. CLAPPER: That was news to me when he made the speech in
Poland, that there were others involved. Well, I don't -- I was not
aware of any evidence of anybody else being involved in this other than
the Russians. It was them and nobody else that we had evidence of.

MS. SEWELL: Since the dissemination of the assessment and the
inauguration, more information about the Russian meddling has emerged.
Most recently, you were quoted in the media saying that you don't
believe that the emails associated with the meeting that Donald Trump,
Ir. had took with the Russian Government lawyers are the only evidence
of collusion between Donald Trump and the Russians. To the contrary,
you explained -- andI think this was inCipher Brief. To the contrary,
you explained that the Russian offer to provide the Trump campaign with
negative materials about their competitors certainly comports with
traditional Russian tradecraft to give leverage and influence any way
that they could.

In this classified venue, why do you believe that more evidence
of collusion will emerge?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I don't know that it will, but I find it hard


28

be the Russian ambassador or somebody that's of Russian origin, and
when should that be taken as something that rises to the level of an
Intelligence Community concern?

MR. CLAPPER: That's a great question, and I asked -- I really
can't answer it other than the sort of visceral reaction to why all
these meetings with the Russians. They are what I consider are an
existential threat to this country, a country that is not interested
in furthering our interests, certainly, or cooperating with us. Maybe
I'm biased. You know, I'm a Cold War warrior and all that, but -- so
that was of concern to me.

And certainly, it's perfectly legitimate for get-acquainted
meetings, for example, with -- you know, with the ambassador or with
the projected officials in the next administration. But I think there
is a line there between that and violating the principle that in this
country we traditionally have one President and one administration at
atime. And I will tell you I had concerns about that as I watched
all this before I left.

MR. ROONEY: I assume you're speaking of the General Flynn
discussion with the --

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

MR. ROONEY: I want to talk about -- I'll skip over the third for
a second and talk about briefly the fourth and then some specific
questions with regard to the last election.

With the possible leaks of classified information that took place

regarding the Intelligence Community assessment of these matters, can


14

MR. CLAPPER: Well, how do you mean?

DR. WENSTRUP: Well, you just said that it didn't -- there's no
evidence that the vote outcome was manipulated, but you feel that this
is -- I take it --

MR. CLAPPER: I think the ensuing controversy and the controversy
that was contemporary kind of makes that point. Do TI have an utterance
that I can quote from Putin himself that says that? No.

DR. WENSTRUP: So you're saying factually, he undermined the
credibility of the electoral process?

MR. CLAPPER: That's my belief.

DR. WENSTRUP: That's an opinion. Is that correct?

MR. CLAPPER: Yes.

DR. WENSTRUP: Because, I mean, I haven't met anybody that said,
oh, I changed my vote because of what the Russians did. So, again,
that's another opinion. It certainly isn't a fact, though.

MR. CLAPPER: I do think, though, it did create doubt about the
sanctity and security of our -- of the process. I do --

DR. WENSTRUP: And that's why we're here.

MR. CLAPPER: I do believe that.

DR. WENSTRUP: And that's part of why we're here, because this
is important to all Americans that the process is one to be trusted.

So, based on the administration's public statements and actions,
is it fair to conclude that the Russian hacking of U.S. political
entities, which began in July of 2015, became a higher priority for

the Intelligence Community after the election?


33

said, you know, we have one more thing we'd like to discuss with you,
but we'd like to do it on a one-on-one basis.

MR. ROONEY: And it was at that point you discussed the extra
pages, or --

MR. CLAPPER: We didn't discuss it.

MR. ROONEY: Oh, that was something different?

MR. CLAPPER: This was -- we briefed the broad, the findings of
the Intelligence Community assessment.

MR. ROONEY: Right.

MR. CLAPPER: And at the end of that, after -- which went on for
an hour, I guess. At the end of that, we then -- I think it was -- and
the plan was either I or Director Comey would propose necking down for
one additional aspect that we just wanted to brief on a restricted
basis.

MR. ROONEY: That was the Christopher Steele information?

MR. CLAPPER: Right.

MR. ROONEY: And so who was -- so were these people that you named
before, were they given that intelligence too?

MR. CLAPPER: No. Well, they had -- we left a copy of the report
up there, of the --

MR. ROONEY: So they all had access to it.

MR. CLAPPER: -- highly classified version, which we kept in the
FBI spaces, if anyone wanted to read it.

MR. ROONEY: So the meeting after the meeting, who was there?

MR. CLAPPER: It was only, as far as I know -- I wasn't there.


102

there was an issue of insubordination with Director Vickers. What were
the issues at DIA?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, his rather erratic management style, just
constantly changing things. His reorganization of DIA, which wasn't
abad idea. It actually presaged CIA's modernization, which Director
Pompeo, he doesn't like that term, but, anyway, the reorganization at
CIA and the setting up mission centers. And so it was a good idea,
but it was -- the execution was very -- was bad, and it was very hard
on the employees.

And then, of course, there was the infamous Flynn facts, where
General Flynn was convinced that the Iranian Darkan [phonetic] was
behind the Benghazi attack, which wasn't the case, and he kind of
pounded the employees there to go find some evidence that would back
up his supposition. So he had cases like that. But he was -- it was
just bad for the Agency and, you know, the morale of the employees was
going down.

MR. SCHIFF: In what way was he insubordinate to Director
Vickers?

MR. CLAPPER: I don't know the exact issues, but it centered
around the Defense Clandestine Service, which was a big important
initiative for Dr. Vickers. And you'd best talk to him about it.

MR. SCHIFF: The explanation that he gave for being pushed out
was that he was speaking truthfully about the threat posed by ISIS,
and that that was evidently, in his view, inconsistent with the

political narrative the White House wanted to tell. Did you ever see


95

MR. CLAPPER. I know 2:3@ on the 5th of June -- the 4th of June,
I guess. I don't know when it was. I reviewed it. I know I stayed
quite late to review it, because I was going to brief President Obama
on it on the 5th. So probably the 3rd or 4th.

Q And just for the record, that's January, not June, right?

MR. CLAPPER. Yes. If I said June, I misspoke. January.

Q So the ICA was directed on or about December 9th?

MR. CLAPPER. It was sometime during the first week of December.
I don't remember the exact date.

Q And you mentioned that President Obama wanted it done prior
to him leaving office.

MR. CLAPPER. Exactly.

Q In my understanding, it's not -- or often, whether we like
it or not, intel products can sometimes take quite a bit longer. What
was his reason for directing a hard date as to when the report had to
be released?

MR. CLAPPER. He wanted it out before the end of his term to pass
on to the next administration. He wanted all the reporting, or as much
as we could gather up in that timeframe, and put it together in one
report, as opposed to all these separate streams of reporting we had.
Get it all in one place. And he wanted to hand -- his intent was to
hand it off to. the next administration, to the President-elect and
President Trump and to the Congress. And he also mandated that, to
the maximum extent possible, that we issue an unclassified version for

the benefit of the public.


15

MR. CLAPPER: No, I wouldn't say that. What I would say is -- I
think this perhaps gets to your question -- is there has been a certain
amount of ambient involvement by the Russians, which goes back to the
60s, where they have monitored and in various ways tried to influence
the outcome of the election.

The difference here was this, as it evolved, was the most direct,
aggressive in its scope, and the multifaceted actions they took were
unprecedented.

DR. WENSTRUP: Well, the reason I ask that question is because
I'm looking at this letter from November 7th, which doesn't seem to
create the level of concern and priority that we saw after the election.

MR. CLAPPER: Right.

DR. WENSTRUP: Would you agree that -- was that due to new
evidence or --

MR. CLAPPER: Yes, yes.

DR. WENSTRUP: Such as?

he. CLAPPER:

DR. WENSTRUP: So you mentioned that Russia/Soviet Union,
they've tried to interfere with us in many ways for decades.

MR. CLAPPER: Right.


101

in which Mike Flynn left the DIA?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, bear in mind I'd known him a long time and
I was a co-officiant at his promotion ceremony to three-star general
in the Woman's Memorial, and he worked for me for about 11 months at
ODNI, and was fine.

He went to DIA, and he had issues there. And my concern was his
impact on the Agency. And Dr. Mike Vickers, who was my successor as
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, was -- for him, it was
a case of flat-out insubordination. So Mike Vickers and I had a number
of discussions about it, and he was adamant about ending Mike Flynn's
tenure as DNI -- as DIA director. As a Defense agency, he kind of had
the primacy there.

So we met with General Flynn -- I think this was in early 2014,
I'll say about February of 2014 perhaps -- and laid it out for General
Flynn. And he actually took it very well. He was very graceful about
it. At no time was there any discussion about his strident views on
IsIS. That never came up. It wasn't a topic of discussion, and it
wasn't -- it didn't bear on the decision to curtail his time as DIA
director. We told him he could stay until the summer of 2014, so he
could get his 3 years in as a lieutenant-general, which is the minimum
you need to retire in that grade.

So it was some months later, I think July of 2014, when he had
a magnificent farewell, retirement and award ceremony for him, which
both Dr. Vickers and I participated. And he seemed fine.

MR. SCHIFF: So you mentioned he had issues at DIA and that also


106

MR. CLAPPER: Sure. Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 12:32 p.m., the interview was concluded]


69

some frustration.

MR. SCHIFF: If we have any problem, I am more than willing to
blame Jim Himes, but only because he's not here.

MR. ROONEY: Thank you.

MR. SCHIFF: Director, just one last question before I turn it
over to my colleague. Who would hold the security clearance for
White House personnel? There's been an issue raised about whether
Jared Kushner should continue to have his clearance. Who would be the
holder of that clearance?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, the NSC would. Imean, again, I'mresponding
based on my knowledge of the prior administrations. I don't know how
anything works now in this administration. But the National Security
Council staff would hold the clearances for people assigned there.

MR. SCHIFF: And in your experience, let's say this didn't --

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I should say, in the case of rotationals, you
know, detailees from various components as opposed to sort of the
permanent cadre, their clearances would probably be held by the
donating donor agency. But would it have to be approved, vetted and
approved by the NSC, and, again, that's --

MR. SCHIFF: So would it be an element of the IC, though, that
would be the doing the review of someone's clearance if there was raised
a question about whether they should retain that clearance?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, inthe case -- yes, in the case of Mike Flynn,
at least before, when he was in retired status after DIA, his clearance

would still be held by DIA. As a matter of fact, I know that for a


he testified before your committee about the concerns we had, not
understanding necessarily the content of these interactions with the

Russians, but certainly what we were anecdotally seeing. Just

was my comment. And this is before I left the government.

MS. SEWELL: Right.

MR. CLAPPER: That my dashboard warning lights were on just
because of that.

MS. SEWELL: Since the reporter was asking about classified

information, you were unable to confirm or respond in detail.

MR. CLAPPER:

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

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

Sik
—



20

But I've seen other cases where, as information evolved, as we
acquire more information, et cetera, not just on this but in other
instances, now, we could certainly set up a formal vetting system where
all briefings before they come up here are thoroughly vetted by a
committee or something like that. Now, that would slow
responsiveness, because my experience has been that when something
happens, people are very anxious to get whatever information we have.
So --

DR. WENSTRUP: I'd rather have accurate responsiveness than
inaccurate response. So --

MR. CLAPPER: Well, it is -- we do the best -- my experience, you
know, we do the best we can.

DR. WENSTRUP: Well, I might have to suggest to the agency today
that if it's not enough of a priority, coming to the House Intelligence
Committee, to be up to speed before you get here, I don't know what
is. And if the NIO for Russia didn't have enough access to inform an
accurate judgment, I'm wondering what percentage of the Intelligence
Community analysis on Russia during that time was effectively obsolete

at the time it was given to us. And I'll move on from there.


103

any evidence of that?

MR. CLAPPER: No. That wasn't -- that was not a factor for me,
and nothing -- you know, I didn't think he said anything untoward about
that.

MR. SCHIFF: And either during or after his departure, did he
demonstrate any bitterness towards the IC as a result of how he left
the IC?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, not that I was aware of at the time. That's
as I recounted. The last time I actually had contact with him at all,
personal contact, was the ceremony I think in July of 2014.

And I never -- the next time I had any contact with him, I had
two telephone conversations with him during the transition, which were
professional and courteous.

MR. SCHIFF: Did he ever demonstrate a particular grudge towards
the CIA?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, he had issues with the CIA when he served in
Afghanistan. And that was part of the article that he had his name
on, which was quite critical of intelligence in and of Afghanistan.
And I think there was perhaps at that time some animus towards CIA.

MR. SCHIFF: Let me hand it over to staff now.

’

Q Sir, I just have two quick questions. My colleague asked
you about the short timeline you had in the IC to prepare the
Intelligence Community assessment of Russian interference. Sir, do

you have any reason to believe the ICA contains unsupported


25

MR. CLAPPER:

Of course, this is apart from all the other things they did kind
of in the cyber realm, which is social media trolls, fake news plants,
and, of course, more traditional but much more slick and sophisticated
than in the past was the propaganda promulgated by the RT Network.

MR. ROONEY: And I assume, just like with fishing through the
data, that you don't believe that in the future that that's going to
cease either, that this is what we have to expect?

MR. CLAPPER: No, that’s what the Russians do. It's almost
genetic with them. They are impelled to gather as much information,
whether it has immediate utility to them or not, but for future -- for
future use.

MR. ROONEY: I know it's a question, I asked this of Jeh Johnson,
but I wonder if you'd weigh in. Do you see any role for the way that
we conduct at the State level and local level, the way that we conduct
our election process in protecting ourselves, do you have any advice
with regard to cyber activity, moving forward?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, the Department of Homeland Security put
out -- and it was in parallel, not part of, but in parallel to the

Intelligence Community assessment -- a pamphlet on cyber best


| mal
B

MR. SCHIFF: Would it be logical -- if you're looking for an
explanation for the reason why the Russians didn't respond, their
atypical reaction to these sanctions, and you find a conversation with
a Russian ambassador, would it be logical to want to know who that
Russian ambassador was talking to?

MR. CLAPPER: Yes. And, of course, he had been. -- I believe
it was known that Mike Flynn was talking to Kislyak before the 29th
of December.

MR. SCHIFF: So an unmasking request to find out who the Russian
ambassador was talking to to explain why the Russians were not
responding to U.S. sanctions, that would have been a legitimate
unmasking request?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I think it's -- it would be legitimate, in
my mind, for just about any U.S. person -- I mean, this has been a

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

So
it wouldn't have been done specifically.

I don't know the circumstances of the unmasking, you know.
That's a better question to direct to the FBI or the DO).

MR. SCHIFF: But if the Russians are talking to U.S. persons and

you're trying to understand why the Russians didn't respond, why the


99

of questioning has certainly been discussed over the past few years.

Would you please explain, over your course as being DNI, why, if
Congress were to put in some sort of probable cause requirement or
change the way the Intelligence Community is able to search in its 702
data, how that would impact the Intelligence Community negatively?

MR. CLAPPER. Well, it would -- the immediate impact I can think
of is whether, if there is an extremis situation, unless there were,
you know, some safety valve there where if for whatever reason that,
you know, you have to -- you want to have that outlet in case of a
circumstance like that.

Q And also, just to follow up, do you know regarding the
dossier that was discussed earlier, do you know who paid Mr. Steele
to conduct the information or the investigation that would lead to the
dossier?

MR. CLAPPER. I don't know -- well, if there was -- if there was
payment for the document, and I don't know that, it would probably have
been the FBI. But, again, you'd have to ask them. I don't know
personally if there was some compensation arrangement there or not.

| Thank you, sir.

MR. SCHIFF: Thank you, Director. I just have a couple more
questions, then I'll hand it off to my staff. We're almost at the end.

You mentioned that while Mike Flynn was the director of the DIA
that the Russian intel agencies, GRU or others, had made an effort
to -- and I can't remember the term you used for it.

MR. CLAPPER: Woo.


37

MR. ROONEY: Yes.

MR. CLAPPER: No.

MR. ROONEY: Okay. On January 12th of 2017, do you know how many
people had knowledge of the Flynn-Kislyak phone call?

MR. CLAPPER: How many people?

MR. ROONEY: Yes.

MR. CLAPPER: No, I don't.

MR. ROONEY: Okay.

MR. ROONEY: Yeah. No, the reason for this line of questioning
is we're obviously trying to figure out how something like this becomes
available to people in the Washington Post and David Ignatius and the
like. Do you have --

MR. CLAPPER: That's a great question.

MR. ROONEY: Okay. So you don't --

MR. CLAPPER: I don't have any --

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

MR. CLAPPER: TI would -- I guess the inference, though, it could
have been from a lot of sources.

MR. ROONEY: Yes. And that's going to lead me into my next line
of questioning, which I'm running out of time. So I'm going through
any questions here, a lot of which you've already answered, so if you'd

just give me a second so I can skip over.


N
5

MR. CLAPPER:

DR. WENSTRUP:

MR. CLAPPER:


65

really can't reciprocate because the comparable -- the analogous
property in the -- in Russia is -- doesn't compare.

MR. SCHIFF: I'm going to hand it over to my colleagues. Do you
want a break at all before we continue? We are about an hour and a
half in.

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

By the way, I do need to add to the record. On the attendees at
the Trump Tower briefing on the 6th of January, the other attendee was
Ted Gustaro, who was the designated briefer for President-elect Trump.
He was also present since he was the custodian for the hard copy report.
I just want to add that to the record.

MR. ROONEY: . The minority's time ends at 20 til, but we'll
certainly delay that so long as the witness needs to take a break, and
then we'll go right into our 20-minute/20-minute redirects.

Thank you.

[Brief recess.]

MR. ROONEY: Allright. We will go to a quarter of and then we'1l
get into our 20-minute/2@-minute. Sir, if you want to take another
break in 2@ minutes, we can do that.

MR. CLAPPER: Well, I have a commitment at the SSCI to do the same
thing all afternoon. So I would like to get --

MR. ROONEY: Yeah. Well, I don't have any other questions. I
do want to make one thing before the minority continues on their line
of questions for the next 20 minutes with regard to Title I versus 702.

I am fully aware that they are not the same thing. And I'm fully


One of the four areas that we've been charged with investigating
is whether the Russians had the help of any U.S. persons in what they
did. And while Bob Mueller will have the responsibility of prosecuting
anyone who may have been involved with that, we have the responsibility
of telling the American people exactly what happened and who was
involved, if any U.S. people were involved. Bob Mueller is only likely
to be able to speak through an indictment, if he brings an indictment.
It will be our job to give the public a full accounting of what happened,
whether charges are brought or not.

And one of the areas, we'll certainly want to ask your thoughts
on the drafting of the unclassified and the classified assessment, but
we'll also want to get your advice, given what you know that's in the
public domain since you left, about the meeting with Donald, Jr. and
some of the other allegations. We'll be interested to get your
insights into where we might look to find further evidence that either
corroborates or disproves the public allegations. So we'll be looking
forward to asking you questions on that subject as well.

With that, I'll yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

DR. WENSTRUP: Thank you.

EXAMINATION

DR. WENSTRUP: And, again, welcome, sir. I appreciate you being
here today. You know, as I look at what we're trying to accomplish
here, I look at it the same way I do in my military roles, and that's
you want to do an after-action review, you want to have lessons learned,

and you want to take corrective measures where needed. And in that


97

Q And thank you, General Clapper, for being here, and for your
many years of service to our country.

Real quick, going back in time a little bit, at the end of 2015
there was a Wall Street Journal article regarding NSA collection of
U.S. person information related to Members of Congress or staff. The
week after that article, you came in with Admiral Rogers and you briefed
the committee on the inaccuracies of the article and setting the record
straight.

And at that briefing, I think majority, minority, you and Admiral
Rogers all agreed on the necessity of Gates procedures.

MR. CLAPPER. Of what?

Q The Gates procedures.

MR. CLAPPER. Yes.

Q So, kind of tying it back into the idea of the sanctity,
as you mentioned earlier, of our elections, but also one of the great
things about our country is the peaceful transition of power.

Do you think that we should have a similar type of procedures
related to the U.S. Presidential transition team or even Presidential
campaigns, where the dissemination of that type of information should
be informed to Congress?

MR. CLAPPER. It should be reported to Congress?

Q It's just your opinion.

MR. CLAPPER. I don't know. Again, this whole evolution is a very
unusual situation. I mean, I can understand a congressional interest

in it, so I guess -- I mean, I wouldn't have any reason to oppose that.


42

you're reading, that it needs to be unmasked for your sake of
understanding what you're reading.

But do you think that -- and what was your justification when
you'd say, okay, U.S. person number 1, I want this person unmasked?
Did you give details as to why --

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

MR. ROONEY: Do you think that you should have and people at your
level?

MR. CLAPPER: Well, given the responsibilities of the DNI, I felt
that if I asked for unmasking of this -- normally it would be all the
people mentioned in one report, all the U.S. persons. It was to
understand the context, to understand the significance. And that
would be kind of the standard justification.

I think, frankly, it would be hard to write a detailed
justification given the ambiguity of these reports when you read them
baldly when they mention U.S. person 1, 2, 3, et cetera.

MR. ROONEY: Thank you, General.

Adam.

WE, «Ss(ver to the minority.

MR. SCHIFF: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm going to go back over some of the areas that you've been asked
about and then I've got a few areas in addition before my colleagues.

The Kremlin preference for Donald Trump, you mentioned there were
three -- basically three motives the Russians had: The first was to

sow discord; the second was to harm Hillary Clinton any way they could;


104

conclusions?

MR. CLAPPER. No.

Q And you stand by its findings?

MR. CLAPPER. I do. I did and do.

Q You mentioned also that, as you sit here today, you're not
aware of direct evidence of collusion. Inthe email exchange outlining
the meeting between the Russian Government lawyer and senior Trump
campaign officials, is that evidence of at least an intent to collude?

MR. CLAPPER. Well that's -- again, from a layman's perspective
only, that's what it appears to me.

Q And we look forward to, as a committee, exploring those
issues, that if, in fact, damaging material is passed, as it was implied
in the email, and if the campaign took any actions in response to that,
does that sound like collusion?

MR. CLAPPER. Well, again, froma layman's perspective, if -- yes,

it does.

WM, thank you. Thank you very much, sir.
,

Q I just have one question.

MR. CLAPPER. Do you have a microphone? I can't hear you.

Q I'm sorry. Getting away from collusion, from an
intelligence perspective, from a HUMINT recruitment cycle,
counterintelligence, as you're watching these contacts and looking at
it from the Russian objective, are you seeing their objectives being

met?


45

campaign that they would also be receptive to a repeal of the Magnitsky
Act, would that also have been attractive to the Russians?

MR. CLAPPER: Yes, and, of course, that's since come out in light
of the meeting.

MR. SCHIFF: And the Magnitsky Act, was that something of very
personal distaste to Mr. Putin?

MR. CLAPPER: Yes. Yes, it was. And I also think that, again,
going back to why the resentment about sanctions is because it did have
personal impacts on many of his oligarchal buddies, and for that matter,
himself.

So it had less to do, I think, with impact on Russia as much as
or more impact on him and his cronies, on top of, you know, the Panama
Paper publication and the anti-doping report, which he took as personal
affronts. So for all those reasons, he found Mr. Trump much more
appealing.

MR. SCHIFF: WouldMr. Trump's position, his comments belittling
NATO, also have been attractive to the Russians?

MR. CLAPPER: Oh, sure, absolutely.

MR, SCHIFF: And likewise, his support for Brexit or further
departures from the European Union, is that consistent with Russian --

MR. CLAPPER: Absolutely. The Russians are very bent on driving
wedges between and among European nations and a wedge between Europe

as a collective and the United States.

he. SCHOeF: