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be, you know, sort of, five people max.

After-one of the emails that | got which provided, sort of, a list of different
people, it felt to me like a bigger operation, but it was never relayed to me how big
it was.

Q_ Okay.

And you mentioned -- sorry, going back -- that Smith wanted you to validate
a sampling of the emails so he could determine whether it was worth paying the
hackers to get all of the emails. Did you understand him to have that sampling?
Or was he contacting you and then was going to get the sampling later?

A __ Itwasn't entirely clear. | assumed that he did have the sampling and
that he was not going to provide it to me until | had signed a nondisclosure
agreement. It's not 100 percent clear.

Q_ And to this day you don't know whether or not he had that sampling?

A On the basis that none of these emails were published, | have to
assume that he didn't have access to these emails in the end.

HE, he tell you that he had a sampling?
MR. TAIT: | can't recall.

1

Q__ So you said that the dark-web expert investigator, as you understood
it, was either someone that was employed by Smith or someone on his team was
in contact with the dark-web investigator. | just want some clarification on your
understanding. Was this -- let's call them an intermediary between the hackers
and Peter Smith. Did you understand that to be someone who worked on his

team? Or did you understand that to be a third party that you were never aware

of?

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have quite specific information about that from an inside perspective suggests to
me that that was unusually sort of closely guarded.

Q_ Would you agree, though, that, even if the subject matter is only
available to a small group of individuals, the individual communicating it to you
could also be incorrect about what he is saying?

A Correct.

Q__ So that's why we saw -- I'll return to my-question about independent
verification on those specific subjects, such as the RNC and General Flynn. Do
you have any independent facts that you utilized to verify what was relayed to you,
and, if so, what were they?

A __ | don't have any reason to believe that they weren't credible.

Q [understand you found Mr. Smith and the facts credible. My question
is, did you conduct any independent verification? For example, did you find a fact
somewhere that said, "Oh, look, Mr. Smith told me X, and this person said the
exact same thing on this same day"?

A __ Not in that sort of style, | don't think.

Q_ Do you have another style in which you were able to verify the
information that Mr. Smith relayed to you, specifically as it relates to the RNC and
General Flynn?

A __ No, other than through media stories and stories that came out after
the fact.

Q_ Okay, fairenough. So you made your ultimate decisions on the
credibility of the information Mr. Smith was passing to you, based upon
open-source information --

A Correct, correct.

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A - So, prior to the first phone conversation, | was interested whether or
not this would turn into a business opportunity. On the first phone conversation, it
became clear to me that this was not a business -- potentially there would be a
business opportunity there, but it was not a business opportunity | would be
interested in pursuing.

Toward the very end of the first phone conversation, he mentioned that they
were in contact with these hackers that had Hillary Clinton's emails. Based on my
personal and professional interest in the DNC hack, this would be a very
significant fact in the 2016 disinformation campaign, and on the basis of that, |
wanted to understand where that was going.

| didn't want to sign a nondisclosure agreement. So | committed to myself
I'm not going to take business from this individual, but | will see as far as it goes up
to the point where it goes no further, because I'm not signing the nondisclosure
agreement.

Q__ Sos it fair to characterize that your initial relationship began due to a
possibility of engaging in business, and then turned into a subject matter that was
personally interesting to you, and then, shortly thereafter, you ended the
relationship?

A Correct.

Q__ Is there a specific reason you ended the relationship?

A Myreal concern was, first of all, on the first phone call was the fact
that this was so closely associated with the U.S. election, in the middle of -- sort of
the end part of the U.S. election. And being neither a U.S. citizen nor a U.S.
national at the time, it seemed to me inappropriate for me to be working with them.

Q_ And your last communication with Mr. Smith -- |

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so-called missing Clinton emails in itself?

A Inthe sense that the Republican campaign was interested in receiving
them?

Q_ Correct, or these individuals of undetermined connection to the Trump
campaign were out there hunting for Hillary Clinton's missing emails. Did you
view that as illegitimate or improper in any way?

A Inthe event that they obtained these emails through completely
legitimate channels, then, you know -- I'm not a lawyer, so | can't speak to the
legality of that -- but in the event that they had done that, | don't see why not.

The problem that | had was with the style and the interactions that they had,
which felt to me like potentially a Russian Government involvement. That,
especially in light of what was going on with the DNC hack, and it felt to me that it
would be deeply inappropriate if they were getting them from the Russian
Government. But in the event that they had, you know, been posted online, for
instance, then, obviously, referencing them is a different issue.

Q_ Right. And I'll circle back to the Russian piece. But if they had been
posted online or even if they -- if somehow located on the dark web, you wouldn't
have necessarily found that in itself to have been inappropriate or troubling, setting
aside whether you would personally want to be involved in that endeavor. Is that
a fair statement?

MR. BITKOWER: To clarify, do you mean posting them online or referring
to them after they had already been posted online?

oy
Q__ Finding them, locating Hillary Clinton's emails on the dark web for

political opposition research purposes, did you find that to be illegitimate?

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responded back to him, you called him, and then how did that communication
begin?

A Right. So | got that phone call very late in the day on September the
4th. | phoned him on September the 5th, or was it the other way around?

HS think that's right, based on your documents.
MR. TAIT: Yes. Well, | phoned him on September the 5th.

HE, S0"y, | keep interrupting. You mean that you got the email
from him on the 4th.
MR. TAIT: Correct. Yes.
2
Right. Email on the 4th. You called him on September --
On the 5th. Yes.
Or received a phone call.

No, | phoned him.

Oo > 0 F D

Okay.

Sorry. Keep going.

A So we arranged the phone call. | phoned him. It was this man that |
had never met before called Peter Smith. We sort of tried to, you know, sort of as
an icebreaker, sort of talked about some of the events that were going on in the
news, trying to get a feel for who he was, how connected he was, what it was that
he was interested in.

He was very clear that, you know, he was a very partisan political operator.
He had, you know, very strong views on, sort of, issues of the day. You know, the
conventions had recently happened. He mentioned that he had been at the RNC

convention, that he had met lots of people that were very senior within the Trump

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[5:00 p.m.]
oy

Q__ So, at the end of your Lawfare piece, you refer to a statement in the
Journal that U.S. intelligence has reported that Russian hackers were looking to
get emails to Flynn through a cutout during the summer of 2016?

A Correct.

Q_ What leads you to believe that, to the extent this -- that reporting is
true, that that episode is identifiable with the emails that were purportedly offered
to Peter Smith?

A Can you say the question again?

Q__ So the Journal reported that U.S. intelligence had reported that
Russian hackers were looking to get emails to Flynn through a cutout during the
summer of 2016?

A Yes.

Q_ To the extent that's true, what facts or evidence leads you to believe
that the emails referred to in the Journal are those same emails that were
purportedly offered to Peter Smith?

A __ Given Peter Smith's close connections with Lieutenant General Flynn
and the fact that this was emails being offered -- allegedly from Hillary Clinton's
servers being offered to someone who's very close to General Flynn, and based
on U.S. intelligence assessment apparently that this is -- the Russian Government
tried to get these or tried to get emails to Flynn, it seemed like it was credible that
these were relating to the same event.

Q_ But you don't believe that the Russians actually hacked Hillary

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He was never mentioned.

What about Lisa Nelson?

> oO >

She was never mentioned.

Q_ And with respect to Mr. Bannon or Ms. Conaway, is your
understanding of their relationship with Mr. Smith entirely based on what Mr. Smith
told you?

A Yes.

Q__ The last topic | would like to cover, earlier, responding to a question
from one of my colleagues, | believe you referred to Mr. Smith and his associates
as the official opposition research for the campaign?

A An official.

Q_ An?

A __ It seemed to me that this was -- based on this document, that this was
a more organized effort. It seemed clear to me, after the first phone call, that this
was resourced, you know, substantively. And trying to understand whether or not
this was a wealthy individual self-financing it, after | got this document, it seemed
more clear to me that this was sort of a more directed effort.

Q_ And you formed that impression how, based on what?

A __ Based on the first phone call and on this document.

Q__ But your understanding of -- other than this document, your
understanding of the relationship between -- your understanding of the relationship
between Mr. Smith and the Trump campaign was entirely based on your two
phone conversations with Mr. Smith. Is that correct?

A Yes. And this document, which shows that they were willing to set up

a company, that their company was designed to avoid campaign reporting. It

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Journal, is also listed on here. | assume you didn't take that to mean that the -- or
did you take that to mean that The Wall Street Journal was actively participating in
this effort?

A | presume not.

Q__ So it seems -- and, indeed, The Wall Street Journal, in an article by
Shane Harris earlier this year, was the one who sort of broke the story, right?

A Correct.

Q__ So, at the very least, based on the description of you and the inclusion
of The Wall Street Journal, it seems like this document was, at the very least, a bit
of puffery. |s that fair to say?

A _ Certainly the independent groups.

Q_ Now, you've mentioned that Mr. Smith relayed to you conversations
that he had had with General Flynn, correct?

A Yes.

Q_ And he discussed conversations that he had with General Flynn at the
Republican National Convention in Cleveland. |s that correct?

A Yes.

Q__ Did he relay other conversations that he had had or just at the
Republican National Convention?

A Yeah. He mentioned that he had had several conversations with
them and that he was sort of close friends of General Flynn. {| seem to recall that
he mentioned that they had been -- that Peter Smith had been to Flynn's house,
you know, on occasions and so on.

Q__ And did you have any -- did you receive any information

that -- external to what or additional to what Mr. Smith told you that corroborated

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Lawfare as your source for telling the American public your interactions with Mr.
Smith publicly?

A Sothad written a number of pieces in Lawfare previously. It felt like
a good place where | would be able to write my views directly and publish them
without having to fight with editors and timelines and so on, be able to publish my
perspective on it reasonably quickly after The Wall Street Journal in order to make
my position known.

Q__ Did you have any conversations with anyone else about, you know,
your interactions with Mr. Smith, to Lawfare or any other media outlet, prior to your
conversations with Mr. Harris?

A No. I spoke to the Lawfare people about it as we wrote it. | didn't
speak to -- | also spoke to a journalist about it back in | believe October-November
timeframe. We briefly investigated it and considered that there wasn't enough at
the time to put together a full story.

HR) (Okay. | have no further questions.

| Do you need a quick break before we go on our 15-minute
rounds?

MR. TAIT: We can keep going.

HEE Fifteen minutes to the minority.
,
Q_ Allright. Thank you. I just have a couple clarifying questions and
then I'm going to turn it over to one of my colleagues.
So, to be clear, | think one of my colleagues across the table used the term
“persistent contact" with respect to your conversations with Mr. Smith. Just so I'm

clear, you had a first call. You received an email from him on September 4th.

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strongly suggest to me that there was -- collusion is one of these terms that sort of
is so vague that it's not particularly helpful.

But it seems to me that there wasn't an attempt by Peter Smith to, you
know, form sort of a pact with the Russian Government. All they wanted was they
wanted the emails, and they didn't really care who it was, whether it was the
Russian Government or whether it wasn't. They were willing to obtain those
through any mechanism that they could in order to release them. There was
never any suggestion that there would be policy concessions or anything like that
off the back of it.

Q__ But what you had discussed is your sense that what was described to
you by Peter-Smith, the documents that you received and that you reviewed, and
later reporting, media reporting, that suggested a potential role by the Russian
Government was consistent with your understanding of how the Russian
Government may have approached individuals, like Peter Smith, who would have
an interest in taking advantage of such information for their own purposes?

A Correct.

Q_ Okay. If! can just follow up on my colleague's question to you about
Mr. Christopher Steele's work. She asked about your assessment of Christopher
Steele. Are you aware of the way Christopher Steele is viewed or considered,
including his credibility and integrity, within the British Intelligence Community?

A __ I'maware of it, yes.

Q How would you describe it?

WC

CC ——
ee

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Q Under RNC, it lists an attorney by the name of Richard Porter. Did
you have any contact with any of those individuals?

A No.

Q__ Now, under independent groups, organizations, and
individuals -- researchers to be deployed, it lists John Szobocsan and Jonathan
Safron. You were in contact with those individuals, correct?

A Yes.

Q_ And | believe you provided some emails back and forth with them.
Did you have any phone calls with them or did you communicate with them only
via email?

A They were both on the second phone call that | had --

Q ° Okay.

A __ -- with Peter Smith.

Q__ So they were on the second phone call with Peter Smith. Did you
have any other phone calls with either of them?

A No.

Q__ Also, under this independent groups heading, there's Phil Emmanuel
(ph), Charles Ortel, Charles Johnson, individuals associated with Judicial Watch.
Did you have contact with any of these individuals?

A No.

Q_ There's also listed Citizens United, Ken Timmerman, Tom Lipscomb,
James O'Keefe. Did you have contact with any of those individuals?

A No.

Q_ Jeremy Corsi, William Deere, Patrick Hanes. Did you have contact

with those individuals?

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And he understood things like General Flynn was -- or he relayed that
General Flynn was angling for the Director of the CIA position or potentially
the -- you know, that he famously didn't like -- or he was considering abolishing the
ODNI that he didn't like, but that he had been persuaded that it would be too
difficult to get -- to be Senate-appointed perhaps as becoming the CIA Director
and so, instead, would be the National Security Advisor, which -- later, he then
became the National Security Advisor. And this was long before those
conversations were public.

Q__ So, going back to the document that you received that you assumed
was sent in error that mentioned KLS Research, to the extent you recall, what
other information about this operation was included in that document?

A Can you repeat the question?

Q_ So the document that you thought you received in error that had -- this
was the document that had the names of individuals and said in it that KLS
Research had been created for this purpose. Is that correct? Are there other
details of the operation that you recall that were included in that document that he
didn't tell you over the phone?

A For sure.

And, after the first phone call, it seemed quite clear that he was a very close
family friend of General Flynn, that they were setting up this operation to do a
significant amount of work, this wasn't something that they were doing in their
spare time, that this was, sort of, opposition research.

But it wasn't until | got this document that it sort of became clear to me that
this was either the official or an official, sort of, operation, acting intentionally at

arm's length from the Trump campaign, that this was essentially the official

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Q_ -- that was available?

A Yes.

Q_ You didn't speak to any other, quote/unquote, for lack of a better word,

sources --
A No.
Q_ --or folks in the Intelligence Community that you know?
A Yes.

Q_ Okay. Obviously, having your GCHQ background, you have access
to that community or at least some of that community.

A Yeah. Because this is sort of related to a U.S. election, | sort of was a
little bit worried of getting any of them involved.

Q_ Yeah. And so I'm not insinuating that you did. I'm just saying -- I'm
trying to sort of lay the roadmap for other possibilities of verification. That's what |
was getting at.

| think that's it really for Mr. Smith. But as it relates to other matters that
we're looking at, that the committee has been charged with, are asking of
witnesses information as it relates to -- I'm sure you've heard these
terms -- collusion, coordination, and conspiracy between the Donald J. Trump
Presidential campaign and the Russian Government, for lack of a better term.

As you sit here today -- and if you have any distinctions between the words
collusion, conspiracy, and coordination, please let me know. Otherwise, I'll just
group them together.

Do you have any evidence or information to show that anyone was working
on behalf or behest of the Russian Government to collude or conspire or

coordinate with the Donald J. Trump Presidential election campaign?

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A _ Just to clarify, | think this article was before it was public that it was
Christopher Steele.

Q_ But did you read -- you read the Buzzfeed. | mean, for you to make
this statement, you had to have read what was on Buzzfeed. Is that correct?

A Yes, | read the document.

Q_ And that was your assessment when you read it, based as an expert
intelligence professional?

A Yes. And not knowing who had written it, but based on the content of
the document.

Q_ So, if this committee is seeking to try to get to the answers that are
contained -- to the allegations that are contained in that document, to understand
the veracity of that information, how best could we do that?

A __ {don't know at this stage.

Q_ Would we have to see -- would it be important for us to talk to the
author of the document?

A Potentially. | can understand why he might not want that.

Q__ If we wanted to determine the veracity of the information kind of as
HEE was talking about, would it be important for us to see the sourcing of that
information?

A __ In the Intelligence Community, you would expect the analysis to have
access to the sources and to be able to speak to the person that --

Q__ So, to trust its veracity and to give it a rigorous review, you would have
to see that underlying information and talk to those individuals?

A To perform the analysis.

Q_ Thank you.

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Members of Congress or staff. And, lastly, the record will reflect that this is a
voluntary interview, again.

And we will now place you under oath. Do you understand?

MR. TAIT: Yes.

HE, Okay. IF you couild please raise your right hand, sir.

Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth?

MR. TAIT: Ido.

HR, Thank you.

Now that the witness has been sworn, over to you all for questioning.

ME 0%).

HE orty-five minutes.

Here we go.

WE, sorry. One thing. Can you just please make sure your
microphone is turned on and the green light is there? Thank you.
2
Q_ On behalf of the ranking member, Congressman Adam Schiff, and the

other Democratic members of the committee, thank you for agreeing voluntarily to

speak with us today. My name is (MM and | am joined by my
oleae: EE TS <a

This is a bipartisan investigation looking into four key questions: First,
what Russian cyber activity and other active measures were directed against the
United States and its allies? Second, did the Russian active measures include
links between Russia and individuals associated with political campaigns or any

other U.S. persons? Third, what was the U.S. Government's response to these

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emails could have been a Russian or Russian front, but you -- but might not have
been, correct? You don't know.

‘ A It could have been the Russian Government. It could you have been
Russian criminals. It could have been cybercriminals. Based on the style of it
and given the timing of it, it felt very likely that it was the Russian government.

Q__ But what -- other -- is there anything that informs that judgment other
than what was in The Wall Street Journal?

A _ And the style of the interaction and based on the timing as well that
this was the way that emails had been sort of hacked and used, given Guccifer 2,
given DCLeaks, the style of it was very similar to the rest of the 2016
disinformation campaign.

Q__ But you are not sure that these emails existed at all?

A Correct.

Q___ Just one sort of procedural matter. So the way you came to speak
with us was a little different than some of the other witnesses. So | just want to
make sure | understand things correctly. One of our colleagues got an email from
your attorney on July 25th saying that they were representing you and we
understand that you have expressed interest in speaking with you. Without
disclosing any attorney-client -- privileged attorney-client communications, can you
just for the record state how you came to be in touch with this committee?

MR. BITKOWER: | am not sure how he could answer that without
exposing communications with counsel. Can you elaborate what the purpose
behind the question is?

HE, Sure. So, normally, we ~ normally, we send a letter to

witnesses that we are not in contact with and they have their attorneys reach out

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Clinton's server, correct?

A __ Ihave no evidence that they've hacked Hillary Clinton's server.

Q_ And you do believe that the Russians hacked the Democratic National
Committee's server, correct?

A The DNC, yes.

Q__ And you do believe the Russians hacked John Podesta's email,
correct?

A Certainly.

Q_ Sol guess | am a little confused that, if you believe or assess that the
Russians were involved in other hacks and don't have any evidence that they were
involved in a hacker breach of Hillary Clinton's server, that the emails offered
from -- what causes you to assess that the emails from -- purportedly from
Clinton's server were the same ones referred to in that Journal article?

A Sowe have lots of technical evidence that the DNC was hacked by the
Russian Government. We have also technical evidence that John Podesta was
spear phished by the Russian Government. Hillary Clinton's server was
undoubtedly insecure, but we have no malware samples from it. We have no
technical evidence that suggests that it was compromised at any point. In the
event that we had that evidence, then we would be able to analyze it to try and
work out who compromised it, understand what that might mean, but the default
position has to be you start with | don't know.

Q_ And why don't we have technical evidence from Hillary Clinton's
server?

A It's not public.

Q_ But at the end of the day, you wrote that whoever was proffering these

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contacts with members or staff of this committee?

MR. TAIT: | don't think so, no.

That's all | have.
2,

Q_ Thanks. Just for the record, the minority will clarify separately with
the majority this matter.

We do have several followup questions with regard to the discussions or
the threads that we were discussing earlier.

You said that you have seen the public copy of the dossier --

A Correct.

Q_ Correct.

Do you know if this was the final product?

A __ | don't know.

Q_ Are you aware of any other products or any other versions or drafts or
anything of the sort?

A No.

Q__Isit possible that Mr. Steele could have included analysis in his final
product that he provided to his client?

A __ Itis quite possible.

Q Okay. Your quotes in this Vanity Fair article from January, is it correct
that those were quotes of yours prior to your knowledge that Mr. Steele was the
author of the dossier?

A Correct.

Q__ Did your knowledge that Mr. Steele was the author of the dossier

change in any way your assessment of the dossier but also of the possible quality

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A __ Itwas a day later.

Q_ Aday later. In that interim 24-hour period, did you do any research
on Mr. Smith?

A No.

Q__ Did you ask any of your friends or associates or colleagues about,
hey, | got an email from this Peter Smith, do --

A No.

Q_ -- you know anything about him?

Did you make your own credibility determination as to whether or not
Mr. Smith was a credible individual for the purposes in which he contacted you?

A _ Not prior to the first phone call.

Q_ Not prior. Did you make a decision that you would accept his request

for a phone call --

A Correct.
Q_ --and then make a determination later?
A Precisely.

Q_ And did he provide you with a phone number immediately, or did you
provide him with yours?

A __ {can't recall.

Q_ Okay.

A Ah. He has his phone number at the bottom of the email.

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A Sol assumed, based on the first phone call, the way that he was quite
evasive, describing the other people on his team, that this was something that he
believed was sensitive, who else was working on his team, and that he wasn't
going to reveal that information to me.

From context, | assumed that this was someone that he was employing,
either directly or as a contractor or, you know, potentially as sort of a contractor at
a distance, but that this was someone that he was paying to do this work.

Q_ Okay.

And | think you've mentioned some folks and Shane Harris has mentioned
some folks in his Journal articles -- Eric York, John Szobocsan. Did you ever
believe any of those individuals to be this intermediary?

A __ So, on the first phone call, it was all very, very vague, and | assumed
intentionally vague, as to who else was involved.

| was later sent an email which contained a list of various people that are
ostensibly involved in this activity. 1! assumed that this cover sheet on this
document had been sent to me in error, on the basis that he had been so evasive
as to who was involved the first time.

It's possible that -- | believe Eric York was mentioned in one of the emails,
but it was -- it was never explicitly said that he was the person that was the
deep-web specialist, but it is possible.

Q_ So we understand that Peter Smith set up -- or described to you in his
document that he ended up sending you that he was starting an LLC, KLS
Research, in order to, | guess, collect payment for this work. What was your
understanding of the purpose of KLS Research?

A __ It was never mentioned on any of the calls. This was mentioned on

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A __ Soit took place about a week later. | think it was on September 12th.
It was a little bit shorter than the first phone call. | think it lasted about 25, 30
minutes.

On this phone call, we discussed some of the events of the previous week.
| think we discussed, for instance, Hillary Clinton had a server which was a
particular model of Dell computer, which Peter Smith thought was amusing
because he had previously used an exact same model Dell a long time ago for his
company that was in a closet somewhere. And he was very convinced that,
because this was so old, that this showed a, sort of, lack of taking security
seriously.

We discussed that. We discussed some other stories from the day. We
again discussed the fact that my role was going to be the validation of these
emails. And | repeated my concerns to him that, in my considered view, that this
was -- that the people, if they had the Hillary Clinton emails, that they were in
contact with, that there was a very substantial likelihood that this was the Russian
Government and that the Russian Government is not acting in Democrats’
interests or the Republicans’ interests, they are acting in the Russian
Government's interest, and that, in the event that you play this game, like, you are
playing with fire and you're going to get burned.

His view, both on the first call and on the second call, was that it really didn't
matter who these people were, that it could be the Russian Government, it could
be, you know, Russian criminals, it could be students, it could be whoever. He
genuinely didn't care. He freely admitted that it could be the Russian Government
but it was not something that was particularly, you know, bothersome to him.

So | repeated that, on the second call, my task would be to validate these

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what it's like, being in D.C. There are lots of people that name-drop aggressively.
So | was trying to work out is this someone who, you know, watches lots of news
and is very political but actually is not very connected, or is this someone who
genuinely is connected, who, you know, actually does know these people? Does
he know them, you know, as someone that, sort of, hangs around them, or does
he actually know them at a, sort of, personal -- you know, understanding things as
to what's going on inside this inner circle?

Based on what he told me of his interactions at the RNC, it seemed like he
had some very, very close connections with Michael Flynn, Sr. He knew to a very
significant detail what Michael Flynn, Sr.'s interactions were, what Trump
campaign fears were.

You know, this was during the height of the campaign, when none of this
information was really, sort of, publicly accessible or, sort of, publicly being
broadcast. So it really felt like he did have very significant connections with the
Trump campaign.

Q_ So do you remember any other, like, specifics of the types of -- like,
any more detail about what he told you about those relationships or connections?

A __ So two things sort of stuck out in particular. One was he mentioned
about General Flynn's, sort of, angling for positions within a future potential Donald
Trump presidency. He mentioned a feud between General Flynn and Director
Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence at the time, which wasn't particularly
public. If you watch a lot of interactions between the two of them prior to that, you
can kind of pick it up, but it's something that's not particularly public, it's not
particularly obvious. It's also not particularly flattering to either of them. So it

seemed like something that you wouldn't know by just hanging around.

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[4:00 p.m.]
oy
Q__ So, after the first email he wrote to you, did you call him or he called
you?
I called him.

About how long was that phone conversation?

> Oo >

Forty-five minutes.

36

Q_ And then your relationship went on for approximately another 7 days.

Is that correct?

A __ Slightly more than 7 days.

Q__ Slightly more than 7 days. In that 7-day period, did you make, from
your personal standpoint, a credibility determination about Mr. Smith?

A Yes.

Q_ And that credibility determination was?

A __ Atthe end of the first phone conversation, my impression was that |
didn't want to do business with him.

Q_ And did that ever change, that you did not want to do business with
Mr. Smith?

A __ No, not after the first phone call.

Q__ But you did have a subsequent phone call after the first phone call?

A Correct.

Q__ And if you did not want to engage in a business relationship with Mr.
Smith and the reason he initially contacted you and your interests were piqued
was because of possible business relationships, why did you pursue

communicating with Mr. Smith?

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call that he confirmed that he thought they might be Russian? And, second, was
he in possession of the emails? Was the investigator in possession of the
emails? Or was the, sort of, third-level hacker types in possession of the emails?

A So--

Q__ At the word of those people, | guess.

A --as he conveyed it to me, that this was a group that he and his law
firm were doing for -- you know, building up this dossier of information for the
purposes of the campaign; that this was going to be released prior to the
campaign, and the purpose of it was explicitly about the election; and that he
either employed or one of the other members of this team was the
dark-web/deep-web investigator and that that was their expertise and that that
person was in direct communication via the dark web with someone that credibly
claimed to have these emails.

And the thing that Peter Smith wanted me to do was -- this hacker was not
going to give them these emails without payment, and so they wanted to get a
sample of these emails. My task would then be to validate whether or not these
emails are legitimately from Hillary Clinton's email server. And, in the event that
they turned out that they were, then the payment would be made, and these
emails would then be released prior to the election.

Q__ So you would be validating a sampling of the emails --

A Correct.

Q_ --so that he could pay the hackers to give him all of them for this, kind
of, dossier that they were putting together --

A Correct.

Q_ -- against Hillary Clinton.

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with us. | understand there may have been some sort of prior contact or
relationship with one of our colleagues. | simply just want to get that clarified on
the record.

HE \'s0. | think this is something we can clarify between
ourselves because we have access to that information, if he's unable to speak to
it.

MR. TAIT: | don't think | can answer that.

MR. BITKOWER: | am not sure | understand the question, to be honest.
So | am not sure what --

HEE, «(Ve!!, the question is what, if any, kind of ex parte
communications he's had with our colleagues prior to the joint interaction we had
to set up this interview?

MR. BITKOWER: So is your question whether Mr. Tait has had interaction
with other members of this committee or staff of the committee outside of this
room?

HE, «(Ve!, prior - | guess prior to when we were all in contact,
beginning on July 26th, 2017.

MR. BITKOWER: Can we take a break to discuss among ourselves,
please?

Ms:

[Recess.]

HA ight. We are back on the record.

I'l rephrase my question. Other than contacts that began -- that occurred
in July of 2017 to sort of set up this interview procedurally and administratively,

have you had -- since March 1, 2017, have you had any other or additional

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As far as you understand, you. think he's a kind of credible person?

> DPD F DO

He's very accurate at relaying information that he has been told.

Q_ And so can you maybe unwind that for me a little bit? Did you have
concerns? | know they read a quote that you had provided to | think it was Vanity
Fair. Did you have concerns with Christopher Steele, with what he wrote, or can
you maybe unwind that comment a little bit?

A Sol was upset that the document that he had produced to clients was
not analysis; it was raw information. It is very easy for people reading raw
information to end up taking a very mistaken view as to what's actually happening.
Ordinary people are not used to reading raw HUMINT. And the fact that he was
doing that without the analysis, | thought was poor form.

Q__ So, obviously, here on the Intel Committee, we're exposed to a lot of
intelligence reporting. So! take what you are saying to mean what you
understand Christopher Steele had produced was sort of raw intelligence
reporting --

A Correct.

Q__ -- based on his background, [ny
You would then have analysts read through a bunch of raw reporting and then
produce an analysis. And are you saying it seems like raw reporting, but there
wasn't kind of a --

A Yes, it -

Q__ It hadn't been through the analytic process?

A __ Ithadn't been through the analytic process. There hadn't been -- so

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Q_ And what changed your mind then later?

A. So, over time, a number of additional documents were released. The
style of their release.

Also, over summer, | had access to things like the particular piece of
malware that was used during the DNC hack. | was able to cross-reference that
with other known pieces of malware and show that this was very likely APT-28
malware that had been used.

And, also, much later again, after John Podesta's emails were leaked, we
were very strongly link the phishing email that he had been sent to a very large
number of additional phishing campaigns which are very strongly tied to Russian
military intelligence.

Q__ So what were the circumstances under which you were granted
access to that information?

A Asacybersecurity researcher, | have lots of friends and contacts who
work with threat intelligence, trying to understand cyber attacks as they happen in
the private sector. | have lots of nondisclosure agreements with those
organizations. Sometimes they share technical artifacts in order to verify and to
cross-reference with different firms that have different views of industry.

Q_ Right. So you were sort of providing an expert view on that forensic
evidence. And | --

A For the most part, all of my analysis that was public was based on
public information. The access that | had to things like the malware, in particular,
| don't think this is public. But-| was able to cross-reference that with known
APT-28 malware, which is strongly tied to the Russian Government.

Q_ And based on your background either at GCHQ or in the private sector

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A _ The first phone conversation took place about -- | think it was 45, 50
minutes. Second one was about 25, 30 minutes.

Q_ And then over what time period date-wise?

A _ I think the first one was on September 4th and the second one was on
September 12th.

Q__ So your --

A No. September 5th and September 12th.

Q_ Thanks.

And date-wise, what was the extent of your relationship with Mr. Smith?
From what date to what date, approximately?

A From the very first email that he sent me through to the end of the
second phone conversation, after which | didn't contact him again.

Q_ Are you able to put dates on that for us?

A__ So from September the 4th, since | got the very first email, through to
after September 12th, | think. | didn't reply to any emails after that.

Q_ So only --

A Avery brief period.

Q_ Avery brief period. A week, maybe a couple days more.

A Yes. Slightly longer than a week.

Q_ And he first reached -- he, Mr. Smith, first reached out to you via
telephone?

A No. He first sent me an email, and then we arranged a phone call.

Q__ In that first email to you, he identified who he was, obviously.

A Correct.

Q__ Had you ever heard of Mr. Smith before that?

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information that would be of interest to the committee, in light of our parameters for
our investigation, with regard to Cambridge Analytica?

A No.

Q_ With regard to how the Russian Government, including its various
hacker entities, may have sought to manipulate social media and other online
platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook?

A __ Not other than has been reported in the media.

Q__ So you haven't had the opportunity to review any data or anything to
that effect that would shed additional light for the committee?

A Noton social media, no.

Q_ Okay.

oY

Q_ Mr. Tait, just a couple of quick cleanup matters. | think you can help
us straighten out a common conflation that occurs in this universe, given your
SIGINT background. So let's unpack that a little bit.

When you say raw intelligence and a case officer or field officer, as you
said, goes out into the field and obtains raw information, you literally mean that if
they are speaking to assets or sources or witnesses, they are ingesting everything
they take, receive.

A Correct, and transcribing it.

And transcribing it.
Yes.
And that's what good case officers do, right?

Correct.

Qo Fr OD FD

And so, at the time that it's occurring, it's not a concurrent sort of

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|

|

Q_ Anda perfect example of that would be, in your opinion -- and tell me if
I'm incorrect -- but the Steele dossier or the Trump dossier that was created by
Christopher Steele, for reasons you stated, that the information had not completed
the second portion of the process, which was the verification and analytical
process?

A The document as published is -- so far as | can tell, has done no
analysis on whether or not these things that people have told him are accurate.
He's not done an analysis. And it seems to me that that is -- if you were working
as a private investigator, that's something that you should do as a firm, because
the people that you are reporting to aren't able to ingest raw analysis.

Q__ And from your background, you can tell from the dossier that was
published publicly that that analysis had not occurred, because you are familiar
with what raw intelligence looks like?

A __ It doesn't appear to have gone through analysis.

Q_ And that's in your estimation, correct?

A Inmy view.

Q__ So, in your estimation, the two can occur at the same time in this given
instance: One, Christopher Steele is a credible J: and, two, he has

collected information recently, vis-a-vis the Trump dossier, that has not been

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verified or run through the analytical process.

A Correct.

a

ae

Q Mr. Tait, here again. | just actually want to follow up on
my colleague's questions and go back to that Vanity Fair article that | had
mentioned earlier.

You told the reporter in that article, and it's at the very end of your piece,
that it's, quote, really hard to tell whether any of the info -- info in the Trump
dossier -- is actually true or just a very exciting and expensively produced fan
fiction novel.

As you know, this committee has -- | don't know if you know this or not, but |
will tell you this committee has subpoenaed information regarding that document,
and we would like to obviously talk to Mr. Steele.

This committee is trying to get to the -- you know, trying to understand all
the facts associated with its investigation. If we were trying to get to the facts of
that document, how best could we -- how best should we proceed? Who should
we talk to?

A __ |-- from my understanding, he didn't intend this document to become
public. And so, from what | can tell, he doesn't want to sort of -- it has been
widely misinterpreted -- and doesn't want to sort of speak to Congress. And!
suppose that's, you know, his right as a U.K. citizen.

Q_ Fairenough. And that's my understanding as well. But, you know,
when you looked at the document back in January, at least before you were

quoted in this article in Vanity Fair --

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When he said that they were in contact with hackers that had taken these
emails, it seemed completely credible to me that the Russian Government could
have hacked them, could have those documents, and could be planning to leak
them as part of their, sort of, DNC disinformation campaign. But, as it stands
today, we don't have any clear evidence that it has been hacked.

Q__ Did it seem to you that Mr. Smith believed that it had been hacked?

A He certainly believed that it had been hacked.

Q So you mentioned that you never determined who from the dark web
had contacted Mr. Smith. Did he ever tell you -- Mr. Smith -- how he was in
contact with that person?

A So he was in contact with that person through his deep-web expert
specialist person who was directly in contact with them through the dark web.

Q_ And do you know anything about the nature of those
communications or --

A No.

Q__ -- those connections?

A No.

Q__ So you don't know how he was in contact with the investigator or how
the investigator was in touch with the hackers?

A No.

Q_ Okay.

A Other than it was through the deep web.

Q__ You said that "although it wasn't initially clear how independent Smith's
operation was from Flynn or the Trump campaign, it was immediately apparent

that Smith was both well-connected within the top echelons of the campaign and

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Q
A

Q

What was that timeframe?
I think it was 2009 to 2011, | think.
Okay.

As we get started, | would like to mark as exhibit 1 your Lawfare blog article

and place it into the record.

Q

[Tait Exhibit No. 1

was marked for identification.]

a

We have copies if folks need it. Looks like they have them.

And we are also in receipt of a number of emails and other documents you

provided to the committee, and we may refer to them during our discussion with

you.

So, as you likely know by now, | am sure, Mr. Smith apparently died by

suicide about 10 days after Shane Harris' story was published. So the events

surrounding Mr. Smith's activities during the election, the timing of his discussion

with Shane Harris a month later, and of course his subsequent death make this

story unusual, in addition to your interesting article.

| just want to ask you as an initial matter, in all of your conversations and

communications with Peter Smith, did you ever get the impression that he was

mentally unstable, any sense he was not in control of himself?

A

> O > OD

No. Quite the contrary.

Okay. And so did he seem like a coherent and functional --
Correct.

-- person?

Yes.

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Russian active measures, and what do we need to do to protect ourselves and our
allies in the future? And, fourth, what possible leaks of classified information took
place related to the Intelligence Community assessment of these matters?

We became interested in speaking with you following your Lawfare article,
"The Time | Got Recruited to Collude with the Russians," which was published on
Friday, June 30th of 2017, the day after Shane Harris’ Wall Street Journal story
tan about Peter Smith.

If you can tell us briefly about how you came to be a cybersecurity expert,
and then we can jump right into the events you are here to discuss.

A Okay.

So, after | left university, | went and worked at GCHQ, which is the U.K.
signals intelligence agency. While | was there, | got to work with U.K. national
security experts on a wide range of different cybersecurity topics.

After | left GCHQ, | then went into the private sector; | worked as a
consultant. As a consultant, | got to work with lots of different U.S. technology,
U.S. financial companies. | got to, you know, work internationally, as well, on
issues surrounding cybersecurity, how to defend networks against criminal
hacking, an intrusion.

After working there for a number of years, | then went and worked at
Google, a team called Google Project Zero, again, working on security issues with
commercial software.

Then, after that, | then founded my own company, doing consulting again,
on the basis of my cybersecurity knowledge.

Q_ And how long were you at GCHQ?

A Three years.

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A Yes.

Q You mentioned a Protonmail account. Did you end up setting that
account after the call?

A Yes. And you have the emails from there.

Q_ Uh-huh. And so what addresses were you using to contact him prior
to that discussion?

A So the -

Q__ You said he emailed you out of the blue.

A __ The very first email that he sent me was to my Gmail account. This is
a public account. People that know my name can very easily find this email
account. That was where he initially contacted me.

On the back of that, | set up a Protonmail account and emailed him. And
the communication was then entirely via Protonmail.

Q Uh-huh. And were other individuals involved in the operation
also -- did they also have Protonmail accounts?

A __ That I'm aware of.

Q_ Yes. Are you aware of anybody other than Peter Smith that was also
using Protonmail that was involved in his operation?

A Solunderstood that everybody was using Protonmail and that this
was a common practice with the team and that this was on the advice of General
Flynn, who had a company that was involved with cybersecurity, and it was them
that had advised everybody to use Protonmail.

Q_ And how many people did you understand to be part of this operation?

A On the first phone call, | assumed that it was going to be a very small

operation, that this was something that he was doing via his law firm, that it might

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Two days after the FBI opened its investigation, on Wednesday, July 27th,
then-candidate Trump publicly encouraged Russia to hack Secretary Clinton's
email. He said, quote, "Russia, if you're listening, | hope you'll be able to find the
30,000 emails that are missing."

Do you recall hearing these statements around the time they were made?

A __ | remember they were reported in the media, yes.

Q_ And did you find the statement by then-candidate Trump to be
appropriate? Inappropriate? What were your thoughts, based on your
expertise?

A So my experience is, when the initial hack took place, | think people
were very quick to jump to the conclusion that it was Russia. My default position,
having worked the -- you know, doing analysis, was that you begin your
assessments from "I don't know" and then you work forwards.

When they began disclosing emails and hacked documents, it struck me as
something that was very similar in category and style to the, sort of, 1960s, 1970s
Soviet disinformation. That struck me as, sort of, being very significant.

It wasn't really until much later that we had -- or that | had access to quite
strong technical indicators that very strongly linked this to the Russian
Government.

Q_ So my understanding is you -- | don't recall if it was in your Lawfare
article or elsewhere, but that you initially, as you said, kind of
questioned -- particularly when CrowdStrike came out with their assessment, you
had initially questioned that assessment and later came to a similar determination?

A _ So not so much that | questioned the assessment, but | thought that

they came to the conclusion with too much confidence early on.

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oppositional research for that campaign.

Q_ Okay.

And so, on September 6th, after you have your first phone call, you receive
an email from Mr. Smith. In that email, he mentions he wants to connect you with
General Flynn's son, Michael G. Flynn, after the election.

As you understand, what was the purpose of that connection? Why would
you be put in contact with Flynn, Jr., after?

A My understanding was that this was about potential future networking
opportunities that might have been relevant to my business, that he was
essentially trying to say, "These are our people that | can put you in contact with.
You will be able to create business opportunities off the back of our interactions."

Nothing came of it, both because, you know, | didn't interact with them but
also because | have no interest in them.

Qs Uh-huh.

He also mentions wanting to connect you with Brian Robins of AlienVault.
What was the purpose of that introduction, and who is Brian Robins?

A __ | don't know Brian Robins, but | assumed it was the same, that this
was, you know, potential future business networking opportunities.

Q__ So were you ever in contact with Mr. Robins of AlienVault?

A No.

Q_ Okay.

Mr. Smith mentions connecting you with Eric York, who we mentioned
before. As you understand it, who is Eric York, and what was the purpose of
being in contact with him?

A Atthe time, | understood it to be, again, the same, that this was

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EXECUTIVE SESSION

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

WASHINGTON, D.C.

INTERVIEW OF: MATTHEW F. TAIT

Friday, October 6, 2017

Washington, D.C.

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

commencing at 3:00 p.m.

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that's a little bit uncomfortable, especially as a non-U.S. citizen, as a non-U.S.
national at the time, | would have not wanted to be involved per se in a U.S.
opposition research.

What was particularly uncomfortable to me was that this felt to me like it
went beyond sort of the acceptable bounds of just conducting opposition research.
This was someone who was potentially in contact with Russian Government
officials and didn't care.

oy

Q__ But if you had any -- if you didn't have an interest in participating in
opposition research or assisting with opposition research, can you help me
understand why you persisted in contact with Mr. Smith after the initial phone call?

A __ So, prior to the initial phone call, | assumed that this was potentially
someone that wasn't attached to a campaign at all and, therefore, something that
would be, you know, fair game for business opportunities.

During the first phone call, it became -- he mentioned that he had potentially
gained access to some of these emails that were on Hillary Clinton's server and
that in the event that this was the case, that was actually an extremely important
national security thing that was extremely relevant to the 2016 DNC hack, which,
from my perspective, | wasn't interested in the sort of hustle and bustle of U.S.
politics. | was just very interested in the fact that this was a Russian Government
operation against the United States, and | was interested in it from the
cybersecurity and the national security aspect.

Q__ So, in the article, you write that they, Smith and his associates,
appeared to be convinced of the need to obtain Clinton's private emails and make

them public, and they had a reckless lack of interest in whether the emails came

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maintained that access until at least June 2016," end quote.

OO —SCC
O—CSCSCSCés
|_|

Based on your expertise and what you've observed, do you have any doubt
that Russian actors were responsible for the hack of the DNC network?

A Notat this stage.

Q | would like you -- take as much time as you need, but, you know,
maybe briefly talk us through how you came to know Peter Smith, how you came
to be in contact with him, and, kind of, the situation surrounding the Lawfare article
that you wrote.

A Sure.

So, long before any of this had taken place, | had written -- | had done a
bunch of analysis of Hillary Clinton's emails that had been released under the
Freedom of Information Act. And | have a Twitter account, and, as | go through
documents, quite often, just to break it up, you know, reading some of these very
long documents, | would tweet out snippets of things that | thought were
interesting -- you know, my, sort of, analysis.

Then, during the 2016 campaign, there was -- and that wasn't just specific
to Hillary Clinton's emails. | did this for large numbers of different FOIA
documents, with, you know, Intelligence Community assessments around the
world, things to do with cybersecurity or national security. And | did this for a wide
variety of different documents.

Then, during the 2016, sort of, intrusions, when the DNC was first hacked,

when | saw, you know, the original media stories and as | saw Guccifer 2

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previously, you had been exposed to Russian cyber activities previously, so you
had an expertise in this area. Is that correct?

A Sol've always had a -- I've spent a lot of time analyzing Russian cyber
intrusions, but -- not specifically Russian. I've analyzed lots of intrusions
internationally from, you know, China, from Iran, from Russia. It's very clear from
this particular piece of malware that this was very strongly tied to the Russian
Government as opposed to other nation-state actors.

Q_ Right.

Okay. So, as | mentioned, July 27th, Donald Trump made a statement
about the Russians finding 30,000 emails, Hillary Clinton's emails.

The next day, on Thursday, July 28th, you published an article on Lawfare
blog titled, quote, "On the Need for Official Attribution of Russia's DNC Hack." So
what prompted you to write that article?

A __ | believe that article was prompted by a joint statement by Adam Schiff
and Senator Feinstein on -- there had been a number of leaks in the press about
the Intelligence Community having a position that the Russian Government was
behind these leaks. It felt, to me, inappropriate that these were leaks coming out
in the press and that it would've been much -- from a foreign policy perspective, it
would be actively desirable for them to make this into a firm assessment.

Q_ Okay.

And are you familiar with the declassified Intelligence Community
assessment released on January 6th of this year?

A Yes.

Q_ According to the assessment, quote, "In July 2015, Russian

intelligence gained access to Democratic National Committee, DNC, networks and

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You then had a phone call with him on September Sth, a second short phone call
around September 12th. And after that second phone call, Mr. Smith sent you a

number of emails through October 7th, but you did not reply or otherwise connect

with him --
A Correct.
Q_ -- in any way, correct? Okay. So kind of persistent for about 7 days

maybe. | just want to be clear we're not missing other information.

A No.

Q_ Okay. So we talked about kind of verifying or kind of checking the
credibility of Mr. Smith. It sounds like to me after your second phone call with
him, you had determined by that point that you didn't want to do business with him.

A Correct.

Q_ After warning him about the potential Russian involvement.

A Yes. | thought that he was being reckless, and | didn't want anything
to do with it.

Q_ Sodid you see any reason then that you needed to verify what he had
said? Did you feel the need to check whether what he had said was credible, or
had you kind of just determined for yourself you didn't want to be engaged. any
longer?

A __ | didn't want to be engaged in it. It wasn't clear to me at the time that
any crimes had been committed, and so | closed it off and left it at that.

Ce —“(;SSCC‘és
—“CSSCSCSCSSCiés
FC

A

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A __ |don't have any evidence of that.

Q__ Did you do any -- yourself or your companies or any endeavors you
were involved with -- did you work in any fashion on either the Presidential election
campaigns for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?

A No.

Q__ Did you associate with individuals that did work for either of those
Presidential campaigns?

A No.

Q_ As it relates to -- I'm sure you've heard of this item -- and if you
haven't, let me know -- what's been commonly referred to as a Trump dossier,
which was printed by Buzzfeed sometime during the course of the campaign. Do
you recall this?

A __ The one by Christopher Steele.

Q_ Christopher Steele, yes. Do you have enough familiarity with the
dossier produced by Christopher Steele to speak about it today?

A Yes, | suppose.

Q_ Okay. Well, if you don't and if | ask you a question and you don't
know, then you don't know.

A Sure.

Q__ Did you in any way work with anyone at Fusion GPS or Christopher
Steele for the compilation of that dossier?

A No.

Q__ Have you ever worked with Christopher Steele in the past on anything

related to either that dossier or any other subject matter?

A No. ll

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article still 100-percent accurate?

A Some of the timelines are not quite accurate, but other than that.

Q_ Well, let's highlight some of those timelines. Which timelines are
inaccurate in your article that you wrote?

A __ So, in the article, | mentioned that this happened about the time of the
DNC.

Q__ Sorry, "this"?

A That! had been contacted by Peter Smith at the time of the DNC.
Going back through my emails, it's clear that that happened a couple weeks after
the DNC.

Q Okay. Any other timelines from your article that need to be
corrected? And feel free to reference your article.

A __ | believe that's the only thing. Also, there was only two phone calls
after | went back and checked. It felt like more, because it's such a weird --

Q_ Right.

A --setof circumstances. But when | went back and checked, it was
two phone calls.

Q_ So any other facts that need to be edited or corrected from the article
as it was written versus today?

A __ | believe that's just the two of them.

Q_ Other than, obviously, minor facts, such as how many times you had
spoken. And things like that are honest mistakes, so —

A Correct. Yeah.

Q_ Asit relates to your conversations with Mr. Smith, or your

communications, | should say, with Mr. Smith, how long did they go on for?

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from a Russian cutout.

A Correct.

Q_ And so that, what you call the reckless lack of interest, was what was
most concerning to you?

A __ Yes, the fact that it was grossly reckless.

Q__ But just -- and | know you said that everything you wrote in the article
still stands, but just to confirm, you never had any evidence that the Russians
were, in fact, behind the proffer of emails to Smith from the dark web. Is that
correct?

A __ So, at the time, it felt to me like it was plausible that this was the
Russian Government that were in contact with him, although I didn't have
evidence at the time. This was one of the reasons why we didn't publish at the
time. After The Wall Street Journal's article, The Wall Street Journal describes
that the U.S. Intelligence Community believed that this type of approach had been
made, people on the Trump campaign doing opposition research. And | thought,
based on that, that felt very similar to the information that | had, and it was,
therefore, the right time to publish the story and sort of complete the dots.

Q But, as you said in your article, you never found out who Smith's dark
web contact was. Is that correct?

A. Correct.

Q_ And you never had any contact with his dark web contact?

A Correct.

Q_ And so you don't have -- other than perhaps what you read in The Wall
Street Journal, you don't have any basis for evaluating that this -- | guess, first of

all, that this contact necessarily existed or was legitimate or had possession of the

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he seemed to know both Lieutenant General Flynn and his son well."

In my 1 minute, what did Mr. Smith tell you about his connections with the
Trump campaign?

A __ So he mentioned his connections with the Trump campaign on the first
phone call, when he mentioned his interactions with the RNC. He mentioned lots
of interactions with Flynn, which seemed to have a lot of detail into Flynn's thinking
on various issues, which felt like the types of conversations that you might have
with a very close family friend and not the types of conversations you would have
with someone that you didn't know very well.

Q_ And did he ever tell you by what form he was in communication with
them? You said they were at the Republican National Convention together.

A __ Other than that they had been at the national convention together, that
they had also, you know, met on a number of previous occasions, that they were
close friends, and that everyone within that circle used Protonmail for
communications. Other than that, | don't know anything about that.

HE, That's it. Thanks.

Mr. Tait, on behalf of the majority and the chairman, thanks for coming and
speaking with us today. I'm going to ask you some questions and then turn it over
to my colleague. He'll ask you some questions, and then we'll probably be done.

Do you need a break, or you're okay?

MR. TAIT: | should be okay.

HE 4 ight.
oY a
Q_ Your article written on Friday, June 30th, 2017, "The Time | Got

Recruited to Collude with the Russians," as we sit here today on 6 October, is that

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would become the CEO. But other than that, he didn't really mention it. And also
that the Flynn Group had been the ones to suggest the use of Protonmail for all
communications.

Q_ Sorry. Also with Mr. Flynn?

A Can you say that again?

Q_ You were saying Mr. Smith used Protonmail for all communications
with regard to his endeavor. Is that correct?

A __ |believe so.

Q__ So, just to confirm on the record, you mentioned that he began using
Protonmail at the suggestion of the Flynn Intel Group?

A Yes.

Q_ Do you have any idea when that might have been?

A __ | don't know.

Hore minute.
a

Q__ Just very quickly, The Wall Street Journal article from June 29th,
again, mentions, as | quoted earlier, that Mr. Smith told the reporter that there
were five groups of hackers, two of which were Russian. Was that detail shared
with you on the phone call?

A No.

Q_ Okay. If we do not have sufficient time in the next round of
questioning, I'll have some questions about any other information you would know
that might be of interest to the committee.

So the first question | do have with you is, in light of your cybersecurity

work, both at the time as well as subsequently, do you know of any other

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Q_ Okay.

| want to go through a timeline, and then | am going to ask you to describe
afterward, kind of, your experience, especially based on what was in the article.

So, on June 14th of 2016, The Washington Post broke the story about the
hack of the DNC network. When was the first time that you learned about the
DNC hack?

A __ | learned about it from the media on that day.

Q_ Okay. And is this around the time you began looking at the stolen
emails?

A So |! looked at Hillary Clinton's emails that were released under the
Freedom of Information Act as they were released by the State Department, which
was long before this took place.

Q Uh-huh.

A And the stolen emails | looked at after they were published by
WikiLeaks. And | looked at the documents released by the persona Guccifer 2 as
they were released by him publicly.

Q Okay. Right. So, on Friday, July 22nd, 3 days before the start of the
Democratic National Convention, was when WikiLeaks released nearly 20,000
emails from the DNC.

Monday, the 25th of July, the FBI confirmed it had opened an investigation
into hacking of the DNC, and sources and experts had begun attributing the
attacks to Russia.

That same day, July 25th, then-candidate Trump tweeted, quote, "The new
joke in town is that Russia leaked the disastrous DNC emails which should never

have been written. Stupid because Putin likes me," end quote.

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one of the cover sheets of a document that he had sent me. | assumed that this
document had been sent to me in error because it detailed a lot of information
which had been -- it felt deliberately opaque on the previous call, so it felt very
unusual for them to be providing that sort of level of detail. It mentions things like
Trump campaign officials. It mentions that this is set up as an LLC to avoid
campaign reporting.

And as both neither a U.S. citizen nor at the time a U.S., you know, person,
this felt to me like | just did not want to touch. This is, you know, in the middle of
a U.S. election. This is, you know, the U.S.'s problem, not mine.

Q_ So Peter Smith, very evasive on your phone call on September 5th,
gives you very few details. And then you receive, you assume in error, quite a bit
of what you assume to be sensitive information about his operation, the company,
the funding. Is that --

A So he describes on the phone call lots of details about the operation,
but he's quite evasive as to who it is that precisely is involved and how many
people are involved. Then he provides this document as an email between the
two phone calls.

Q_ So at what point did it become clear to you -- | think you mentioned
there were a handful of other GOP folks who were mentioned with respect to this
operation. Was that part of the -- you said Michael Flynn was mentioned on the
phone. Were any other individuals mentioned on the phone, or this was just the
cover sheet that you thought you received in error?

A__ So, on the first phone call, he mentioned, sort of towards the beginning
part of the phone call, that he had been at the RNC, that he was very, sort of,

well-connected. It came across during the conversations -- | mean, you all know

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GCHQ intelligence agency cast the report as amateur and the work of a, quote,
ex-field officer who's got some interesting sources but who has no idea how to
compile raw HUMINT into usable intelligence.

Is that your quote?

A Yes.

Q Do you still believe that today?

A Yes.

Q___| wanted to take you back to your article in Lawfare, which we've been
talking about here today, obviously, during the course of this interview. You've
mentioned | think in your testimony here about your conversations with Mr. Harris,
Shane Harris, the author of The Wall Street Journal article.

A Yes.

Q_ So when did you first talk to Mr. Harris, if you may tell us?

A __ Sol've known Shane Harris a while for completely -- you know, I've
spoken to him about other cybersecurity and national security topics. We
previously covered a national security beat, so | spoke to him on a number of
occasions.

Q__ Did you reach out to him about your conversations with Mr. Smith the

year before?

A No.

Q_ So he called you?

A Yes.

Q_ And did you ask him how he knew that you had talked to Mr. Smith?
A Yes. He said that he had been phoned by Mr. Smith independently.
Q_ Okay. When you wrote the Lawfare article, why did you choose

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disinformation campaign.

And in the event that this was something that was taking place, it would be
incredibly dangerous for them to be engaging with that because the group in
question was not acting in their best interests.

Q_ Okay. Also, in this Wall Street Journal article, the first one that was
published, it mentions that Mr. Smith assembled a group of technology experts,
lawyers, and a Russian-speaking investigator based in Europe. Are you aware of
who that Russian-speaking investigator might be?

A No.

FY Five minutes, ||
a

Q Much of our discussion is based on the events that transpired during
the time period that you were in touch with Mr. Smith. Since these events, have
you gained knowledge of or have assessed or believe that the emails that Mr.
Smith was searching for, these 33,000 emails, either do exist or did exist on the
dark web?

A __ Inthe event that it was the Russian Government which had them, then
they would have been quite careful as to the distribution of them. And | assumed
that, in the event that it was the Russian Government, then they would use those
to have leverage over a potential President Clinton. But | don't have any
particular evidence that they were hacked or did they ever exist on the dark web.

Q Okay. You also received or you were asked several questions by my
colleagues about your own assessment of Mr. Smith's credibility, your own due
diligence after receiving your first correspondence, after your first phone call,

about Mr. Smith's role and potential influence and involvement in Republican

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A __ | spoke with colleagues and friends about the events and how weird
they were, trying to understand what exactly had happened, trying to understand
how significant it was, and to make it clear that | had been very uncomfortable with
this and trying to work out whether other people would have been equally
uncomfortable under the circumstances.

Q_ So you were sort of verifying for yourself whether or not the correct
decision was made, both from a business standpoint and also just a personal
standpoint?

A Froma business standpoint, it was a no-brainer. From a personal
perspective, yes.

Q__ And did you find Mr. Smith to be credible in any communications you
had with him?

A Yes.

Q_ And, specifically, what was Mr. Smith credible about?

A __ He had very credible inside knowledge of the Trump campaign,
especially at the RNC. He had -- his documents that he sent were -- you know,
he had invested a significant amount of time in them. They were structured ina
way that meant that he was running an operation. On the second phone call,
there was a number of additional people there, including an attorney, who |
presume was on the clock. There was a significant amount of resources they
were putting into this operation.

Q You mentioned the RNC.

A Yes.

Q What specifically did Mr. Smith communicate to you that you found

credible in relation to him and the RNC?

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of the reporting, the quality of the sources --

A Yes.

Q_ --that he may have had?

A Yes.

Q__ How did that change?

A Based on my understanding of who he was, he was --

1 G2- cocurert, al of the

sources are redacted. There is no information in the public document as to who

his sources are, and allegations from anonymous sources are very difficult to

place. lll

Q_ So would you -- just so that our committee can understand your

assessment of the dossier, in light of your knowledge that Mr. Steele was the

thr,

would that have informed your change in assessment?

A Can you repeat the question?

Q_ Okay. So, just to inform the committee, to better understand why,
once you were aware that Mr. Steele was the author of the dossier, your
assessment of the credibility of the information would be different than prior to your

knowledge about his authorship of the dossier -- so since | mentioned his career in

the British Intelligence Community, is

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A One of the things that he mentioned was the -- Trump had recently |
think gone abroad | believe to Mexico. And there was -- he relayed to me that
there was significant concerns amongst Trump sort of top campaign people of
leaving Donald Trump in a room with these people, that Donald Trump was
someone that was very easily persuaded.

And it felt to me like this is something that would not be disclosed to people
that you were not very sort of close to. It felt to me like this is -- this is not
something that you would get just by watching lots of television or, you know,
reading lots of newspapers. This is someone who has a reasonable sort of close
understanding of what's going on at the Trump campaign.

And his close relationship with General Flynn in particular made it feel to
me like that was the close relationship.

Q_ So you examined the information that you had at your disposal and
made a judgment call?

A Correct.

Q__ Did you independently verify any of that information through your own
profession or personal networks?

A Which precise piece of information?

Q_ The RNC information, his?

A l-t-

Q_ -- with General Flynn?

A __ | sort of follow especially national security issues. Things like the
animosity between Director Clapper and Director Flynn are things that you can
pick up if you watch national security events in the United States very closely.

They are not particularly well-known outside of those circles. So for someone to

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his account of his relationship with Mr. Flynn or General Flynn?
A Can you repeat the question?

Did you see any emails between General Flynn and Mr. Smith?

No.

Have you seen them pictured together at any point?

> O PF OD

No.

Q__ So, basically, your understanding of the relationship between General
Flynn and Mr. Smith is entirely based on what Mr. Smith told you?

A Yes.

Q__ Now, can you just briefly describe what's your understanding of the
relationship between Mr. Smith and Michael G. Flynn, General Flynn's son?

A |don't know.

Q__ Did you have any contact with Michael G. Flynn?

A No.

Q__ Did Mr. Smith describe to you any conversations he had had with
Michael G. Flynn?

A | don't recall him mentioning them.

Q_ What about with Steve Bannon, did Mr. Smith say that he had been in
contact with Mr. Bannon?

A __ | believe he mentioned that they had had a conversation at the RNC
convention, but they didn't appear to be close.

Q__ Did he mention -- | believe you said earlier -- did he say that he had
had conversations with Kellyanne Conway?

A __ | believe he mentioned that he had had a conversation with her.

Q_ What about Sam Clovis?

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emails. He would get a sample once | had signed the nondisclosure agreement.
Then he would send the sample over to me, which | would then validate in the
event that, in my considered opinion, they were Hillary Clinton's -- or, from their
perspective, what -- | would then have these emails, if | considered them to be
Hillary Clinton's emails, and they would pay for the rest of them to be released
prior to the election.

Q__ So you said that on both phone calls you, sort of, warned Mr. Smith
that you were very concerned that this may be a Russian Government activity, and
he said, you know, he wasn't concerned, he didn't care if it was the government or
criminals, and you said he freely admitted he didn't care.

From how you understood things, did he believe that he was working with
Russians? Was it that he didn't care whether it was Russians, or was he aware
that he was working with Russians?

A Hedidn't care. You know, he freely admitted that the hackers had
different motives to his motives, that their motives might not be to release these
for, you know, journalism or for any reason; they just wanted money. And in the
event that this was legitimate emails, then a payment could be made so that these
emails would come out and that that would be in the interests, in his view, of the
United States, because they would be able to release this prior to the election.

Q_ Okay. And did he tell you what the nationality of these hackers were,
or did he seem to know?

A _ He didn't know, but we discussed that on a number of times. | made
it clear that my assessment, the U.S. Intelligence Community assessment, based
on media stories and the considered opinion of the entire industry, was that this

was probably the Russian Government that had hacked the DNC and that,

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removed from this document?
A No.
HE) (V¢ just have just a few minutes left. I'm going to turn it over

to my colleague.

|
Q_ Mr. Tait, my name csi I'm << for the

majority. | just have a couple quick questions for you.
My colleague here asked you about the dossier.

The Christopher Steele dossier.

Yes. Have you read that document?

I've read the public document.

op Fr DO >

Okay. What was your view of that document after you read it?

A __ | thought that it felt like a raw HUMINT analysis, based on
conversations that he had had.

Q__ Did you think it was -- did you have concerns with the way it was put
together?

A __ | have concerns with how it was reported.

Q__Inan article that was published | guess in January 11, 2017, are you
familiar with this article that was written by Abigail Tracy in Vanity Fair?

A _ Whatis the title of that?

Q__ The title is "What Intelligence Experts Think of the Explosive Trump
Russia Report.”

A | don't remember the precise report.

Q_I'ilread itto you. It says here: Matt Tait, a former staffer of Britain's

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politics or the campaign.

The press articles that have been published since suggest that Mr. Smith
actually was involved for a long period of time in Republican politics, was involved
as an operative. Are you aware of this information that emerged subsequently
about his involvement, his contacts, and his financial contributions?

A Yes.

Q_ Okay. If you can, you discussed Mr. Smith's close personal
relationship with Mr. Flynn, Sr.?

A Yes.

Q_ Could you just recount for us what you can remember from your phone
calls, what Mr. Smith conveyed to you that gave you a sense that they had a close
relationship? You mentioned one data point, that Mr. Smith had visited Mr. Flynn
at home, | believe?

A Yes.

Q_ Athishome. Anything else that you can recount to us on that?

A __ Also his knowledge of General Flynn's interactions, his career
aspirations, his personal animosities with people like Director Clapper, which are
the types of conversations that you wouldn't have with people that you don't know
well.

Q__ Did he indicate or suggest that he was in email communication or
phone communication with Mr. Flynn?

A __ | assumed it was face-to-face communication, but | don't know.

Q__ Did he also suggest engagement with the Flynn Intel Group?

A He mentioned the Flynn Intel Group, that, after Donald Trump would

win the election, then Michael Flynn, Jr., would take over the Flynn Group and

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Thank you.

The interview will be transcribed by a reporter. They are making a record
of these proceedings so we can easily consult the written compilation of your
answers. Because a reporter cannot record gestures, we ask that you answer
verbally to all questions. If you forget to do this, you might be reminded to do so.
You may also be asked to spell certain terms or unusual phrases.

Consistent with the committee's rules of procedure, you and your counsel
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 committee's custody.

The committee also reserves the right to request your return for additional
questions should the need arise.

The process for this interview will be as follows. The minority will be given
45 minutes to ask questions; then the majority will be given 45 minutes to ask
questions. Immediately thereafter, we will take a 5-minute break if you wish. If
not, the minority will be given 15 minutes to ask questions, the majority will be 15
minutes to ask questions, and we will go back and forth until the process is
complete.

But the time limits will be 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 attorneys.

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

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A _ It's certainly something that | would have been extremely
uncomfortable being involved in.

Q__ So, when the article uses several negative adjectives, "disturbing,"

“bizarre,” "unsettling," "ominous," -- today, you've used words, "weird,"
"uncomfortable," -- those adjectives primarily attach to the prospect of Russian
involvement or a Russian hand in this endeavor. Is that correct?

A My real concern was the callous nature with which they sort of wrote
off the clear danger of, in the event this was the Russian Government, then this is
something that should be taken extremely seriously. And the sort of, in the event
that someone is alerted to the fact that this might be going on and chooses to do it
anyway, that felt to me to be deeply, deeply disturbing.

Q__ Sois it fair to say the answer to my question is yes?

A What was your question, again?

Q_ Whether the negative adjectives used in the article and here today in
the interview primarily attach to the prospect of Russian Government involvement
or the disregard thereof.

MR. BITKOWER: Can |interpose? If we're going to ask him what his use
of adjectives in the article mean, maybe it would be helpful to point out where
those are in the article. If you're going to ask him his impression now, that seems
like a fair question. But if you ask him how he used a word back in June or July,
why don't we point to where it is, and he can answer the question with respect to
that particular usage.

HE happy to have him answer for the words he's used today
and sort of his feeling on things now.

MR. TAIT: Yeah. | mean, opposition research is a dirty game, and a lot of

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GE |'v2 vever worked with him, never read anything by him other

than the public dossier since he left government.

Q_ And do you have any affiliations with either Fusion GPS or Orbis
International or any other subsidiaries of those companies?

A No.

Q_ Just one moment.

Sorry. Just to circle back to Mr. Smith, outside of the information that
you've provided the committee, the emails that you've provided the committee, are
there any other pieces of evidence that memorialize or record your
communications with Mr. Smith?

A No.

Q_ Thanks very much.

a a
Ya

Q_ Mr. Tait, thanks for being here today. | understand you've done
back-to-back interviews, so | appreciate your time, especially on a Friday.

| would like to start just asking a few additional questions about your June
Lawfare article that we've already discussed.

You mentioned in the article that you did not feel comfortable and had no
interest in providing material help to either of the campaigns beyond merely
answering questions on behalf of your already public analysis of Clinton's emails.

A Correct.

Q___Butin terms of -- setting aside for a moment the Russians or the
prospect of Russian involvement, did you have any -- did you have any negative

feelings towards or view as illegitimate the enterprise to attempt -- to locate the

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ingestion and credibility analysis; that happens later, as good case officers do.

A Precisely. And back to the case officers or back to the decoupling the
T. The best case officers are people that don't cloud the transcript with their
assessment of credibility.

Q_ Right. | mean, even to take a crazy example, even if a case officer
meets an individual who says, "| know who killed JFK," and then there's another
15 minutes after that, he's going to still record everything and not discount what is
coming at him at that point in time?

A Correct. You want the analysis to take place later, which is both
source analysis to understand how credible the source is and then to coordinate
the information that has newly come in from the transcript into actual analysis that
you can then release to policymakers and that sort of provides an assessment of
what's happened.

Q_ And that leads me right to my next point. So there's an extensive
process once the collection of information is complete for verification purposes: a
credibility analysis, a comparison of other information relating to those topics,
discussing it internally with your agency and your sister components.

A Yes.

Q__ Soit's very possible that you can be both an excellent case officer,
field officer, and also receive extremely bad intelligence?

A Correct.

But you wouldn't know that until the entire analysis was complete?

Q
A Correct.
Q

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campaign. He mentioned that he had spoken to Kellyanne Conway, that he had
spoken to Steve Bannon. He mentioned that he was very good friends with
Michael Flynn, Sr., and was a close family friend.

HER, «(V2s this ail in the initial one phone call you had?

MR. TAIT: On the initial call, yes.

And, you know, we spoke about things like Hillary Clinton's email server,
whether or not it was secure, whether or not, you know, this was normal -- sort of,
questions along those lines, just really to try and break the ice, try and work out
what it was that he was wanting.

And one of the things that | didn't know until the phone call that | was really
trying to work out was why he had contacted me and what it was precisely that he
wanted from this phone call. You know, was it just that he wanted some
information? Was it that he wanted, you know, me to do some work? You know,
what was it precisely?

And one of the things that | was very concerned about was, was he
contacting me in order to ask me to hack Hillary Clinton's 30,000 emails? You
know, was he -- you know, this is a guy that's a lawyer. He knows not to ask
these questions directly, but is he asking these questions indirectly? That was
something that | was very concerned about on the first call. And that was the
main thing that | was trying to ascertain: Are you asking me to do something
illegal, in which case this conversation needs to end immediately, and, in the event
not, what precisely are you asking me to do?

And towards the end of this conversation, he mentions that what he wants
me to do is he wants me to validate some emails. And he says that he's got an

expert in the deep web, or the dark web, who was being contacted or was in

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seemed to me that, in the event that you are a wealthy person who was just
self-financing information in order to disclose prior to the election, that | don't
understand why you would need to set up a company to avoid campaign reporting.
If you're subject to campaign reporting, surely you must be tied to a campaign.

Q__ So, on that -- well, are you familiar with independent expenditures?

A No.

Q_ Are you familiar with the reporting requirements of independent
expenditures with the Federal Election Commission?

A No.

Q_ Are you familiar that -- are you aware that independent expenditures,
by definition, cannot coordinate with the campaign but still must file certain
documents with the Federal Election Commission?

A __ | don't have any knowledge of the FEC.

Q_ You mentioned -- several times you said you aren't a U.S. citizen and
weren't a U.S. person or a green card holder at the time. Has that status
changed?

A No.

Q__ So, to the extent that you viewed this entity as having some
relationship, official relationship, with the campaign and given that you are not a
U.S. person, did you have any concerns about being associated with that effort or
listed in this document? :

A __ | was upset that | was listed on this document.

Q__ Did you express that in any way to Mr. Smith?

A No.

Q__ Did you at the time -- did you take any action to try to get yourself

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far as | could see from the document, there hadn't been an assessment of source
credibility. There hadn't been an assessment of source contamination, things that
generally would be done in HUMINT intelligence analysis.

Q_ So you weren't necessarily concerned about the credibility of
Christopher Steele or the information in the dossier; you were just concerned it
hadn't gone through the analytic process --

A Yes.

Q__ -- like finished intelligence would go through?

A Yes. It wasn't analysis.

HE) ©k2y.'m going to turn it over to my colleague,
aT
Q Myname is R'm the for the minority

staff. | have a few followup questions and then some larger contextual questions
that hopefully we can wrap up quickly.

The first question is: My colleagues in the previous round of questioning
asked whether or not you were aware of any evidence regarding collusion
between the Russian Government and U.S. persons. You said that you
personally were not aware of any evidence of collusion. The question is whether
or not you are aware of any evidence that would refute the possibility of collusion.
And so you responded in the affirmative.

| just want to clarify with you if you could also explain your views as to
whether or not you believe that what you are aware of or what is in the public
domain suggests that there is no possibility whatsoever of coordination,
cooperation, or collusion, or the other terms used by my colleagues.

A __ So, in terms of the information that | had from Peter Smith, that didn't

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understand.

Q__ So how did the callend? So he made his pitch to you. You were
very uncomfortable. How did things end after that phone call on the 5th?

A __ So what he said was he said that | need to set up a Protonmail email
account because it was encrypted and it couldn't be intercepted by anybody.

He was very insistent -- like, as a cybersecurity expert, quite often | get
contacted by people that are reasonably paranoid about communications. Asa
general rule, the more paranoid people are, the less useful they are to speak to.
It seems to be quite a strong correlation.

But, in this particular case, based on the fact that he was claiming that he
was in contact with these people that had Hillary Clinton's emails and given that
the DNC had recently been hacked, the DCC had recently been hacked, DNC
emails had recently been leaked, it didn't seem unreasonable that this was
something that maybe the Russian Government or, you know, some Russia
hacking group might be trying do; that, in the event that this information was not
going to be available without setting up a Protonmail account, for the effort of
setting one up, that was what | was going to do, and that on the back of that he
would then send me materials.

Q_ Allright.

So did Mr. Smith -- what was the nature of his possession of or knowledge
of the emails?

You said, as you understood it, he knew somebody who was some sort of
dark-web investigator who was then in communication with hackers who maybe
had these emails.

Was it during this -- | have two questions. One, was it during this phone

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- ERR) Good afternoon. This is a transcribed interview of Matt Tait.

Thank you for speaking to us today.

For the record, | am (ES EEE for the majority here at the
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. There are a number of
other individuals present, and they will identify themselves during the course of the
proceeding.

Before we begin, | wanted to say a few things for the record.

The questioning will be conducted by members -- well, not members, just
staff, as you can see. During the course of this interview, members may come in,
but staff will 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.
And we ask that you give complete and fulsome replies to questions based on
your best recollections. This entire interview will be done at the unclassified 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 lawyers present for this interview, though you are
not required to do so. | see that you have brought them.

Can you please, counsel, state your names for the record?

MR. BITKOWER: David Bitkower.

MS. ORPETT: Natalie Orpett.

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apologize -- September?
MS. ORPETT: You said the last conversation?

HE Communication. Yes, yes.

MR. TAIT: The last phone conversation was on September 12th, and the

last email was on September 12th as well.

| After -- sorry, go ahead.

MS. ORPETT: To clarify, the last communication back and forth?

a <<

MR. TAIT: From me, from me.

MS. ORPETT: There were subsequent emails that you have --

MR. TAIT: Right, right.

MS. ORPETT: -- that were after that that Mr. Tait did not respond to.

| He did not respond to, right. That's what | meant.

MR. TAIT: Correct.

oY

Q_ And how long did those emails go on for that Mr. Smith kept sending

to you?

A Until October 7th.

Q Okay. And, thereafter, you never received an email or any manner of

communication from Mr. Smith again?

A Correct.

Q__ After you stopped responding to Mr. Smith's communications, did you
inquire about Mr. Smith with anyone in your professional circle?

A Yes.

Q_ And who did you speak to about Mr. Smith?

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es. Would that have together been part of

your personal assessment of the information in the dossier?

A |ama bit uncomfortable answering at an unclassified level as to
speculations to where he worked or what sources he might have had.

Q___l assume we don't have the option of having a separate conversation?
Okay.

| want to clarify two different phrases you used. In several places,
including the beginning of the interview, you made clear that your starting point as
a cybersecurity expert is to start from a place of | don't know whether a hack, for
instance, has occurred and only once affirmative information is presented that you
can assess and analyze can you then make a judgment as to whether a certain
action occurred. At the same time, you were asked questions by my colleagues
as to whether there was any evidence of a hack, for instance, specifically with
regard to the Clinton servers that would have housed these 33,000 emails. Is it
your view that a response that there was no evidence of a hack is the same as |
don't know whether there was a hack?

A Correct.

Q_ Okay. | just want to clarify that, because it could be interpreted -- and
correct me if | am wrong -- stating that you are not aware of any evidence could
suggest that it closes the door to the possibility that there could have been a hack?

A _ Itis perfectly possible that Clinton's email server had been hacked. |
have no evidence that it has been hacked.

Q_ So therefore?

A | don't know.

Q You don't know. Okay.

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potential future networking opportunities. It's possible that he may have been
involved in the operation, but he was only mentioned on that email. He was never
mentioned since, so | honestly don't know.

Q_ And you never discussed who Eric York was or why you might be in
contact with him?

A No.

Q_ So Mr. Smith copied someone named Jonathan Safron and also a
John Szobocsan on the email to you. How were these individuals described to
you? What role did they play?

A __ So, on the first phone call, Peter Smith mentioned that he had
colleagues who would be on the future phone call. On the future phone call, they
were there. So we had two phone calls. The second phone call was with Peter
Smith, with Jon Safron, and with John Szobocsan.

My impression was that Jon Safron acted as sort of like an assistant, that,
you know, he didn't really take part in the conversation but set up a lot of things.
You know, he relayed a lot of work for -- you know, he was on several of the
emails.

Jonathan Szobocsan, by contrast, was someone that was senior within the
firm. This was someone who took part substantively in the conversations and
was much more -- Peter Smith tended to sort of ramble around a lot. John
Szobocsan was, you know, quite business-orientated, and on the second phone
call he was quite -- he very much wanted me to sign a nondisclosure agreement
before discussing any further.

Q_ Socan you talk us through, then, what happened on that second

phone call? When did it take place? What was the discussion?

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Appearances:

For the PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE:

For MATTHEW F. TAIT:

DAVID BITKOWER, ESQ.
NATALIE K. ORPETT, ESQ.
JENNER & BLOCK LLP.

1099 New York Avenue, NW
Suite 900

Washington, D.C. 20001-4412

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emails or was affiliated with the Russian Government?

A Yes. And at the time, that was one of the reasons why we didn't
publish. But when we add that to the U.S. intelligence assessment that was
published by The Wall Street Journal, that was leaked from The Wall Street
Journal, you can sort of add the two together, that the U.S. Intelligence Community
was very concerned of an approach which looked very similar to an approach that
| had seen, and that was sufficient for me to publish this article.

Q___Do you have any information about this approach, reported approach

or assessment thereof, other than what you read in The Wall Street Journal?

A No.

Q__ Did you choose the title for this article?

A No.

Q_ Headline writers are always frustrating article authors.
A Quite possibly.

Q__ Because it would seem that the title, "The Time | Got Recruited to
Collude with the Russians," is a little stronger than what you've described.

A __ It's not the headline | would have chosen.

Q__ You state that -- and understanding you have some expertise in the
DNC hack and attribution to Russian actors related thereto, you write in your
Lawfare article that: "My suspicion then and now is that Hillary Clinton's email
server was never likely breached by Russia." Is that still your assessment, sitting
here today?

A Yes. Based on the information that we have today, | don't think
there's any credible evidence that it has been hacked, although it was in an

insecure state.

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A No.

Q_ When you received that email, what was your initial reaction?

A My initial reaction was that this was someone who claimed not to be
attached to the official campaign. In the event that it had been the official
campaign, | would've been much more, sort of, wary about what it was, firstly, he
was asking me to do. But that this was someone who seems to be potentially in a
position where | might end up with business opportunities off the back of it.
Because it was a very brief email, trying to work out what it is precisely that he
wanted, that was worthy of having a phone call.

Q_ And in that very brief email of Mr. Smith's first communication to you,
what was it that stuck out, in your mind, that merited a further communication with
him or a reply?

A Well, as a businessowner, in the event that someone phones you and
says, you know, we're very interested in some of the work that you've done, would
you be able to speak to us, than that's sufficient to have a phone call.

Q_ Was there a particular piece of information that was highlighted that
piqued your interest?

A __ The fact that he knew some of the work that | had done. | think that
he had mistaken some of the work that | had done. | thought that he meant the
DNC hack when, actually, what he meant was Hillary Clinton's FOIA'd emails.

But on the basis that he knew who | was, | assumed that this is worthy of
having a phone call to see whether or not -- you know, what it is precisely that he
wanted and whether or not that would turn into a business opportunity.

Q_ And after the first communication from Mr. Smith to you, when was

your first reply back to him, via phone call or email?

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A Other than what's in the media, no.

Q_ Andas it relates to Mr. Smith and the information that you made
judgment calls on between your relationship with him -- or | should say your
communications with him, does any of that information lead you to believe that
there was any collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Russian
Government and the Donald J. Trump Presidential campaign?

A Atthe time, it didn't occur to me that that was even something that was
possible. My view was that this was Peter Smith being very incautious, perhaps
callous, with national security; perhaps as someone that wasn't a national security
person himself, that he didn't appreciate how dangerous it is to, you know, play
this game. That's one of the reasons why | was so clear to him that this is a game
that he really just did not want to play.

It honestly didn't occur to me that he might have been trying to do that
deliberately. | still think to this day it's more likely that this was a Russian
Government activity for the purposes of whatever the Russian Government's
interests are rather than in order to try and build up a relationship, but | don't have
any specific information on that.

Q No, sure. So your individual assessment as it relates to the 2016
Presidential election is that any involvement with the Russian Government -- and
correct me if I'm wrong -- in that campaign was not at the behest of anyone who
was working for the Donald J. Trump Presidential campaign?

A I don't have any evidence of that.

Q_ Okay. Do you have any evidence to show that anyone was directed
outside of the Donald J. Trump Presidential campaign to coordinate, collude, or

conspire with the Russian Government in the 2016 election?

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therefore, it should be a working assumption that this was the Russian
Government.

WM, ©2 | ask you something? Why did you find that
problematic?

MR. TAIT: Sorry?

HEV by cid you find it problematic and, sort of, warn Peter
Smith that he shouldn't get involved if this was the Russians?

MR. TAIT: So my view at the time was that -- it honestly didn't occur to me
that this, you know, would be something that a campaign would do willingly. It
seemed to me that he was just blinded by partisanship, and in the event that
someone said, hang on, you know, step back, this might be the Russian
Government, then he would take from that, you know, actually this is something
that | need to go away and think about and potentially warn them off. In --

G3 why would he -- why would that not be -- why would it be
a bad idea to work with the Russians to get the emails?

MR. TAIT: Because the Russian Government is acting in the Russian
Government's interest; it's not acting in his interests. He might think that their
interests are aligned, but if they're aligned, it's only very ephemeral.

oY

Q__ As far as you understood, what led Mr. Smith to believe that Secretary
Clinton's email server had been hacked? | think you said in your posts that you
didn't believe at the time and you don't believe now that that happened.

A __ |have no evidence that it's been hacked. | think that it was insecurely
stored, but | don't think that there's any evidence at the moment that it has been

hacked.

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posting -- or the alias Guccifer 2 posting some of these documents, this was
something that was clearly cybersecurity- and national-security-relevant. So |
was going through them and tweeting out things that | thought relevant and
interesting, things where | thought that they had made mistakes, where | thought
that they were doing things with a particular strategy in mind and trying to come to
a considered view as to who this was, why they might be doing it, and what was
going on.

Then, much later in September, on September the 4th, | believe it was, | got
an email completely out of the blue by this person, Peter Smith, who | had never
heard of before, | had never had contact with before. He said in his email that he
was someone who was a political operative from the political right, which |
understood to. mean that he wasn't directly associated with the Republican
campaign but might be, sort of, someone that is -- a Republican who is very
interested in it, potentially someone that had money and was interested in, sort of,
influencing, you know, down-ticket races or something. And he was very
interested in the work that | had done on the Hillary Clinton emails.

| assumed, based on the fact that | had done a lot of much more high-profile
work on the DNC emails, that he was making a mistake, that he actually was
interested in the stuff that | had written about the DNC emails rather than the
Hillary Clinton emails.

And so | thought that, in order to understand what it was that he wanted,
whether this would lead to business opportunities, given that | assumed this wasn't
a campaign, and whether or not -- you know, what else was going on, | thought |
would phone him and see what was going on.

Q__ So, after that September 4th email, did you respond back -- you

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> Oo >

=
PCC
CC

Q_ Okay. If you could just quickly recount for us, what indicators did you
observe with regard to Smith's operation that suggested the possibility or
plausibility of engagement with hackers or Russian Government operatives or
cutouts in any way? | just want to have a clear on-the-record view from you on
that matter.

A Can you repeat the question?

Q Sure, What indicators, in your sense, in your view, did your
engagement with Smith and the larger operation and the documents you received
give you a sense that it was possible or plausible that there was some
engagement with Russian Government officials or cutouts or other actors? For
instance, Mr. Smith himself acknowledged matters. And the reason | ask that is,
in The Wall Street Journal article of June 29, 2017, Mr. Smith is quoted as telling
the reporter, Shane Harris, that he and his colleagues found five groups of hackers
who claim to possess Mrs. Clinton's deleted emails, including two groups he
determined were Russians. And then he is quoted as telling the reporter: We
knew the people who had these were probably around the Russian Government,
end quote.

A Yes. So, based on my interactions with him, we -- | sort of relayed my
concerns that they were very likely Russian Government hackers. Based on the
2016 DNC emails being leaked, given the style of the aliases that were being
used, given the style of interactions that they were using, that this was very, you

know, consistent with what the Russians were doing as part of their wider

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In the previous round, | had asked you a question with regard to your work
as a cybersecurity expert and whether or not you know any other information that
may be relevant to the committee's investigation. Are you aware of public reports
about a possible server connection between the Trump organization and Alfa
Bank?

A Yes.

Q__ Beyond the press reporting, are you aware of any other information
the committee should know about with regard to that?

A No.

Q_ So you have not had access to any data or anything that would shine
light on this?

A __ Nothing that's not public.

Q__ Have you seen the public analysis by -- | believe there are two law
firms that have -- including one, Kirkland & Ellis --

A I don't think so.

Q_ Okay. That reviewed at the behest of Alfa Bank whether or not there
was any activity between Alfa Bank and The Trump Organization?

A __ Ihave not seen that analysis.

Hay. That sums up our questions.

WR, hank you very much for coming in. Thank you for your

time. Have a great day.

[Whereupon, at 5:20 p.m., the interview was concluded.]

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Q__ And that would be -- you're not aware of any credible evidence that it
was hacked by anyone, to include the Russians or anyone else?

A Correct.

Q__ So, to circle back to what you call the reckless lack of interest of Smith
and his associates in whether the emails or the purported emails came from a
Russian cutout, you state that, in your conversations, you tried to stress that if this
dark web contact is a front for the Russian Government, you really don't want to
play this game.

Did you memorialize any of those concerns in writing?

A No.

Q_ Earlier, | believe you stated in response to a question from one of my
colleagues that this, the proffering of stolen, purportedly stolen Clinton emails on
the dark web was a Russian Government activity. But just to be clear, you don't
have knowledge that the Russians were behind this endeavor. Is that correct?

A Correct. Based on what | saw during the DNC, it felt credible to me
that this was a Russian Government approach, and that's why | warned them.

Q___| would like to ask a few questions about this document, Bates
stamped as Tait 13, entitled "A Demonstrative Pedagogical Summary to be
Developed and Released Prior to November 8, 2016," which | guess is sort of at
the opposite end in terms of a headline writing style.

A Adifferent headline writer.

Q__ So, under the Trump campaign, it lists Steve Bannon, Kellyanne
Conway, Sam Clovis, Lieutenant General Flynn, and Lisa Nelson. Did you have
any contact with any of these individuals?

A No.

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A No.

Q__ Election adviser Mark Braden. Did you have contact with
Mr. Braden?

A No.

Q_ And then there's also listed under independent groups: Matt Tait,
young British researcher who has done all the timelines on the Clinton emails.

A Yes.

Q_ What was your reaction when you saw yourself included on this sort of
list of individuals?

A Honestly, | thought it was presumptive, given that | had no intention of
doing business with them.

Q__ So, given that you were listed on this document dated September 7, 3
days after Mr. Smith had first emailed you and 2 days after you first talked to him,
objectively, it seemed a little premature for him to list you as part of the team, as it
were. Is that fair?

A Yes.

Q_ And you hadn't at that time signed a nondisclosure agreement, any
sort of contract, any sort of formal agreement, correct?

A Yes.

Q__ So, with respect to any of these other individuals, with the exception of
Mr. Szobocsan and Mr. Safron, with whom you were in contact, do you know the
degree to which they were involved or actually on the team?

A No.

Q_ And, indeed, the only other -- one thing. The one independent group

that | didn't mention, Fred's Media Outlet Sources (ph), including The Wall Street

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UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

contact with a hacker who claims to have access to Hillary Clinton's private server
emails, the ones that had publicly been said to have been deleted, and that, from
Peter Smith's perspective, he was very interested in arranging for those emails to
become public before the election because the emails were a political issue that
was causing Hillary Clinton problems in the polls.

oY

Q_ So what did you understand Mr. Smith to mean by having someone on
the dark web or the deep web?

A So what! understood him to mean was that there was someone that
he was working with in the United States who was an expert deep-web/dark-web
investigator, whose job or whose expertise was in contacting people, | assumed
via TOR. He didn't mention TOR specifically, but | assumed --

Q_ -- router?

A -- router, which is a web browser used for accessing anonymous Web
sites. | assumed that that was how they had been in contact and that this person
had, in their view, been in contact with someone who credibly claimed to have
access to Hillary Clinton's emails.

And by the end of the first phone call, | was so uncomfortable with this
conversation | really didn't want to, sort of, pursue it as a business opportunity.
But in the event that there was someone out there who was an expert deep-web
investigator who, in their position, this is a credible thing that they've been
contacted with, Hillary Clinton's emails, and that this is -- Peter Smith is, you know,
closely, you know, tied to, sort of, the Republican inner circle, whether or not he's,
sort of, working for them directly, that seems to me, in light of the DNC hack,

something that was extremely noteworthy and something | needed to try and

UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

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