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FBI Director Comey Continues Testimony. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired March 20, 2017 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

REP. TURNER: -- United States or the person that you're collecting against, is the subject of a FISA Court order.

[13:00:00] If incidental to that collection or inadvertently, the collection results in the collection of communications of an incoming U.S. administration official, the president-elect or the president- elect's transition team, are you required under the minimization procedures, to cease collection?

ROGERS: Not automatically.

TURNER: Thank you. So the answer's no, correct?

Well, the reason why this is important is because intuitively, we would all know that incoming administration would have conversations with those that the intelligence community may be collecting against, either by making phone calls to them or receiving phone calls to them.

And so it's important for us to understand that the minimization procedures that are intended to collect the privacy rights of Americans, do not inherently include the -- a prohibition of the intelligence community incidentally or inadvertently, collecting the communications of an incoming administration.

ROGERS: Yes, sir.

TURNER: Yep.

Mr. Comey, are you aware whether or not the Director of National Intelligence Director Clapper, ever briefed the President of the United States, then President Obama, concerning the possible inadvertent or incidental collection or interception by the U.S. intelligence community of any communication of members of the incoming Trump administration?

COMEY: That's not something I can comment on.

TURNER: And then why not, Mr. Comey.

COMEY: A couple of reasons, it might involve classified information, it might involve communications with the president of the United States. On both of those grounds, I can't talk about it here.

TURNER: Mr. Comey, have you previously discussed your conversations with President Obama with this committee?

COMEY: I don't remember. I may have with the chair and ranking, I don't remember with the full committee.

TURNER: Well, we'll have to refresh your memory on those conversations, then.

Mr. Comey, did and am used to combing. I did President Obama ever acknowledge to you of having been briefed, concerning possibly inadvertent or incidental collection or interception by the intelligence community of any communications of members of the incoming Trump administration?

COMEY: I have to give you the same answer, Mr. Turner.

TURNER: Well, Mr. Comey, the first question related to whether or not Mr. Clapper had briefed the president of the United States and we'll certainly be following up with him. He is going to be appearing before us next week and we'll certainly be directing the question to him also.

So Mr. Comey, are you aware of any evidence that General Flynn prior to the inauguration, ever communicated to the Russian government or a Russian government official that the Trump administration in the future would release, resend, or reverse U.S. sanctions against Russia or ever made any offer of a quid pro quo for releasing resending or reversing U.S. sanctions against Russia. Are you aware of any evidence?

COMEY: That's not something I can comment on, Mr. Turner.

TUNER: And why's that?

COMEY: I'm trying very hard not to talk about anything that relates to a U.S. person, or that might rule in or rule out things, might be investigating. I'm trying to be studiously vague here to protect the integrity of the investigation.

So please don't -- as I said in the beginning please don't interpret my no comment as meaning this or meaning that. I just can't comment.

TURNER: Well, Mr. Comey, there are statutes, guidelines and procedures concerning the what does it take for the FBI to open up a counterintelligence investigation into a U.S. citizen.

It is not just subject to discretion. You can't just say well let's go look at somebody, you have to have a basis. You've now informed us that you've opened a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign, members the Trump campaign, concerning Russia in July of 2006 (sic). Now we're trying to get a picture of what does it take to tip over for investigation?

Now previously people have said that there been individuals who attended a meeting with Russian officials, individuals who -- a member who was paid to attend a conference, a picture that was taken, traveled to a foreign place. There many people both in -- in all of our administrations and sometimes, you know, certainly members who have left Congress who would all qualify for that. What -- what is the tipping point? I mean it can't just be that.

Don't you need some action or some information besides just attending a meeting, having been paid to attend a conference, that a picture was taken, or that you traveled to a country before your open to investigation for counterintelligence by the FBI?

COMEY: The standard is, I think there's a couple different at play. A credible allegation of wrongdoing or reasonable basis to believe that an American may be acting as an agent of a foreign power.

TURNER: Well the reason why we're with this, Mr. Comey, is that we obviously have the statements of Mr. Clapper that there is no evidence of collusion with Russia and he just left the intelligence community. And as you are aware, we now sit because this is you said, Admiral Rogers, you know, the Russians wanted to put a cloud over our system.

And Mr. Comey, by your announcement today, I mean, there is now a cloud that undermines our system. There is a cloud that where we're sitting with Mr. Clapper who was obviously in a very important position to know, who stated to us that there is no evidence of conclusion, and you will not give us evidence or -- or -- or give us any -- any substantive evaluation of it.

We now sit with this cloud and it's important that -- Mr. Chairman I have a few additional questions if I might when we regain time.

NUNES: We'll get back to Mr. Turner.

Mr. Schiff's recognized for 15 minutes.

SCHIFF: Thank you Mr. Chairman.

I recognize representative Jackie Speier.

SPEIER: Thank you Mr. Schiff.

Again, let's go back to this tarantula web. So Mr. Tillerson, in 2014, started to lobby the United States government asking them to shifter or lift the sanctions. Now in his -- his confirmation hearing he says he's -- as he said, I have never lobbied against sanctions, personally, to my knowledge, Exxon Mobil never directly lobbied against sanctions.

And yet there is lobbying reporting that shows that Exxon Mobil actually paid over $300,000 to lobbyists in 2014. And that Mr. Tillerson visited the White House five times in 2014 and treasury with Secretary Lew, seven times.

Is -- is there something disconcerting about a U.S. CEO attempting to undermine The sanctions imposed by our government against another country for acts that we find to be disadvantageous to the world order. Director Comey?

COMEY: That's not a question I can answer. For a variety of reasons, I'm not qualified to answer and I shouldn't be answering questions like that. SPEIER: All right. OK. How about this then? Is it disconcerting to

you as the director of the FBI that a U.S. CEO would say publicly that he is very close friends with President Putin and has had a 17-year relationship with him?

COMEY: That's not a question I can answer.

SPEIER: Would it raise any red flags?

COMEY: That's not a question I can answer.

SPEIER: Admiral Rogers?

ROGERS: Ma'am, lots of American corporations do business in Russia. I have no knowledge of the specifics you're talking about, I am in no way qualified or knowledgeable enough to comment on this.

SPEIER: All right, let's move on to someone else in that web. His name is Michael Caputo. He's a PR professional, conservative radio talk show host. In 1994, he moved to Russia and there he was working for the agency for international development. He was fired from that job because he refused to follow a State Department position.

He then opened a PR firm in Moscow and married a Russian woman. He subsequently divorced her and in 1999 his business failed. Roger Stone, a mentor to him, urged him to move to Florida and open his PR firm in Miami which is exactly what Mr. Caputo did. And then in 2000 he worked with Gazprom-Media to improve Putin's image in the United States.

Now, do we know who Gazprom-Media is? Do you know anything about Gazprom, Director?

COMEY: I don't.

SPEIER: Well, it's a -- it's an oil company. In 2007, he began consulting the Ukrainian parliamentary campaign. There he met his second wife.

So I guess my question is, what possible reason is there for the Trump campaign to hire Putin's image consultant? Any thoughts on that Director Comey?

COMEY: No thoughts.

SPEIER: Admiral Rogers?

ROGERS: Likewise, ma'am.

SPEIER: All right. Do either of you know what Michael Caputo is doing for the Trump effort today?

ROGERS: I have no idea.

COMEY: And I'm not going to talk about U.S. persons.

SPEIER: All right, let's move on now to Carter Page.

Carter Page was the founder of Global Energy, it's an investment fund. He has only one partner and that partner is Sergei Yatsenko who's the former executive of a Russian state-owned Gazprom oil company.

[13:10:00] Before that, from 2004 to 2007, he worked for Merrill Lynch in Moscow.

In March of 2016, Then-Candidate Trump referred to Carter Page as his foreign policy advisor to the Washington Post. The next day, Page asserts that he's an advisor on Russia and energy. But then subsequently, Candidate Trump says he doesn't know him.

On September 26, he takes a leave of absence from the campaign and then Page publicly supports a relationship with Russia, criticizes U.S. sanctions and NATO's approach to Russia, saying -- and then subsequently says he's divesting his stake in Gazprom in August. In 2014, he writes an article criticizing the U.S. sanctions, praising Sechin in an article and global policy and then rebuked the west for focusing on so-called annexation of Crimea.

In July of 2016, he gives a graduation speech at the new economic school, denies meeting with the prime minister, Christopher Steele, in his dossier, says he met with, again, Igor Sechin, offering a 19 percent interest in Rosneft. It becomes the biggest transfer of public property to private ownership.

Now, Carter Page is a national security adviser to Donald Trump. Do you believe that -- why do we -- I guess, again, here's another company that has had sanctions imposed upon it. Could you again clarify why we impose sanctions on companies?

COMEY: Admiral Rogers did it better than I, so I'm going to (inaudible) him.

SPEIER: OK.

ROGERS: I apologize. I don't remember the specifics of my answer, but I'll stand by my answer...

COMEY: Which was excellent.

SPEIER: All right.

I think at that point, I will yield back, Mr. Chair.

SCHIFF: I now yield to Mr. Quigley.

QUIGLEY: Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member.

Gentlemen, thank you for your service. Thank you for being here. We've talked a little bit about the Russian playboook, right? Extortion, bribery, false news, disinformation, they all sound very familiar, correct? Well, as we talk, without thinking about anybody in the United States, just generally the Russian playbook and how it's worked in particularly Eastern Europe and Central Europe, a lot of it involves trying to influence individuals in that country, correct?

ROGERS: Yes.

QUIGLEY: So what we've talked about a little bit today seems so -- be sort of a black and white notion of whether there was collusion, but does a Russian active measure attempting to succeed at collusion -- does the person involved have to actually know? I mean, does it have to involve knowing collusion for there to be damage?

COMEY: I can answer generally. In the world of intelligence, oftentimes there are people who are called co-optees, who are acting -- don't realize they're dealing with agents of a foreign power and so are doing things for someone they think is a friend or a business associate, not realizing it's for that -- the foreign government. So it can happen, it's actually quite a frequent technique.

QUIGLEY: Is it beyond that sometimes to include things where the -- the actor doesn't necessarily know what they're doing is helping that other government?

COMEY: Exactly.

QUIGLEY: And what are instances, just examples of what that might include in a generic sense, in Europe and so forth?

COMEY: Oftentimes, a researcher here in the United States may think they're dealing with a peer researcher in a foreign government and not knowing that that researcher is either knowingly or unwittingly passing information to a foreign adversary of the United States.

QUIGLEY: And can you explain and elaborate how this sort of -- problems with defining what collusion is -- the differences that might be involved with explicit or implicit collusion?

COMEY: Collusion is not a term, a legal term of art and it's one I haven't used here today, as we're investigating to see whether there was any coordination between people associated with the campaign...

QUIGLEY: Explicit or implicit coordination?

COMEY: I guess implicit, I -- I would think of it as knowing or unknowing. You can do things to help a foreign nation state, as I said, without realizing that you're dealing with. You think you're helping a buddy, who's a researcher at a university in China and what you're actually doing is passing information that ends up with the Chinese government. That's unwitting, I don't know whether it's same as your implicit.

Explicit would be, you know, I'm sending this stuff to this researcher in China and I'm doing it because I wanna help the Chinese government and I know he's hooked up with the Chinese government.

QUIGLEY: Admiral Rogers, would you give other examples of what you witnessed in your career?

ROGERS: Sometimes, U.S. individuals would be approached by other individuals connected with -- with foreign connections who will misrepresent what not just the researcher, they'll assume an identity if you will, hey I want you to think that I'm actually working for a business, exploring commercial interests, those kinds of things. Create a relationship and then it turns out, there really is no commercial interest, here they're acting as a direct extension of a foreign government...

(CROSSTALK)

COMEY: And romance can be a feature. Somebody dating someone to create a close relationship and the U.S. government person thinks that they're in love with this person and -- and vice versa and the other person's actually an agent of a foreign power, that's sort of a classic example.

QUIGLEY: You describe this as naive acquiescence?

COMEY: I don't -- I'm not sure I know what that means, exactly (ph).

ROGERS: I don't know what that really means (ph).

QUIGLEY: You're -- you're going along with it and without really acknowledging, understanding in your mind or being naive about the issue.

COMEY: Sure, that can happen.

ROGERS: Yeah, you see that at times.

QUIGLEY: OK.

Going on to things that you -- you probably can't comment upon which is of equal concern. We're all, at this point, very familiar with Mr. Sessions's testimony before the United States Senate in which he specifically said he had -- he wasn't one who had this contact with the Russians. And then there was the amended, I guess, testimony in which he acknowledged I believe two such testimonies. The first was in July during the convention and then later in September afterwards.

All the while, that the issues that we are talking about today, the hacking, the dumping of materials were taking placing and certainly, someone in the position of Mr. Senator Sessions would've been aware of this. Perhaps, would've remembered these conversations or might've mentioned or asked the Russian ambassador to knock it off. But apparently, none of those things happened or at least he didn't remember that they happened. Unfortunately, what we're reading now is that there was a third meeting as early as April of last year in Washington, D.C., a meeting which Candidate Trump was present and the Russian ambassador was present.

At some point in time, this goes well beyond an innocent, under the best of circumstances, oh I forgot sort of thing, or that doesn't count. When you correct your testimony in front of the United States Senate, you're still under oath and you're swearing to the American people that what you're saying is true. Well, the third time is well beyond that and is quite simply perjury. So as we look at this as we go forward, gentlemen, I ask that you take

that into consideration. This is far more than what we have talked about just in the general sense, did the Russians hack or not and the scope of this too, a concerted effort and plan to lie to the American public about what took place and what the motivations were beyond these -- this process. Again, I thank you for your service.

And I yield back to the ranking member.

SCHIFF: I yield to Mr. Swalwell of California.

SWALWELL: Thank you, Director Comey and Admiral Rogers.

Director Comey, you've served time in a courtroom as a prosecutor and I'm wondering if you remember the instruction that is read to juries every day that if you decide that a witness deliberately lied about something significant in this case, you should consider not believing anything that witness says.

COMEY: Yes, that's familiar to me.

SWALWELL: And your testimony at the beginning of this hearing was that President Trump's claims that former President Obama had wiretapped him is false.

COMEY: I said we have no information that supports them.

SWALWELL: Thank you.

With respect to Donald Trump, do you remember the other instruction relating to truthfulness of a witness or a defendant? If the defendant makes a false or misleading statement relating to the charged crime knowing the statement was false or intending to mislead that conduct may also show he or she were aware of their guilt.

COMEY: Yes, familiar to me from my distant past.

SWALWELL: I want talk about the Kremlin playbook and there are a number of ways that a foreign adversary can seek to influence a person, do you agree with that?

COMEY: Yes.

SWALWELL: Financial?

COMEY: Yes, that can be one.

SWALWELL: Romance you said is another.

COMEY: Yes.

SWALWELL: Compromise?

COMEY: Correct.

SWALWELL: Setting up a compromise? COMEY: Sure, to execute on a compromise, yes.

SWALWELL: How about inadvertently capturing a compromise, meaning they have vast surveillance and you stumble into that surveillance and are caught in compromise?

COMEY: And then they take that information, try and use it to coerce you? Yes, that's part of the playbook.

SWALWELL: I'll yield back, Chair, and continue once I'm back with us. Thank you, Director.

NUNES: Gentleman's time's expired.

We'll go back to Mr. Turner.

TURNER: Thank you.

I want to go back to the issue of -- Admiral Rogers indicated that the goal of the Russians is to put a cloud on our system to undermine our system. And -- and I would think, certainly today, Mr. Comey, with your announcement of an investigation that the Russians would be very happy with that as an outcome because the cloud of their actions and activities continues and will continue to undermine and until your finished with whatever your investigation is currently in the scope of.

I want to go back to the issue of how does one open an investigation because again, I'm -- I'm a little confused by -- by some of the things that we hear as to the basis of an investigation. Now, Mr. Comey, if -- if an individual attends a meeting with a foreign leader is -- is that enough to open a counter intelligence investigation?

COMEY: Without more that somebody met with somebody, no.

TUNER: No. OK. Without more than if they had their picture taken with a foreign leader, is that enough?

COMEY: It would depend upon where they were, who took the picture.

TURNER: Well, assume that they're in would (ph) that -- the foreign country, and in that foreign leaders government offices or facilities, if they're having a picture taken with them, is that enough to open a counterintelligence investigation?

COMEY: It would depend.

TURNER: On -- on what? Because I'm saying if there's just a picture. Because I can tell you certainly there's lots of people who have had lots of pictures.

COMEY: Yeah.

TURNER: Is it enough that a person who has just had their picture taken with a foreign leader at the foreign leaders government official offices or place of residence? COMEY: The reason I said it depends is it would depend. Did the

person sneak over to the foreign country and meet them clandestinely, did -- was the picture -- reveal something else about the relationship? It just hard to...

TUNER: Well, let's say it's not clandestine. Let's say it's open, that the person has -- as -- has attended an event and has gone over to meet with the foreign person, foreign government official and is at their foreign government official facility or their official residence and has a picture taken and has no intention of covertly being present with the foreign person, is that picture enough to open a counterintelligence investigation?

COMEY: Tricky to answer hypotheticals, but I think my reaction to that is that doesn't strike me as enough. And I know your next question's going to be deeper into hypos.

TURNER: No, no, I'm not getting deep into hypos. These are pretty straightforward. So what if you're paid, you know, to attend a conference in a foreign -- in a foreign country and you're paid to attend that conference not directly by the foreign government, but nonetheless payment does occur for you to attend a conference? We know President Bill Clinton attended many such conferences and spoke and received payment.

Is receiving payment by attending to speak at a conference -- again, it's not covert, it's open. They're attending to speak at a conference, they receive payment for the purposes of speaking, is that enough to open a counterintelligence investigation?

COMEY: I can't say as I sit here. It would depend upon a lot of different things.

TURNER: If you had no other information or evidence other than the fact that they attended, is that enough for you, for the FBI to open a counterintelligence investigation of a private U.S. citizen?

COMEY: I can't answer the hypothetical because it would depend upon a number of other things.

TURNER: I limited it to where there would be no other things, Mr. Comey. I said only, if the only information that you had was that they had intended an event in which they were paid which was a conference and it was not covert, is that only sufficient information to open an investigation against a private U.S. citizen?

COMEY: Who paid them? Did they disclose it? What did they discuss when they were there? Who else was sitting with them? There's lots and lots of other circumstances that make that -- even that simple- seeming hypo difficult to answer.

TURNER: Well, let's say that they've traveled to a foreign country and they openly traveled, wasn't covert. Is traveling there enough?

COMEY: Just traveling around the world, no. TURNER: OK, well I'm very concerned, Mr. Comey, about the issue of how an investigation is opened and -- and how we end up at this situation once again where Mr. Clapper, had (ph) the director of national intelligence, just said that when he left there was no evidence of collusion and yet, as Admiral Rogers said, we're sitting now where the Russians' goal is being achieved of causing a cloud or undermining our electoral process. So I certainly hope that you take an expeditious look at what you have undertaken because it affects the heart of our democracy.

Mr. Comey, I have a question against -- again concerning classified information. Now, I know that if I attend a classified briefing and I receive classified information and I go and tell someone that classified information, if I leak it, I release it, then I've committed a crime. But what if someone goes to a classified briefing, walks out of that briefing, and openly lies about the content of that briefing? Because it's unclear to me what happens then.

And it's important because, as you know, this committee and certainly both of you gentlemen have handled a lot of classified information and recently, more recently, the purported classified information is put out in the press, The Washington Post, The New York Times reports information. And you know and I know and we all know, having handled classified information, that some of that information is not true. Are the sources of that classified information, if they come out and lie about the content of classified information, have they committed a crime?

COMEY: That's a really interesting question. I don't think so. If all they've done is lie to a reporter, that's not against the law. If they've done it, I don't wanna break anybody's hearts with that but that's not against the law. But it is not and the reason I'm hesitating is, I can imagine a circumstance where it's part of some broader conspiracy or something, but just that false statement to a reporter is not a crime.

TURNER: And I just wanna underscore that for a -- just for a second, because I agree with you. I think it's no crime. And so every reporter out there that has someone standing in front of them and saying oh, I'm taking this great risk of sharing with you U.S. secrets, besides them purporting to be a traitor, are committing no crime if they lie to them. So all of these news articles that contain this information that we know is not -- not the case, are being done so at damage to the United States but without the risk of a crime.

And my next aspect of your question to Mr. Comey, is this. What is the obligation of the intelligence community to correct such falsehoods? Some of this information that we read in the Washington Post and the New York Times, is extremely false and extremely incendiary and extremely condemning of individuals and certainly, our whole system. What is your obligation, Mr. Comey, to be that source to say I can't release classified information, but I can tell you, it's not that?

COMEY: Yeah, it's a great question, Mr. Turner, because there's a whole lot out there that is false. And I suppose some of it could be people lying to reporters. I think that probably happens. But more often than not, it's people who -- who act like they know when they really don't know. Because they're not the people who actually know the secrets, they're one or two hops out and they're passing along (ph) things they think they know.

There is -- we had not only have no obligation to correct that, we can't, because if we start calling reporters and saying hey, this thing you said about this new aircraft we've developed, that's inaccurate actually, it's got two engines. We just can't do that because we'll give information to our adversaries that way and it's very, very frustrating but we can't start down that road. Now, when it's unclassified information, if a reporter misreports the contents of a bill that's being debated in Congress or a policy, we can call him and say hey, you ought to read it more carefully. You missed this or missed that. We cannot do that with classified information.

It's very, very frustrating because I have read a whole lot of stuff, especially in the last two months, this is just wrong. But I can't say which is wrong and I can't say it to those reporters.

TURNER: Mr. Comey, if you could help us on this issue, I would greatly appreciate it because what happens, is that you come into a classified briefing with us and you tell us, perhaps what something that is absolutely false, it really shouldn't be classified because you're telling us it's not true. But yet, we can't go tell it's not true because you told us in a classified setting. If there's a way that we can at least have some exchange as to what's not true so the American people don't listen to false stories in The Washington Post and The New York Times that we all know are not true, that would be helpful.

COMEY: Yeah, I don't...

TURNER: If you could think about how you could help us with that.

COMEY: I'd love to invent that machine, but we can't because where do you stop that on that slope?

[13:30:00] TURNER: Well, false is false, Mr. Comey.