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security threats with cia director william burns, director of national intelligence avril haines and fbi director christopher wray. they are joined with other leaders by the committee to talk about the importance of continued support for ukraine, the israel hamas war, competition with china, border security, and efforts to combat the spread of misinformation. held by the intelligence committee this is about two hours and 15 minutes. ukraine, the israel-hamas war, ukraine, competition with china, and efforts to combat the spread of misinformation. this is about two hours and 15 minutes.

>> good afternoon. i would like to call this hearing to order and welcome to our witnesses. director of national intelligence avril >> good afternoon. i would like to call this h hearing to order and welcome to our witnesses. director of national intelligence avril haines, cia director bill burns, fbi director chris ray, assistant secretary for intelligence and research at the state department brett holmgren. director of national security agency general timothy hopp and defense intelligently dea director jeffrey kreis. thank you for appearing today

before the senate intelligence committee's annual worldwide threats hearing. it is important for congress and for the american people to hear directly from the leaders of our intelligence community about the threats and challenges facing the united states. i would like to first acknowledge the women and men of the u.s. intel community. most americans will never see the work you do behind the scenes, but be assured that the members of this committee know it's importance and we thank you for what you do to keep america safe. the threat environment today is perhaps one of the most challenging we have seen in recent years. we have seen nations backsliding from democratic institutions, authoritarian systems seeking to impose their will upon neighbors while looking to undermined the international system that has been guarantor of security and stability since world war ii. we see the rise in competition

around new technologies. we must ensure our institutions evolved to meet these new challenges, which means in my mind redefining what we think of as national security. the icy was built to collect measures of hard power. how many ships, planes and military personnel and adversary might have. the nature of strategic competition today revolves as much about not only traditional military power but around nontraditional tools and the ability to harness emerging dual use technologies. for example, advanced communication networks can provide ubiquitous connectivity but also ubiquitous surveillance. artificial intelligence can excel -- accelerate software development but can also accelerate malicious cyber

attacks or the spread of misinformation. biotechnology advancements may lead one day to curing cancer or eliminating famine but also may create new pathogens or even genetically engineered super soldiers. access to rare minerals may help determine who shapes the energy future for the whole world. compounding all of this, the nature of conflict increasingly allows adversaries to project power through asymmetrical means. for example, cyber attacks can disable critical infrastructure from thousands of miles away and are increasingly available to a widening array of actors. an expensive, unmanned systems, drones can threaten multibillion-dollar ships. we are now even seeing the possibility of foreign adversaries urbanizing space in

ways that can be massively destructive, not only to our national security, but to our way of life and useful tools such as gps and satellite communications. similarly, misinformation and disinformation are increasingly deployed cheaply by an array of adversarial actors. we all know that more than 60 countries, over half the world's population, will vote this year and i am deeply concerned that democracy, including in the united states, is under greater threat than ever from these foreign adversaries. bad actors like russia are particularly incentivized to interfere, even what's at stake in ukraine. poll after poll increasingly demonstrates americans are mistrustful of traditional sources of information. while ai provides the tools to spread sophisticated misinformation at an unprecedented speed and scale

admits to these threats are ability to respond has been hamstrung. recent litigation pending before the supreme court has had a chilling effect on the voluntary sharing of information related to foreign maligned influence threats between u.s. government agencies and social media companies. today, i would like each of our witnesses to report on how their agencies and the ic as a whole are prepared and poised to meet these technology-based challenges and what more needs to be done. even with this new landscape, more traditional national security challenges remain. terrorist groups still threaten our homeland. over the last couple of years we have seen authoritarian powers challenging democratic norms, undermining the international order and intimidating their neighbors. the people's republic of china

under xi jinping has presented an unprecedented challenge. a techno-authoritarian behemoth whose economy is intertwined with our own. challenging democratic values, u.s. leadership and global institutions. often using enormous government subsidies. china has used substantial investment power to lead or attempt to dominate a range of key industries whether it be telecommunications, social media or genomics. another authoritarian adversary , russia under putin has continued his brutal invasion of ukraine. illegally using military forces to seize territory. ukrainians have bravely been fending off the russian military for over two years, supported by partners around the world. the russian military has suffered severe losses of men and equipment. close to 87% of russia's prewar

ground forces have been taken out of the conflict either by being killed or wounded. now, as a result of his aggression, putin faces what he's always feared, a nato more united than ever. that said, this war is in a critical phase with a serious imbalance of equipment. my fear is the decision thus far by the house of representatives not to even take up legislation that would support ukraine in their fight against putin aggression has been one of the most shortsighted decisions on a national security issue that i can possibly imagine. without this assistance, ukrainian defenses will be disastrously undermined as well as global confidence in america's resolve will be undermined. that will be the case whether it comes from putin in europe or the prc in taiwan. as we convene, we also face continued instability in the

middle east. the horrific terrorist attacks against israel civilians by hamas on october 7th have been followed by an incursion by israel that has cost an estimated 30,000 palestinians their lives. while iran and its key partners appeared to be deterred from widening the conflict for now, other iranian proxies have attempted to expand their conflict and drag in our country. at the same time, israel's war against hamas has shown the difficulty of using military force alone to eradicate a nonstate actor embedded in a civilian population, especially one that has been so adept at using underground tunnels. nited. tunnels. and i worry that prime minister netanyahu's conduct in the water threatens to undermine support for israel in the long- term including in the united states. this international support has

been key to israel's security and as a longtime friend of israel, this has great concern to me, for even israel's supporting the united states. in addition, we convene this timely hearing as congress faces a pressing deadline on achy national security program, section 702 of the foreign intelligence surveillance act provides unique and critical foreign intelligence necessary to protect our national security, enabling the ic to prevent and thwart terrorist attacks, track foreign spies, uncover economic espionage, protects u.s. troops, expose human and drug trafficking and disrupt foreign cyber attacks, allowing this program to lapse would critically damage our national security. in closing, we face an increasing array of diversity of challenge but we also have

an opportunity to reinvigorate america's democratic values in face of autocracies like china and russia. we cannot take for granted either democracy or the international system that has kept americans safe for decades point maintaining both requires leadership, a conviction, and sacrifice. with that, let me now turn to the vice chairman. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you all for coming here today and i extend my thanks to the men and women who work underneath you, who do the important work of keeping our country safe. what i think you could describe as one of those pivotal moments in history where what life will be like for a generation is being determined by what's happening now and in the near future while events are changing perhaps faster than any other time in human history. i think we have to remind ourselves if we are going to talk about the specific threats, the whats, the wife, the bigger outline picture of

why things are happening the way they are happening because i do think they are all interrelated. from the end of the cold war, i don't know when the end date is but let's say by the late 2000, we lived in a unipolar world. the united states was basically the only country in the world that could predict power everywhere and anytime and we were called upon to do many things in regards to that but other nationstates requested during that stage and i still think america by far, by every measure you could imagine culturally, military, remains the world's strongest nation and should remain that way for the foreseeable future if we make the right choices. that order that we just do described was being challenged. is being challenged by nationstates that frankly don't like the way the world looks now. they think it benefits america and hurts them and they want to remake a new world, perhaps even replace the world they think is beneficial to america and our democratic allies, with an alternative, if not at least

a replacement, this new order that they seek. the chinese, they believe we are in inevitable decline and that their rise is inevitable, as well. like i said, they don't like the rules of the world as they believe were written by america and our allies so they increasingly are taking it upon themselves and every opportunity to challenge them. at every domain. they steal our ideas on innovation and so forth so that their companies can do the things that we do but of course do it cheaper and flood markets with those products. i don't need to tell this panel are the members of this committee and the general public that they're expanding their military capabilities in an extraordinary way to include not just projecting power in the indo pacific but around the world. they imitate loopholes in our laws and systems in this country, to buy up land, buy up companies, gain strategic advantage and industries and undermine our industries in return. they are a major part of flooding this country with deadly drugs that are destroying communities and

ravaging entire families. they've also gotten very good at hiring lobbyists and even deputizing corporate america to come up here and lobby us for things that are beneficial to the chinese goals at the expense of this country long term, and i think it's important to mention here today, they also happen to control anybody who says they don't doesn't know what they're talking about his every company in china is controlled by the th chinese communist party. they happen to control a company that owns one of the world's best artificial intelligence algorithms. it's the one that's used in this country by tiktok and it uses the data of americans to basically read your mind and predict what videos you want to see. the reason why tiktok is iso successful, the reason why it's so attractive is because it knows you better than you know your self and the more you use it, the better it learns.

the problem is not tiktok or the videos, the problem is the algorithm that powers them. it's controlled by a company in china that must do whatever the chinese communist party tells them to do and the only way that algorithm works is if the company in china under the control of the chinese government is given access to the data that tiktok collects. tiktok does not work without that algorithm and that algorithm is controlled by a company that's controlled by the chinese communist party under the law of china. in the case of putin, he also actually sees america as decadent and in decline and he views russia as resilient. they view themselves as a great power and he believes that great powers have a right to buffer states. he believes that great powers have a right not just to have their own borders to control the countries around their borders as buffer states. i think they already have that in belarus, in his mind, and it is one of the reasons why he invades ukraine. in the case of iran, they want to export their shia islamic revolution to the entire middle east and the problem with this is two things standing in their

way -- the state of israel and the united states of america. and so that is why they have proxy groups in places like syria and iraq and lebanon and n yemen and gaza, who they use for their purposes. one of their purposes is to use these groups now to attack america so we will say it's not worth the trouble, we need to get out of there, and once we leave, then they'll move on jordan and on bahrain worker then they'll make israel an unlivable place and ultimately their ambitions are the entire region and most of the gulf kingdoms. that's why i think it's a mistake to view the horrific events of october 7 is simply the latest iteration of a long standing israeli/palestinian problem. it is deeply tied to the head of the snake and the head of the snake is in iran and in tehran. add to all of these three countries, north korea. we haven't heard a lot about it yet. they have become increasingly aggressive. in fact, i would argue that we perhaps are closer to some armed hostilities than we've been in a decade or longer.

why? why have they become so aggressive? they feel empowered. they feel empowered because putin is buying things from them and helping them to break their international isolation, and also because i don't know what percentage of their economy is powered by ransomware attacks and cyber hacking but it's substantial. they generate a lot of money from that and add to all these i parades of horrible's the fact that there is still a threat. iran, as has been publicly reported, is still trying to kill former government officials that live in the united states of america. there are former government officials in this country no longer in office who require 24 hours a day security because iran is trying to kill them, inside the united states. has below, an agent of iran, is also looking for ways to conduct terrorist attacks against american interests, israeli and jewish interests all over the world and here in the homeland, as well. by the way, isis and al qaeda

are not out of business. they are still involved. add alscher bogdan vechirko they also want to kill american's. they can do it in the homeland,h they love that and all of that happening in a time when perhaps the single largest, most eventful migration corridor in history is operating right off of our border. so i think it's a mistake sometimes to divide all of these problems geographically because in some ways they're all interrelated in keyways. yes these individual states have ambitions but they share a common goal and the common goal is a world friendlier and better for them and their interest in the world in which america is weekend and less able to act. and all of these crises begin to interlock in a way to help them. for example, the chinese and the russians are probably seen great benefit. not probably, they do see great benefit from what's happening in the middle east because they figure every dollar and every second of our attention that's paid there, we are not paying to what's happening with ukraine and we are not paying to the indo pacific. the chinese see great benefit

in ukraine, as well, because they view it as the more time and money we spent there, the less time and money and focus we have on them. one of the things i know the chinese hope for is one of two things. a, we deplete ourselves in ukraine and/or the middle east, particularly ukraine, or b, we cut and run and then they can go around the world. i told you america is weak, i told you america is unreliable. they have a plan for either outcome which makes it challenging for us as we decide what to do here. so these things all come together and i think that's really the overarching threat that we face is an understanding that none of these should be viewed in isolation. the goals that russia has, the goal that iran has, the goal that north korea has come of the goal the chinese have made the different goals but one of the real developments that threaten the security of our country is that they are increasingly partnering with one another. not a nato alliance. not the sort of formal alliance right now they are increasingly partnering with each other on selected topics and selected opportunities as they all share

one goal and it is they want to weaken america, weaken our alliances, we can our standing and our capability and our will because it helps them to achieve the world as they envision it, the world that they want, but it comes at our expense and at the expense of all that's been built over the last 20 or 30 years. so i think that one of the greatest dangers we face is the inability to see how all these things are interconnected and i think one of the greatest challenges we face is to deal with them as if they are interconnected. i think that what life will be like on this planet for the next generation will be determined very much by what we do or failed to hear over the next two or three years and certainly with the issues that , are before us today. so i look forward to hearing from all of you and i appreciate you coming. >> thank you senator rubio. director haynes? >> thank you very much. chairman warner, vice chairman rubio, members of the committee, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today alongside my wonderful

colleagues to present the icy's annual threat assessment. before i start, i also want to thank publicly the people of the intelligence community, from the collector to the analyst and everybody in between, we are really presenting the results of their labor at this hearing and they work tirelessly every day to keep our country safe and prosperous and we are all very proud to represent them here today. i also want to take the opportunity to thank all of you for the extraordinary support that you've shown to the intelligence community. the i see's relationship to its committees is obviously critically important and you all work with us on a bipartisan basis and that is especially inspiring in today's environment. we are grateful for your encouragement and for your wisdom. today the united states faces an increasingly complex and interconnected fret, as has been noted by the chairman and vice chairman. environment characterized by really three categories of challenges. the first is an accelerating,

strategic competition with major authoritarian powers that are actively working to undermine the rules-based order and the open international system the united states and our partners rely on for trade, commerce, the free flow of information and accountability to the truth. the second category -- >> i recognize people feel passionately. the american people deserve to hear from the leaders of the intelligence community. director haynes, continue. >> the second category is a set of more intense and unpredictable transnational challenges such as climate change, corruption, narcotics trafficking, health security, terrorism and cyber crime that often interact with traditional state-based political, economic and security challenges, and the third category is reregiona and localized conflicts that have far-reaching and at times

cascading implications not only for neighboring countries but also for the world. and all three challenges are affected by trends in new and emerging technologies, environmental changes, and economic strain that are stoking instability and making it that much more challenging for us to forecast developments and their implications. these dynamics are putting unprecedented burdens on the institutions and the relationships that the united states relies on to manage such challenges and perhaps more than ever, frankly, highlight the need for sustained u.s. leadership to uphold the rules- based order. and i'll just touch on these three categories of challenges starting with strategic competition in china in an effort to provide some context and highlight some of the intersections. president xi continues to envision china as a leading power on the world stage and chinese leaders believe it is essential to project power globally in order to be able to resist u.s. pressure for they are convinced the united statesa

will not tolerate a powerful china. nevertheless, the prc seeks to ensure china can maintain positive ties to the united states and will likely continue to do so this year as they seek stability in our relationship is important to their capacity to protect foreign direct investment. boosting the domestic economy is a fundamental priority for ou president xi yet he appears to be doubling down on the long- term growth strategy that will deepen public and investor pessimism over the near-term. with youth unemployment around 14.9%, no major stimulus aimed at consumption forthcoming. massive local debts and a property market contraction. 2024 is likely to be another difficult year for china's economy, all against the backdrop of an aging and shrinking population and slowing economic growth. president xi is counting on china's investments in technology, such as advanced manufacturing and robotics, artificial intelligence, high-

performance computing to drive productivity gains and spur future growth yet he is increasingly concerned about the united states ability to interfere with china's technological goals. consequently in an effort to protect and promote china's capacity to compete technologically, which president xi views as fundamental to his long-term growth strategy. prc leaders modified their approach to economic retaliation against the united states over the last year, imposing at least some tangible cost on u.s. firms, even as they continue to moderate such e actions to avoid domestic costs. chinese leadership is furthermore pursuing a strategy to boost china's indigenous innovation and technological self-reliance, expand their efforts to acquire steel or compel the production of intellectual property and capabilities from others including the united states, and continue to engage in coercive behavior to control critical global supply chains

of elements. president xi's control and central oversight is unlikely to solve the challenges posed by china's economic and endemic corruption, demographic decline and structural economic constraints, and over the coming year, tension between these challenges and a china's aspirations for greater geopolitical power will probably become all the more apparent. given its ambitions, beijing will continue to use its military forces to contain his neighbors and shape the region's actions in accordance with prc priorities. we expect the pla will field more advanced platforms, deploying new technologies and growing more confident in joint operations with a particular focus on taiwan and the western pacific. the role intended for china's growing nuclear forces and cyber capabilities in this effort and the ultimate intent behind unprecedented growth in these areas remain a priority for us in the ic and they are not related to actions of russia.

president putin's war of aggression against ukraine continues unabated. ukraine's retreats and their struggle to stave off further territorial losses in the past few weeks have exposed the erosion of capabilities with the declining availability of external military aid. the assistance that is complemented in the supplemental is absolutely critical to ukraine's defense right now and without that assistance it is hard to imagine how ukraine will be able to maintain the extremely hard-fought advances it has made against the russians, especially given the sustained surge in russian ammunition production and purchases from north korea and iran. meanwhile, president putin is increasing defense spending in russia, reversing his long- standing reluctance to devote a high percentage of gdp to the military as he looks to rebuild. in many ways, this is prompted by the fact that russia has paid an enormous price for the war in ukraine. not only has russia suffered more military losses than at

any time since world war ii, roughly 300,000 casualties and thousands of takes and armored combat vehicles setting them back years. it is also precipitated finland and sweden's membership in nato, which putin believes requires an expansion of russia's ground forces. putin continues to judge that time is on his side and almost certainly assumes that a larger, better equipped terry will also serve the purpose of driving that point home to western audiences. such messaging is important because putin's strategic goals remain unchanged. he continues to see nato enlargement and western supported ukraine as reinforcing his long-held belief that the united states and europe seek to restrict russian power and undermine him and of course in the meantime, p russia continues to modernize and fortify its nuclear weapons capabilities, even though it maintains the largest and most diverse nuclear weapons stockpile. we remain concerned that moscow will put at risk long-standing

global norms against the use of asymmetric or strategically destabilizing weapons including in space and in the cyber domain. another critical intersection we are monitoring is the relationship, as the vice chairman noted, between government of russia, china, north korea and iran, which is evolving as these four countries expand collaboration through a web of bilateral and in some cases trilateral arrangements. this growing cooperation and willingness to exchange aid in military, economic, political and intelligence matters enhances their individual capabilities and enables them to cooperate on competitive actions, assist them to further undermine the rules-based order and give them each some insulation from external international pressure. nevertheless, we assess these relationships will remain far short of formal alliances or multilateral access. desire to and void

entanglements and wariness of harm and instability from each t other's actions will likely limit their cooperation and ensure it advances incrementally absent direct conflict between one of these countries and the united states. and nevertheless, the power dynamics are shifting among them and this is creating new challenges. in particular, russia's need for support in the context of ukraine has forced it to grant some long- sought concessions to china, north korea and iran with the potential to undermine, among other things, long-held nonproliferation norms. as i noted in the beginning, intensifying transnational challenges are intersecting we use more traditional threats. for example, with the advent of generative ai, states and nonstate actors who are interested in conducting foreign malign influence operations no longer need to master a language to create potentially believable foss content. the threat of malign actors exploiting these tools and technologies to undercut u.s. in tristan's democracy is particularly potent as voters go to the poll in more than 60 elections around the world this

year, as the chairman noted. we have also seen a massive increase in the number of ransomware attacks globally which went up roughly 74% in 2023 from what it was in 2022 and u.s. entities were the most heavily targeted. many of these are conducted by nonstate actors with a russia based cyber criminal group remaining the most popular ransomware is a service provider. lock bit was responsible for nearly a quarter of all claimed attacks worldwide, leading to a joint effort by letting countries to seize its resources and take down its ci online domains. transnational criminal organizations and human smuggling operations increasingly exploit migrants from extortion, kidnapping and human trafficking and in particular the threat from illicit drugs remains at historic levels with mexican transnational criminal organizations supplying and moving large amounts of fe synthetic opioids such as fentanyl into the united om states. more than 100,000 americans have died from drug-related overdoses during the past year and asked of those deaths have

been attributed to illicit fentanyl, and as such, the threat from fentanyl and other synthetic drugs to the health and welfare of everyday americans remains a top priority for the intelligence community. in the third category we have multiple regional conflicts with far-reaching applications, perhaps nowhere more obviously than in the middle east. this crisis in gaza is a stark example of how regional developments have the potential for broader and even global implications. now having lasted for more than five months, the gaza conflict has roiled the middle east with renewed instability preventing new security paradigms and humanitarian challenges while in a range of actors. the conflict is prompted new dynamics even as it has entrenched once. we continue to assess that hezbollah and iran do not want i to cause an escalation of the conflict that pulls us or them into a full out war yet the houthis entered the war and were willing to do so without iran acting first, becoming one of the most aggressive actors in the conflict and the iranian

aligned militia groups in iraq and syria that have been attacking our forecast and been more focused on the united states and israel, using the conflict as an opportunity to pursue their own agenda. moreover the crisis has galvanized violence by a range of actors around the world and while it is too early to tell, it is likely the gaza conflict will have a generational impact on terrorism, both al qaeda and ices inspired by hamas have directed supporters to conduct attacks against israeli and u.s. interests and we have seen how it is inspiring individuals to conduct acts of anti- semitism and an islamophobic terror worldwide. in this third category of regional and localized conflicts we have many more we might discuss including haiti and sudan and what is happening in the eastern democratic republic of congo, and the list goes on. this finally brings me to 702 of the foreign intelligence surveillance act, which will expire on april 19 without congressional action. the intelligence gathered pursuant to section 702 is essential in preparing this

annual threat assessment and is absolutely fundamental to every aspect of our work, as i know you know. 702 provides unique insights into foreign intelligence targets such as foreign adversaries, terrorist organizations and hamas, weapons proliferators, spies, malicious cyber actors and fentanyl traffickers and it does so at a speed and il reliability that we simply cannot replace with any other authority. as congress pursues reauthorization, we understand there e will be regimes in plac while preserving the operational agility that is vital to keeping the nation safe. thank for your patience and we look forward to your questions. >> thank you director haynes. let me go from members and i appreciate i know we don't normally do these on monday. i appreciate everybody coming in. we will be conducting a closed session after this open session so members should hold any questions of the classified nature until after that, and

after the chair and vice chair go through our first round of questions we'll then recognize numbers and rounds of five minutes, all based on seniority. i want to start with where you ended up on 702, this critical component of law enforcement and the intelligence community expires on april 19. congress needs to act. 60% of all the information that goes into the president's dailyo brief is derived from 702 information, foreigner talking to forerunner in terms of bad guys. one of the things the vice chairman and i are very proud of is we worked very hard on a t reform of section 702 that we introduced last year including 16 cosponsors. great number of members of this committee are part of that reform effort that again looked

at trying to make sure whether there had been perhaps overzealous use of the fbi in terms of how things were dramatically constrained. director wray, i want to start my question with you. some have actually said that where we went didn't go far enough and they would propose reform that would require agencies to seek a warrant before conducting u.s. person queries. could you explain what would happen on a practical level, both on the ic side and the law enforcement side if that requirement was placed? >> thank you mr. chairman. i think the short answer is a requirement for us to run u.s. person queries would be untenable and would largely got the effectiveness of the authority. and i say that for several reasons. first it would blind us to information already lawfully in our possession that we need to be able to review and act on in

a very time sensitive way to be able to stop terrorist attacks, protect the victim from cyber attack, warn somebody who's actually targeted with assassination or kidnapping. second, in many instances, at the time that clary would be run we wouldn't have the g probable cause that a query term is associated with an agent of a foreign power. that's what the query tells us, so you've got that problem and then the third problem is an awful lot of places that were using 702 queries are to assist victims and to prevent potential victims from further attacks, terror attacks, cyber attacks, et cetera. so in those instances you'd never be able to get a warrant requirement, even if there were some kind of delay built into its. that alone, for all these threats that are extremely time sensitive, i think the d and i correctly used the term agility. that is the key so i would

implore congress not to take that additional step. you mentioned the compliance failures. i've been very clear that the compliance failures that occurred at the fbi are wholly unacceptable and that's why i put in place a whole host of reforms, which i'm covering everything from training to our systems, approvals, oversight and office of internal audit i could go on and on and those reforms are working. the fisa court itself most recently found 98% compliance and commented on the reforms y working, the most recent justice department report found the reforms working 99% compliant so i think legislation that ensures those reforms stay in place but also preserves the agility and utility of the tools, what we need to be able to protect the p mercan people. >> i appreciate that and i do think our reform bill had the notion of trust but verify so we would literally legislate the reforms that have been

placed, add a few hours, additional amicus provisions. one of the things, the queries that involve americans are actually on victim notification. the very notion of having a warrant to have a victim notification is contradictory in itself. i want to raise another issue that i think is been appropriately raised and this is the question around bulk purchase of personal data. i think we need to go much further on data protection and i think that has been a failure of this congress to address in the past. director haynes, i know you've done a study on this sent my fear is that some of the proposed reforms would actually not limit foreign entities from obtaining this data but would limit law enforcement. can you talk to them about bulk

data purchases and data brokers? >> absolutely. from our perspective we think about the entire set of what's out there and what's been discussed in congress in relation to this. it is just increasingly critical to the intelligence or community's work and i think sort of an obvious example of this is commercial imagery and the role they played, for example, in the context of the invasion of ukraine. but there is a whole series of other areas where we are purchasing information, such as commercial threat information that's related to cybersecurity and things like that. at the same time, we recognize that commercially available information raises new and important issues related to privacy and civil liberties and this is in large part true a because more of our daily lives are connected digitally to the world today than ever before and an increasing amount of data about individuals and their activities, often perceived as not especially sensitive on its

own, is available for sale so alongside increasingly sophisticated analytic tools that essentially relying on artificial intelligence can actually, in aggregate, raise significant privacy and civil liberties issues which are relevant, which is why we basically said look, we recognize this is something that is of concern and we want to make sure that we are actually addressing this issue appropriately and possibly within the intelligence community. so we had a panel, an external panel look at this question and really asked them how and under what circumstances should we use commercially available information, and in particular to reflect on the existing framework for privacy and civil liberties. we've published that report, in fact, senator wyden asked us to and as a consequence, put that out. as an intelligence community, all the kids together, we thought all those

recommendations made sense and we have issued ic guidance for cataloging commercially available information acquired by ic elements to make sure our handling of such information is consistent with security considerations to facilitate oversight and we've developed a framework that augments each ic 's element, attorney general guidelines and policies with general principles and guidance on how to access, collect and process personally available information including more precise guidance for identifying and dealing with categories of information that pose a greater risk of implicating privacy and civil liberty concerns. also the frameworks that sell standards and procedures that recover and require a position and use and i think the challenge that is supposed by some of the legislative proposals that i've seen require, for example, again a

certain probable cause requirement before you can obtain that information. we are not going to have in the scenario of, for example, getting cyber threats information commercially, a probable cause reason for that, what we are trying to do is understand what the vulnerabilities are and what we recognize is that whatever the s commercial information is that we are obtaining, we need to treat it in a way that actually mitigates the risks that are being described. >> thank you. senator rubio? >> director wray, we know that l over the last three years millions of people crossed the u.s. border illegally and many have been released into the country. have members or people with ties to dangerous gangs, like for example the prison gang from venezuela, were they amongr the people that came into this country? >> i don't know that i can speak to the pacific gang but certainly we've had dangerous individuals enter the united states of a variety of sorts.

>> are we now seeing crimes from people that entered the country over the last three years, some of them with ties to gangs or other criminal organizations? >> i guess what i would say is this -- from an fbi perspective we are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border and that includes everything from the drug trafficking. the fbi alone seized enough fentanyl in the last two years to kill 270 million people. that's just on the fentanyl side. an awful lot of violent crime in the united states is at the hands of gangs who are themselves involved in the distribution of that fentanyl. >> you're also seeing and attracting local law enforcement arresting and for example the assault on the police officers in new york, all the reporting said they had ties to this gang in particular but there's no doubt that people that were criminals in their country of origin have

crossed that border and are now in the u.s. committing crimes. >> correct. >> is there now a black market emerging to sell -- we've seen reports of a black market emerging selling fake social security cards, fake green cards. have you seen reporting on that? >> certainly there is on the darknet, for example, there is a significant marketplace for different kinds of stolen identity. >> [ inaudible ]? >> i think as well. >> there are smuggling networks all over the world that specialize in moving people from all over the world, including the middle east, central asia and so forth. are we aware any of these smuggling organizations are conducted by people that have ties, for example to isis and other terrorist organizations. >> i want to be a little bit careful how we go in open session but there is a particular network where some of the oversize facilitators of the network have isis ties that

we are very concerned about and that we've been spending an enormous amount of effort with our partners, investigating exactly what that network is up to is something that's the subject of our current investigation. >> is there a network we are concerned about that has facilitators with ties to terrorist organizations? >> correct. >> i talked about tiktok in the opening, just to lay the groundwork here. tiktok u.s., american company headquartered putatively in america and they have this platform which is fascinating. o it's very effective, very good, has a lot of members. one of the things that powers in his that it is powered by an algorithm based on artificial intelligence, where the more you use it, the more it learns about you. it in essence hmread your mind, it is the kind of videos you like and feed you more and more of them, causing you to go back. that algorithm is not owned by

tiktok. it's owned by bite dance, a chinese company, correct? >> that's my understanding. >> the only way that algorithm works is if that chinese company had access to the data being generated by tiktok. the owner of the over them, bite dance has to have access so it doesn't matter where the data is stored. ultimately they have to have access to it in order to make the algorithm work, correct? >> i think what you're getting to is the key point is that the parent company is, for all intents and purposes, beholden to the ccp. >> the reason why i raise that is because if bite dance in china is the one that owns the driver that makes tiktok effective, isn't it true that under chinese law, the chinese communist party says that data that you are gaining access to in order to make your algorithm work, we want a copy of that data. if they said that to bite dance in the future, bite dance would have to give it to them. >> that's my understanding. >> if they went to them and said you have to change your algorithms so americans see video that hurt this candidate or help that candidate in the upcoming election, bite dance

would have to do that under chinese law. >> that's my understanding. >> if they want you to say put out videos that make americans fight with each other, spread conspiracy theories and get them at each other's throats, bite dance can't go to chinese court and fight the communist party. they would have to do it? >> that's my understanding and i would just add that that kind of influence operation with the different kinds of influence operations you are describing are extraordinarily difficult to detect, which made the national security concerns represented by tiktok so significant. >> thank you very much, mr. re chairman, and my thanks to all of you and of course the people you work with every day. i'm going to start with this issue of government purchase of americans data and former acting cia director mike pharrell presents something of a different view on this. he has said the amount of informational available for the government to buy would, quote, knock your socks off and with

it were collected it would be top-secret information kept under lock and. i believe mr. morel is right. it is the wild west out there in terms of sensitive information on america tends and the government can buy it up. unlike normal intelligence collection, there are apparently virtually no rules here. to take one public example, i want to go to you, general crews. not to be going after you especially but you said the defense intelligence agency has acknowledged it purchases actual u.s. location data. so my question for you and any other members who would like to add to it, are there any constitutional or statutory limits on your agency's purchasing of the location information of americans?

constitutional or statutory limits, any? >> thank you for the question, senator wyden. i would say there are yes, ci there are absolute and very clear guidelines for all of this and when we purchased the bulk data the first thing we do is we exclude all of the data that is within u.s. territory and is on u.s. citizens as the very first step. our teams have been here with the congress, talking through our attorney general guidelines and have been speaking with the concerns that you and others ti have voiced to us and i think we have built the processes around our purchasing of commercial data. >> respectfully, i didn't hear you mention what i asked about. either constitutional or statutory limits. so why don't you just send that to us for the record and i will just say, colleagues, this is the reason why congress needs to pass legislation limiting government purchases of americans information, and i also believe that congress

needs to pass the bill that i introduced with the vice chairman, senator rubio, making sure this information is not what up by foreign countries, either. let's go now to section 702 and obviously the government needs to have section 702 to focus on foreign threats. it is just essential that'it be done without throwing aside the privacy rights of law-abiding americans. there is a workable solution under a bipartisan proposal that i've been part of. the government wouldn't need a warrant to run searches on americans to see who they're talking to. it's only when the n governmentb wants to read the content of those private conversations that a warrant would be required even though there are also many exceptions that we ng have put into the bill, exceptions for emergencies, consent, cyber attacks, the list goes on.

according to fbi's data, the fbi looks at content in less than 2% of it surges on americans so my question would be for you, director wray. as i described it using your data, the data from the fbi, doesn't our warrant requirements only apply to a tiny fraction of the searches the fbi conducts? when you factor in all of these exceptions, i mean i can go through them but i think you know them and if there is any imminent danger, no word. if there are other dangers, you have to go get the warrant later but the exception list is very long so the question is, isn't it correct that what we're talking about in the bipartisan bill here in the senate and in the house would apply to only a small fraction of the searches you are

conducting? >> is a percentage it's not a significant percentage. certainly the number is significant and i think the fundamental problem with the warrant requirement, before you look at the content is that it's the content that tells us whether or not it is an agent of a foreign power involved. i think that's part of the problem. >> if the witness will pause for a moment. >> permanent cease-fire will lead to a cessation of any threat. >> continue. >> i think where i got cut off as i was just explaining that the fundamental problem is that in the instances where we need to look at the content, the probable cause that's lacking at that point is what's established by seeing the content. that's what tells us more often than not that there is an agent of a foreign power involved comes to that's what enables us to act and go forward with the appropriate investigative steps. >> so there is an exception for

imminent danger. there is an exception for other emergencies. there is an exception to simply conversations with foreign threats. i'd like you to send to me so we'll have this for the record, how having those exceptions will in some way obstruct you when you are trying to deal with a tiny number of warrants. this is all about americans believing you bet we have foreign threats. there is no question about it but we can address those foreign threats in a way that's compatible with the liberty and values that law abiding americans hold. i'm happy to work with you on it. >> senator collins. >> director haynes, you understandably spent considerable time talking about the significant threats that russia, china, iran and north korea pose to our country.

since the way that our disastrous withdrawal from afghanistan unfolded, we've also seen a large increase in terrorist attacks conducted by isis. in fact, those number nearly 200 and have resulted in some 1300 casualties. so obviously afghanistan has shown that once again, the taliban is either unwilling or unable to control terrorist groups. are there threats of terrorist attacks from isis toward americans? a problem, and how are you balancing the great power competition with the threats from isis? in addition, i would like you

to comment on whether or not terrorist groups backed by iran, such as hamas and hezbollah, pose a threat to our homeland. >> thank you, senator. in terms of the threat from isis, which you're absolutely right, remains a significant counterterrorism concern for us. most of the attacks that you're talking about globally taken on by isis have actually occurred by parts of vices that are outside afghanistan. in afghanistan there still remains an isis concern. it is one where ironically the taliban is actually concerned about it because the ices group that is in afghanistan is in fact going after the taliban

and so this is a place where actually the taliban has -- has taken action against that group in ways that are consistent with our also concerns and interests. so that is one piece and in terms of the terrorist groups backed by iran, absolutely, that is a major issue for us and there are a number of them, obviously. we often talk about iranian aligned militia groups that have been attacking u.s. forces and assets in iraq and syria in particular but also in other parts of the region, attempting to -- there have been just dozens and dozens of attacks that we've been looking to manage and that continues to be fueled by iran. they provide weapons, they provide training, they provide money to those groups and we

still obviously see them as a destabilizing force in the region. we also see iran's support of hezbollah, as you noted, and thomas over the years so considerably, not to mention the houthis is another example of this but certainly that's been a large issue and my colleagues wish to add to this. >> thank you. director ray, we know that china is the primary provider of the predecessor chemicals and the pill presses for fenton know, and you pointed out in your testimony, the extraordinary scope of the amount of fenton knoll that has been produced, and indeed, 80% of the overdoses in maine last year involved fentanyl. but we are also seeing in maine a new phenomenon that was reported by some enterprising

journalist and that is that chinese nationals are establishing illegal marijuana growing operations all over the state. one public report estimates there are more than 200 of them, primarily in rural maine. they are unregulated. they are illicit. they are destroying homes because they are growing the marijuana inside and the marijuana is very potent. what is the fbi doing to support local county and state officials and why do you think the chinese have sent their citizens to rural america to establish these illegal growing operations. >> certainly we are observing the same phenomenon that you're

describing. i know we've had a number of cases that have resulted in indictments of chinese nationals involved with illegal marijuana grow operations here and otherwise involved in different kinds of organized criminal activity. we are tackling that through working with our state and local law enforcement partners, for a variety of task forces. we are trying to share intelligence with them to help get ahead of the threat. i'm not sure that i could give you a reason still why it's happening but it is something we are very focused on. you mentioned the precursors to fentanyl, the pill presses. this issue, i would just add to that yet another one which is that an awful lot of the meth precursors to labs in mexico also come from china, so it's fentanyl. it's also meth and so there is certainly a big degree to which problems that we are experiencing here in an acute way source back to them.

>> thank you mr. chairman. f according to the annual threat assessment, russian president putin probably believes start that his approach to winning the war in ukraine is paying off and the western and u.s. support to ukraine is finite, and quote. for any of you, what lessons is putin taking from the u.s. failure to further support ukraine in its fight for national survival and what la lessons might china's xi jinping learn from this failure? >> i'd be glad to address your question. i just returned from my 10th visit to ukraine during the course of the war and i left convinced that we are at a ve fairly important crossroads for ukraine, for european security and for long-term american interests around the world. i think down one road with supplemental assistance

approved by the congress lies the very real possibility of cementing a strategic success for ukraine and a strategic loss for vladimir putin's russia. it's our assessment that with supplemental assistance, ukraine can hold its own on the front lines through 2024 and into early 2025, that ukraine can continue to exact costs against russia, not only with the penetration strikes in crimea, but also against russia's black sea fleet, continuing this success which has resulted in fifth team russian ships over the course of the last six months. in other words, supplemental assistance ukraine can put itself into position by the end of 2024, the beginning of 2025, where it could regain the offensive initiative and also put itself in a position to negotiate from a position of greater strength and achieve an

outcome in which putin's goal, which was to subjugate ukraine and to control its choices, would be denied. where ukraine could sustain itself as a strong, sovereign, independent country, anchor it self in western institutions and have the space and the security to recover from this terrible aggression and leave russia to deal with the long- term consequences of putin's brutal and foolish invasion. down another road, however, without supplemental assistance, it seems to me, lies a much grimmer future. ukraine is likely to lose ground and probably significant ground in 2024. i saw in the battle in which forced a russian withdrawal of ukrainian forces just a couple days before i was in kyiv on this last visit, the consequences of that. one senior ukrainian partner described what happened to me.

he said our men fought as long and as hard as they could, we ran out of ammunition and the russians just kept coming. without supplemental assistance in 2024 you are going to see more and that it seems to me would be a massive and historic mistake for the united states. >> what was, do you think, the ccp will take from that? >> i think the consequence of that will not just be for ukraine or european security. e >> exterminating the palestinian people, children are being starved to death. don't support the extermination of palestinian people. stop sending arms to israel. stop supporting extermination of children. >> witness will continue. >> i think the consequences of that are going to be felt not only by ukrainians, european security, but across the indo pacific where if we are seen to be walking away from support for ukraine, not only is that going to feed doubts amongst

our allies and partners in the indo pacific, it's going to stoke the ambitions of the chinese leadership in contingencies ranging from taiwan to the south china sea. so that's what i saw on this last visit. that's what i think is at stake for all of us. i think the truth is that the ukrainians are not running out of courage and tenacity. they are running out of ammunition and we are running out of time to help them. >> direct her, let's jump to t the elephant in the room, then. i want to thank you for your efforts to secure hostage releases and a cease-fire in the middle east. ramadan has now begun. give us, to the best of your ability, a little bit on where things stand with those negotiations and what flashpoints you might be concerned could push us into a more regional conflict over ther course of the next month. >> sure. for the last few months, since the last hostage return and

cease-fire in the latter part of november, the president has been working very hard to try to renew that process and i've traveled eight times to meet with why my israeli, egyptian and qatari partners and returned most recently on saturday night from the last such trip. what's on the table right now is a potential agreement that has three main elements. the first would be the return of about 40 hostages. ge these are the remaining women hostages, older men and hostages who are wounded or seriously ill. as the first step, as the first phase toward the return of all of the hostages, which another president is deeply committed. and that would be in return for a defined number of palestinian prisoners held by the israelis.n the second element is a cease- fire of at least six weeks, again as the first step toward

what might be more enduring arrangements over time and then the third element would be a major surge in humanitarian assistance which under the circumstances of a cease-fire could actually be distributed effectively to people who so deeply need them. so we are going to continue to work hard at this. i don't think anybody could guarantee success. what i think you can guarantee is that the alternatives are worse for innocent civilians in gaza who are suffering under desperate conditions for the hostages and their families, who are suffering also under very desperate conditions and for all of us who are going to keep at this. >> mr. chairman, i have a number of questions but we've got a lot of ground to cover here and mine really need to be in a classified setting so i'm going to reserve until closed

session. >> senator heinrich was going to address the real element in the room for some of our audience members accusing you a pretty serious conduct. so director burns, i want to give you a chance to respond to what's been said. is israel exterminating the palestinian people? >> senator, all i can say is what i said before. t i think there are a lot of innocent civilians in gaza who are in desperate conditions right now. i think there are hostages and families who are also in desperate circumstances, as well, and i think i've learned a long time ago in crises like these that you have defined a practical goal and pursue it relentlessly, and the goal the president has laid out working with our israeli, qatari and egyptian partners, the most practical one i can see right now is to produce a cease-fire of at least six weeks, produce the return of the hostages,

ultimately all of the hostages, and get desperately needed humanitarian relief to people who need it in gaza. >> is that a no, you do not believe israel is exterminating the palestinian people? >> no, i think is real -- i understand israel's need, the president has emphasized this, to respond to the british attack that is rarely suffered on the seventh of october, against hamas, against a terrorist group, but i think we all also have to be mindful of the enormous toll that this has taken on innocent civilians in gaza and as the president has said, it's very important for israel to be extremely mindful of that and to avoid further loss of civilian life. >> director haynes, do you believe israel is exterminating the palestinian people? >> i really don't have anything to add to what director burns has said. i fully endorse his comment. >> is real, you also stand accused of starving the palestinian children. is israel starving children in

palestine or in gaza? >> i think, senator, the reality is that there are children who are starving. >> but is israel doing that? >> they are starving, they are malnourished as a result of the fact humanitarian assistance can't get to them. it's very difficult to distribute humanitarian assistance effectively unless you have a cease-fire, which is exactly why i think there's great value in what's on the table now, a return of hostages and a significant cease-fire enabling people to get that humanitarian assistance. >> for the record, i do not believe that israel nor any of you or the united states government is exterminating the palestinian people or starting palestinian children. control of its proxy groups. that is the headline from politico last month. the quote. while iran is supporting them financially and with military equipment, intelligence officials not believe it is commanding the attacks. this lack of control over the houthis and the militias in iraq

and syria has muddied the deliberations in washington about how to respond to repeated attacks on u.s. interests in the region including the attack in jordan on january 28 that killed three american troops. but on page 18 of the assessment, the intelligence committee writes tehran was able to flex the network military capabilities in the aftermath of of hamas' attack on october 7, orchestrating anti-israel and anti-u.s. attacks from lebanon while -- from significant consequences. -- while shielding leaders from significant consequences. orchestrating is stronger than anything i have heard. it is not providing support or training or funding. so it is your assessment that the intelligence committee assessment that tehran has orchestrated attacks on israel and against u.s. personnel in the middle east since october 7? director haines: yes. and i don't think that means

that the proxy groups or that others are always listening to everything that they have to say or under their direct control but i think orchestrating is an appropriate characterization of what they look to do. sen. cotton: so to use the dictionary definition, it has arranged or directed the elements of a situation to produce a desired effect, especially surreptitiously. that is correct? ok. director burns, on page 34 of the assessment, the notes that the fbi and department of energy have concluded the most likely origins for the coronavirus pandemic was a laboratory in wuhan, but the cia cannot agree with that conclusively. why can't the cia reach the same conclusion of the fbi and the department of energy have reached? director burns: our analysts continue to look at this very carefully. they have not yet concluded that there is definitive evidence on either side of this, whether natural transmission or lab accident.

we continue to pursue, you know, more intelligence, more information that might help them to reach a definitive conclusion but right now, they have not been able to reach that. sen. cotton: director ray, -- director wray, why are your analysts so much more confident? director wray: our analysts did very rigorous work involving a whole slew of experts of different sorts. we reached the assessment with moderate confidence and we stand by that assessment. >> thank you. >> senator kaine. >> thank you, mr. chairman. as others have said, thank you to the people who operate under very difficult circumstances around the world to supply us with this important information. director burns, i want to say that your statement about the impact and long-term consequences of our abandoning ukraine is important, and i think should be required reading around here. the implications are that it is a 50 year mistake that would haunt this country both in europe but also, as you suggest,

in the indo pacific, including kim jong-un. he would assess that we did not have the staying power. he's already making noises about the peninsula. director wray, you talked with senator rubio about tiktok. just to reiterate, it is dangerous because it allows the chinese communist party to have access to an enormous trove of data about americans. that is number one. is that correct? director wray: that is one of the pieces of it. there are several. sen. king: the second piece is that the misinformation and sort of policy direction that it enables the communist party to exercise, correct? director wray: well, i think the second piece is the algorithm. in other words, the first is the data, the second is the algorithm, the third is the software. sen. king: but the problem is not tiktok, it is the control by

china. if tiktok were owned by an american company, belgian company, or british company, we would not have this level of problem, is that correct? director wray: correct. sen. king: thank you. who controls mexico? is the government of mexico in control or are the cartels in control? and how do we get at the problem of the drugs, the fentanyl? by the way, i did a little calculation a minute ago. about 15 people have died in this country of overdoses since this hearing started an hour and 20 minutes ago. that is how serious this problem -- one a day in my state of maine. how do we get control of this problem? director haines: i will start. there are a lot of us come obviously, that are working to help support those who are on the frontlines of this which include the fbi, obviously, dea, dhs, and others who are really focused on this question, but on

the first point, senator king, with respect to mexico, there is no question that it has a challenge for the government of mexico to deal with the cartels, and there are parts of the country that are effectively under the control of the cartels in certain respects. yet at the same time, would say that our cooperation with them has improved over time and i think director burns and director wray may have more to say on this, but this is an area where we have really been able to work with them and try to help them. sen. king: obviously, we have been able to work and it is improving but this is a drastic problem that should be treated as such in terms of the impact on americans. maybe this is a dhs question, but do we know how fentanyl is actually getting in? where is it coming? director wray: you mean coming sen. king: how does it get into

the director wray: it is coming at the ports of entry but there is a variety of ways he gets in. part of the challenge of fentanyl is of course how small it is and how easy it is to conceal and how easy it is to be innovative in ways to get it across the border. the vast majority of the fentanyl that is killing americans is of course coming from mexico, and the vast majority of the precursors for that fentanyl is coming from china. sen. king: i should mention that in the supplemental that is pending in the house, which we always focus on ukraine, there is also a major fentanyl blocking provision that would be very important to this country to get -- to have enacted as soon as possible. director haines, you are nodding but the record does not show nodding. can you -- director haines: absolutely. there's funding for the capacity to degraded detection and things like that that the dhs would be deploying, i believe, among others, and absolutely agree that this is a fundamental issue

and we can also talk more in closed session about some of the organizational things we are looking to do. sen. king: we have a major bill to address fentanyl in that supplemental if we can get that out of its limbo in the house. general, one question. i am concerned about a gap. nsa can talk about foreign intelligence gathering not in the u.s. here is my worry. -- here is my worry. st. petersburg, russia farm tax -- russia troll farm hacks information in the united states through a server in new jersey or pennsylvania or california. does that create a gap? talk to me about the relationship between yourself, the nsa, and the fbi. just worried that there is a place where we may lose contact. >> senator, thank you for the question. if we think about this right now

today in the context of threats to our elections, we spend an enormous amount of time collaborating across all the elements of the u.s. government to make sure that we are aligned and that we are appropriately using our authorities to be able to garner whatever information is required to be able to identify a foreign threat. first and foremost, we are going to collect that threat of a foreign intelligence target outside the united states and so one of those tools that really assists in this type of scenario is section 702 and our ability -- because by its very nature, if there is an origin of that threat, that there is a foreign entity communicating with in the united states with a communications provider, it offers us an opportunity under section 70 two to target that foreign intelligence threat outside the united states. and so with the reauthorization of section 702, that would ensure one means by which we are able to see the foreign part of that communication.

sen. king: thank you, mr. chairman. sen. warner: senator cornyn. sen. cornyn: director wray, i wanted to ask you a little bit about some of your testimony about the border. last year, 169 individuals on the terrorist watch list were detained at the southern border. so far this year, it has been 58. we know there were, since 2021, approximately 1.8 million got always, not people who turn themselves in, not people paroled in the interior, but 1.8 million migrants who were evading law enforcement at the border. can you tell us, the american people, with any certainty that there are zero people on the terrorist watchlist that were among that 1.8 million got aways? director wray: what i would say

is you rightly highlighted kind of, if you remember what secretary rumsfeld used to refer to, the no nones and the unknown nones, and in many ways, the national security ramifications of the issues at the border are better reflected in some ways more by what we do not know about the people who snuck in and provided fake documents or in some other way got in when there was not sufficient information available at the time they came into connect the dots. it is almost more significant in our view than the actual number of so-called kst's because those people, for the most part, are stopped, detained, and processed appropriately. sen. cornyn: and i guess you would not answer the same way that people with criminal records, members of criminal street gangs, and others being among that 1.8 million figure for migrants who got away.

we don't know what that is composed of, do we? director wray: that is correct. sen. cornyn: what we do know is that more than 37,000 chinese nationals were detained at the u.s. southern border in 2023 and that number is up 10 times over the earlier tally. and these individuals who were of course detained, sometimes, they claim asylum, sometimes, they are paroled into the interior, but again, we don't know how many chinese nationals that may be among that 1.8 million got aways that have made their way into the interior of the united states, you would answer the same way? director wray: right. we don't know what we are dealing with in a particular context.

it is especially challenging because presumably, within that group, you have got not only people who may mean us harm but also people who are fleeing the ccp and share our concerns about there authoritarian thuggishness. sen. cornyn: this is a gaping vulnerability in our national security, that we do not have answers for. i am reminded that there were 26 co-conspirators in the 9/11 attacks against the united states, killing 3000 people. 26 people killed 3000 americans on 9/11. i worry that among the people that are coming across the border, that are evading law enforcement, that there are some people among those that mean to do us harm. do you share that concern? director wray: i do. sen. burr: -- sen. cornyn: in fact, according to public sources, cnn on august 30th, 20

23, you alluded to this earlier about dozens of migrants from uzbekistan that were being facilitated by a suspected isis agent in turkey that was assisting those migrants to make their way to the southern border and into the united states, correct? director wray: that is a threat stream we are very concerned about, actively investigating working with dhs on both people whose travel was facilitated but also members of the facilitation network in some other way overseas and there's probably more i could share on that in closed session if you would like. sen. cornyn: one of the things that i think this reveals is that our border situation, the illegal immigration has changed over the years. it seems to me, coming from a border state, years ago you would look at people coming across who wanted to work, wanted to provide for their family. now, of course, we understand people fleeing violence and poverty and things like that. also we see the fact that if

you make it to the border, you can likely stay for the rest of your natural life. it is an enormous magnet for people to come. but also, and not just people who have benign intentions towards the united states who want a better life, but also people that want to do us harm. i know sometimes, people say, well, this is just a fantastic theory. no basis in reality. do you consider that to be a frivolous consideration? director wray: i do not. i have been very vocal about this. we of course are not responsible for the physical security of the border. we work hard to be good partners with dhs on that but there are a whole host of threats that emanate from the border. and some of them are criminal threats. we talked about violence. and then of course we have concerns that it could be a vulnerability that terrorist organizations could seek to exploit.

i would add that we are not at the moment tracking any specific terrorist plot coming across the border in that regard but it was not that long ago, as you will recall, that we had indictments of an individual who was trying to smuggle foreign nationals across the border to assassinate former president bush. so it goes to your point that numbers are important but numbers do not tell the whole story. it only takes a few people who can be responsible for a whole lot of harm. sen. warner: senator bennet. sen. bennet: thank you. thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you all for being here. thank you for your service. director burns, the fbi director just mentioned president bush. i think you were his -- you had one of the longest career -- distinguished careers in american diplomacy. and now you are in the middle of a

and now, you are in the middle of a negotiation in the middle east that i think everybody up here hopes that you are going to be successful about. in that context, i want to ask you about the supplemental bill that has the ukraine funding in it. that is a bill that passed out of the senate with 70 votes. we almost don't pass anything around here with 70 votes, or broad bipartisan recognition of the importance of that bill. i agree with your assessment and the intelligence committee assessment that ukraine has the possibility to prevail in this conflict with russia. nobody two years ago would have believed that but the way they fought, the way they have been able to be supported by our intelligence, obviously, it has made a difference. they succeeded in ways nobody could have imagined. there are people here and there are people in the house that don't believe that. the assessment is different than the intelligence communities and their judgment is different.

but i would ask you since you are here a little bit about the negotiating posture that ukraine, the west, nato wants to put ourselves in with vladimir putin and considering that question, i'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about whether or not our negotiating position, if you are somebody who believes in the end that somehow ukraine cannot prevail although i believe they can, and believes only that they can be in a position to negotiate an end to this, why would it be better for us to pass the supplemental from that vantage point than to fail to pass the supplemental? >> thanks very much, senator. today, first, i will start with vladimir putin and russia. it is our assessment that russia is not serious about

negotiations today in the sense that they may be interested in the theory of negotiations but they are not interested in negotiating in the sense of compromise right now because as director hans said in her opening remarks, i think president putin believes time is on his side, that he can grind down ukrainians and wear down the rest of us so if you look at the prospect of a more serious negotiation in the future, it is essential for ukraine with our support to disabuse the russian leadership of that notion, to puncture his confidence that time is on his side, to demonstrate that for russia

also, there are long-term consequences to this war. they have already suffered anonymously in terms of their military. 215,000 plus dead and wounded. four times the casualties that the soviet union suffered in a decade of war in afghanistan. the destruction of something on the order of two thirds of their prewar tank inventory and long-term economic consequences which is fast making russia at the economic vassal of china. not to mention a much stronger and bigger nato that they had to face today. the challenge in 2024 is helping the ukrainians not just to hold their own but to continue to impose costs so that they would be in a position of greater strength, greater leverage in a negotiation and i think that would be my answer to that question. if you want to get her a serious negotiation, you have to help the ukrainians demonstrate that putin is wrong in his notion that time is on his side. >> that logic seems fairly compelling to me. let me ask you another question. since you serve republican and democratic presidents over many decades, you hear people in this building say that the united states of america has to give up on our support for ukraine in actual conflict with vladimir putin, in actual conflict with russia, because of this fear that we will not be able to afford some plausible but nevertheless theoretical conflict with china in the future.

do you believe the united states of america cannot handle our commitments with respect to ukraine and nato and be able to deter beijing as well? >> no, i don't believe that. i think we are entirely capable. senator rubio said this earlier. i think the united states, while we may not have uncontested privacy in the world today, we still have a stronger hand to play than any of our adversaries or rivals so we are entirely capable of continuing to support ukraine in a conflict that has consequences well beyond ukraine and european security and i think sustaining that support for ukraine not only doesn't come at the expense of deterring china, it actually helps to deter china, whether it is in taiwan or the south china sea or

other places. it is our assessment that xi jinping was sobered, you know, by what happened especially in the first year of the war. he did not expect that ukraine would resist with the courage and tenacity that the ukrainians demonstrated. he did not expect that the united states, who he believes is a defining power, would step up in the way the president has led with all of yours or to show solidarity with ukraine as well. that has had an impact far beyond ukraine or european security and that is what is at stake today. >> we look back at that $60 billion and say it was a bargain compared to what we would otherwise spend. mr. chairman, my colleagues i think almost all of them went over 1.5 minutes so let me say in the last 15 seconds that our threat assessment --

>> i think the record will stand corrected. you have a couple seconds. >> director hans, i will take it for the record, but there is, in the document, reference to the serious issues that we are confronting in space right now. had i more time to ask you about that, we would have a conversation. >> german warner, thank you. director burns, i was -- my request among others was that director over door intervene with china -- chinese leadership and ask for the precursors to not be imported into mexico by utilized or end up as fentanyl in the united states. he committed to doing that.

my understanding from his government as well as public sources is that he did and then there seems to be some level of interest on the part of china in negotiating with us or having conversations with the united states about that topic. i don't know that much has come from that but you may tell me i am wrong. what explains the chinese unwillingness to be more proactive in combating precursor chemicals coming to the u.s.? is this -- do they have the capability? intentionally inflicting harm on americans in america? is there some quid pro quo they are looking for? >> since the president met with president xi in november in california, they have been some signs of greater chinese seriousness about dealing with this problem, effectively enforcing the wrong law because that is all we are asking.

when i was in beijing in late may of last year, i raised this issue directly with my counterparts as well so i think there are some signs that the chinese are beginning to address the problem not just in precursor chemicals but also of pill pressing equipment and certainly, they can do more and that is why it is so important for all of us to continue to push as hard as we can and to make clear as you indicated earlier that this is a problem not only for the united states but for mexico and others around the world. >> what would be china's reluctance to crack down on those exports? >> i hope that what you are seeing now is readiness to do more i think since november but that is something that obviously from the president on down, we need to continue to reinforce as hard as we can. they do bear some responsibility for what is happening in our own society. >> how do you assess the current balance of military power in the pacific today, the united states, china, and others?

>> i would describe the balance of power today as china is on a rise and it has been planning for multiple five-year periods and it has educated that development, the exercising in a way that has put them in a position that had at some point -- they will be a world leading military power. the united states is the worlds leading military power today and so the imperative piece for us is to be on the same trajectory to match them stride for stride and ensure we stay ahead of the growth that we see in china. if there is no doubt, the growth that you see has been discussed today in military power associated with china and the rise in all domains, cyber, space, as well as conventional. >> director haynes, has iran sought to use our borders to conduct terrorist activities in

the united states? >> yes. we have a very good example of iran supporting them in effect, efforts to come across the border, to go after the former ambassador from saudi arabia, for example. there was a case in that scenario so they have historically attempted this but -- attempted this but it has been challenging for them and something that we consistently monitor on a regular basis and prefer to go through to the extent that they are able. sort of criminal entities and other groups as a way of trying to achieve their goals. >> director wray, there was reports of our military technologies being utilized in north korean military equipment

found in ukraine, coming from russia. how do we explain that? >> well, i am definitely tracking a similar instance in terms of iranian drones, for example where u.s. technology has appeared as components. part of it has to do with dual use technologies and companies here not being perhaps as vigilant as they need to be about the potential uses of their technologies and so, we are trying to be very heavily engaged with the private sector to make sure that they are more thoughtful about who they are sending to and where their pieces and components may end up. >> even though you gave senator bennet additional time, i will not ask for it. >> senator casey. >> thank you very much. i want to thank the panel for your testimony today and also for your public service. i want to follow up on the fentanyl and ask a related question about zaila zine. i know our colleagues have mentioned and asked questions about fentanyl.

i will start with director wray, to direct your attention to this question about fentanyl. the threat assessment this year on page 36 says that china remains a primary source for illicit fentanyl, precursor chemicals intel press equipment, and then it goes on to talk about what the cartels do. it is noteworthy i think that the u.s. sentencing commission told us that in fiscal year 2022, 80 8% of fentanyl trafficking vendors were u.s. citizens, 88 percent. in fiscal year 21, 80 6% of fentanyl trafficking for u.s. citizens. we know how it gets here. we have a good sense of how it gets here. we know the administration as that it made -- some may believe progress in reestablishing coordination with the chinese government in countering fentanyl.

i am increasingly concerned as well about zaila zine and other non-fentanyl synthetic opioids. zaila zine -- it is a powerful veterinary sedative that is mixed with illicit fentanyl and the city of philadelphia has become almost ground zero for the proliferation of illicit drug. according to the dea, it was detected in nearly half, half of all fentanyl related overdoses in philly. i wanted to ask you, is the chinese government holding up its end of the bargain and cracking down on illicit fentanyl traffickers? >> i would say the scale of the problem that we are continuing to see suggests to me that there is a lot of room for improvement from the chinese government. let me just put it that way. you mentioned the drug. certainly, it is of concern to us.

you are right that the philadelphia area is a place where we are seeing a certain amount of that. we got a lot of investigations in the areas. of course, one of the problems with the drug is that it is not responsive to narcan so that just as to the challenge and certainly, it has been found in drug combinations and i think maybe 48 of the 50 states or something. it's very easy to buy unfortunately online from china-based suppliers so that as to the problem.

we are trying to engage in your area and nearby areas with hospitals and state diversion groups to try and raise awareness about it. but it is not a controlled substance currently under the u.s. controlled substance act so that is just an additional kind of aggravating circumstance. >> to what extent is regulation by china of synthetic opioids part of the u.s. law enforcement's discussions with their chinese counterparts? >> certainly trying to work with the chinese on their controlled substances listings is a key part of it. part of the problem with precursors of course is that there is an almost infinite number of variations that people can come up with so even when they schedule things, you see new oneness is crop up in their stead said that as to the challenge. you asked how serious are they? i would point to the sheer volume that we are contending with and i think that tells you all you need to know about how serious the chinese are. so far -- the chinese are so far in helping us address the problem. >> i want to ask you about iranian evasion of sanctions. since the imposition of increased sanctions against iranian oil and 2018 and 2019, iran has been increasingly successful in finding ways to

evade sanctions and its oil revenues are increasingly rising. the administration is focused on blocking iran's oil exports. how is the intelligence community supporting the administration's efforts to impose further costs on iran including by focusing on identifying and sanctioning so-called ghost fleet vessels carrying iranian oil and chinese refineries -- purchasing arabian oil? >> thank you. we are very involved is the short answer but the longer answer is -- we actually do periodic reports to congress that tell you about some of the work that we do in this area where we are identifying where we see sanctions evasion, where we see opportunities for essentially additional targets for sanctions that might be acted on third parties and others who were involved in these transactions so that the

treasury department and others can in fact go after them in that respect. it is a critical issue. >> mr. chairman? >> thank you, senator. thanks to all of you. please pass on our thanks and gratitude to them. most folks will never know who they are and not get a chance to be able to say thank you so please pass that on as well. i want to continue some of the conversation at the border because while we are dealing with worldwide threats, we are seeing worldwide threats coming towards us and obvious vulnerabilities. as has been mentioned, talked

about in the past, in this fiscal year, 58 people on the terror watch list who have been identified and picked up. there is a category called special-interest aliens and you are familiar with that as well. the special-interest aliens, many people may not know this definition so i'm going to read it, what this designation is. non-us person who based on a -- analysis of travel patterns potentially poses a national security risk to the united states or its interests. many are employing travel patterns and have a nexused terrorism. do we have a list of how many people that have across our southern border that we have identified that are special-interest aliens? director wray, do you know the number? >> i don't know the number but we can follow-up with you to see if that is something we can provide. >> it has been one of our challenge is to identify that. on the terror watch list, we can get the number and know that it is 58 exactly. when we ask about special-interest aliens, we are told that it is law enforcement sensitive. we know the number is in the thousands but have not been able to get a specific number nor a specific tracking on that so that would be hopeful to know because the next question is the obvious one. those individuals that are coming in, i want to give a number of it, it is in the

thousands, at the fbi said they are coming across the border, released into the country because the vast majority, we don't have a criminal background information on them. we have a theory so they are released into the country currently. as the fbi kept in contact with dhs and others, who those individuals are and what kind of tracking and monitoring is on those individuals? >> i know we work closely with dhs, especially cbp come on the issue of special-interest aliens including a whole lot of work on the other side of the border to try and prevent them from coming in in the first place and i know there are in and says where they are contacted but i'm not sure as i sit here right now that i can tell you we are contacted in every instance. >> that is helpful. let me give you some attention here. the state department is very engaged in this and trying to figure out on the intelligence side the information sharing. this in the visuals who are crossing the border right now

from any of those countries, we don't have any criminal information on these individuals. do you know just offhand how many countries that are coming into the united states when they are crossing our southern border, we have criminal background information? venezuela, we were talking about venezuelan gangs. many of them paroled into the country. it is in venezuela freely sharing their criminal records with us and do we know if these individuals have a criminal record? >> thank you, senator. i don't know if venezuela is sharing specific information but what i can say is obviously that we have seen over 7 million venezuelans emigrate from the country since 2017. a significant portion of whom obviously have emigrated to the united states legally but when we do get relevant information from our counterparts and dhs and fbi, our analyst use that to form the judgments. >> nicaragua is not taking

people back on that and we are dependent on the state department to impose systems court of -- sort of consequences. you are not taking people back on that. do you know any of the conversation right now between nicaragua and the united states on trying to deal with that? we have attracting of some who have criminal records that are coming towards us and consider that a threat. >> i don't have any specifics on the details or engagement with nicaragua. i'm happy to follow-up with you offline. >> that would be great. then we talked a little bit about it. this is an acronym people don't know. any terrorism. we had this since 2007. it expired in july of last year and has not been reauthorized yet. one of the aspects of that is for chemical facility refiners, whatever it may be, they have the ability to check against the terror watch list using their authority on that. it is about 9000 people a month that used to be checked on that just in the hiring in the process all over the country with 63,000 people estimating that it had not been checked.

how many people show up as a hit on the terror watch list from the hiring in the past? when we do that check on it which now is not occurring, we have not reauthorized this. how many folks are on the terror watch list? >> i will tell you i share your concern about the lapse in the authorities and one of the challenges of this particular space is that it does not take many for it to be a real problem then we rely on that authority or we historically have to protect. >> can you say that number is not zero one that has been run in the past? >> correct. >> could you have given their witnesses homework? senator.

if you want to defer to senator kelly, i would be happy to but we are doing it by seniority. >> mr. chairman, in new york's capital region, and the albany complex is set to house some of our nation's most advanced electronics, research development, and manufacturing. today's annual threat assessment points out that china currently lags behind the u.s. in developing the most advanced chips, giving them motive to steal our technology which they have done over and over. i included legislation requiring dod to establish a pilot program to enable collaboration between the nsa's cybersecurity collaboration center and the u.s. semiconductor manufacturers to improve the cybersecurity and semiconductor design and manufacturing process. general, how is the nsa working with the fbi to create safeguards against espionage and cyber attacks at leading public research facilities and its

semiconductor many factors? >> thank you for the question. in terms of how we think about the china cyber threat, it is clear that they are going to be relentless to intend to steal intellectual property so from our perspective, part of what the nsa has really focused on doing is eliminating that threat. so we have done a series of unclassified as batteries with a number -- advisories with a number of partners. six other nations and multiple companies to illuminate that threat to get unity of action against that threat. unclassified reports to allow increased unity of action so from the fbi's perspective, they are a teammate in everything we do that talks about the cyber threat within the united states. and from a specific look at semiconductors, critical

technology that clearly china wants to catch up on and from our perspective, an area we will continue to identify those threats and communicate those both through the fbi and through classified advisories wherever we can. >> i would agree with everything the general just said and i would add that we have set up counterintelligence taskforces in all 56 field offices including in the albany area in the nsa is a key participant with us in our national effort in that regard. in addition to the unclassified situation that can be shared through the good work we do together, one of the advantages to the fbi engaging with private companies is because we get information from so many different sources. there are times we can share information with a private sector entity that helps protect nsa's sources and methods because it does not clearly get identified in this is something nsa told us. >> research from the center for

capturing digital hate found that the image generators create election disinformation in 41% of cases including images that could support false claims about candidates for election fraud in spite of controls we have been told have been put in place. this is for the entire panel. have any of you see in foreign adversaries with intent to use generative ai, either images, video, audio, to deceive american voters? what are we relying on to advise the public when this inauthentic content appears? director wray, you can start. >> i want to think about what i can say here. certainly ai is something that all of our most significant adversaries are taking a hard look at to enhance their efforts. we have seen ai used in a variety of settings. whether it has been used specifically to target voters, i'm not sure i can say that but we are actively concerned about that as the latest wrinkle in a long-standing effort to engage

in information warfare. >> another example is we have seen evidence that al qaeda in the arabian peninsula has used ai to generate videos aimed at inspiring lone wolf attacks as a result to the gaza conflict as well. >> director haynes? >> another example is russia deploying ai tools in the context of their efforts in ukraine. march 2022, there was a deepfake of the ukrainian president asking ukrainians to lay down their arms and ultimately had to be actually countered by president zelenskyy. >> did we give them the ability to do that quickly? >> the ukrainians? yes, we worked with them on that. >> general? >> in terms of how we are

thinking about ai security, and nsa established a security center to generate and communicate to anyone who is building a model from naia ai perspective what are those threats and what are the security mechanisms to ensure -- to avoid misuse of those models? we are also using the center for how we apply all of the ethical and safety standards of how the department will leverage ai but really the last component would be how do we communicate to those companies the threats they will have of their technology and how will we employ it? >> go ahead. >> you are right to raise this as a threat and i think our view of it is that tools like generative ai will essentially lower the barrier for actors with fewer resources to engage in election interference. >> general? >> i don't think i would add anything to what has been covered here other than the

counterintelligence portion of that that has a touch point across everything. >> somehow participated in the conference and there were 20 tech companies that came together. most of the social media companies on a voluntary basis to indicate both water, watermarking, and willingness to take down ai generated video and voice that were affecting elections but it was voluntary and the proof will be in the pudding. >> no one said they had a plan. advise the american people. >> this committee will be having hearings on this subject very shortly and the senator will be on and have a greater part. senator. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to all of you for your service and to your teams as

well. director, with regard to the p.r.c. and some recent public reports of significant land purchases, if these land purchases are accurate, they may very well pose a threat to not only some military installations but certainly involved in food production that takes away from our ability to produce for our own country as well. just curious about whether or not you are aware or can confirm land purchases by chinese nationalists within the united states and are you following them at this time? >> so this is an issue we are focused on a lot lately. i think what i would say is we are investigating a number of his essays proactively where we are seeing neither commercial, real estate, or land being purchased by those with ties to the p.r.c. near critical infrastructure and i want to be

clear. foreign purchases of land including chinese purchases of land is not itself inherently illegal but the problem is the risk and as it has been discussed much here already in a different context, the hold that the chinese government and the ccp have over its businesses in particular so we are particularly concerned about situations where a purchase of land near a military -- military installation or critical infrastructure could be leveraged to enable anything from espionage, data collection, or worse. >> do you know if the tools we have in place today are strong enough or capable of stopping these purchases from moving forward? >> well, i mean certainly, a lot of types of transactions go through a process but i am not clear on whether or not that fully extends to all the land

purchase situations that we are concerned about. we are working with -- through the process when that applies and working with the usda to work towards mandatory reporting regime that might apply so i think there is room for plugging gaps that may exist. >> thank you. i would like to also ask with regard to ai in particular, bottom line is it is not going away. it is something that we are going to have to deal with right now. it appears as though we leave the world in regard to ai capabilities. most certainly, our adversaries recognize that and they will do whatever they can as a shortcut to our capabilities. air, land, space, and cyberspace. with regard to the advances with ai right now, i'm concerned as much about china and russia and their capability to use ai to

develop weapons systems that we have never really thought about as being in the forefront of a major and direct threat to the united states and going to talk about biologics. we know that china and russia have significant capabilities with regard to ai and using ai, you can make rapid advances, as you noted. on 30 through 33 in your report i'm concerned about the fact that it may be used as a weapon system. i'm not sure who to direct this to but i will start with director ray and if you would like to pass this on, that's fine. it seems that this is an area that we are not ahead in time to be able to identify and stop them, this is probably as much as a threat to the united states as any other element we have

today. quex i will start with another and others may want to chime in from a military perspective. from an fbi perspective, one of our priorities is protecting american ai innovation from theft, especially from the chinese. america leads the world in ai innovation and ai is often -- to senator gillibrand question about detecting deepfakes in one of the best weapons against ai is better ai. we need to protect that innovation and we are concerned the chinese would -- as i've testified repeatedly -- a bigger hacking program than any other nation combined. if they steal our ai to power it, it makes words like force multiplier an understatement. >> on page 32 of your report you made sure that russia, china, iran and north korea produced

pathogens and toxins in china and russia have proven adept at manipulating information space to reduce trust and confidence in countermeasures and u.s. biotechnology in research. cloaks to share my view that unlawful entry through the southern border shares a serious threat to the u.s. national border? >> i've testified repeatedly that we are concerned about the terrorism implications from potential targeting of vulnerabilities at the border. >> how would you assess the present level of threat and risk of a terrorist attack in the united states compared to past times during your tenure? >> even before october 7, i would've told this committee that we were at a heightened

threat level from a terrorism perspective, in the sense that it's the first time that i've seen, in a long, long time, threats from homegrown violence extremist, jihadist violent extremists, foreign terrorist organizations and state-sponsored terrorist organizations been elevated at one time. since october 7, the threat has gone to another level. this is a time for much greater vigilance then has maybe been called upon of us before october 7. >> is the fbi posture to understand the threat associated with the southern border? we have been briefed on specific threats, do you feel you know enough to assure us the fbi's as well across it as you can be or do you need more resources or feel you are flying blind and not able to define the scope of the threat? >> we are working hard with our partners but there is no

question we need more resources to combat the threat. i will give an example. through working with dhs, they collect dna samples. we provide kits to dhs to collect samples. people come across the border that get sent to the fbi lab. that's part of why we ask for a significant enhancement because of the sheer increase in people coming across means a sheer increase in samples that need to be collected. that's what helps us identify people emitting crime in the united states, or, as has happened too often, they go back across the border and try to re-illegally again. need to process those samples quickly if there's a backlog. we asked for enhancement. not only will we knock it enhancement, there was a 10% cut to the screening center. whatever happened in 24, but i would urge you look at fiscal year 2025 if we are serious about protecting the border.

>> i think it's worth noting that a serious, tough, bipartisan security measure was put forward in the congress. in fact, co-authored by conservative republican member of this committee, which would have searched enforcement resources to the border, which would provided substantial resources to fight cartels and cut down on fentanyl trafficking, it would've tightened asylum standards and expedited adjudication, therefore, movable timelines for those trying to enter the country without a valid reason to. the former president put out the word that he wanted the. for political reasons and the bill was stopped. not only was the bill stopped, it was denied a debate on the senate floor. this speaks to the corrosive impact of extreme partisanship and polarization on our national security. i would like to ask you, how do our adversaries view the impact

of political extremism and polarization in partisanship on american strength and stability. we are talking about world wide threats and it can exploit our own frailties here at home. >> the best way to answer that question is to point to the fact that we have seen both russia and china have taken the opportunity to highlight where there is political dysfunction or other issues that they see in the context of our governance and use it as part of their information operation globally. both to highlight, for example, to their own populations, democracy is quite challenging, and would you really want this at home, kind of thing. also, to demonstrate to our allies and partners that we can be relied on as effectively. >> thank you all for your testimony. >> thank you mr. chairman and

thank you, everyone, for being here today. i had been sitting here since 2:30. there is may be an advantage for going last in one of these hearings. i was going to say it was the elephant in the room until my colleague from georgia brought it up. but, as i've sat here, i've heard most members of this committee asked something about the southern border. not everybody, but, the majority. i spent a lot of time on the border, perhaps more time then maybe anybody on this committee, maybe with the exception of senator cornyn. who i've traveled to the border with. and i strongly agree with what most of my democrat and republican colleagues have said about the problems and the challenges. fentanyl coming north, precursors often from china, heading south. violent extremist organizations, chinese migrants who might be

maned selling rather strong marijuana. isis iran proxies, problems at mexico. over and over they pointed out all these problems. i've worked on this issue providing more pay for border control, closing gaps in border wall along the southern border, where they make sense. they certainly do in a lot of places. more money for ngos to help border patrol. director wray pointed out talking about how we need more resources to combat the threat. and it helps when dhs gets oser resources. we have the opportunity to do something about it. more money for technology, including fentanyl detection. more border patrol agents, more asylum officers. more authorities to rapidly expel individuals. a change in the credible standard.

more money for detention facilities. more visas to reunite families, and all this legislation was endorsed by the border patrol union and it had strong bipartisan support. until it didn't. my colleague from georgia points out why it didn't. director ray, is it your -- in your assessment that more resources and stronger policy that could help your partners, not necessarily the fbi, the dhs, is that your assessment that that would help deal with all these things that were mentioned in this committee hearing today? dir. wray: i will leave it to other to speak to policies, but in terms of resources, not just for dhs, before the fbi, we need more resources to deal with all the threats that emanate from the border that we are responsible with. dir. haines: i don't have

anything to add to that. dir. burnes: i don't have anything to add. >> i will yield back the remainder of my time because the failure of that legislation, that alone presents a national security threat, in my view. >> let me say for a moment, we have strong views on this committee. one of the things i think we have always taken some pride in is that we can agree, without questioning each other's patriotism's, without questioning each other's motives, and i hope that tenor will be maintained. members feel very strong, i felt very strong on the board -- border. i do hope, particularly as we deal with our intelligent professionals, the one thing

we've tried is this committee, and one thing that i found is that this agreement, in terms of the intelligence committee, should not go in terms of at home. i don't think i heard that, i heard huge policy differences, we have to have those, but the one thing i hope and pray that you maintain this notion because intelligence professionals never get the recognition they need, look to this committee to be, i hope, an island of sanity in an otherwise challenging political environment. it doesn't take away anybody's views or anybody's right to have those views, but i have the most respect for every member of this committee, regardless of which i'll of the -- they sit on. we owe our intelligence professionals that kind of notions that just because we are on different political sides

that neither political party has a monopoly on truth or patriotism. we have differences in opinions without questioning each other's patriotism. >> reclaiming my time, please. >> mr. chairman, i cannot let the last two speakers go on the democratic side without responding. >> i have been on this committee for 15 years and we do a good job until politics creep in. that is what has happened. these are the facts. the last president of the united states closed the border. he close the border down to almost zero crossings by the time he left office he didn't even know he was sued over and over again by people from the other sides of the aisle. he shut it down and he shut it down under the law that's in effect today. congress has done its job. he has a law saying you cannot enter the united states without authorization.

when the current president came in, we all know he took the policies and the former president tore them up, rescinded them and now we have what we have. as part of the bill that's concerned, everybody is talking about the former president making phone calls. he never called me. i will not look for anything that allows any illegals to cross into this country and everybody knows that bill would've allowed 5000 a day come into this country. that's not for me and i don't care if the president calls me or doesn't call me, my redline is not one. we need to enforce the lies -- enforce the laws we have. the backdoor is going to get close. thank you. >> can i add that the former president in a number of my colleagues repeatedly said to make the kind of changes you need permanently on the border you need legislation. and that is an ongoing debate we

will have here and elsewhere. and what we need in the most important last, i will make, because we will be breaking and going into closed senate, we need in intelligence community that's going to never be afraid to tell truth to power. truth to power sometimes means telling us on both sides of the aisle what we don't necessarily want to hear. i think the witnesses, frankly, the men and women whom we represent, do that on a regular basis. and at the end of the day, while we may haggle over some of these policies, the most important thing you have to do is keep speaking that truth to power. we are adjourned until we move into the classified setting.

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defense. please join me in welcoming