misleading. respect the ig not to be. so the statement you made it you cannot conclusively assert that led to deaths is a substantive statement that addresses work done in six months. ..

then the analysis that suggests you can't draw the causation creates a great question that actually undermines most of what is in the report. if you say that it contributed, that would be the headline. if you are an american person sitting at the kitchen table today we can play with semantics all we want but it was acknowledged that the way this contributed to the deaths that is an accurate statement. >> would you agree with that as well that if it contributed to the cause of death? who >> i think a careful reading with a show that in some of

those cases they might have lived longer and they could have had a better quality of life at the end and so on is that true or not? who >> would you agree that it contributed to the death of veterans? >> i would say that it may have contributed to their death but we can't say conclusively that it caused. >> and you can't say that it didn't so we will use the word contribute. it may have contributed. >> not being able to answer that question did it contribute to contributed to the death of veterans yes or no. >> he answered.

>> i'm going to conclude with this. >> there is the notion of the facts that speak for themselves in case of the negligence and death. we know people are on the waiting list and we know they died as a result of conditions for which they were awaiting treatment and we know that your office is made criminal referrals related to that. so i appreciate that you at least are willing to say let's weightless contributed because that is not a story that has come out as a result of the ig report. thank you mr. chairman. i yield back. spank mr. chairman and into the ranking member i appreciate you letting me sit in on this committee. i have the opportunity to work in a large area of phoenix and have had a number of folks that have been affected in my office.

we sat down with them over coffee and this is one of those difficult subjects because we want to say is that binary come is it yes and no and whenever we deal with people, people, human beings, our health isn't necessarily binary yes or no. a few months ago to sit down coffee with the widow you think of yourself as a tough guy you can't get the plum out that one out of your throat and your trying not to cry you haven't cried since you were a child so hopefully everyone understands the emotional impact. now we work through the mechanics of what does this report really say and what are the fixes, how have we never had

these type of hearings into these sort of experiences and i never sit down with a widow that breaks my heart again. maybe it is the term of art that very quickly going through the report the word significant is rolled through a number of times. is it a significant causation? is it a significant factor in the death? you see in the questions of the right and the left how many times we see significant could have a wide interpretation? is that how you say there is a path of causation? >> or clinical staff to those views and i would ask the doctor

to answer your question. first of all it takes a great deal of effort for the people that work for me to write these stories with no emotion. they are not harmed to speak to >> you sort of nudged them -- i want to touch on an observation i was actually a little disturbed by and i will write you a note of this in writing

the fact that you knew there were 800 articles. ig and fact. promise me that you are not tracking the press articles or -- that is our world. that never should be the auditors were old and it bothered me that you knew there were 800 some articles. two quick things tell me what you learned from the hotline did you ever map out a pattern or a division or specialty that but there was something wrong something came up repeatedly? >> 20 respond to the 800 articles briefly. it's at about 60 seconds -- >> if you have any curiosity at all -- >> we were being challenged for

the fact that we put it into the allegation of 40 deaths. >> you work for ultimately the taxpayers, the agency, not the media. the media should never influence -- sorry, you were working up to the microphone. >> what you repeat the question, sir? the pattern that we saw in the case was eventually people that divide the care and the wait list and in the hotline cases we are little bit more but more clear in the delay or the impact it wasn't a long list of cases that we look through the people that were delayed and try to

determine. the urology group and clinic was one area. the other is that people have a difficult time getting into primary care. then you have at least the access to get consult to move through the system. if you were not in the primary care panel, then you have a difficult time getting out of the system. those would be the two examples. >> forgive me and thank you for your patience. for all of you i had written questions i will send your way. >> thank you mr. chairman. i guess the question that comes up and the chairman and brought it up into the thing that concerns me the most about this is that this is really bad stuff

that happened to our veterans. and the care that was outlined iraq through the cases that we have here, we have like 40 cases but just to see how they've suffered it was most evident from the short excerpts. your argument that of the causation -- i understand that argument. but the delay that occurred here, it certainly would be unacceptable in my practice in the short-term follow-up and. this is just unacceptable and i

think that you all agree on that >> the title about the first 28 cases is chronically significant delay is. so i completely agree with you. the only point that i wish -- >> what upsets me about this is that somehow the media has taken that there isn't that big of a problem. this is a huge problem that has to be addressed and hopefully with the changes that are happening with the secretary and above reform and the culture within the va that that will happen. but i think that we just all want to be sure that we have an inspector general that we can rely on.

with the enforcement or the discussion or the just of what i get from that hearing. >> we don't have an inspector general right now in our office. it is a presidential appointment that has been vacant since january 1. everybody who worked on this report is a career federal employee. we don't pick sides. i think the rigor of our interim report issued on may 28 led to very large change in the department including the most senior leadership. i think the 24 recommendations in this report addressed the issues that we found and the notion that somehow we would

have issued either of these reports if we were complicit with the department just doesn't wash well with me. >> let me go over a different direction and i missed some of the hearing because i had to do another thing, but has anybody been prosecuted? the department of justice for the prosecution there are ongoing investigations. >> no one has been prosecuted yet. >> have you heard from the department of justice? >> we have heard from the department of justice, the attorney general for the divisions and guidance out to all of the u.s. attorneys offices laying out for then his view of what the potential charges could be based on his knowledge of the manipulation of records and potential disruption of records and so on that was sent to every u.s. attorneys office in the country. we are working in partnership with the fbi on the ongoing

phoenix investigation and a member of the other locations. believe me, we have no desire to see people escape who deserve criminal charges. as i mentioned earlier, we arrested 94 va employees last year on charges unrelated to reading times. so, we are not bashful about arresting people and they break the law. >> you don't know the timeline when this is going to be done? >> i think as we complete the investigation it's going to be able in the process. it's not like there is a date certain when all 93 will be closed, but every week we will make additional progress and if they are not prosecuted -- >> are you doing more referrals to ask >> i think we had a new case last week in minnesota. whenever we open a case that has criminal potential, the attorney general attorney general

guidelines require us to notify the fbi so that we are not duplicating efforts. >> thank you for your indulgence mr. chairman. >> the secretary has been waiting for well over an hour now to come and appear. so, i appreciate your indulgence for reading through the vote and again, i've learned a lot in this hearing today. i honestly had no idea that the oig would go back and forth with the drafts to the va. i was under the impression that it was a single draft that went to them to be checked for factual corrections that needed to be made. i would ask that you provide the committee copies of the drafts that were done. the fact remains that from the very first draft, there was no inclusion of the statement that

has caused me concern, because it did. it took away the entire focus from all of the work that your office has done so much so that it was leaked, just that part prior to in fact i think it even caused you to move up the release of the final report because it exonerated the department. well, it didn't exonerate the department, and i just, i don't think anybody here thinks that it did. >> i don't think it did mr. chairman, i'm i am sorry to interrupt but i don't think that it exonerated -- >> here's the question that i still need to ask before we close. in your testimony, you gave the impression that the committee suggested that the appropriate standard to be used to determine the causality of death is to unequivocally prove, i think

that with the comments that you made that the delay in care caused death. and reading the document that you in fact cited as an exhibit in your testimony states that a committee staff member sought specific information in order for this committee to prove that they were related to death. so what i need for you to tell me is do you beat me to that cause and related mean exactly the same thing? >> i think in the context of the document which is attachment b. for those who would like to review it is attachment b. to the statement and it reads in order to unequivocally prove that these deaths prevent all 40 are related to deaths in care.

this is all 40 in the pursuit of the 40. >> you didn't finish. this is oversight and investigation needs access to the computer-based record system to pull up these veteran files or to request them from the va. >> to unequivocally prove -- >> not as you, but the committee. >> does the committee have the clinicians to make that determination? >> in your testimony you are saying that we put that burden on you, the burden was not placed on you. we say that about ourselves. whether we have the clinicians to do it or not is not relevant. the fact is you said that we

said that and my question is the cost related to do they mean the exact same thing? you are saying that they do. >> i am saying it is an extremely high standard and it is not the standard that they were using. >> we didn't ask for that, correct? >> of the memo that was sent to us after the hearings that in order to unequivocally prove that these deaths, all 40 or member they were potential and it was declared that there were 40, all 40 are related to believe in care. again, the unequivocal was not placed on you it was placed on us. and you even get to that.

>> this was sent down on an e-mail by your staff saying here are most of the document meaning documents that surfaced in the april 9 hearing and this comes down with 17 names and this has all 40. >> you are trying to say we set a higher standard of proof when we did not set that standard is that correct? >> i will let the document speaks for itself. >> but you're testifying to the fact that we set that bar for you to meet. this clearly says in order to unequivocally prove that all 40 are related to the delay is in care and ellen i means access

meaning the committee, not you, but you took from this that we are trying to set a standard that you could not meet. in fact i think that he said something about a standard that could not be met. again we are having communication issues and i understand that. >> i would be pleased to answer for the record of the other suggestions that came from the committee as to how this should be coding. codon including as the ink was drying on the final report which had heavily modified the violation of the general government accounting standards. >> you said this was a directive to meet the standard you could not meet. is that true or not?

>> the document says the staff can look at this. that's fine. why was it sent to us if the oni staff wanted to look at these things they could have asked the department for the medical records. clearly we were being asked as a matter of fact it says we were ordered to expand our investigation in order to look into -- >> not from this committee. if you have proof -- >> i'm telling you what has been reported. >> you are googling again. >> no. you can make fun of that but the basis of this was the allegation of 40 specific deaths and we couldn't find the trigger for those 40. instead we looked at 4400.

>> 293 deaths. >> 293 dead out of that number. >> and you now have a statement that says you could not -- i'm through. you cannot conclusively say whether these were related to delay is in care. that was inserted after the first draft; correct? >> that is correct and we've been down this road there were multiple drafts. july 22 a staff tracking the changes on the report which you will see indicated if we can't conclude this week should say so. eventually that's what we got. >> you can say no deaths occurred because of the ways in

care? >> no, we don't know. it's the causality which is bore out in the testimony for the record from the witness who isn't here today who is the president of the national association of medical examiners. i don't know who requested this but he said he got it right. so people are entitled to their opinion. >> we appreciate your testimony. you have a job to do and we appreciate the job that you do. we have a job to do as well and i appreciate the committee members further questions. you are now excused.

>> posting they came back from their august and september break it is time to put them on part-time status. now from earlier today at an intelligence national security conference in washington a conversation with house intelligence committee chair mike rogers and ranking member ruppersberger on the intelligence community's role in combating the islamic state and other terrorist groups and also cybersecurity legislation and the balance between privacy and national security. we will show you that much of this as we can before we return life to the conference for remarks by fbi director expected to get underway at 2:45 eastern time.

i guess everybody is looking at me. [laughter] good morning everyone and thank you for being here. this is an awesome opportunity to do more than what we usually do in the media and that is run around the chase these people and ask obnoxious questions most of which they don't want to answer especially when you look in their space. but we have two of the preeminent mind is in the intelligence national security with us today and we are going to hear from them what their thoughts are on some very significant issues not the least of which is going on in washington. we all know that the white house is the capital of the world. but congress is the crossroads of the world area and anything that takes place in your states in space in the national security space has to go through their. so, first we are going to hear from the chairman of the house intelligence committee mike

rogers and then we are going to hear from his partner, the vice chair, the ranking member of the house intelligence committee dutch ruppersberger and then we are going to take some questions and i will be the moderator for that and i've ask for your patience. >> i do appreciate your work in the radio venue being able to flush out the stories the way you do i think it's pretty fantastic. we had longer remarks prepared and we would rather get two questions. but i do want to say this committee oversight peace and accountability peace and for those of you in the space professionally thank you for what you do for the country. yesterday brought it home to me how important oversight was in the process that we could spend an hour talking about but for the general notion that we have

a civilian public lee elected body with all of the classification that is responsible for over the -- all of the oversight and budgeting for the 16 intelligence agencies. it sounds like a lot of you throw the word congress is enough to scare anyone, right? yesterday we met with about 100 parliamentarians all across europe to come here fairly aggressively about how bad the u.s. intelligence services are and why are we doing what we were doing and and isn't that a terrible day for america. one thing struck me in a dialogue that we have a very good idea of little 16 of those agencies are doing. they had very little understanding of what their own intelligence agencies are doing. not even close. and that oversight committee s.

is keith alexander used to describe it as the white airbrush treatment with congress is a very important part of allowing the ability of the intelligence services to do what they do because it has that stamp of approval on behalf of the american people by the selective representatives to serve in congress and again, i could go in for an hour about all the processes that we've done and when we got to the committee be decided this is so important, national security is important into the in the world is falling apart right in front of us that we better do this on just in a august in a bipartisan way but a nonpartisan way and we decided we were going to do that and we reformed the way the committee operates. we believe it is a functioning oversight body that actually provides a service to the intelligence community and the american people. it doesn't mean that we always agree or that we don't disagree with the intelligence community and sometimes that we advocate

the push and legislative changes in a particular community but at the end of the day when they are doing really hard work around the world in that space that's really hard to operate in and somebody bumped into somebody, we can honestly come to the american people and say that may not have been great but we knew about it, we were overseeing it and we approved it. i think in the last few years the things we may have bumped into in a difficult the difficult space of intelligence i think that he would find that dutch and i am almost 100% agreement stood behind our decisions and the intelligence committee decisions as they went out and did their work. ..

we have been partners in this process. i think have been an important step for providing some cover or again he will do a great work that you do really across the globe and here in the united states. so for the i want to say thank you. going to turn it over to dutch ended in leave it for questions. >> the first said you wanted to, like as chairman has done a

tremendous job. might invite any beginning we were both on the intelligence committee. we were concerned about our intelligence committee. we couldn't get budgets passed. you have a lot of partisan politics. we were doing our jobs overseas, the 16 committees that we oversee. about oversight. we decided we're going to work together and also get our staffs to work together. our staffs do a lot and working with all the committees that we deal with. as far as what our challenges are and a source oversight generally, oversight is important and we do a lot of our oversight because we also do all of the intelligence committees, agencies budgets. we have hearings. we come in, talk and what mike and i also tried to do in the past have seen the congress is always trying to knock somebody done. you are doing this wrong, that wrong. what our philosophy is we're going to build you a. we are going to hold you accountable but we will build

you up so you can do the job. believe me, we have so many issues that are out there right now. whether it's terrorism, isis, whether it's cybersecurity which is a very dangerous. people say to me, mike and i are on the gang of eight, what keeps you up at night? spicy mexican food, weapons of mass destruction, and cyberattacks. we are losing just in this country mostly china, but of the cars you can we are losing billions of dollars of american dollars because the cyberattacks, most of our companies could even fertilizer companies. china has fertilizer companies. we have a lot to do as far as our priorities. another issue that not a lot of people talk about but it's so important to us as a country is the space. our space programs of what we do in that regard. one question and also because i think it's important we add to the questions, but the issue of

oversight and what we do i think the 9/11 commission talked about maybe having another group together, another committee, i do think mike and i see that as a way to go because it's just come it creates another level of getting to the bottom line as quickly as you can. i think the important thing we need to do is wonder dealing with, say as an example do with issues involving terrorism but it's important i think the leadership of the armed services committee, of the foreign affairs committee, of the homeland security committee and intelligence committee come together and we talk about the issues to make sure we're not missing anything. we do that now. we go but we might want to foremost that more. but i'm not in favor of creating, people are running around, running around trying to go to committee hearings and a lot of them have so much to do they don't do a lot. so it's important that we i think create a system that is necessary for us to do the

oversight that is necessary. let's get to the questions. >> and just one comment on that committee trying to great. parse apart ms. people believe if i don't see the oversight on the front page of the newspaper, no offense to my media friends -- >> none taken. >> that there isn't any oversight happening and that's what i think we take exception to that. we take this, give you two interesting numbers. last year, 130 specific meetings to national security agency. either staff members or hearings. related to the proper and consistent oversight. this year we have done 100. hopefully you don't see any of those and you haven't seen any of those a. that's the way the committee is designed to do. we have to protect the classification of those programs. it doesn't mean there isn't oversight and doesn't mean we haven't made changes. we have suggested changes, made changes, 1080 changes, we effected through budgets, policy

decisions we make on the committee. i think it's very big important to understand just because you don't read it on the front page doesn't mean there isn't that oversight happening. >> i want to say after snowden -- >> we will do this all day by the way. >> we have a tremendous amount of oversight with the nsa. we go to the nsa. we do the same with cia and other agencies. there was oversight. the goodness is chairman feinstein, from the senate intelligence committee and saxby chambliss and mike and i have gone to afghanistan together. but we came together and said all of this national median buys that is out there, it's ridiculous because it's not true. the perception was there and mike and i realized have to deal with perception. so we changed a major law on both collection but we took all the bulk of collection away from the government and it's not a different process. so you have to a just and especially for the american

people because they're worried about privacy as they should be and where to make sure all of our laws balance of the privacy versus what we need to do in intelligence. questions? >> questions. i have two favorite duos. one are mr. and mrs. j.j. green who have been married for 57 years and this is the other duo. it seemed like they been married for a long time. >> it seems like we been married. >> the reason why i like this duo so much is because they actually get their work done. they are from different political parties but they work together. what they are saying here is that something they're just saying but as a national star to correspond for the last 10 years, i've had the opportunity to observe them for good part of that time and watch them work together. india of would've watched and learned, i've aske have some questions for you. couple of them are written down here on these notes -- notecards

but a couple here just based on the time and space i've had to observe you and your work. i know that you know significantly more about what's going on internationally venue often discussed and i know you can't for obvious reasons, but there's a pressing question this morning in my mind. we know that the world is spinning faster and faster and faster. responding to all those threats is getting more and more difficult every day. and now a new threat i understand in the middle east has emerged. and it's kind of hard to get people to talk about that, lease within the last day or so. what can you tell us about this new threat that is emerging from the middle east? >> gets old with a new twist. let me put it that way. so we knew, i think this of which are talking about, al-qaeda had forward deployed a group of al-qaeda individuals associated individuals whose

sole purpose is to put together an operation, excuse become not trying to be cute. i just look really bad in those orange jumpsuits with numbers on the back of my time trying to make sure i get this part right. >> understood. >> makes you look very boxy. very unflattering. [laughter] >> sorry about that. >> that's okay. so this particular group, we take it as a very serious threat, threat stream, one that we are concerned about and it sometimes get lost on the public discussion based on the threat of isil. that is a threat. i think the other is probably more immediate. what concerns us most about is the working we see with aqap, other al-qaeda affiliates that put together an operation that successful, mainly targeted at aviation targets, all of that has been public.

but it's serious and it's rising up. interesting that where you see these operatives is a necessary where you might see them before. so you might see some in iraq and syria and northern africa putting this plan together in conjunction with another affiliate. that's a new twist, the way we see it. and so you have this immediate threat that we continue to push back on, this al-qaeda threat, and encourage other intelligence services to do what they can't vision to what is a growing national security threat which is isil and the ability to get people back in the united states. >> so this new threat, what d.c. is their goal? or is there any one specific goal, or is it a bunch? >> the best offense against terrorism is intelligence. and we need to get as much intelligence as we can. we have unique resources that no

other country has. we also need intelligence from the ground. and so we know who we're going to where they are on how we're going to do with them. as far as isis is concerned, we knew they were there were years but remember, in syria which is most dangerous place in the world you have aside, chemical weapons issue and they had a moderate group by the all of a sudden got reinforcement. unfortunately, enforcement for al-qaeda and i suspect he had that problem that everyone was focused on assad and then you have some problems with al-qaeda and the moderates, that we were standing behind. what happened, isis as we know is so severe, al-qaeda can kick them out. isis is very strong. they have probably come close to a billion dollars. most of the they were, and their straight militarily, the old saddam hussein military that is fighting iran. and remember when we came in to

iraq one of the worst things we did was get rid of the military. this military was the military that at that point al-qaeda hired. those close over 100,000 of them and that was the insurgency. now, we resolve that, able to get out of iraq. and by which recently came out iraq because maliki want us out, number one. number two, they wouldn't give us an agreement, an immunity agreement to protect our soldiers. we're not going to put our soldiers at risk there. we have this issue with isis and they had the momentum and they're smart and good and the sunni population in iraq were not fighting with them but they were allowing it to happen because maliki. hopefully will be able to turn that around the getting back to the old intel generally, we have to show to the world where strong, we're not going to take it, that will protect our homeland. it's rare our country, 60% of

our culture wants to take a isis. our strategy is a coalition. where to get the air countries involved and let the arab countries start putting the boots on the ground. our country, our citizens don't want us to another two or three years in iraq or afghanistan. but we have to do what we have to do to call this our government and to make sure we do what we need to do. >> both of you voted yes for the authorization for the money and permission and everything that the president and the administration asked for to train and vet the syrian opposition. but it's pretty clear it's going to take more than just the authorization and the money to do this. it's going to take in some people's might herculean effort to train up this force and get it on the ground and get it operational and didn't actually in the place where you can make a difference against isil and

against, you know, all the things they're fighting against in syria. assad aside, but when you look at this situation and you kind of slices up into something that's been going on for a couple of years, you're talking about 5000 perhaps fighters, maybe train up within a year or so or something on that order. >> is it enough? is it soon enough? can it happen soon enough? what needs to govern to make it effective? >> i look at it several ways. dutch and i find little disadvantage because we have watched the vetting process develop over a year and have probably. and how you would vet does individuals can i get into training camp, the logistics involved in all of that. it's complicated and this is not easy. this is not an easy solution to if i believe that this was only part of this plan i wouldn't have supported it either. it won't work in and of itself.

but we do have to have, i argue, individuals that are trained to our standards under the law of war that have the interest in capability, and again you don't have -- you just have to be a little better than the enemy in these cases. if we can give them those killed and they have that intention and will take some direction from the coalition, which is incredibly important and the united states, we think you can probably have the first individuals back and syria for four to five months. that's not 5000 but it can be a unit that is cohesive, has good command and control, as the ability to move on intelligence selected targets, can take a little direction. but that will also take -- >> sworn in as the seventh director of the fbi on september 4, 2013. what i would say you can read

his bio but here's what i would say. his career to meet embodies the public-private partnership in service to the nation that is the core of afcea and insa but also the core to each of us as professionals which serves the nation in any capacity. in the government, you're looking at a deputy twice, twice deputy u.s. attorney. what may be less known to you is while in the eastern district of new york he was the lead prosecutor on the khobar towers bombing. i think that is less known about our esteemed speaker. you're also looking at a former deputy attorney general. that was when i had a personal privilege of working with director comey when we were at the early stages of building the intelligence infrastructure for the fbi. director comey is no stranger to industry. he served at lockheed martin for five years as a senior vice

president and as general counsel. and what is most remarkable and i think less know about you also, sir, is the work you've done in academia. whether you were doing while you're a u.s. attorney, a deputy u.s. attorney, an adjunct at the richmond law school, or whether you were at the columbia law school is a senior research scholar and herzog fellow for national security. this is a profoundly fascinating career, and incredible talents of man. i think that when general holder swore you in, the words, i couldn't improve on the words. a proven leader and a faithful advocate for the american people. and with that, welcome director comey. thank you for being here. we look forward to hearing from you. [applause] >> thank you so much, i think elites and gentlemen.

i don't know if i got the short straw or the long straw getting a friday afternoon keynote devoted i'll try to be brief and then i would love to have a conversation with you about whatever you would like to talk about. i've been in washington long enough to avoid anything i do want to talk about. what i thought i would do is give you a sketch of where i see the fbi and what i see myself at the things they need to focus on at the close of 12 months in this wonderful job. i have eight years and 52 weeks left on this job, just having finished about 12 months. i have been somebody was known to the fbi mole hole -- my whole adult life. i've worked with a beer since i was a federal prosecutor in 1987. and i know it well, but when i became director i also knew that i didn't know it well enough to be effected best director. and so i spent a lot of time trying to go and see the fbi. only a portion of which i can

see from office on the seventh floor at fbi headquarters because my force is deployed and 56 field offices, 400 some offices off of those field offices, and then now approaching 100 offices around the world. so i spent the last 12 months doing a lot of traveling. i have visited 44 of my field offices here in the states, 45 when i hit albany next week, and i've been to 14 of our legal attaché offices around the country. when i go to visit my folks, the most important part of it is the conversation with them. where i introduce my self, talk little bit and then i want to hear from them about what do you think you need me to focus on to be effective as your director. after i spent about nine months doing that, i sent an e-mail to my entire work force and they've discovered that a write my own e-mails when i want committed to the. i set up stood up, tight battlee mill and ascend up to 35,000 people and get i think zero replies. almost nobody replies to the

director, which we're also working on. but after all the traveling and all the talking, i want to show you with with you what i told them for my vision of the fbi and what is going to focus on. the fbi believe can be captured in a single sentence. we are a national security and law enforcement organization that uses light and shares intelligence and everything that we do. that is the fbi. i was one of those who fought against dividing the fbi into an mi5 and scotland yard after 9/11. i thought even those of the republic of on the other side had different views, i thought that would be a mistake. i thought they were great strengths that benefited the american people from having those authorities and those responsible us of the national security side and criminal enforcement side in the same place. i also thought it was very important to any national security organizations that focus here in the states be chalk full of a culture that it appears to the rule of law, which is something that is at the core of the fbi.

i think one of the things the 9/11 commission, one of the many things the commission got right is the bureau should not be splisplit up. i missed it if you should to transform itself to be better at accomplishing especially the national security mission but all of its missions. so that's my picture of the fbi today. i inherit an fbi where bob mueller worked very hard to begin on a number of transformations, one of which i'm going to talk about with respect to intelligence. i told my folks, i believe we are the best in the world. and i've also told them i'm not a fan of either the miami heat or the cleveland cavaliers, but i am admirer of lebron james. because he is the best basketball player playing in the world today. i don't want to say best basketball player ever because then you get into the whole michael jordan thing but i believe lebron james is the best on earth playing basketball today. and yet every off-season he finds a part his gang to try to improve. and then he works on that. that seems crazy because he's

already better than everybody else. and would've told him of folks is what i admire about james is he doesn't because he's a vision itself against others comedies measure yourself against himself. he knows that the journey is one without any and. so i said to the fbi i believe we are great. i don't think there's anybody is good. i believe we are not good enough in a lot of respects. i have told the workforce i'm going to focus on three things as my personal priorities and have to list them to in order because i can't think of all three think of all for it once but they are tied for first, each one of them. they are leadership, cybercom and intelligence. a few brief words about why i chose those. the fbi has extraordinary leadership. i believe the fbi should be the leadership of factory of the chinese government. it's not there yet. i have a lot of admiration for the men and women in uniform who produced tremendous leaders for this country who go on to leadership in private sector. i think we should be better than that. i think the private sector should wait for the fbi's

leaders to leave and tried to hire them to lead private enterprise because they've had such amazing training and experience as leaders in a civilian organization in the united states. i learned from two different roles with two different leading companies, one in aerospace and defense and one in finance, that the best companies in the world obsessed about leadership. they treat it as money. and ceo of lockheed martin wedlock as the senior leadership team in a room for hours and hours at a time to review leaders five levels down. where is she, what is or potential, how are we developing her, h who was watching her, who is making her, where is that guy? what is next for him? because it is money it had to be watched over, put to good use. use. so we have to be accountable for the return on that money and growing that money. because leadership is money. one of the things i would focus on if you guys trying to try that kind of cultural which pervades the military services

and great private enterprise into the fbi so we obsessed over leadership taliban we recruit for it, we select, promote, evaluating and we drive a focus on leadership into everything. i believe that's of any organization becomes perpetually great. because in senior leaders look for junior leaders who look for more junior league and becomes a perpetual motion machine. lots more to come from the on that but we have already i have inherited from bob mueller a fabulous leadership development program and i intend to give that a loss of life. second, cyber. should be i guess i think to this audience as to why that is one of my three priorities. i've tried to explain to people who know the world of cyber less than you that cyber touches everything i am responsible for. counterterrorism, counterintelligence and all of our criminal responsibility manifest in cyber because it's not a thing. it's just a way. it's a vector.

it's a way that that people do things because we, as a people, have connected our entire lives to the internet. it's where my children play. it's were i think it is were my health care is but it's what my nation's critical infrastructure is. it's where nation secret art is where everything is. in this country and around the world. that vector change, touches everything am responsible for. i was recently in indiana and they gave me a local sheriff gave me a bullet fired from john dillinger's tommy submachine gun. as i stared at the bullet it occurred to me that a great vector change of the twist center actually gave birth to the modern fbi. because in the 1920s into the 1930s the confluence of asphalt and the automobile was a factor change that the world had never seen before. suddenly criminals that commit crimes across unheard of

distances two states, three states in the same day moving at speeds that were unimaginable 40 miles an hour downhill, 50 miles an hour. county line suddenly were not relevant. state lines were not relevant. and a national force was needed to respond to that vector change, and that was the first, i'm the seventh, the first director, j. edgar hoover and modern fbi was born to respond to that new vector, that new way. so as i stood there staring at the eligible it occurred to me that dillinger could not do 1000 robberies in all 50 states in the same day in his pajamas from halfway around the world. that's what today's vector change represents. the unheard of distances of dillinger and his ilk, the speed of dillinger and his ilk are infinitely smaller and more narrow than the speed at which,

the threat moves today. right? the internet moves at 186,000 miles per second, which is the speed of light. the notion of county lines, state lines, international lines, normal concepts of any in space and time are blown up by this threat. i was in indianapolis. shanghai is next to indianapolis on the internet. there is space and time movement of the threat on the internet has shrunk the world to the size of a pen. so if are going to be effective at the fbi of respond and meeting on terrorism threats and all of our criminal threats, we have to buil be able to operate effectively in cyberspace. so i have to be able to recruit, retain, train, equip and deploy against that threat. i was asked at a hearing earlier this week where i was sitting with the jeh johnson how i was going to recruit cyber talented and i said i don't want to say because i don't want him to know

what my tricks i but my primary trick is the fbi is the coolest place to work so you should come work for us. but an enormous challenge and just as the threat close to normal concepts of space and time, i think it has to stretch the way we think about recruiting, training, deploying. one of the things we're going to do in the fbi is we're going to try to assign threats to particular field offices because the notion of space and time and venue does or will he make any sense in the context of a sophisticated cyberthreat. so we're going to figure out where the expertise lies and a sign around the country without regard to where the particular threat may be manifesting in the united states. so we develop expertise and then coordinate from headquarters among other field offices the touch that threat. i have no high confidence as to what the world will look like that i am responsible for nine years when i leave. i think this is a translation

the human history has never since i think would be arrogant to stand here and say i can pitch with the fbi response to cyber should look like nine years down the road. wanted to buy workforce is we have a variety of plants that we think are reasonable and we're going to march out and try to execute while possibly being open to iteration to learning as this threat changes and as her experience changes we can get better at it. it's a leadership, cyber and the last tie for first is intelligence. as i said bob litt again this transformation right after 9/11. ..

where we had a relationship or an existing source or someone in a police department who brought us something. part of the transformation began is getting much more thoughtful about what we do. it is prepped based and intelligence driven. what i had inherited as an organization that tried not to work its inbox but to step back

and ask this question what are all the bad things that could happen to the united states and its citizens and interest that the fbi by virtue of the authority and capability conceivably can do something about. what are all the bad things that could happen, who is doing things to mitigate those threats and what should be the priority is against all the responsibilities in the counterintelligence or criminal but given all the threats in the way that we assess them and who is doing what against them what should be the priority list so we spent a lot of time thinking about that in the headquarters perspective and then we ask each of our field offices to engage in the same exercise and ask the same questions about a lot or miami or san antonio what are all the things that could happen here that we might do some good

about, who else is looking to mitigate those threats given the magnitude howould we in the omaha or san antonio or miami ranked those threats. while they a lot of smart people at the end of that process each year every single field office has a list of threats agreed upon with headquarters to see whether they are making progress in reducing the threats and mitigating those threats. you can see that it was an intelligence driven process. what did we know, what don't we know, what are the gaps and given that picture how do we assign weights to these threats? that's the first thing we do. and throughout the year we are looking at information to understand the threats better and share information through

the fbi to mitigate them better. how are we doing at reducing those threats. sometimes especially with people that have been around a while when they hear words like domain requirements and b. are the intelligence profession. what i said to the special agents of the fbi transformation oversimplified is simply this. the core of the fbi to interact with other human beings but we are trying to do is get more thoughtful but what stuff do we need to know? how are we going to find that stuff out of? to get that done i need to wrap

that gift and a doughnut is equally talented people who think about that all day long. what do we need to know, how are we going to find it out? how does that connect to other stuff that is my intelligence to surround that gift which is my special agent but that is how i conceive of it. that doughnut of smart thinking and creative thinking surrounds everything the fbi does so whether they work in a criminal case or cyber and training, recruiting, thinking about security and the budget and everything the fbi does, all of those activities are suffused with that type of thinking to so what stuff do we need to know

blacks one of the reasons i believe this makes sense is i told a special agents to me this transformation is about using the gift for the broad benefit of our country so that you find things out that you're interviewing a doctor from a foreign country i know i'm going to get amazing stuff about the billing and the partnership structure that will help us understand the fraud. who do you know who went back there and who is studying the science in the country? gets me lots of stuff and we'll we will figure out who needs to know that. everything the fbi does i've taken the intelligence rector and have taken it out from under the national security branch element i walked in the door i said that doesn't make sense to me because if i'm trying to drive this integration and thoughtfulness into everything we do what is that giving on the

national security branch? i want a part of cyber and everything we do here and so i took it and created with promise commission intelligence branch and it may be fair to say the bureau wasn't ready for it then but the work that he's done has this entire doughnut hole in a way that i think we are ready for and so i've asked eric to be the first of the modern era the executive director for intelligence there is another practical reason i wanted to do that every single morning at the table to say how's it going? how is the transformation going? i think sometimes the combination of operations and intelligence is a bit like an arranged marriage in the fbi told some arranged marriages

result in crowds of grandchildren and lifelong love and others don't. and so i want to know how is the marriage? how is it in a lockbox was it in san antonio and miami and how are we driving to make it better and in the meantime, this metaphor doesn't really work but i'm going to have the kids eat at -- date at quantico. i started chasing my wife when i was 19 so i have one of those marriages that has lasted and worked. what i'm doing with the new class of intelligence analysts in the special agents we've designed a core curriculum that is integrated. they are majoring in very different ways i need them to sit in the same classroom when they are studying the fourth amendment right thing, bureau tradecraft, all those things that are the common core curriculum that you had in college i want them sitting next to each other in the same

classroom. then before they leave i want them to run practical exercises and replicate the criminal squad, counterterrorism squad just as all kind of scenarios for the waves and takedowns. i want that practiced so that when they field the marriage is much easier. we have made tremendous progress transforming the way we think about us and our thoughtfulness. like any cultural change it is a generational change so it is something we are going to continue to work on. the leadership of cyber and intelligence those are my priorities tied for first. i believe the fbi is a remarkable organization doing all kind of things all over the country and i believe even more strongly it would have been a mistake to split it.

there is a benefit of coming from the counterintelligence and criminal of all sorts with all of those authorities in the same place for a bunch of reasons. i believe i have the greatest job in the world. ideally though for the fbi to do everything that it accomplishes, we must be believed by the american people whether we are in a congress or a courtroom or cookout they must be be be despite what my mother told me i care what other people think of us. you have to in my business because the trust of the american people is the bedrock of the fbi. i especially focus on that today. one of my worries in that post- snowden world is that skepticism can bleed over into cynicism and people should be suspicious of government power. i think our founders were and

it's the reason they divided power among the branches of interest against interest because you can't trust people. i say to folks i think i'm a good person. i think i'm trying to do the right thing. i think i will honor my obligations but don't trust me. i'm a human being and i'm in a powerful position. instead, ask how is the genius designed in the founders lay on top of this? where is the interest set against interest, how was he restoring and check? there is an angel in those details. it's chock-full of the designers people ask lots of good questions and it's hard to find the space and time to give the answers. i find good people nodding at cookouts and other places someone says isn't as terrible they want to break encryption on the internet? know it's not.

i need to be able to do that if that by showing probable cause and go" to a federal judge and get a warrant i will save children that way, fight organized crime and insight or wisdom in a way that makes sense. it took me 60 seconds to say that. finding that 60 seconds today is very difficult but i think that we in the government have a burden to fight for that space and to have that conversation. i reject the notion and framework of the trade off balance between security and liberty because i believe the most effective security that enhances the dirty. if i imagine a city park where they are hanging out in a way that allows them to dominate the park but not to allow children

or grandparents to use the park as the city responds by putting a police officer in that park, liberty and security have both been at hands. iab needs the internet today is one of the most dangerous neighborhoods imaginable. i simply must be able to offer security in that environment in a way that enhances liberty. but it requires a dialogue and a conversation. there is a great great danger when you are in any position of authority that he will fall in love with your own voice. at the power always deletes it has a pure soul that the answer falling in love with your own voice is a conversation of back and forth and finding the space to say here's what i do and why i do it and the authority i use. that is extraordinarily healthy.

it enhances the vision and with that comes trust. so i am i believe one of the luckiest people in the world to have the job i have. i want to help the fbi be what it is which is a truly great national security organization that uses and collects intelligence and everything that we do and constantly look to improve that. i look forward to the conversation and four your advice and push back and debate and i hope to continue this conversation years to come. thanks very much. [applause] >> i have a number of questions and i tried to put them into broad categories.

the first is really focused on what the intelligence reform is. a very broad question as we approach the tenth anniversary how would you assess the fbi progress not just in integrating intelligence and operations internally but integrating into the large intelligence community the answer is not good enough. it is a transformation. i joke that we went from people who.

we were sitting at the long table because people have come to know us as well. i think folks have come to see the talent and see what we produced to thank me and tell me that they worry the people that the fbi don't realize how much of what we collect. i think we've become part of it in a very big way there's room for improvement. there's always room for improvement but it's much better. we have some room to grow. >> which would you say is stronger now? the fbi integration of

intelligence community projects into its operations or the fbi service to the larger providing information or the larger national security committee providing information to them? bag i don't know that i would distinguish between the two. as the familiarity with our work product grows that acceptance grows with it and they are about the same. >> in a series of questions about people, you put a big focus on people especially your intelligence professional so going up to ten years of the reform bill and the fbi had a very long section devoted to it and as you know in title to one of the mandates and the law is the fbi creates an intelligence

service and it sounds like you talked about quantico trading between the integration and intelligence analysts but i think that it was the agent analysts that had linguists and i think surveillance specialists as well. there is a hunger to find out what is your assessment of progress over the building of that country and is there a place that you think work remains? >> great progress has been made. i am eager to have outside eyes give me a sense of how much it is. i think it's actually pretty darn good but we have a commission -- need to -- but is taking a look at that so how are we doing because i think that we have reached an inflection point we hire determined its number of talented people and now the question is where are they

going? are they going into the leadership roles in the field office, and why is the intelligence professional? i talked about that in the workforce. success will be when all of the leaders in the intelligence program or people that came up to the service came up through the analytical type if you will come and to me it is a confession of immaturity and a little bit of a way that, i love him but that he is a special agent and the reason that he is in that job is i don't have the talent matured and senior enough to put in that role but before i believe i need to be in that place. they are not special agent, they trained and grew and developed as our intelligence cadre. >> in that spirit i will ask a couple of questions all pretty much within the same way written the same way by the same element of that career service which our

intelligence analysts. so, is that a particular area that needs more work, less work? do you have a vision for the intelligence analyst in the fbi don't matter that you described? >> it is at the top level the critical partner with the special agent because it only works with both being robust. and as i said i think we are in a very good place of an inflection point because i met separately with intelligence staff and field offices so i've now done 44 visits and they are excited and hungry to see what their future looks like. will will i be able to advance into a type of position in the field office and then grow up to be an assistant director in the fbi and maybe someday be that executive director to see us

deliver there and i don't blame them but am i going to have a glass ceiling in some way and i told them into my last breath he will not hit a glass ceiling. my goal was to be viewing the entire enterprise but again we have to live on that as a leadership team. >> thank you. i think that answers it. now there is an adjunct to this and i'm just representing the question. so, there is a culture if you could comment i experienced some of this personally so i will say that it comes to me that there is a culture of agents in the fbi and everyone else. that is not good or bad. sometimes it is difficult if you are everyone else. so one of the questions here is how do you feel, how do you describe the people that run the

system? is there a cultural reason to start talking about it differently to view the integration you want other than calling them support staff? >> labels matter. the terms i use i tend to think of in three buckets, special agents, intelligence staff and professional staff. some people combined the professional and intelligent staff. i break them out into those three groups because i find the issues they want to ask me about break down into those three buckets and there is no doubt it is 106-years-old and that the special agent is a central role in the fbi. what i told people as part of the transformation is making sure that the center holds more than one kind of person because to be truly great, we need a symbiotic relationship between the gifted special agents and gifted intelligence analysts and

where the marriage is best in the fbi is where it's where the leadership is made in the conscious efforts to make sure that they know each other because on the way to meetings or interviews, special agents discover how smart intelligence analysts are and intelligence analysts discovered the gift and the ability of agents to get information and then a partnership was born and it seems so low-tech but that's how it changes that is the definition i've ever heard is the way things are really done around here no matter what they tell you in training since you can't by definition change for ray to the culture. it requires the change literally one person at a time. i need both sites do have an effective zipper blended together and i see tremendous progress. as i said to me it's not good enough but that is to be understood after only ten years of the cultural transformation.

>> i agree with that and you are only the seventh director of a 100 plus-year-old organization. >> we can move into some cyber questions and i think that this one is an important informational one for this audience. it's a very simple question. >> that would wait six or eight weeks. put your pillow over your head and hope it goes the other way. in the enterprise to know the folks at my field office. we are in a very one of the

countries that you can make sure that your security people know our people. those that have been hacked into those that have not so unique that relationship with us even if you don't know, you will know that you need it soon. i also understand the impediments of the council of the companies i fully understand why doesn't the government tell us more and faster and what are they going to do with the stuff we give them so it is it isn't kind to be used as the competition so we get sued over this or damage our brand? i totally get that which is why we need help from congress and in giving rules to the road of the general counsel's so they can have those questions answered at the exposure is that they cooperate. but it is an enormous mistake to think that you can handle it yourself. we are working hard to change the value a creation for private

enterprise but we've long had something in the fbi that is a malware database. we have an enormous database into which we put every piece of malware that we encounter and then when an agent in san diego opens the case that the database says that's been seen in boston or that was seen in columbia south carolina and connects to this and that. we are granted make the database me the database available to private enterprise participating in the program so that they can sit down from a trusted worker can sit down and type in their own information and get the report in seconds or minutes. these are the kind of things that are going to get us out of sort of responding at dillinger speed right now against the threat that's moving at the speed of light. machine two machine is what we are crawling into words. >> the fbi in addition to a very

important cyber mission as a very important counterintelligence ocean and has forever had a very important counterintelligence mission on the territory of the united states. can you give us your top counterintelligence threat within the confines of an unclassified symposium that you think we are facing? >> i can't really. it's the usual suspects. the nationstates. there is a tendency to think that espionage is an old-fashioned deal it is very much alive and well and aggressive players in this room made of more aggressive and more difficult to deal with by that change because your need to meet somebody after drawing the chalk mark on a mailbox to get something is probably less important if you can move at the speed of light halfway around the world.

it's nonnegotiable and we have to be able to do that effectively. >> have you also launched the reinvigorated our strengthening inside threats program in the posts snowden era? >> the bureau through hard lessons learned has had a pretty aggressive inside threats program. given the nature of the threat that given the vector change again people don't need to stuff documents into their pants because they have so many extra abilities through that change that i think that we need to even -- we cannot ever be confident that we have it so we have a number of things to change the way that we are approaching and we set up an inside press enter to bring together every single responsibility in the bureau that touches insider threat and have it report to a single accountable executive that reports up to the deputy

director and director. i think that keeps a focus on it. as i said the problem with leadership leadership as i can fall in love with the sound of my own voice and the institution can fall in love with the virtue and the inability of the antidote of that is constant bitching and conflict and we are trying to foster some of that by having an interdisciplinary center. >> that sounds great. okay. switching gears. a question with an interesting that says fbi versus the dhs which i know is not the case any longer. but it's a great quest chair and we class chair and we had a homeland intelligence panel about was very powerful and so the dhs has blocked the vast amounts of information. the question is if you can characterize your relationship with the intelligence and how you interact to and and sure the

departmental intelligence mission. >> on the intelligence front it is fabulous thanks to the relationships built by people like john cohen. all of you know the structures matter but the nature of the people occupying the structure matter even more so we have put it together in a way that is very good on the intelligence front. we have a lot of responsibilities. we bump into each other in a lot of different areas that are apparently law enforcement related. i have no patience for turf battles. i don't think the american people have patience. i sometimes hear folks say is this agency or that agency encroaching on our additional turf and the reaction is that reminds me of a wide receiver may be from my hapless new york giants saying the quarterback is an thrilling and thrilling to me enough and my response to that

is get open and every time you touch the ball score a touchdown, you will get the ball. just be excellent. that is my message. be excellent. but on the intelligence front we are in a great place. i've known j. johnson since i was a baby, federal prosecutor. we are in a good place on intelligence and cyber especially at all of our criminal responsibilities. >> do you feel that we have a good picture, common operating picture but a consolidated threat picture of threats to the homeland event you can look at and the dhs can look at and people can know where the threat vectors are as a community i guess i should say? >> that is one of those i never want to answer with high confidence because i'm worried about what don't i know and the

threat vectors that we identified are by their nature was take-home violent extremists by their nature it is a threat in and a basement in pajamas being radicalized by isi for the window to identify that particular part of the threat vector and mitigate the threat so i think we have a good picture of the threats we face and it is hard to see. >> on the cyber threats, both dhs it is fair to say and the fbi have in the past not been thought of as branded technical organizations incredible capable organizations but if that change you were talking about.

are there core capabilities underscores that you need to grow in order to make this shift on the technical side? who >> yes. >> will you buy it or make it quick >> i will try whenever possible not to make a custom zero product and software and hardware, manufacturing and people in the basement. [laughter] but across those dimensions i feel pretty good about us from a software perspective. as you know from having worked there, we fail to invest as an organization 20 years ago in the infrastructure that was needed and my friend has played catch-up so i have inherited a lot of that and we still have progress to make. one of the reasons i told congress we needed a sequestration to get the budget is i've got to invest in

equipment. the bureau only has three things. i've got people doing great stuff so i need people, training and technology and a big part of that is investing in things like the pipes that i need to know the enormous amounts of data around the country to be effective for the answer is we've made great progress. >> back to the larger questions about intelligence in general this is a thoughtful question about the sort of treated nature of the term domestic intelligence. it is something we made a decision not to write into the wall. there still is for for an encounter. it does make people uncomfortable. the use of the term.

can you describe the role of the bureau sort of bridging that divide the? you interact with state, local and tribal where frankly the term does make people uncomfortable and how would you assess the progress there and what are your views about the term domestic intelligence? is there another word or should we not care? >> the words can't eliminate or obscure and it is especially in the context we speak in the united states and it concerns people which is why i use stuff. but again the reason it would have been a mistake is that so much of the information that we get that is useful to the war fighter and the counterintelligence mission and

policymakers is stuff that is learned by deputy sheriffs in the encounter and someone at the border and what i want from them is stuff. i need facts and information. what did you see and hear and find? if a top domestic intelligence that has it has dark intelligence. people have said is the director creating some new aggressive effort on the criminal side by taking and creating -- no. hopefully we are already being aggressive to find crime and stop it. what i'm trying to make sure is that we are more thoughtful about what are we learning in our criminal matters that could be useful to the other things we do and could be useful to our

partners, that's why i i want that intelligence professional looking across the entire enterprise to make sure we are getting better at figuring out what stuff do we know and what have we learned in these cases it might be of use to us elsewhere? >> you have spoken about your desire to every creation of the position and the messages because of the importance to the national security in general so probably not a fair question but when you talk about integration we get that. i grew up with that in mind was. can you help us understand if

you are successful but toward successful click to you from the fbi world, and how well you know >> that's a great question i'm working on right now to figure out what measurements while i used to tell me if i have achieved success. the way to describe it and it may sound odd but it's when no one talks about integration anymore. i say to the new analysts at quantico you forgot that i've ever raised this. it was just part of your dna. of course i'm constantly interacting just in the defense operation of course it is part of the same team. that's what successful feel like and the challenge i have is how to measure the metrics are going to use along the journey and that is a work in progress for

me. >> is a number of questions and i'm going to try to do five and one question. there's a lot of questions surrounding public-private partnerships in genoa but it might be more interesting if you can describe it to the cyber domain in the view of what that would look like. >> without effective public-private partnership on the cyber side, the metaphor i use is i'm left patrolling a street with 50-foot walls on the side. i can tell you the street looks mighty safe that 85% of the world where people are as on the other side of those balls so we have to devise a way for me as the cop on the beat to be able

to in some fashion see through those balls and receive information from the walls of others i can't protect the neighborhood because 85% of the internet is in private hands so we have to figure out a way to do this consistent with civil liberties addressing people's concerns about effectiveness and reliability. success will look like a change speed sharing information from all parts of the government with indicators we see of warning signs of danger and machine speed information from the private sector of the same data. somehow we have to find a way to achieve that that's consistent with our values and the desperate interest on both side. we and the government have made a great progress. i left nine years ago and came back and i used to call it for

year-old soccer. i have five children swiveled up debate watched a lot of. where we are now is a seventh grade soccer. we all understand the need to spread out around the field with the bad but the bad guys are playing at the world cup level so we have to continue the speed of our gain game. those that are materially aiding that are the national cyber investigative joint task force, genius idea over 15 federal agencies who would otherwise be chasing the ball sitting together visualizing what's coming in, where the threat is and dividing it so we is that we are not following each other in a clump. there are lots of ways smart

people can figure out how to get the senate world cup level among ourselves and with the private sector. specter you have liens squared away about how the rule of the fbi and protecting critical infrastructure is that something that's evolving or do you have a sense of how your team will cooperate over a? >> it's been a cool hammering out that relationship. even if we describe the role as prevention recovery assuring there is only enzi and we are investigating intrusion of those two things it sounds like different words that they overlap and then you have a great agency and the secret service is investigating the

financial crimes and credit cards, so it feels to me like it is in a pretty good place but again it depends. we have the right structures but as i said those only work if the people are writing them so it depends on people talking to each other. i think we've come a tremendously long way. we meet on a regular basis to talk about this and we have a charge that divides up the responsibilities that as the teams we find a great sitting together to save what problems are you hearing sex that helps us send a message to our folks that we want this worked out. all three of us our heads will explode if we find out there's a turf battle. >> we have time for one more question. if you could just tell us how do

you see the threat and the fbi role in protecting the united states from that fact? >> the best way to describe it as i see the threat as -- as an element i've been talking about since i got this job which is manifesting in a safe haven supplied by the serious and direct raging. its most prominent among them so it's a subject of great focus but there are other groups in the same area and others throughout the lightly governed or ungoverned areas that we also worry about. the threat has been tested by us metastasized. but the progeny of al qaeda is

still no longer a progeny by its own declaration. that is made the threat to very challenging. but if any present or connection do they have in the united states and who's traveling? far more concerning to me than the end of a double coming back. you have just seen in the news australia acting against a threat. i also worry about the homegrown extremists to train and inspire people to do their work without ever having met the people. troubled souls seeking meaning in their basement could become the soldiers so it's about understanding who is going and

who's connected to those groups that in the united states? >> this has been a phenomenal for us. [applause] >> where is brinkley? here's a look at the tv ads appearing in that race is to make the gazette says the attacks are not true and it is a smear on his business that was

never a justice of the investigation and the committee approved the sale so why is hutchison attacking his family for building a small town business into a success? to cover the fact he got caught cheating on his taxes. he was a lobbyist who has a record putting millionaires before the middle-class. this coverup won't work. >> he voted to cut college loans and pre- k. programs and opposes the plan to expand pre- k.. mike ross says education must be a priority. >> the plan that works for arkansas. >> under the plan i know my kids will have what it takes to get ahead. have you seen this latest smear piece. for by the allies of barack

obama reported from the state himself [inaudible] that doesn't stop obama. it works for mike ross as well and fortunately arkansas -- >> it is a 16 billion-dollar industry, and arkansas is largest. with 95% of our family owned. when you criticize free trade that only free-trade only hurts the farmers whether it is right rice, wheat or poultry i want to keep the business opened to the world. open to the world. it's a great way to create jobs. we will hit the ground running and never back. >> the debate with democrat like

this weekend we partnered with comcast for a visit to st. paul minnesota. >> st. paul in the 1930s i wouldn't call it once they guess that there was a city. virtually every major gangster, kidnapper and bank robber in america lived and worked in a three block radius of where we

are standing today. all were here with people don't know the statues of the gangsters that this was the end of her. this is also the building where all of the bootleggers and bank robbers were tried and sent to a trust. it's where it began and where it ended. >> standing here we're looking over the junction of the minnesota and mississippi river. st. paul is located up from

ford. there were groups of settlers living on the military property. finally the army had enough of competing for the resources and they thought they should be removed officially from the military properly. they moved across town to the other side and formed what became the nucleus of the city of st. paul. when you think about the story and history of the region that you think beyond the wall that's what we try to do here is push people to think more about what does that mean when all these cultures came together with prospective did they have on these events. >> homeland security secretary jade johnson and james testified on capitol hill on threats to u.s. bases from isis and other

terrorist groups. they appeared before the house homeland security committee, congressman michael chairs the hearing that the committee on homeland security will come to order. the meeting today is to examine worldwide threats to the security of the homeland of the united states. before we begin today i'd like to remind guests the demonstrations from the audience including the use of signs, t-shirts as well as verbal outbursts are a violation of the rules of the house. i would like to thank our guests for the cooperation and maintaining order and the koran during today's hearing. i now recognize myself for an opening statement. secretary johnson, director,

we've asked you to come before the committee today to discuss the threats facing the homeland and the governments response. the chief concern of ours is a proliferation of terrorist safe havens around the world. the 9/11 commission's number one recommendation was to use all elements of national power to deny sanctuary to terrorists groups yet we have seen safe havens spread with alarming speed in recent years. as. such territory makes it easier for terrorist groups to train, recruit and hatch plots against the west. during this administration no less than three sanctuaries have emerged were expanded in syria, iraq and libya. in afghanistan as the administration goes forward on the plan to withdraw the troops like they did in iraq we might see terrorists reclaiming the territory from which they planned on 9/11.

the most immediate concern is the islamic state of iraq and syria were isis. i agree the group doesn't represent a legitimate state that it is rather a cabal of peddling a perverted brand of islam. however it should never have been taken to the beheading of two americans. our government should never have taken that to pick up the american people to this madness. we've known for many months that it represented but it represented a top threat to the united states but the white house dithered without taking action and the president played down the danger despite the recent strikes against the group isis holds onto thousands of square miles of territory where they were able to operate the terrorist army. estimates indicate they may have up to 30,000 fighters of which

2,000 or so are americans and europeans. these radicalized westerns represent a threat to the u.s. homeland because of the militant training, connections, ease of travel and knowledge of the west. today we expect to hear about the strategy to detect, deter and disrupt the return of these fighters to the territory. our nation is at war with the group and twisted ideology it is seeking to spread. we must consider all instruments of national power to roll back and defeat these and destroy them wherever they emerge for if we do not take the fight to the enemy overseas we risk having to type them here at home. our military effort must include air strikes to cut off the head

of the snake. top military advisers including the chairman of the joint chiefs have said to defeat isis its safe haven must be destroyed. i hope the president is taking the advice of the top commanders and generals in the pentagon. isis isn't the only threat we face and i hope that we hear how the agencies are working together to address the danger for whom the extremism here at home and abroad. the white house has presented a false narrative in recent years about this threat claiming for instance that al qaeda was on its heels on the path to defeat and has been decimated while in reality the al qaeda network has grown and materialized into a deadly global franchise with a spider web of affiliates and ideologically similar groups

filling the middle east, africa and southeast asia. the ideological struggle against violent islamic extremists is taking place not just overseas but also here at home. there've been more than 70 j. hottest plots in the united states since 9/11. according to the congressional research service. more than two thirds of them have been uncovered or have taken place in the past five years. many of the suspects were radicalized at least in part by online islamist propaganda including the boston marathon bombers and the fort hood attacker. additionally, federal authorities indicated or indicted just yesterday the u.s. citizen from rochester for raising money, recruiting and facilitating training through isis. while the united states

continues to battle the threats posed by the terrorist organizations, we must also be vigilant in protecting the homeland against asymmetrical threats like cyber attacks from the states and nonstate actors. president obama noted the cyber threat is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation. many experts believe the nation is woefully underprepared to protect itself in this domain and in a recent report from the bipartisan policy center the former 9/11 commissioners described the u.s. cyber preparedness as being at pre- september 11 levels. last month the secretary said the world is exploding all over. i agree with the secretary's assessment and we look forward to the testimony testimony today surveying the threat landscape and elaborating on how we are countering those set against us and our interests. before i turn it over to the ranking member, i would like to

note that this is the first time that the fbi director has appeared before this committee and we very much appreciate your presence here today. and if i could ask the members to be cordial to have so that we will hopefully have his return appearance before the committee, additionally this is one of the last congressional appearances for the end ctc director matt olson. he announced his retirement. we thank you for your service over the years. 25 years of service to your government, and director we appreciate you being here and everything that you have done to protect americans here at the homeland. it's been an honor to work with you. secretary johnson, you have been on the job at the dhs for nine months. i appreciate your good work and outstanding relationship that we have built over those years and months that you've taken office and i look forward to having you appear before the committee.

again, thank you for your -- if i could say i was in new york yesterday and secretary johnson was leading the governors of new york and new jersey, fbi, the cbp, homeland security officials, joint terrorism task force and is such a professional manner it was really refreshing to see that kind of leadership coming from our department on a very serious topic. thank you for your leadership. the chair recognizes the ranking member mr. thompson. >> thank you mr. chairman. i also thank you for holding this very important hearing. we are also fortunate to have an exceptionally accomplished and knowledgeable panel of witnesses to discuss the current threat picture. secretary johnson, welcome back. you have offered informative and useful testimony before this committee. and i expect today to be no different.

diector, it is a great pleasure to have the bureau participate in today's discussion. as the chairman has said, this is the fbi's maiden voyage before this committee. we look forward to the testimony, and i hope that it will not be your last and we will work on that i am sure, mr. chairman. ..