lawmaklaw enforcement, other law enforcement agencies have been moving in the direction we have. i don't think that's the right model for us. >> election infrastructure, senator sasse raised this a bit. when you look at what happened and what my happen going forward, one of the jobs of the fbi is to cooperate with the board of elections and assist with cyber attacks. and i hope you will help us prepare going into this next election. >> i think the integrity of our elections are very much who we are. it's what makes us a free and independent country. and the fbi has a huge role in that. >> in a broader fashion, russia has vast criminal networks that it uses to sew instability.

at the end of last year, we heard about this in baltics, ukraine and georgia. and a lot of times they're using shell companies, as are other entities, half of all homes in the u.s. worth $5 million being used by shell companies. do you think the fbi should use it's existing authority in requiring more transparency in luxury real estate transactions. i think you said at the beginning that you're more likely to find a terrorist not with his finger on a bomb, but with his hands on a check. >> senator, i'm not familiar with the particular program you describe, but i can tell you that i strongly agree that following the money is to me law enforcement 101. whether it's for organized gangs or drug trafficking or terror m

terrorism, that none of those things happen without muffoney following the money along with the state department is an uncommonly effective tool to use. >> we have seen a staggering rise in hate crimes, we have had threats against the muslim community, of course the jewish community, how would you approach this issue as fbi director? >> senator, i think crimes based on bigotry or prejudice can't be tolerated and i think the fbi has an important role in being an aggressive investigator there, one of the most moving cases to me as a line prosecutor, was a different kind of hate crime, with a serial church arsonist who went around the country burning churches, and ultimately one of the churches he burned killed a firefighter. i mentioned to senator franken, that meeting with the mother of the dead firefighter and the roughly 7-year-old daughter of

the dead firefighter is a memory that i will take with me forever. so i have sort of a personal appreciation for the importance of prosecuting those crimes. >> it i'll ask you about human trafficking, which is one of my top priorities. but i did have one other question on terrorist online recruiting. we have had a number of instances of that in minnesota and our former u.s. attorney andy luger and before that todd jones worked extensively with the fbi on this issue, i have met with the fbi on this issue, they have showed me some of the internet targeting that's really designed to focus on people in our state, because of the major somali population that we're so proud of in minnesota. and could you elaborate on this threat and what you believe the fbi should be doing to counter these types of online recruiting efforts that are going on around the country? >> senator, i think i need to

get briefed up on the fbi's efforts in that area, based upon technology. but we have to get earlier in the continuum against plots. there are a whole range of things that terrorist operations do, these properties don't happen overnight. they take time to germinate, we need to be in a position where we find them early and stop them early. >> thank you similar much. >> before i turn to senator tillis, i would like to give you an update on the schedule. part of this is to give our nominee some time for a break. three more senators will ask questions and then that ten-minute break will come. i'm going to be leaving for votes, but i'll be back after that.

senator sasse will gavel in the committee after we recess for the nominee to take a break, so that will be around 12:40, 12:45, so you know that even though the vote takes a long time, we'll continue here. and then senator tillis, you're up next. i'm going to step out for my usual 12:00 telephone news conference with iowa press back in iowa so i'll be back in 10 minutes. >> mr. chairman, can i ask for clarification? what time are we breaking? >> 12:30, but you'll be asking questions at that time so you'll be the one that will recess the committee or the vote. >> when is our vote? >> 12:30. >> but you may be just finishing your questions at that time. then you'll go vote, then senator sasse is already over there, he'll come back and

hopeful hopefully i'll be back before that happens or somebody else can take over. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator tillis, go ahead. >> thank you, caroline, your dad's doing a great job. and actually i really appreciate the way the committee is going. and in total, you and i had an opportunity to spend 30 minutes yesterday, and you answered a lot of my questions. and you answered them satisfactory. i have a law enforcement committee that i established that i meet with on a regular basis. one of the things i wanted to emphasize as the senator said, i

want tos focus on the local law enforcement agencies to get the best resources to support these sorts of investigations. one thing i'm kind of curious to see your own view of it is, what's foundational to making those work are the equitable sharing programs that provide these agencies with resources like seizures in some cases. do you think those arrangements should remain in place? >> i'm not expert in those arrangements, it's been years since i've focused on that, but certainly the ability for federal law enforcement to provide all manner of support, whether it's partnering on investigations, technical support, grants, there's lots of things that the federal government can do to, again, as i said before, have the state and local law enforcement be force multipliers to protect us all. >> thank you. i think as you get into there, because the support for the program has ebbed and flowed.

and at one point it quieted for a while and it did cause disruptions, and maybe a handful of cases nationwide, maybe one instance in my state. i think we should look at that, because there are misconceptions about how the program was run, whether there were any abuses of it and if there was, we need to work on that, but sending uncertainty out there could have a chilling effect on the investment local law enforcement will take that will assist them better to work with the agency that i'm convinced you're going to be heading up. can we talk about going to section 215.702 and the importance you believe it has for the investigative process? >> yes, senator. of course it's been years since i dealt with fisa. which i did quite a bit in my past tour of duty in government service. and 702 itself had passed after

i had left government. but from everything i have heard from the intelligence community, just like i said earlier, that i don't have any reason to doubt the intelligence community's assessment of the efforts by russia to interfere with our election, so too i have no reason to doubt what i hear in the intelligence community's assessment about the importance of section 702 as a vital tool in our efforts to protect america. i look forward to learning more about that tool and how it can be used and enhanced and used appropriately. everyone i have heard from says that needs to be a high priority to get renewed as a country. >> i think it's very important that we discuss it and we debate, maybe some safety measures to make sure that it's not abused. most of them are already in

place, i think it's important, probably a little bit of time with the director of national intelligence said it would go dark. and that's a pretty good statement from a high ranking official. and we just have to look ahead and preserve those kind of agencies and other intelligence agencies. >> i guess the only other question that i have of you, i'm going to yield back some of my time and i apologize, i won't be here for the next round because i will be presiding unless senator sasse wants to preside. i know how much you like to do that. i know you've been very direct in answer to senator sasse's question about russian meddling. i don't think there's anyone in this congress that would doubt that russia meddled in the election, they have been meddling in elections for a long

time. their cyber ability as amplified their ability to do it. do you have any sense of what more the fbi would do beyond the investigation that director mueller is tasked with that you could conceive that you all made proceed with? >> well, senator, i think there's more that i don't yet than that i do, as an outsider sitting before this committee, so i look forward to making that a high priority. i will say that in addition to providing all the appropriate support to former director mueller's special counsel investigation, i know there's also a counter intelligence function that the fbi has to play and i'm sure that those who are working within the intelligence community will have to do to protect us going forward, which is sort of a different role that special

counsel mueller was doing which was a backward looking type of things, but there's a synergy too, lessons learned and that kind of thing. >> yes, i think you should be very proud that you were nominated for this position, you should where very proud of the demeanor and the kinds of questions and the insights that others on this committee have given to you that i think is a true testament to your work experience and the quality of you as the next director of the fbi and i look forward to supporting your nomination. congratulations to you and congratulations to your family. >> thank you, senator. >> senator franken, i think you're up. >> thank you, mr. chair. thank you mr. wray for meeting with me yesterday, i enjoyed our meeting, it was a good meeting.

actually senator tillis asked the kinds of questions i would ask is how the role is going forward distinct from former director mueller's process would be. and you answered that equestion. and i'm glad you answered that question saying that part of what the fbi will be doing is working so this doesn't happen again. because i think that we got to keep our eye on that ball. because 2018 will be upon us soon, and we don't want this to happen again. now before i turn to my questions, i would like to first thank senator hatch for his work on the child protection improvement act and i would thank you for your commitment to help us get that bill passed and done. this is -- it helps organizations like organizations that do mentoring for kids, to

get background checks, so that vulnerable people and this is also for people who work with seniors, or for the elderly, they should be able to effectively screen their workers and their volunteers to make sure that they're trust worthy, so thank you for your commitment on that. this is something we have been trying to get done for a while and i have these groups that are doing unbelievably great work asking for this and i thank you for that. and for the record, on senator graham, i think he would have made a great fbi agent and i'm glad also that he's in the senate. that said, i don't know about the article, the january politico article, that suggested that someone in the ukraine wanted to pass some information off to the clinton campaign, but i think i know the answer to

this -- i think you know the answer to the question, did ukraine hack the rnc's database, did they hack, kellyanne conway, did the clintons want to build a hotel in kiev? i think there's a big difference here and we know what russia did and that's a big deal. and thank you for saying that part of your job is making sure it doesn't happen again. we here of course have oversight over the fbi. will you come before us periodically so that we can do our oversight? >> yes, senator, i expect i'll be seeing a fair amount of the committee if confirmed. >> and likewise do you think

that attorney general sessions should come before us periodically so we can exercise our oversight? >> well, senator, i don't speak to the attorney general and his appearances, but i'm sure he values this committee, having been a member of it and would need to appear before it periodically. >> yeah, i agree. let me ask you about when director comey was fired, one of the justifications made was that director comey had lost the confidence of rank and file fbi agents you've known jim comey for a long time. and you've worked alongside him, and you have worked with people at the justice department. is that your experience talking

to them? >> i haven't done a sampling of the 36,000 men and women of the fbi. >> why not? >> well, i appreciate your patience with me on that one. but all the people that i have spoken with at the fbi, from senior people down to rank and file people strike me as the same fbi i have always known and loved which is people who are mission focussed, who believe in what they're doing, who are going to follow the facts and the law wherever it takes them, they've got their head down, their spirit up and they're charging ahead. now if there's somebody somewhere who feels differently, there could be, but i haven't met those people recently. >> and you don't think that director comey is a nutjob? >> that's never been my experience with him. >> i'm glad to hear that.

if you are asked in some kind of setting by the president to stop an investigation of somebody, aside from saying no. would you report that to us? >> well, i would report it to the deputy attorney general, assuming he wasn't all right sitting there with me hearing it and we would have a discussion about what we lawful and appropriately can share with whom. but i would make sure that all the right people knew. >> i want to thank senator clobashar for bringing up hate crimes. this is what former director comey explained about hate crimes. he said they're different from other crimes because they, quote, strike at the heart of

one's identity. they strike at our sense of self, our sense of belonging, the end result is loss of trust, loss of dignity and in the worst case loss of life. and in my view, that loss of dignity is a part of what makes hate crimes so pernicious. when an act of violence is motivated by hate against a particular group, properly identifying that act as a hate crime and prosecuting it as such can go a long way to restoring that dignity. but hate crimes are often underreported, both by victims and by state and local law enforcement. in part that's because the federal hate crimes law does not require state and local police departments to report incidents to the fbi so there's often little incentive to do that. but recently an investigation by journalists revealed that at least 120 federal agencies are

not uploading information about the hate crimes they investigate and prosecute into the fbi's database. in fact, even the fbi isn't reporting all of the hate crimes it investigates into its own database. and that to me is a problem. we need accurate data about the scope of the challenge in order to appropriately direct prevention enforcement resources, but we can't do that if we don't know how many incidents there are or where they have taken place. mr. wray, if the federal government isn't even keeping accurate data in its own databases, how can we expect state and local police departments to step up? >> well, senator, i share your concern about the need for accurate data. i'm not familiar with the way the reporting you're describing

now exists, but i'm willing to drill down on it and see how it works and how it can be done better. >> can you commit to me to help address this problem and work to improve reporting by state and local entities of the number of hate crimes that they are dealing with? >> i would commit to taking a hard look at the issue early in my tenure and looking for ways that we could work together on the issue. >> okay, well, thank you very much. mr. wray, i have been very impressed with our meeting, i have been impressed with your testimony here today. you have come here at a hard time, this is under very extraordinary circumstances and i thank you for your willingness to take on this job and --

looking around, i am feeling that you have had a good hearing here today, and best of luck to you. >> thank you, senator, that means a lot. >> senator kennedy? >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. wray, you have a very impressive resume and i agree with senator franken, i think you have done very well today. who interviewed you for this job? >> senator, i was contacted originally by deputy attorney general rosenstein, that was the first inkling that i had in any shape, way or fashion that this meeting would ever be happening. as is publicly reported, i think

it was the day after memorial day, i had a brief meeting at the white house that was attended by several people from the white house, including the president as well as several people from the department. another similar meeting, and then i was announced as the intended nominee. >> okay. indulge me a second, for my second question, i have to lay a little bit of a foundation. and some of my colleagues have alluded to this today. but our country began as a self reliant lightly taxed debt averse union of states. but our country's changed a lot in a couple hundred years. i don't mean this to be a pejorative statement, i mean it

to be factual. the power of the federal government, the united states government is breathtaking. and i don't think there's a single agency that is more symbolic of that power than the fbi. you can run people's lives. hopefully, when that happens, they deserve it. at some point, who did what to whom in the last election is going to be a distant memory. at some point, the investigation of russia's interference in the election will be over. but what will remain is the fbi and it's reputation. i don't think the fbi is a

political body, not the rank and file members. i don't want to believe that and i don't believe that. but i worry about the perception some americans might have about the fbi, based on some of the testimony that this committee and others have heard in the past, not today. here's what i'm looking for. i want you to be apolitical. i don't want you to exhaust yourself trying to make political friends up here. i want you to be soccrates. i want use to be dirty hairy with the bad guys, and i want you to tell us how you're going to do that in this environment. >> first of all senator, i think

i have a heightened appreciation about the point that you're making about the power of the fbi and the ability of the fbi to ruin people's lives. one of the things i did as head of the criminal division, i tried to meet with every new hire, we had over 400 lawyers, and every lawyer we hired, i would meet one-on-one and one of the points i would try to make, is that the decision that that prosecutor would make, and the same thing would be true of fbi agents in spades, short of a wedding or a death in their family, the public's interaction with law enforcement is the most meaningful impactful experience those people ever have. and so prosecutors and agents need to conduct themselves in a way that remembers that, and remembers that power and

remembers how much significance they have, that these are not just the people they deal with, whether it's targets of investigations, witnesses, victims, family members, jurors, it doesn't matter, all those people will remember their interaction with law enforcement in a way that people of law enforcement that do this every day may not remember quite as vividly, so they need to conduct themselves in a way that keeps that in mind. and the second part of your question, and that is the importance of process, the p process needs to have integrity, the process needs to be independent, the process needs to be free from favor, free from influen influence, free from fear, free from partisan politics, because if people have results in the process, then they can have confidence in the results. sometimes those results will be charged and sometimes those

results will result in acquittal. >> i think history will demonstrate that white houses have been offering their advice to the fbi director for decades. where do you draw the line? i mean if the white house calls you -- i'm anxious to know, curious to know how it works internally. if the white house calls you and says, we were reading about a story on medicaid fraud in a particular state. and we think you ought to look into that. is that appropriate? >> my response to something like that, senator, would be to say, if you have evidence -- same thing i would say to anybody in this country, if you have evidence of a crime that you think the fbi needs to look at, give us the evidence, we'll take a look at it, we'll make an

assessment, and we'll play it by the book, just like with any witness who's supplying information, i would consider the source, and i would try to take into account under the particular circumstances if there was any other agenda or anything else going on. the white house might have information in your hypothetical about a crime that needs to be investigated and i would take that seriously just like i would from anybody. >> suppose the attorney general who i know has recused himself. but let's suppose for a moment -- well, i don't want to personalize this. let's suppose an acting attorney general called you and said, stop referring to the russian investigation as an investigation and refer to it as a matter. what would you do? >> well, senator, i think i would need to understand why they thought the description was

inaccurate. i tend to be somebody who listens with an open mind, to hear what the explanation is, but if i disagree with the characterization, i'm going to have to play it by the book and call it what it is. >> suppose the reason that you were asked to do that is because "matter" plays better with the public than "investigation." >> then i would question the person asking me why the request was ill considered. >> and what if they did it anyway? >> then i would meet with the appropriate justice officials and make a judgment about what my next course of action should be. >> and what if the ethics -- strike that, i don't want to speculate on what the ethics people would say. we have an extraordinary crime problem in new orleans. we're rapidly becoming the murder and armed robbery capital

of the western hemisphere. if you're confirmed and i believe you will be, can i count on you to, within the limited scarce resources you have, and all resources are scarce, or ought to be considered as scarce, can i count on you to give us a little advice and help, we're wrestling with a huge crime problem and we're losing. >> well, senator, you can count on me to take a hard look and figure out how we can be more effective in new orleans just like we need to figure out how to be more effective in every city that's targeted by violent crime. >> okay, thank you, mr. wray. >> thank you, senator. >> madam chair, madam ranking member, i was handed a note, and i'm supposed to say, or you can say if you would like, that we

will -- it's kind of like senator none isn't it? we will stand in recess for ten minutes. if i had a gavel i would bang it. >> and you have been watching the conform -- confirmation hearing for the fbi director, christopher wray, you're watching inside politics, i'm filling in for john king. you've been watching pretty much at times contentious, but for the most part, in a bipartisan way, a supportive group of senators, impressed with the person they have before them. we have with us a group to share their reporting and insights, michael bender of the wall street journal, julia hirschfeld

davis. thank you all for joining me. i want to start by talking about this hearing, before we get into some of the questions about what it would take to be the fbi director and his personal abilities to do that, one of the most interesting and kind of -- i would say even important with regard to the news of the day, exchanges came from senator lindsay graham at south carolina, who was pressing him on the whole question of whether or not it's appropriate for a person, like donald trump jr. to accept a meeting that was prefaced about coming to him from the russian government to have a discussion about dirt on an opponent. take a listen. >> if i got a call from somebody saying the russian government wants to help lindsay graham get elected, they have dirt on his opponent, should i take that

meeting? >> i would think you would want to consult with some good legal advisors about that. >> could i call the fbi? here's what i want you to tell every politician, if you get a call from somebody suggesting that a foreign government wants to help you by disparaging your opponent, tell us all to call the fbi. >> to the members of this committee, any threat or effort to interfere with our elections from any nation state, or any nonstate actor, is the kind of thing the fbi would want to know. >> all right, so i take it we should call you and that's a great answer. is russia our friend or our enemy? >> senator, i think russia is a foreign nation that we have to deal with very warily. >> do you think there they're an adversary of the united states? >> in some cases yes.

>> do you think that to compromise or influence an election is an adversarial move on their part? >> yes, i do. >> do you believe that that's what happened with the dnc hacking and john podesta's emails? >> i have no reason to doubt the conclusions of the intelligence committee. lt. >> would that make you a good candidate to be an enemy of the united states? >> i think an effort to influence elections is a bad act, yes. >> and you would protect him from -- >> do you believe that in light of the don jr. email and other allegations that this whole thing about trump campaign and russia is a witch hunt? is that fair description of what we're all dealing with in america? >> well, senator, i can't speak to the basis for those comments. i can tell you my experience

with director mueller. >> i'm asking you, as the future fbi director, do you consider this endeavor a witch hunt? >> i do not consider director mueller to be on a witch hunt. >> a lot to unpack there with this line of questioning. i feel like i have to say this, because i'm going to call everybody pal. if you're in the white house watching that exchange, what are you thinking? >> you don't have to have many references to lindsay graham. he was one of the impeachment back in the '90s against president clinton. this is not his first rodeo there on a congressional committee. i think the president does not want to come to terms with the fact that the russians hacked the election, he views it as something that undermines his own success last year. but you've got a formidable,

bipartisan coalition of russian hawks in the congress that view russia as our enemy. where i'm fascinated by, dan, is not just the fbi, but what do they do on the sanctions? there is a huge, overwhelming support in congress to come down hard on russia. and the administration has signalled to the hill, water down this sanctions bill. what is going to happen? >> no question about that, and i would just tell you that my colleague who spoke to dianne feinstein has said yes, she's going to vote for him. so something huge has to happen for him to not be confirmed as the next fbi director. this is a very, very important job. in any context. but particularly coming on the heels of jim comey. and that was not lost on these senators, particularly the democrats. i want to play for you an

exchange that he had with patrick leahy, a veteran of this committee on the question of loyalty. >> my loyalty is to the constitution, to the rule of law and to the mission of the fbi. and no one asked me for any kind of loyalty oath at any point during this process, and i sure as heck didn't offer one. >> you would not give one if asked? >> correct. >> if the president asked you to do something unlawful or unethical, what do you say? >> first i would try to talk him out of it. and if that failed, i would resign. >> obviously unspoken backdrop of that was the alleged conversations that the president had with the guy he fired, james comey, asking him to do things that james comey felt uncomfortable about. >> well, right. and one of the things that you take away from the exchange that he had with senator graham and also this exchange with senator leahy, is that he understands

the stakes are high for the fbi and coming into this job at a highly scrutinized time, and all these investigations are actually mushrooming before his eyes. i think it's very important for him to put out there that he's going to be independent, that he's going to be a person who will say no in a circumstance like that. first thing he said is i would try to talk him out of it. that is something we know from jim comey, that he didn't actually try to do. he took it all in, he was alarmed and his memos are now coming to light that detail what the exchanges were. it's interesting that he brought it up and said i would have a conversation with the president. this is not something you want to do, because we now know that this is a group of people particularly the president who don't understand the intricacies of these things.

>> just sort of wrapping up all of the things that were noteworthy, vis-a-vis, the struggles that this white house is involved in, he said, the fbi nominee, the fbi director nominee said basically what don jr. should have done was call the fbi. he said yes, i have no reason to believe that russia didn't meddle in the election, he said at the end, no, i don't think it's a witch hunt. as the president said again even today to be investigating this. >> it just sort of underscores how isolated this president and his team, his own nominee for fbi, he answered every single question in a way that was at odds with what the white house and their top people have either said or done. so i do think that we obviously -- i don't think there was a lot of question that that's how he was going to

answer these questions, a professional law enforcement official is going to answer those questions the way he did, and i think he'll be easily confirmed, i think that's pretty clear after this hearing. but the more important thing is less about wray and more about where this leaves president trump, essentially by himself, and with every allegation just lashing out at the media. >> i have two takeaways both along the same point here. i agree with laura that wray is on a fast track here to being confirmed. but giving his answers, he's the next trump appointee that the president will sour on. grassley made a point on how important independence is, these are things that were made to him in a hearing that were a lot

more direct than what he heard inside the west wing. >> i'm going to go to my colleague manu raju, he did speak to the highest ranking democrat on the committee, dianne feinstein. >> reporter: one, she said that she and chuck grassley, want to question paul manafort, former campaign chairman for donald trump in what's now a separate investigation on capitol hill, the senate judiciary investigation. dianne feinstein wants to find out more about this conversation that don jr. had. and if manafort does not respond to their questions, they will potentially subpoena. and that come knnominee, christ

wray, she seemed positive about this nominee. are you going to vote yes or where are you on this nominee right now? >> i'll be very candid with you, i'm going to vote yes. i see him as being a good fbi director. how good, the proof is always in the pudding. it's always when you're there. it's always the nature of the job and how you handle the unexpected. but i think in this man, we have somebody who understands the process of justice, who is committed to the appropriate parts of the process. who does not look at himself as a servant of the chief executive. >> so it sounds like this nomination is going to sail

through, she's not the only democrat who's signaling she would support christopher wray, also patrick leahy, signaling he's going to also support christopher wray's nomination. i mentioned earlier, dana, this investigation is happening in the senate judiciary committee to try to get more information on the russia issue, any possible work with the trump campaign, there it was in a request for information, that was a deadline set last week, to get information from jared kushner in a security clearance information, that information has not yet come before the senate judiciary committee, either both grassley and feinstein not ruling out issuing subpoenas. >> and the fact that this is being done on a bipartisan

basis, dianne feinstein and republican grassley both working together. republicans on the hill say they're blissfully unaware of the coming storm. really? more on that next.

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switch and you could save $782 on home and auto insurance. call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. welcome back, we're going to rejoin the confirmation hearing of fbi director chris wray who is currently being questioned by delaware senator chris coons who is questioning chris wray about jeff sessions and him recusing himself from the investigation. >> i would say if he's recused from an investigation, to me that means he shouldn't be participating in decision making about the investigation, but of

course the attorney general is-there are many, many other things that the fbi and the other department are responsible for and i think that is the appropriate role for the attorney general as its leader. >> so i'll agree with you it's not appropriate for the attorney general to participate in investigations related to the trump campaign. and as the person in charge of the department of justice, he is involved in making at the highest level management decisions. but it's exactly those decisions, about the access to resources, the scope of director mueller's investigation. will you look into the scope of attorney sessions recusal and if appropriate -- and report the --

>> senator, i'm not sure i'm the authority over his recusal scope. what i would commit to you is that i will take a close look shortly upon being confirmed if confirmed to, as i said, making sure that former director mueller now special counsel mueller has all the appropriate resources that he ought to have. and my expectation is that i would remain committed to that support regardless of any decisions made by anybody else in the department. >> so if a directive came down from the attorney general about resources that you thought interfered in any way with the resources requested by special counsel mueller, you would act to prevent that from hindering the investigation. >> i would not act on any inappropriate influence to special counsel mueller's

investigation, at the end of the day, it's his investigation. >> we had another conversation last week, it's been raised by other colleagues about an episode during your time at the department of justice where you were prepared to resign, and this was because of an ongoing but unauthorized by coming surveillance program. you had not examined al the diets of it. you had following a hunch and use talked to people with whom you were close to and whom you admired. but now in hindsight you have had a better chance to know what's going on, and what were the issues. in hindsight were you right to be willing to throw your career aside and joining these folks if you had to and would you do that again? >> for the first part of your question, senator, i have not for one minute ever regretted my

decision as i expressed to director comey at this time. my decision was not based on gut. my decision was based on the range of people that were not shrinking violets, very tough on terror, very thoughtful, intellectuality long nest people, and people who by the way didn't always agree with each other all the time. when i put all that together, my familiarity with those people, how they think, how they come out on war on terror issues, and knowing that they felt strongly enough that they were willing to resign over much greater knowledge of the program that i had at the time. i was confident then that resigning with them if necessary was the right decision, and now later, having learned many more of the facts that weren't available to me then, i'm even more confident that it would

have been the right decision. >> thank you for that, former attorney general bell, i think you quoted before said that you should be willing to resign if necessary, over conduct if you're pressed to engage in it that is either unethical, illegal or unconstitutional. what were the values that you brought to that decision and what values among those three or others when you have to make a similar decision in the future if you have to do one of those three things. >> the values i brought to that particular decision, were the knowledge that the appropriate parts of the justice department and the fbi were doing their job, doing their duty to evaluate the legality of the program in question. and i thought that knowing the

confidence that i had in them and their commitment to duty, their ability to do their job, that that needed to be respected, even to the point of me having to resign to support them in it. i'm not sure if i got all your questions, so i might need you to refresh me. >> that's attorney satisfactory. acting attorney general sally yates was fired after she ref e refused to comply with the travel ban. if you're fired because of refusal to comply with an order -- >> i would need to know the circumstances of any particular situation, but i would want to comply with the law and the rulings first and foremost. but if i can, i would comply with any lawful request from congress. >> in my last minute, let me return to a question that was

raised earlier, i just want to make sure we have gotten this clearly. senator graham asked you about an email to donald trump jr. offering the trump campaign very high level and sensitive information and this is a quote from the email, as part of russia and its government support for mr. trump. chief ethics lawyers for former president bush and president obama, and this is a quote, we have worked on political campaigns for decades and have never heard of an offer like this one, if we had, we would have insisted upon immediate notification of the fbi, and so would any campaign lawyer official or any senior volunteer tier. russian interference in our election happened and may very well happen again. if a campaign staffer or a senator or someone working around them gets an officer of foreign government assistance to defeat its opponent, do you agree the right thing to do is to promptly notify the fbi? >> senator, i would hope that

anyone who's is aware of an effort to or an attempt to interfere with our elections would report that to the appropriate authorities. i mean just whether somebody on a campaign or somebody anywhere else. especially in the context of cyber-type intrusions. the fbi and others in the intelligence community depend on people who are receiving the contact from reaching out and coordinating with law enforcement and intelligence community. that's a big, important part of the messaging on that effort. so i would think anybody in that situation i would hope would want to bring the issue to the attention of the appropriate authorities, assuming they think that something untoward or inappropriate as occurred. >> can you reach any other

conclusion from that email other than something untoward and improper is being proffered. >> i haven't read the email, i haven't even had a chance to read all of the newspaper coverage, it's all happened at a time when i'm going from one senate building to the other and meeting with senators. >> do i have few more minutes? or senator sasse do you have a few more questions? >> i have a round, but we also have votes. you can go for a few more questions, but not a full round. >> let me say to your family that i'm grateful for your willing to undertake this. and personally, i'm grateful for your willingness to undertake this personally. i think we all have a -- as you have heard from senators both republican and democrat, this is

an essential confirmation hearing and a critical role that you're under taking, because of the pace at which things are moving, and because of the challenges and allegations now in front of us, because of the central role that the fbi plays in counter intelligence and enforcing our laws and protecting our public and i am confident that you have the skills, the experience and the values to be a great fbi director. and i appreciate your testimony in front of this committee today. >> thank you, senator, that means a lot to me. >> i would like to echo the appreciation from senator sasse, this is an important time for not only the rule of law but the procedures around it. i would like to return to something you said in your opening statement, and i'm quoting you, while the fbi has justly earned its reputation as the finest law enforcement agency in the world, it's agents and staff operate largely out of public view, they toil at great

risk to themselves and at great sacrifice to their family, but they happily defer any individual recognition because they believe that the principles they serve are so much larger than themselves. that's beautifully crafted and as someone who has worked with and around the bureau before, 36,000 current employees of the bureau, some really thoughtful, selfless public servants that do toil at high public cost for less than what they could earn in the private sector and they pay for it in life and limb and time spent away from home. and i appreciate the way you speak about the mission and the culture of the bureau. there have been some dark times at the bureau in the past, we have spoken a little bit about director hoover and the ways he mismanaged that agency, 45, 50 years