understood the problem. but most do not. has the fbi ever talked with the tech companies about this need in particular? >> yes, senator. we've had a lot of conversations and as i saidyer, in my sense, they've been getting more productive because i think the tech companies have come to see the darkness a little bit more. my concern was privacy is really important but ha they didn't see the public safety cost. i think they're starting to see that better. and what nobody wants to have happen is something terrible happen in the united states. and it be connected to our inability to access information with lawful authority. that we ought to have the conversations before that happens and the companies more and more get that. i think over the last year and a half. and but it's vital. we weren't biking on apple in the san bernardino case. >> right. >> there were real reasons why we needed to get into that device. and that is true in case of an

case after case which is why we have to figure out a way to optimize those two things, privacy and public safety. >> well, to be candid, my understanding about some of this was that the european community had special concerns about privacy and that some of the companies in our country were concerned, well, they would lose business. that european concern is changing. i think what i read about the uk, what i understand is happening in france and germany increased sharing of intelligence, the realization i think that they have very dangerous people in large numbers possibly plotting at any given time to carry out an attack has had some palliative effect. and there may be a change of viewpoint. so it would be very helpful if our law enforcement community

could help us and this is not to monitor. this is something that's very basic. if there is a piece of evidence that says hey there may be a cell, there may be another individual out there. you have a chance of getting into that piece of evidence to see if that's true. >> with a judge's permission. >> with a judge's permission, that's correct. so i thank you for that. >> thank you, senator. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator lee hasn't had first round. i've got to go to senator lee. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, mr. comey for being here and tanks for your service to our country. i want to talk to you about something raised by a colleague a little while ago about electronic communications transaction records. would it be fair to say that electronic communications transaction records include such things as browsing history, one's history of websites that one might have visited on the internet? >> yes. >> would it be fair to say also

that what one views, what pages one has visited might in some ways be indicative of what one is reading? >> potentially, right. even if you don't have the see where they went on the page, that they went to espn or fishing magazine gives you some indication of their interests, yes. >> individually and collectively, you can find out a fair amount about a person, especially if you're able to review what it is that they've been reading for a certain period of time? >> right. the only reason i'm hesitating as i understand it, we can't look at all we can get is the websites visited, not where they went on the pam or what they clicked on. it does give some indication of your interests just like who you call. >> where they went on website will also be indicative of what they did on the website. not just that they went to espn but they went to espn and read this or that article. >> my understanding is we can't with an nsl as we understand the

statute get the sub content. we can get the web page visited not where they navigates within the website. i may be wrong about that but you think that's how we are. >> within the existing confines of the law. >> correct. >> for those proposing we change existing law to allow you to use a national security letter to go further as was suggested by one of my colleagues earlier today, that then won allow to you get this more granular information. >> no, i'm sorry. as we understand the way it was to be used, our nsl authority as we thought it was is limited to that top level website visit address. even if it's changed the way we hope it will be, we don't get any deeper into what you looked at on a page. we're able to see what sporting goods store you called. we can't tell from the call record what you asked about. we can see what sporting page you visit, what web see the but

can't see where you went within that. >> based on the legislation, it's not my recollection that's the case. i've been told it would not necessarily be the policy of the government to use it to go to that level of granularity. but that the language itself would allow it. is that inconsistent with your understanding? >> it is. and my understanding is we're not looking for that authority. >> you don't want ha authority? >> that's my understanding. what we'd like is the functional equivalent of the dialing information. where, the address you e-mailed to or the web page you went to. not where you went within it. >> even if you look at it at the broad level of abstraction. if you're suggesting it would be used only at the domain name level, somebody went to espn.com, if you follow someone's browsing history over a long period of time, you could still find out a fair amount of information about that person. >> yes. as you can from their telephone dialing history. >> let's talk about section 702 for a minute.

section 702 of the foreign intelligence surveillance amendments act authorizes the surveillance that the use of u.s. signals surveillance equipment to obtain foreign intelligence information. the definition includes information that is directly related to national security. but it also includes "information that is relevant to the foreign affairs of the united states." regardless of whether that foreign fairs related information is relevant to national security threats. to your knowledge, that is has the attorney general or has the dni ever used section 702 to target individuals abroad in a situation unrelated to a national security threat? >> not that i'm aware of. i think i could be wrong, but i don't think so. i think it's confined to counter-terrorism, to espionage, to counter proliferation. those are the buckets i was

going to say cyber but it fits -- >> that's where it's typically used those things. does it, so to your knowledge, it doesn't currently use 702 to target people abroad in instances unrelated to national security threats? >> i don't think so. like a diplomat to find out how someone feels about a particular foreign policy issue or something, i don't think so. >> right. so if section 702 were narrowed to exclude such information, to exclude information that is relevant to foreign affairs but not relevant to a national security threat, would that mean that the government would be able to obtain the information it needs in order to protect national security? >> it would seem solangecally. to me the value of 702 is exactly that where the rubber hits the road in the national security context, especially counter-terrorism, counter proliferation. >> now, when section 702 is used typically what we're talking about here is not metadata.

it's not this call was made from this number to this number. this is content. and so if we were talking about two u.s. persons, two american citizens, if i were calling you, typically that's not something that section 702 would be used to collect. but if it's me calling someone else and if that person is not a u.s. person, if that person ends up being an agent of a foreign government and if somebody determined that communications involving that person might be connected to a national security investigation, there's a chance that that communication could be intercepted not just the fact the call was made but also the content that have call. >> correct. that's what we call incidental collection. >> that incidental collection is then aggregated. you have databases that store all of these things and so there are lots of u.s. person who haved communications, conversations that have been recorded that are out there. and in a database. can you search that database for

communications involving specific u.s. persons without getting a warrant? >> yes. >> and the fact that these communications were intercepted without necessarily any show of wrongdoing on the part of the u.s. person, without necessarily showing that that u.s. person had anything to do with the foreign -- with the national security investigation at issue, does that is cause you concern that that could involve almost a backdoor way of going after communications by u.s. persons in which they have a reasonable expectation of privacy? >> it doesn't cause me concern but that may be because of the way what i can see from where i am. i understand the question though. but it's true whether it's 702 or forecourt authorized doe domestic surveillance in the united states. if americans call in and speak to them, we record that. because we're authorized to collect the communications and out of that embassy.

we store all of those in a database. we have lawfully collected those even though the american who called wasn't a target. the same happens with 702. if you contact or call a terrorist or someone we're targeting overseas, you're an american, you have a conversation even though you're not the target, that's going to be collected and stored in a database. what matters is how we treat that data and we don't use it willie and nilly and protect it in important ways. that's true whether 702 or collected domestically. i don't know how we would operate otherwise. and that's -- i don't know how we would operate otherwise. i there what the american people want us to do is make sure we hold it so we can connect dots if it turns out there's something bad in there but treat it like the information that it is, protect it and make sure it's handled in a responsible way. >> senator lee. >> thank you, mr. chairman. director, let me tell you a story about 100 years ago,

literally, my italian grandparents and my irish grandparents faced discrimination because of their religion. now, that discrimination wasn't violence. it was economic. there was not unusual in this country at that time. i like to think that's gone. i like to think of my grandparents, italian grandparents, the irish grandparents, diskrimflation they faced because of both their race and their religion is not here. but now we see an alarming rise in hate crimes among minority communities. yesterday, this committee heard some important testimony from the department of justice, from the international association of chiefs of police, i believe our nation's largest civil rights organization, that law enforcement and political

leaders must send a message that toxic hateful rhetoric would not be tolerated. they must denounce bigotry wherever they encounter it. even as a child, i was taught that. we are never to discriminate against anybody because of their race or their religion. now, what bothers me and let me show you this. on the campaign trail, president trump promises supporters a muslim ban. he campaigned press release entitled "donald j. trump's statement on preventing muslim immigration," says that he called for a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the united states. now, i can understand that dumb things are said during a campaign. that's on his website today. that goes beyond being stupid. do you agree with me that messages like that can cast

suspicion on our muslim neighbors can perpetuatedy division and hatred? and if it does, does that make america less safe? >> i'm not going to comment on the particular statement but i do agree that a perception or a reality of hostility towards any community in particular the muslim american community makes our jobs harder because as i said in response to an earlier question, those good people don't want people engaging in acts of violence in the name of their faith or in their neighborhood. and so our interests are aligned but if anything gets in the way of that andchys their openness to talk to us and to tell us what they see it, makes it harder for us to find those threats. we've been spending a ton of time. you're right about the increase in hate crimes. we've seen those numbers start to go up in 2014, they've been climbing since then to redouble our efforts to get in those communities and show them our hearts and what we're like, to

encourage people not to fear contact with us. >> and director comey, i don't ask this to make a political point. i ask this as a united states senator. i believe the united states senate can be and sometimes has been the conscience of the nation. we're a nation with adherence to our first anticipate. we trust and believe in all religions, the ability to practice anne religion you want or none if you want. i worry that whether it's the muslim religion or any other, religions where people believe in it, they should not be condemned for the actions of a few. i worry very much that the rhetoric and the hatred can bring about things that neither you nor i ever want to see in

this country. i think we'd agree on that. hate crimes, i don't care who it's against, against somebody because of their race or their religion, you as a head of the fbi, any one of us who have been prosecutors, we abwho are all hate crimes and i believe you do. is that not correct? >> that's for sure. >> and i worry that we also give the impression that citizenship alone might be a reliable indicator of the terrorist threat posed by an individual to the united states. i think of the oklahoma city bombing. one of the greatest acts of terrorism in our country. done by an american citizen who had served i believe honorably in our military.

so would you agree that citizenship alone is not a reliable indicator of a terrorist threat posed by an individual to the united states? >> correct. most of the people that i talked about that we have opens on are american citizens. >> in fact the department of homeland security we've heard from them, they have an assessment from the office of intelligence analysis concluded that citizenship is unlikely to be a reliable indicator of potential terrorist activity. do you agree with that? >> yes. >> thank you. another matter, chairman grassley and i have worked to address the concerns related to the fbi's hair, fiber analysis testimony has been flawed i think we all accept in the past. investigation began i believe

2012 after three men were exonerated here in washington, d.c. because the fbi analyst gave inaccurate testimony. in order to review more than 3,000 cases, the fbi has reached out to offices originally that prosecuted these cases and i appreciate that. i remain concerned ta cases remain closed if you don't find the transcript right away. i've asked you this question in writing. any cases where there's a missing transcript, do you commit to have an fbi conduct an in-person visit to obtain whether there was information that was used and possibly faulty analysis by the fbi that might have brought about a conviction? >> i'm sorry an in-person visit? >> well, to the prosecutor's office or whoever else may be involved, if you don't have a transcript, an in-person visit

to say okay, was what do your records show? do you -- did you use analyses that may have been faulty from the fbi in bringing about the conviction? >> i see. i don't know enough to react to that now and commit to it now. can i follow up with you to see how we're thinking about that? >> will you follow up? >> i will. >> okay, thank you. thank you. >> senator leahy, senator whitehou whitehouse? >> thank you. a couple of quick matters for starters. did you give hillary clinton "a free pass for many bad deeds "? there was a tweet to that effect from the president sfloorks. >> into, that was not my intention. >> did you give her a free pass for any bad deeds whatever your intention. >> we conducted a xets and honest investigation, closed while offering transparency to

the american people. there was not a prosecutable case there. >> with respect to the question of prosecution for classified material, is the question of the consequences of the disclosure ie the harm from the release or the actual secrecy of the material considered in a prosecutetive decision? >> in my experience -- it is, yes. >> because there's a great deal of material while technically classified is widely known to the public and because overclassification is a significant problem within the executive branch, correct. >> correct and doj reserves prosecution for the most serious matsers in my experience. >> that would have been evaluated also in looking at secretary clinton's e-mails? >> yes. >> so although they were classified they may not have caused any harm in terms of who saw them? >> specific to that, there are e-mails could be classified and cause no harm if they were

disclosed. >> yes, that is the case. >> it has been disclosed and publicly reported that there was a two-day interval between the fbi interview of michael flynn related to his conversations with ambassador kislyak and then deputy attorney general's report to white house counsel about those calls. did you participate in conversations related to this matter during that two-day interval? and what can you tell us about why that interval took two days? was there some standard operating procedure that needed to be dindy indicated? i would think that would have flipped over to the white house a good deal quicker than that once the agent's report came back from the interview. >> yeah, i don't know whether the two days is right. i think it might have been a

day, it could have been two days. i did participate in conversations about that matter. and i had i i'll stop there because i don't know the department's position on speaking about those communications. >> but as you sit here, you don't have any hesitation about that delay about any it representing any kind of mischief or misconduct. >> no, and given your experience, you know how this, would. an agent conducts an interview, they write up a 302, show it to their partner. make sure they get it right and then produce the 302. sometimes it's the next day before it's finished. >> so the deputy, ms. yates would have seen the 302 and that process would have taken place by the time she went up to see white house counsel mcgann. >> i think that's right, yes. >> thank you. onto the weiner laptop. as i understand it, you were informed by agents in the fbi

office that there was potentially related or relevant information in mr. weiner's laptop on the basis of that information, you then sent a letter to the members of congress before before wlom you had committed to answer if there were any changes in the status of things. you also then authorized the agents to pursue a search warrant which then gave them access to the content which allowed them to do the search that you then said came up with nothing so that you could then undo the letter and say actually, we took a look and there's nothing there. do i have the order correctly there. >> right, they came to me, briefed me on what they could see from the metadata. why it was significant. they thought they ought to seek a search warrant. wanted my an probable to do that. i agreed, authorized it, so did

the department of justice. making sure i get the numbers right. during data following week, they reviewed 40,000 e-mails. i understated how many they reviewed and found 3,000 of them were work related and came from blackberry backups and a bunch of other things. and 126 them were classified. but we had seen them all before. so they finished that work, briefed me on it and said it doesn't change our view. then i send the second letter >> did any of those classified e-mails create national security damage? >> that's a hard one to answer by definition. a classification is based on the potential national security damage. >> with respect to our earlier information, tons of stuff is classified on the front page "the new york times." >> i'm not aware of any of these e-mails or any of the e-mails in the investigation got in the hands of people that were able to exploit them to damage our national security. >> so let me offer you this the

hypothetical. they come to you and say the metadata shows that we have potential information here that could be relevant and could cause us to reopen the information. it would seem to me that it would be as sensible at that moment to say how quickly can you get a search warrant and how quickly can we get an answer to that question because i made a promise to people in congress that i would get back to them with this information and if there's anything real here, you need to get on that fronfronto answer that question so the search warrant precedes the letter rather than the letter preceding the search warrant particularly in light of the widely adhered to policy of the department not to disclose on going investigative materials and the truly exceptional nature of disclosures. why not the warrant first. >> i pressed them very hard on that, and found credible their

responses that there was no way, no way they could review the volume of information they saw on the laptop in the time remaining. >> except that they did. >> well, they did. and because our wizards and operational technology division came up with a way to dedupe electronically that involved writing a custom software program but the team said sir, we cannot finish this before the election. so that to my mind, that then made the judgment appropriate, the one that i made. not waiting, waiting, waiting to make the disclosure. >> okay. and with just respect to your response to secretary, to senator tillis, woo he can talk about it some other time. my time has expired but lest silence be viewed as consent, i have a different view of what took place. i don't doubt your honesty for a minute but i do think there were very significant mistakes made through this process.

>> in which, the e-mail case? >> yes. >> okay. >> in the hillary clinton e-mail case. >> yes. thank you to the ranking member and i admire your hanging in there. and being made of stone was it? >> sandstone i think. >> i just want to clarify something, some of the answers that you gave me, for example, in response to director -- i asked you, would president trump's tax returns be material to such an investigation. the russian investigation. and does the investigation have access to president trump's tax returns. and some other questions. you answered i can't say. and i'd like to get a

clarification on that. is it that you can't say or that you can't say in this setting? >> that i won't answer questions about the contour of the investigation. as i sit here, i don't know whether i would do it in a closed setting either but for sure, i don't want to begin answering questions about what we're looking at and how. >> okay. so i'll take that as at least in this setting you can't do that, and maybe you can elsewhere. we were talking about some of the number of the unusual number of individuals in important roles in the trump campaign or in his life and their sort of unexpected and often undisclosed ties to russia. and i'd like to focus on one of those individuals. roger stone. and his relationship with

guccifer 2.0. guccifer 2.0 is an online persona that the i.c. concluded was used by russian military intelligence to leak documents and e-mails stolen from the democratic national committee to wikileaks. the u.s. intelligence community including the fbi has since concluded that the russian government directed the breach and that russian military intelligence used guccifer 2.0 to insure that the documents obtained were publicly released. so while guccifer has insists that he or she is not russian, the intelligence community has concluded that the hacker has strong ties to moscow and was used by russian military intelligence to leak information about the clinton campaign and the democrats that was stolen by

russia. is that, director comey, a fair characterization. >> yes, the ic's judgment was guccifer 2.0 was an strupt of the russian intelligence. >> thank you. a few months back, it was revealed that in august of last year, that's a couple months before the 2016 election, roger stone, one of the president trump's long-standing political mentors and one time a formal campaign adviser exchanges a number of private messages with guccifer 2.0 via twitter. mr. stone has since insisted that the relationship was totally innocuous. now, in this series of messages, guccifer 2.0 and mr. stone exchange a number of bizarre pleasantries. guccifer thanks mr. stone for writing about him and mr. stone expresses delight that guccifer's twitter handle was reinstated after having been suspended.

but in one message, guccifer writes to mr. stone "i'm pleased to say that you are a great man, please tell me if i can help you anyhow. it would be a great pleasure to me." director comey, to me this sounds like a clear offer from a russian intelligence operative to collaborate with a senior official on the trump campaign. is that a throw away line or an offer to help stone in some respect? do we know whether any further communication between stone and guccifer took place? and if you can't say here or can't say in -- but you could say in another classified environment, could you make that distinction? >> i definitely cannot say here. i don't think i would say in a classified environment because it calls for questions about what we're looking at and how. but i definitely can't say here.

>> okay. well, at the very least, tony's conversation with guccifer demonstrated once again that the trump campaign officials were communicating with russian operatives. what is less clear, however, is whether the trump campaign ever provided direction to russian operatives or were aware that specific actions were being carried out to influence the election. for example, it has been suggested that last year, the russians used thousands of paid trolls, human trolls. we know this and botnets to flood the internet particularly social media with fake news aimed as the influencing the election and favoring president trump. i'm curious wlls such actions were part of a coordinated effort. is there any evidence that the trump campaign assisted or directed those efforts? >> that's something that i can't answer here but i would refer you back to what i said was the purpose of the investigation to,

understand whether there were any coordination or collusion between elements of the campaign and the russians. >> of course. and i would point out too th that -- that right before the podesta e-mails came out, that roger stone said it's soon going to be time for podesta's time in the barrel. and so i think there may be a little bit of a there there. before i end, i just want to, i only have 30 seconds. so, i want to say this. i know senator cornyn isn't here. i think it's a shame that he said that hillary yesterday in this forum blamed everyone but herself. she took a lot of blame on

herself in that forum. and i think she, when she referenced what you did and 11 days before the election, which has been a subject here, that and also the russian interference, i this i she was of only saying stuff that other people have said. i mean, i don't think she was saying anything that a lot of people also think had an effect on the election. so i just think it was a shame that the senator from texas, i don't know if you meant to leave that out deliberately, but she did not blame everyone but herself. thank you, mr. chairman >> before i call on the next senator, there's two things i'd like to say.

one would be for what you promised senator cruz about a briefing on the garland situation that you would include any of the staff of the committee and n on that briefing, as well. so we can have a committee briefing on it, as well at least at the staff level? would you do that. >> assuming they have the clearances for it, i don't think that's a problem at all. i'll do that. >> i guess that's obvious. the second thing is, after we have two more people have a second round, before they get done, i have to go. i want to thank you for being here. senator feinstein will close down the meeting. thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> i think under the previous order, senator hirona was ahead of you. >> mr. chairman, i'm happy to follow senathirona. >> thank you. as mentioned earlier, direct,

her, in march, president trump issues a visa ban executive order that suspended entry into the u.s. from us six majority muslim countries. the suspicion -- the suspension was largely premised on the claim that "more than 300 person lose entered the united states are refugees are currently the subjects of counter terrorism investigations by the federal bureau of investigation." can you provide any additional information on whether the persons under investigationing are from the six countries subject to the suspension? and are these persons exclusively from the six countries subject to the suspension? and if not, what other countries are represented among the population that is currently under investigation? >> >> i'm sure we can provide you. what i can tell you here is i think -- i think about a third of them are from the six countries so 300, about i an third of them from the six countries. i think two-thirds of those were

from the seventh country iraq that was not included. i'll make sure my staff gets you the precise numbers, senator. >> so iraq is the only other country that was not among the six targeted countries. >> i think that's right. obviously, as you ask it, i'm wondering whether i'm wrong. i'll get you the precise numbers. i think it was refugees, about 300. about a third from the six countries, about two-thirds from iraq. that's my recollection. >> thank you. you can provide the information later. thank you very much. can you provide additional information on the percentage of these individuals who came to the u.s. as children? >> i can't as i sit here. i'm sure we can get you that information. >> thank you. can you provide additional information on the percentage of these individuals who are radicalized after having been in our country for a long period of time? >> however way you would

describe it. >> that's a harder one because it's hard to figure out when someone is radicalized and when it happened. i'll ask my folks to think about what information we can get you on that. we'll do our best. >> probably during the course of your investigation, you might be able to ascertain when they became radicalized. turning to the death threats against certain judges, we have an administration that challenges federal judge who's disagree with president trump's views. we've seen this in the campaign and during his presidency. following judge derek watson's ruling blocking the president's revised travel ban, judge watson who sits on the hawaii district court, judge watson began receiving death threats. i understand u.s. marshals have primary responsibility for the protection of federal judges but that the fbi is poised to step in if necessary. is the fbi investigating the threats made against judge watson? >> i believe we are.

last week visited the hoon lulu field office and got briefed on our work to assist the marshals in trying to understand the threats and protect the jung. i believe we are. >> then in february, the three ninth circuit judges lo ruled against the president's first travel ban also began receiving threats. is the fbi investigating those threats? >> i don't know that one for sure. i bet we are, but i can't answer with confidence as i sit here. >> so can we say that anytime a federal junes are threatened, that the fbi would likely be involved in investigating those threats? >> probably in most circumstances, the marshals have the primary responsibility and in my experience, they very, very often ask us for assistance on our what information we may have, some of our technical resourc resources. in most cases i think we offer assistance. >> and are the president's continued attacks on judiciary

emboldening individuals to make these sorts of threats? we're in an environment where some people might think that it's okay to issue these kinds of threats against judges who disagree with the president. >> that's not something i think i can comment on. it's concerning whenever people are directing threats at judges because they're independence and insulation from influence whether fear or favor is at the core of the whole justice system which is why we take them so seriously. >> yes, and so speaking of the independence of not just the judiciary but i'd like you to clarify the fbi's independence from the d.o.j. apparatus. can the fbi conduct an investigation independence from the department of justice? or does the fbi have to disclose all its investigations to the d.o.j.? does it have to get the attorney general's consent? >> we work with the department of justice whether that's main justice or u.s. attorneys offices on all of our

investigations. and so we work with them. and so in a legal sense, we're not independent of the department of justice. we are spiritually culturally a pretty independence group and that's the way you would want it. but yeah, we work with the department of justice on all of our investigations. >> so if the attorney general or senior officials at the department of justice opposes a spec investigation, can they halt that fbi investigation? >> in theory, yes. >> has it happened? >> not in my experience. because it would be a big deal. to tell the fbi to stop doing something without appropriate purpose. we're oftentimes they give us opinions that we don't see a case there so you ought to stop investing resources in it but i'm talking about a situation where we were told to stop something for a political reason. that would be a very big deal and hasn't happened in my experience. >> a number of us have caused for an independent investigator

or a special prosecutor to investigate the russian efforts to underminor to interfere with our elections as well as the trump team's relationships with these russian efforts. and should the department of justice decide that there should be such an independent investigator or a special prosecutor and you already have an ongoing fbi investigation into these matters, how -- and the attorney general has already recused himself. so how would this proceed when you have the department of justice conducting or assigning an independent or special prosecutor and then you're already doing an investigation? how would this work. >> our investigative team would just coordinate with a different set of prosecutors. it's as if a case was moved from one u.s. attorney's office to another. the investigative team just starts working with a different set of different u.s. assistant

attorneys. >> so the two investigations could proceed but you would talk to each other. >> right, it's one investigation. and the strength of the justice system at the federal level in the united states is, the prosecutors and the eighths work together on their investigations. and so the investigators would disengage from one prosecutor and hook up to another and just continue going. >> so in the investigations that you're currently doing on the russian interference and the trump team's relationship, are you coordinating with any u.s. attorney's office? >> yes. >> in those investigations? >> two sets of prosecutors. main justice, the national security division and the eastern district of virginia u.s. attorney's office. >> so should the a.g. decide to go way special prosecutor, then you would end your engagement with these other two entities and work with the d. o.j.? >> yes, potentially or it could be in some circumstances an attorney general appoints someone else to oversee it and

you keep the career level prosecutor team. there's flow change except account boss is different. >> if i could just ask one more follow-up question. has this happened before where you're doing an investigation and the attorney general appoints a special prosecutor to conduct the same investigation? >> it happened to me when i was in what i thought was my last job ever in the government as deputy attorney general. and appointed patrick fitzgerald, then the u.s. attorney in chicago to oversee a very sensitive investigation involving allegation taz bush administration officials outed a cia operative. what happened is the team of agents that had been working for up a chain that came to me was just moved over and worked under patrick fitzgerald. >> thank you. so it happens. thank you. >> last but far from least, senator blumenthal. >> thank you, madam chair. to take the analogy that you began with, i think we're at the

entend of the dentists visit or toward the end of it anyway. fortunately, there's no unlimited time that the last questioner can take. >> my dentist sometimes asks questions, too. >> to pursuit line of questioning that senator hirona just finished, there is abundant precedent, is there not, for the appointment of a special prosecutor, in fact, there are regulations and guidelines for the appointment of a special prosecutor? >> yes. >> and that has happened frequently in the history of the department of justice? you mentioned one in your experience. also then designee attorney general richardson appointed a special prosecutor, archibald cox who then pursue the watergate investigation, correct. >> yes, there's been many examples of it. >> so this would not be a earth

shaking seismic occurrence for a special prosecutor to be appointed. in fact, taking your record which is one of dedication to the credibility and integrity of our criminal justice process and your families, i would think that at some point, you might recommend that there be a special prosecutor. would that be appropriate at some point? >> it's possible. i know one of my predecessors did it, louis free did it with respect to a clinton administration issue about chinese interference in an election. so it's possible. >> and i take your contention that you don't want to talk about your conversations with the current deputy attorney general, but my hope is that you will, in fact, argue forcefully and vigorously for the appointment of a special prosecutor. i think that the circumstances here are exactly parallel to the

situation where you appointed patrick fitzgerald fitzpatrick and others where routinely special prosecutors have been appointed and i know that your recommendation may never be disclosed but i would urge that you do so. going back to the questions that you were asked about your announcement initially that you were terminating the investigation of hillary clinton, you said that the matter was one of intense public interest and therefore, you were making additional comments about it. normally, there would have been no comments, correct? >> correct. >> and at most, you would have said as you did just now, there

was no prosecutable case. correct? >> correct. >> and you went beyond that statement and said that she had been extremely careless, i believe was the words that you used. which was an extraordinary comment. would you agree that the investigation of the trump campaign's potential involvement in the russian interference is also an investigation of intense public interest in. >> yes, i agree. >> in fact, there are probably very few investigations that will be done while you're fbi director that will be of more intense public interest and my question is, will you commit to explaining the results of the investigation at the time when it is concluded? >> i won't commit to it,

senator, but i do commit to apply the same principles and reasoning to it. i just don't know where we'll end up. so i can't commit sitting here. >> but you would agree that as the fbi director, you would need to go beyond simply saying there's no prosecutable case or there is a prosecutable case? >> potentially. >> when i was u.s. attorney, many years ago, there was actually a rule in the department of justice that there could be no report on any grand jury matter or any investigation without permission of the attorney general or main justice. i don't know whether that rule still applies but speaking more generally, do you think it's a good idea for prosecutors or yourself to be able to comment in some way to explain the results after investigation? >> not in general i don't.

i think it's important that there be, as there has been for a long type, a recognized exception for the exceptional case. i referred to the i.r.s. alleged targeting investigation which was also of intense public interest and then actually had someone prepare for me a chart. the department has done it infrequently but done it a dozen or more times in the last five, tense years. it ought to be reserved for those extraordinary cases. but there are times where the public interest warrants it. >> with respect to the investigation ongoing into the trump associates' ties to the russian meddling, has the whouts white house cooperated? >> with the investigation. >> correct. >> it's not something i'm going to comment on. >> have you had any requests for immunity from anyone potentially a target that have investigation? >> i have to give you the same answer, senator. >> would you tell this committee if there is a lack of

cooperation on the part of the white house? >> i won't commit to >> i won't commit to that. >> isn't there, again, another reason for there to be a special prosecutor, because who would you complain to? the deputy attorney general? >> i would elevate it to the deputy attorney general, whoever was in charge of it. >> but the deputy attorney general is appointed by the president, correct? >> correct. >> isn't that an inherent conflict of interest? >> it's a consideration, but also the nature of the person in the role is also an important consideration. we're lucky to have somebody who thinks about the justice system the way i do and fitzgerald does and the way you did. >> and let me ask, again, to just clarify a question that the

senator asked. the career prosecutor so far involved are in the national security division in main justice in the eastern district of virginia, united states attorney's office, correct? >> correct. >> but the decision about prosecuting would be made by their boss, i think is the word you used. correct? >> correct. >> and that would probably be, right now, the deputy attorney general, correct? >> correct. in a manner of complexity and significance, the ultimate decision and practice always is at the highest level in the department, which would be rod rosenstein. >> and let me ask one last question unrelated. you were asked by senator leahy about targets of investigations and i think your comment is that there were more citizens to find out potentially terrorist

violence or extremist violence than noncitizens. is that correct? >> correct. >> in terms of sources of information, are there many noncitizens who have provided such information? >> yes. >> and are a large number of them undocumented residents of the united states? >> i don't know what percentage. i'm sure some significant percentage are. >> so cooperation from them is important and the fear of apprehension, of round-ups, of mass detention would be a significant deterrent for them, would it not? >>. >> in theory. i don't know whether we've seen it in practice, though. i just don't know sitting here. >> could you inquire or do some internal research to the extent it is possible and report back to us? >> sure. >> thank you, madam chairwoman.

>> thank you very much. senator, director, i think this concludes the hearing. let me thank you for your ability to last for many hours. it's very impressive and let me say that many of you have been here from the very beginning. thank you for your attention and thank you for being respectful. it's very much appreciated. and the hearing is adjourned. >> i'm wolf blitzer in washington. for nearly four hours, the director of the fbi james comey has been in the hot seat answers senators' questions on a wide range of issues, specifically his decision right near the end of the presidential campaign to go ahead and inform members of congress that he was reopening the -- the fbi was reopening the investigation into hillary clinton and her use of those private e-mail servers. let me play the exchange that has now generated a lot of commotion.

listen to this. >> we did not find anything that changes our view of her intent. so we're in the same place we were in july. it hasn't changed our view. i said, okay, if that's where you are, i also have to tell congress that we're done. look, this is terrible. it makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had an impact on the election but honestly, i wouldn't have changed the decision. everyone who disagrees has to come back to october 28th and tell me what you would do. would you speak or would you conceal? and i could be wrong, but we honestly made a decision between those two choices, that even in hindsight, and this has been one of the world's most painful experiences, i would make the same decision. i would not conceal that on october 28th from the congress. >> evan perez, you're our justice kron justice correspondence. this is the first time he's gone into detail about why 11 days before the presidential election he said hillary clinton and her

e-mails were under investigation. >> you saw him being extremely animated and you could tell the passion with which he wanted to explain this. it's something we've heard internally at the fbi, he's been wanting to come out and explain himself. he knows there's a lot of criticism about this. he said that he was mildly nauseous to think that the fbi's decision to make that public announcement, to tell members of congress that they had essentially reopened the clinton e-mail investigations just days before the election, that that affected the election. but he says at the end that he would not have done things differently. he said, i don't have any regrets. he said that he knew the choice was terrible, to disclose and talk about something very close to the election or something catastrophic, which is to not say something and then for it to come out thereafter. so he said he still believes he made the right decision. i think it's something that obviously won't satisfy all of the critics because obviously

you know that at the same time that he was doing this, there was already an ongoing investigation into contacts between russian -- suspected russian agents and people associated with the trump campaign. we know that that investigation is still ongoing, wolf, and he didn't talk about this until in march when he told the members of congress. >> and gloria, it was only yesterday that hillary clinton once again referred to the october 28th announcement. the letters to congress, saying the investigation was reopened. she blames that in part for her defeat. >> and even though he went into great detail today to talk about how he clarified it, eventually before the election and they never thought they were going to get it done in time, this isn't going to satisfy sems and i was just reading a tweet by adam schiff, the chairman of the intelligence committee. he said, look, the real choice was not speaker conceal. the real choice was abide by the department of justice policy, which is not to get involved close to an election or violate

that policy. and there is still, i think, an open question about whether he did actually violate that policy by injecting himself the way he did. and there's something else that is interesting, about how he felt about the attorney general loretta lynch meeting with bill clinton on the tarmac that day and what became a very fateful meeting. he called it the capper for him because he knew, then, that the justice department had lost its credibility on this issue and that's how he explained the press conference he had in july telling us, of course, that he had never told lynch what he was going to say in that press conference and what he was going to do about the hillary clinton e-mail situation. >> we did hear from the fbi director steven stevanovich that the russians believe what they did works and they will do it again. >> you won't get putin to say that. yesterday he was asked about

interference and he said this is all just rumors. we know that interfering in other countries' politics is futile and it never occurred to us to do that. but there is a general view that they feel they've gotten something out of it and that their efforts generally continue. that seems to be the consensus of european intelligence services and we're seeing a lot of activity in europe in relation to their elections. >> we certainly are, with upcoming elections in france and britain and elsewhere. phil mudd, you spent time in the cia but also spent detail in the fbi. what jumped out at you? >> something very little talked about, how to prevent this in the next election. i thought he said too much about huma abedin, too much about what they investigated of her after they closed the investigation. >> why was it too much? basically what he said is that

they discovered thousands of e-mails from her to her husband, anthony weiner, including some classified e-mails that sparked a lot of interest. that's why they reopened the investigation. >> sure. but he's got a u.s. citizen and chose to talk about her in a private forum. the investigation is closed. don't mention people involved in it. >> he also said classified information was taken from her laptop. >> yes. >> and forwarded. i mean, it was on anthony weiner's laptop. she forwarded information to anthony weiner's laptop. that's going to be a discussion among republicans. >> exactly. let it go. >> all of this is public to begin with. >> but this is the fbi director talking about an investigation where they chose not to press charges. if you chose not to press charges on the transmission of information from huma abedin to anthony weiner, you determined there was nothing worth going to the department of justice to prosecute. if you made that decision, she,

i think, has some claim to privacy. it's done. >> we learned a lot today during those nearly four hours. we're going to have a lot more coming up. my colleague, brooke baldwin, will pick up our special coverage right now. >> wolf, thank you so much. i'm brooke baldwin. thank you for watching cnn. on this wednesday, we're juggling quite a bit this afternoon. we're waiting for multiple major live events at any moment sean spicer will be holding the daily briefing momentarily as the president is taking personal steps to advance republicans' plans to replace and repeal obamacare. also, we're watching baton rouge, louisiana. you have the department of justice today about to officially announce if it will charge those officers involved in the death