the hearing will come to order. director wray, appreciate you coming over. try to get you out of here by 1:00. you have an agency to run. we'll do seven minute rounds. if there's cleanup, we'll try to accommodate. briefly, the oversight hearing comes at an important time. even though there's no evidence the russians changed the tally of the 2016 election, i think they exceeded their wildest

expectations in terms of interfering with the 2016 election. i think all of us are interested in what to do to make sure it doesn't happen in 2020. i am very interested in what china is doing, section 2015 authorities are about to expire. i want to hear from the director what that means to the country. we have a fisa warrant investigation coming soon, a problem with media leaks at the fbi. having said all that, it has been a difficult time for the fbi. let's not let a few bad actors taint a great organization. before we start, we appreciate what you do. without their service, this country would be a dangerous place to live in. we'll do everything we can to get the budget deal through, sequestration would be a slap in the face.

>> thanks, very much, mr. chairman. let me reiterate welcome. it is great to see you. slightly more gray than we saw you last time. i guess there's good reason for that. in any event, welcome. it has been nearly two years since you were confirmed to run the fbi and so we have a lot of important topics to cover. i think during this time gloks and rule of law have come under attack. foreign governments have interfered in the united states elections and continue to conduct influence campaigns designed to divide americans on racial, religious, and political lines. the president has declared he has an absolute right to control the justice department, that the executive branch is immune from congressional oversight, and those that disagree with him can go back where they came from.

over the past few years, the president has attacked the fbi, describing the bureau in tweets as corrupt and full of dirty cops. he's also suggested the fbi is part of a deep state, and politically biased against him. it is my view that these claims are false and that they're harmful. they undermine public confidence in the fbi's ability to enforce the law impartially, which you do, internal employee surveys show while morale was high in 2016 under former director comey it is declined in 2017 after the president fired the director and began publicly attacking the bureau. while the president has claimed that the fbi's investigation of his campaign's possible coordination with russia was started illegally, the mueller report confirms that there was a legitimate and lawful reason to

open the investigation. the mueller report explains the fbi started investigation possible coordination between the trump campaign and russia in response to information provided by a foreign government shortly after wikileaks started releasing documents stolen by russia from the dnc. the mueller report further explains in late july, 2016 shortly after wikileaks first started releasing information, stolen by russia from dnc computers, australia told the fbi that months earlier trump campaign adviser george papadopoulos had told australia's top diplomat in britain that russia had dirt on hillary clinton in the form of thousands of emails and that russia had indicated it could help the trump campaign by

releasing the stolen emails to damage candidate clinton. in fact, the mueller report concluded the trump campaign welcomed, encouraged and expected to benefit electorally from russia's efforts. we should be grateful for the work that law enforcement does to stop foreign governments from interfering in united states elections. this is especially true now with another presidential election ahead. we know that russia's efforts are ongoing and that other foreign powers will not hesitate to exploit opportunities to interfere in our elections and democracy. you have warned us, director wray, that russia is, quote, adapting and upping their game, end quote, and have described russia's efforts to meddle in the 2018 midterm elections as a quote dress rehearsal for the

big show in 2020, end quote. you have also stated that quote enormous strides, end quote, have been made since 2016 to protect our elections. i ask you to give us a frank assessment today of how prepared we are, in particular at state and local level to identify and address foreign interference in the 2020 election, and moreover, what needs to be done. threats to the nation from terrorists, from criminals and from foreign governments seeking to steal our seek rest and undermine our elections and floc

democracy are very real. every day, addressing the threats, helping americans be safe. the fbi is not a corrupt institution or the deep state. it is not acting against the president for political purposes. so we need to come together in bipartisan fashion to support you and this institution, even as we conduct important oversight. i am very proud to be supportive of your organization and its mission. i thank you for your leadership. i know it is tough. we look forward to hearing your testimony. thank you, mr. chairman. >> before i turn it over to the director, quick comment on senator feinstein's opening statement. the committee will be looking at the counter intelligence investigation of the trump campaign, we will call papadopoulos and find out what happened. we'll wait on mr. horowitz to do his report about the fisa warrant abuse, but we'll take a

deep dive into the surveillance by the fbi and other organization campaigns, make sure we know what they're doing and protocols are in place going forward to ensure we don't play politics with the law. mr. wray? >> thank you, mr. chairman. ranking member feinstein, members of the committee. >> wait a minute, i apologize. i need to swear you in. [ witness sworn ] >> thank you, mr. chairman, ranking member feinstein and members of the committee for the chance to appear before you today. i originally intended to start with a few comments from my statement for the record which talks about some of the extraordinary work being done by men and women of the fbi and some threats we face. i want to do something different and talk about an issue that's particularly near and dear to me

and that i think frankly doesn't get the attention it deserves, before i turn to many important questions of the committee. as you say, senator feinstein, i have been in the job just under two years. one of the toughest things about this job is the loss of a law enforcement officer. certainly at the fbi we've experienced our share of loss, but the success of the fbi also depends greatly on the support of our dedicated state and local law enforcement partners who patrol our neighborhoods, protect our streets across america. i see that much more clearly now after having visited all 56 of the fbi's field offices, having spoken directly with local law enforcement heads from every one of your states. our state and local partners serve on the fbi's joint terrorism taskforces all across the country, force multipliers in the fight against drug

trafficking, taking down gangs, in saving kids who have been kidnapped and countless other efforts that help keep americans safe. they also give the fbi a much clearer understanding of the threats across the different communities in your states and ideas how to better combat them together. every time i attend an fbi graduation for new agents or new analysts at quantico, a significant number of those graduates are former state and local officers. and i have the privilege of shaking their hands, presenting them with credentials, and welcoming them to the fbi family. so a line of duty death is personal to the fbi, is personal to me as director. i have a feeling it is personal to a number of you. since i became director, shortly thereafter i asked the team to let me know every time an officer is shot and killed in the line of duty in this

country. every time it happens, i ask for a picture of the officer and i read about his or her family and about how long they served. then i pick up the phone and call the chief or the sheriff or the commissioner and on behalf of the entire fbi extend my support and condolences. and i will tell you i made an awful lot of those calls to heartbroken police departments, way, way too many. just last month, for example, i was overseas meeting with foreign counter parts and found myself making five of those calls in nine days back to the united states. that's five lost protecters of communities, five grieving families, and colleagues, all in a matter of days. one of the calls i made was to the sacramento police department, the home of you and senator harris.

just a few weeks ago june 19th, an officer was killed responding to a domestic disturbance. she was 26 years old and only on the job about six months. another call i made literally only a day later was to the home state of senator cornyn and senator cruz, a corporal from mission police department was killed trying to catch a guy who threatened his family with a gun and fled on foot. the corporal was 44 years old, had a wife and two kids. these calls never get any easier and just under two years as director, i already had to make condolence calls like that to more than half the states represented on this committee. and i've had to speak to some chiefs and sheriffs more than once. i'll never forget, for example, last september when i called

brook haven, mississippi police department after two of their men were killed. to put it in context, they had an entire police force of 38 people. unfortunately we had two more officers shot and killed in the line of duty this month, one an officer killed in arkansas this past thursday. so i've mentioned only a few specific tragic incidents, but i cannot stress enough this is a problem that effects cities and towns big and small all over the country. it can happen anywhere, anytime and the level of violence against law enforcement in this country doesn't get a lot of national coverage, and i worry often that americans don't realize the extent of the problem. that's maybe understandable because they don't see what i see in my job, the devastating loss in each one of these instances to loved ones left behind and loss to the fbi and

to our communities, our partners, who as i say are so critical to our mission. finally, i want folks to remember that the dangers of this work go beyond just encounters with potentially deadly criminals. think of line of duty deaths and illnesses that we're seeing now from the 9/11 first responders. i know that as director i have spoken to not one, not two, but three of our own agents that died as a result of their work in response to those attacks, and there are countless other kinds of examples. i know our country faces a daunting list of challenges, i'm confident we'll be discussing any number of them together at the hearing, but i do want to make sure folks around the country are not for gettigeting work of the good people on the line. it takes an incredibly special person to put his or her life on the line for a complete stranger. and to get up every morning, day

after day after day to do that i think is extraordinary. s so i think we owe it to them and their fallen comrades to do whatever we can to promote respect for their roles and all of us as americans owe them a profound debt of gratitude. i appreciate the committee extending me the privilege and honor as fbi director to honor their sacrifice in this job. i'd be happy to answer the committee's questions. >> thank you, director. that's a good sobering reminder what it is like to get up every day and be a police officer, don't know if you're coming home, don't know if the last time you say good-bye to your spouse or children is the last time you see them. every time somebody falls, you give them appropriate honor, a lot of people fall in line of duty and go unnoticed until now.

well done. let's talk about foreign and domestic threats. that's what we're all really about at the fbi. do you have agents in afghanistan? >> we do have a few, yes. >> from your point of view, is the terrorist threats in afghanistan, have they been extinguished to the home land, are the threats alive and well in afghanistan to the american home land? >> we are concerned about developments in afghanistan and potential ramifications for americans both around the world and here at home. >> for the committee, more al qaeda folks than before 9/11. isis k is one of the more legal off shuts of isis and they're in afghanistan as we speak. sequestration. if sequestration goes back into effect, how would it effect your ability to operate? >> i would use the word devastating. you and i know each other well enough to know i don't tend to use a lot of hyperbole.

we at the fbi in a way that's different from some of our other agencies around the government, an awful lot of that money goes straight to personnel costs, our ability to keep people safe would most definitely be severely hampered. >> devastating is an accurate description. section 215. your authorities about to expire. can you tell us about that? >> so under the usa freedom act, there are three provisions that are particularly relevant to the fbi set to expire if we don't collectively act here. the first, perhaps most widely used is the business records provision which we use routinely, almost every day, under court supervision to collect all kinds of business records, many of which would not be available under national security letters, for example. so that's something that we use all the time in our national security work. >> you lost that authority, how

would that effect your ability to operate? >> it would effect counterterrorism mission profoundly. it would effect counter intelligence mission profoundly, and cyber mission profoundly. >> a couple other authorities, so you're hoping for reauthorization, is that your request to the committee? >> certainly these are indispensable tools and i think we would look forward to working with congress to make sure we don't lose the ability to use these tools to keep americans safe. they're all court supervised and subject to extensive oversight. >> i mentioned in opening statement that 2020 election. do you have what you need to provide election security from your lane, from congress, do you have the money and statutory authority you need? >> well, from our lane at the fbi, our focus is the malign foreign influence piece. there's a separate infrastructure election piece

that dhs deals with the states more. we feel we have significant resources devoted to foreign influence piece and the president's budget that's currently before the congress asks for additional resources to help us do that. >> is there any law we need to change that would help you? you don't have to answer now, get back with me. >> we can use more tools in the tool box, at this point i can't think of one on foreign influence. >> get back with me. what are the chinese up to when it comes to counter intelligence operations and bad things? >> mr. chairman, i would say there's no country that poses a more severe counterintelligence threat to the country now than china. >> that's saying a lot. >> that is saying a lot. and i don't say it lightly. >> who would be second? >> probably russia. >> what's the difference between first and second?

>> so china is fighting a generational fight here. when i say china, i want to be clear, this is not about the chinese people as a whole, certainly not about chinese americans in this country. what it is about, though, is about a country that is in a variety of ways through the chinese government and chinese communist party using not just government foigtsds but private sector entities, nontraditional collectors, et cetera, to steal their way up the economic ladder at our expense. we have as we speak probably about a thousand plus investigations, all across the country, involving attempted theft of u.s. intellectual property, whether it is economic espionage, counter proliferation, almost all leading back to china. so it is a threat that's deep and diverse and wide and vexing, whether it is in terms of the kinds of actors that are used,

the kinds of techniques used, the kind of targets that are used, and so we're working extremely hard with all our partners to combat it. but make no mistake, this is a high, high priority for all of us. >> are the russians still trying to interfere in the election system? >> the russians are absolutely intent on trying to interfere with our elections through foreign influence. >> everything we have done against russia has not deterred them enough, all of the sanctions, all of the talk, they're still at it. >> my view is until they stop, they haven't been deterred enough. >> and they're still doing it? >> yes. >> so some of us are concerned about the 2016 election in terms of bias. do you trust mr. horowitz to be fair to the country as a whole when he looks at the fisa warrant process?

>> i have to say all my experience with inspector general horowitz while he can be hard hitting, he is independent, objective, fair, professional, he is thorough. i have no reason to doubt the integrity or quality of the investigation he has under way. >> when it comes to the counterintelligence investigation of the trump campaign, is anybody providing a deep dive to look at what happened there, is that part of mr. horowitz's charter? >> i think i would let inspector general horowitz speak for himself about the scope of his investigation, but as you know, the attorney general is doing a review, commissioned people to do review. i think that's part of his job, part of mine to get some of those questions answered. >> thank you. senator feinstein? >> director, in may 16 women filed a class action lawsuit against the department of justice alleging gender discrimination in fbi academy training programs. you of course know this.

the lawsuit accuses the fbi of intentionally allowing a good old boy network to flourish at the fbi academy which has directly led to subjective training standards by which female trainees are dismissed at a higher rate than their male count counterparts. is this true? what is done to improve hiring and recruitment of female agents and has the fbi reviewed the academy training program? >> so senator, because the matter you refer to is in pending litigation, i'm not going to be able to comment directly on the litigation itself. what i will tell you is that we are firmly committed to diversity as a core value, both gender diversity and other kinds of diversity. i will also tell you that we are making in my view significant strides to improve the diversity

of our work force. in fact -- >> could you be specific? >> sure. the last few basic field training courses are bftc, new agent classes, have significantly higher female representation than the current agent work force. in fact, we have gender diversity recruiting targets for every field office that are pretty aggressive, and the recent classes exceed or are about on par with those targets. so i think we're making a lot of progress. >> could we receive some of that information in writing? >> sure. we would be happy to see what we can provide. >> instead of in general, but i would be interested in some specifics. former mayor went through some of the same issues with police department. >> it is something that is extremely important to our work

at the fbi. i think diversity for me is about our ability to make better decisions. i think we're all more effective when we have a variety of viewpoints. i think it is important to our credibility with the public, and i think it is important as a matter of respect. >> has the fbi reviewed it's -- its academy training programs. >> we are taking a look at what's happening at the academy. >> have you made any changes? >> i am not sure i have changes i can describe now, maybe we can get back to your office with more information about that. >> i would appreciate if you would get back to us with any training programs that assure equal treatment of female candidates and strategies to improve recruitment. i went through this as mayor of san francisco and i know it is painful but i also know it is

right so i would appreciate knowing what's happening. according to special counsel my's report, the fbi embedded personnel with mueller's team whose purpose and this is a quote was to review the results of the investigation and to send in writing summaries of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information to fbi headquarters and fbi field offices, end quote. the mueller report says these summaries contain information that's not included in the mueller report itself. have you reviewed these summaries and information? >> well, senator, i want to be careful not to be discussing the special counsel report, especially when the special counsel himself is going to be testifying at length tomorrow. >> my understanding is they're outside the report per se. >> i would say as the report

itself describes or explains, there have been a number of referrals that have been made to the fbi but beyond that, i don't feel comfortable commenting at this point. >> have you seen any summaries of information? >> i have seen information that's come out of the special counsel's report, just leave it at that. >> what did you see? >> on a variety of issues. >> well, congress hasn't seen them, have they? have we? >> i don't know for sure what different members of congress have seen relative to the subject. >> would you make them available to congress? >> i would be happy to talk with folks. i know we're having engagement with both of the intelligence committees. i can see where things stand in terms of information sharing that may be relevant to the topic. >> i would make that request. >> okay. >> the mueller investigation confirmed that paul manafort, trump's campaign manager, spent several years working for ole

egg dare pos ka, russian oligarch, kwoesly aligned by vladimir putin, in the mueller report. and mueller uncovered during the presidential campaign manafort provided daraposka private briefings, end quote. manafort funneled internal campaign strategy, polling, messaging for the battleground states of michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, and minnesota to daraposka. volume one of the mueller report. finally, manafort told special counsel mueller that, quote, if trump won, daraposka would want to use manafort to advance whatever interests daraposka had in the united states and elsewhere. question. did the fbi assess the impact of manafort providing this specific and significant campaign

information to russian intelligence? >> well, senator, there was an awful amount of work done by a huge team of professionals that resulted in a 450 something page report, and i really want to be careful not to be trying to add my own gloss or layering on top of that, especially with special counsel mueller testifying tomorrow. so i'm going to leave it at that for now. >> all right. and i would ask for a confidential briefing then on this subject. you can say yes or no, but i will request it. did the fbi determine whether any of this information ended up in the hands of the ira? >> there's really nothing i can say on that subject here, senator. >> okay. all right. my time is almost up.

i'm going to leave it at that. thank you. >> senator lee. >> thank you very much, and thank you for being here, mr. wray. tell me what the biggest change you've experienced has been since you've taken your current position. >> well, i appreciate the fact that increasingly i find as i made my way from one corner of the country to another visiting all of the field offices, meeting with law enforcement in every state, community partners in every state, private sector partners in every state that increasingly out in the rest of america, people are recognizing that the fbi has had more than two investigations over the last few years. >> right. in may, attorney general barr noted that to the extent there was overreach in connection with the 2016 election, it seems to

have been a few people at the top getting it into their heads that they know better than the american people. we know what happened in part because we've seen text messages between fbi investigators that show strong bias against then candidate donald trump. these texts suggest agents saw the purpose of the investigation as being very specific, that is to stop donald trump from becoming president of the united states. given the fbi's immense investigating power, these reports i am sure you would agree are troubling, and it has been an ongoing concern that the bureau's history has been one that has involved deliberate and through most of its history i think successful effort to make sure its reputation precedes it, to make sure that it stays out of politics and that it sticks

to down the line law enforcement. i understand you've made some personnel changes in response to what happened in 2016. tell me what else you're doing, are there internal practices and procedures you can change or implement to make sure the fbi uses its power appropriately and to make sure things like this don't happen? >> thank you, senator. i welcome the question. i would say a couple things. first, one of the primary messages i have tried to impart to every fbi audience everywhere i go is that our reputation as an agency i think revolves less around wins and victories and successes over 111 years and more on the way in which we accomplished those wins. when we made mistakes, over 111 years we made our share of mistakes, the key is whether we learn from them. we need to be in position with every investigation, every intelligence analysis, that we

can say when we get criticized, when somebody is not happy with the result of it, and there's always somebody that's not happy, we need to be able to say i get it. you may not like where it ended up, but you can't challenge the integrity, objectivity and professionalism how we got there. as you say, i made personnel changes, i turned over essentially the entire leadership team. second, we put in place a number of new policies. third, i did a full day of training for starting at the top on the theory that the cone starts at the top. i brought all of the scs work force around the world to quantico, had the inspector general office, judges, trying to remind everybody it is not just objectivity in what we do but the appearance of objectivity in what we do that's so important. i will say, i will say that while we have certainly as i said had mistakes and taken

appropriate disciplinary action when that has occurred, that my experience with the fbi and i say that i think with a pretty informed basis now is that it is full top to bottom of hard working professionals of the highest integrity, incredible commitment to service over self, and i'm proud every day to work with them. >> thank you. is the fbi or administration as a whole having a position on reauthorization of expiring authorities under the usa freedom act? >> i don't think the administration has taken an official position, although as i said to chairman graham, there are three provisions in particular that are keenly relevant to the fbi that at least my experience has been are relatively noncontroversial, extremely important to our work, and all subject to court supervision. those are the business records provision that we talked about,

the roving wire tap provision, which is essentially equivalent to what already exists under title 3 on the criminal side, and the lone wolf provision, which although it has not been used yet, that's more because we have chosen to use other tools where we can and the way the counterterrorism threat is evolving, we predict the next few years, lone wolf provision will be more important. we would hate to see it disappear. >> collection of call detail records or cdrs is authorized by section 215 of the patriot act and subsequently mod figified be freedom act has been subject to scrutiny after it was reported or after the nsa publicly reported that in june of 2018 it was deleting three years' of cdr records due to what they referred to as technical irregularities in the data provided to the nsa from the

telecommunications providers, leading to receipt of certain cdrs that nsa, quote, was not authorized to receive. in march of this year, the "new york times" and "the wall street journal" both reported the nsa shut down the entire cdr collection program in 2018 and was considering ending the program entirely. what's the current status of the cdr program? >> senator, as you alluded to in your question, that's really an nsa authority. i would defer to them for the lalte la latest and greatest on that. >> do you think abuse of that, impropriety of its collection has to be something we take into account in deciding whether or in what way to reauthorize these programs? >> certainly i think the

congress should make a thoughtful decision about reauthorization of any of the provisions in the usa freedom act, and i think questions of errors or irregularities or abuses are appropriate for congress to take into account, but the specifics about the cdr program i'm going to defer to nsa on. three provisions i listed are the ones the fbi is most focused on. >> thank you. senator durbin. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. wray, welcome. i would like to ask you a question. do you know what group was responsible for more homicides from 2000 to 2016 more than any other domestic extremist group? >> not sure, but i trust you're about to tell me. >> not a trick question. i raise the question because

your testimony that was submitted to the committee talked a lot about home grown violent extremists. in an unclassified fbi dhs joint intelligence bulletin may 2017 found white supremacist extremism poses persistent threat of lethal violence. went on to say white supremacists are responsible for more homicides from 2000 to 2016 than any other domestic extremist movement. seven members joined me writing a letter to you and attorney general barr explaining our concern about whether the fbi and department of justice were taking adequate measures to combat white supremacist violence and minimizing the domestic terrorism threat. the term white supremacist, white nationalist is not included in your statement to the committee when you talk about threats to america. there's a reference to racism which i think probably was meant to include that, but nothing more specific.

we live in a world where the neo-nazis and white supremacists are taking lives in many places. white supremacists murdered 51 worshippers in new zealand. 2017, white supremacist murdered in canada. perpetrated shootings at the temple in observing creek, wisconsin, emanuel methodist church in charleston, south carolina, the tree of life synagogue in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, and sha bod of pawway in california. the reason i raise this, there's concern that this is not taken as seriously as it should be as one of the real threats in our country. and concern that the fbi has changed its definition when it comes to race related crimes.

created a new category what you term racially motivated violent extremism. it used to be white supremacist incidents. could you explain why there was this change, whether you consider this a serious threat, and what you're doing about it? i ask you this in the context of a national conversation that's taking place every single day under this presidency about the issue of race and incitements to motion and violence by people using race as motivator. >> senator, let me unpack the question a little bit. needless to say, we take domestic terrorism or hate crime regardless of ideology extremely seriously, i can assure you. and we are aggressively pursuing it using both counterterrorism resources and criminal investigative resources, and partnering closely with our

state and local partners. in just the last little while we had cases involving, for example, the coast guard lieutenant who was planning an attack on elected officials and tv anchors in this area. >> was that motivated by a white supremacist belief? >> i think it would be a version of that, certainly. our focus, you asked about categorization, our focus is on the violence. we, the fbi, don't investigate ideology, no matter how repugnant. we investigate violence. any extremist ideology when it turns to violence, we're all over it. and we've had in fact, you don't have to just take my word for it, just in the first three quarters of this year, we had more domestic terrorism arrests than the prior year, and about the same number of arrests on the international terrorism side. >> ask you to clarify that. i don't know if we're talking

about the same thing. when you talk about home grown violent extremists, i talk about domestic violence extremists, are we talking about the same thing? >> no. so we used the term home grown violent extremism to refer to people already here in the united states who are inspired by different parts of the global jihadist movement to commit terrorist acts. we use domestic terrorism to refer to a broader array of threats ranging from anarchist extremism to different kinds of environmental extremism. >> so the point i am getting to, the reason i quoted the unclassified report, if it is violence that motivates the fbi investigation, what we have here is a statement in this unclassified joint intelligence report that between the years 2000 and 2016, the white

supremacists were responsible for more homicides than any other domestic extremism movement. i see the distinction you're making, home grown versus domestic, but let me ask you, can you quantify either one of them for us? >> well, in terms of number of arrests, we have through the third quarter of this fiscal year had about give or take 100 arrests in the international terrorism side, which includes home grown violent extremism. >> this year. >> this year. but we also had just about the same number again, don't quote me to the exact digit, on the domestic terrorism side, and i will say that a majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence, but includes other things as

well. >> i think this is significant. i do not want to diminish the work you're doing when it comes to home grown economies terrorism any way whatsoever, not at all. i understand that is a serious threat to the united states, and 9/11 is proof positive of that. what you said is significant. if the number of people arrested this calendar year when it comes to the extremist conduct is about equal between those inspired by foreign actors, isis, al qaeda, whatever it might be, and those inspired by white supremacy or some version of race, if that's the way i heard you say it, please clarify. >> what i gave you were the number of arrests. the number of arrests. that's not necessarily the same thing as number of investigations. that's an important distinction. >> the fact that they would make an arrest, it is with the belief a crime has been committed. the point i am getting to, we are in a tense moment in

american history on the issue of race. we're having a national conversation that we haven't had in a long time about racism and reaction, what's acceptable and what is not. and what i'm asking you from the fbi point of view, and what you've told me is we ought to take care, as seriously as we take foreign-inspired terrorism, there is a domestic terrorism under way in the name of race that is as threatening in some respects as the foreign terrorism. that's the way i hear it. >> yeah, i don't know that -- i think the greatest terrorist threat to the homeland is the homegrown violent extremist. i will say -- >> foreign inspired. you say -- >> jihadist inspired violence. that does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that we don't take domestic terrorism, including hate crime committed on behalf of some kind of white supremacist ideology extremely seriously. and we've had a number of very significant arrests. i mentioned the coast guard one.

we had militia members in cleveland stockpiling explosives to build pipe bombs. the case involving the package ied. we had the rise above movement where we arrested eight different people on federal rioting charges. one of them fled to el salvador and we got him back. we had the tree of life synagogue shooting case which you mentioned and the shooting outside san diego, the attack in the synagogue there. we got 29-count conviction and life sentence related to the charlottesville matter. make no mistake. the fbi work with our state and local law enforcement partners is all over this. >> thank you very much. senator cornyn? >> thank you for opening your remarks with your tribute to local, state and federal law enforcement officers. it's really important for all of unot just the professional law enforcement officers you represent but to the entire

nation to acknowledge and honor these heroes for their service and sacrifice. so thank you for that. you may be interested to know that this friday it will be my honor to deliver the congressional badge of bravery to a group of houston fbi agents for their work during hurricane harvey, which was particularly significant event in my state. and so on their behalf, let me thank you and all of the rank and file fbi agents that do such a great job every day. you'll recall that on november the 5th, 2017, devon patrick kelly killed 26 worshipers at a little baptist church outside of san antonio in sutherland springs. he injured 20 more people. devastating that community as we could imagine. we found out that mr. kelly was a convicted felon. he had a record of being detained for mental health reasons.

he had been convicted of domestic violence. actually even fracturing his stepson's skull during one particular episode. he should never have been able to purchase firearms through a licensed firearm dealer because you would have -- should have failed a background check. but he did what we find is unfortunately not entirely uncommon. he lied and then he bought these weapons he used to commit this terrible tragedy event. so congress passed a piece of legislation, as you know, called fix the national instant background check system to try to encourage federal agencies to provide records of people who were already legally disqualified under federal law and that background check system is maintained by the fbi. could you give us a update on

what the impact has been, just in general terms? >> well, i certainly, senator, i agree with you that the nics system only works at its best when we have complete information that ensures the goal we all share of making sure that people who are legally prohibited from possessing firearms don't get their hands on them. last year, i think the nics system had, i think, 100,000-plus or thereabouts denials. and certainly we're seeing progress in terms of the agencies that had not supplied records starting to do that. i don't have the exact percentage to how far along we are, but we're certainly making progress, and we appreciate your leadership in ensuring that we move in that direction. >> would you agree with me that in all probability, congress' response to that terrible tragedy in sutherland springs by

reforming the fix nics, the background check system, has probably saved lives? >> i do think so. i do think so. >> director wray, i was in austin, texas, with senator warren and senator burr at a program hosted by tech net for the technology community there in austin, which is, as you know, robust and growing. bill prestapp at the time head of the counterintelligence division at the fbi made a comment about the china threat. i think it was an eye-opening presentation for a lot of the folks who were there. one i remember in particular said he thought that once the united states issued a visa to somebody that they had performed a security background check on that person and were not a throw

the the united states national security. mr. prestep made the point that in the old days, it was spy versus spy, but now it's spy versus a whole host of unconventional and informal collectors. i know the fbi has done its best to try to spread that word, but can you tell me sort of what your record has been in doing that and whether you think that there's more that needs to be done by congress or -- i know the fbi has its hands full. it can't necessarily go around and make presentations like this all across the country while trying to keep the bad guys off the streets. but is there more that we need to do to supplement the efforts of the fbi to educate the american people on this threat? >> well, i will say when it comes to congress' role, i have -- despite the bitterly polarized political environment that we all live in right now, i have actually been heartened by, on this particular issue, every

time i appear in front of a committee of congress from one end of the spectrum to the other, compared to earlier stamgs in my career in law enforcement, the level of alignment and consensus about the importance of confronting this threat in a more thoughtful and effective way, i think, is source for cheer. the more congress can raise awareness, the more we can appropriately protect the country. i will say that there's a lot that people i think in this country don't understand about the nature of the china threat. it is not just, as you say, spy versus spy, traditional intelligence operatives. there are a slew of what we call nontraditional collectors. businessmen, scientists, high-level academics, graduate students, et cetera. people who are not intelligence officers by profession but who are, for a variety of reasons, working on behalf of the chinese

government. and i think sometimes people don't understand the degree to which lines that we all revere and cherish in this country are blurred if not entirely eliminated in china. the difference between the chinese government and the chinese communist party, not really a difference. the difference between the chinese government and its private sector is not really different. so why do i say that? i say that because, under chinese law, most companies in china are either already literally state-owned enterprises. so essentially just an arm of the state for that reason, or legally or practically beholden to the chinese communist party. different aspects of chinese law require those companies to basically provide whatever information the chinese government or the chinese communist party wants. essentially upon demand. and i think a lot of people don't understand this fact. virtually any company from china of any size is required to have

inside it a chinese communist party cell or committee to ensure that the company adheres to the chinese communist party policies. so when those folks are out trying to, through legitimate means or illegitimate means, steal intellectual property, that's what we're talking about. it's a counterintelligence threat. and we have in the last several months had a whole variety of cases. hackers associated with the chinese mss who were engaged in an extensive pam cacampaign of intrusions against companies, different states. we had an mms officer who has been charged in ohio who has been trying to steal aviation secrets from companies there. different chinese mss officers, an spire team of hackers that were involved in a five-year campaign of repeated intrusions. we had a chinese state-owned enterprise which, along with a

couple of individuals is trying to steal trade secrets from a company in idaho. we had a guy in chicago, senator durbin, who was work with the mss to recruit employees of clear defense contractors. we had a guy in oklahoma who was stealing over a billion dollars of confidential proprietary information from a u.s. energy company. we had, of course, i haven't even gotten to the huawei case where they were charged literally from coast to coast with a campaign of fraud, intellectual property theft and obstruction of justice. i could go on and on. it affects basically every industry in this country and agriculture. it affects the private sector, academia. it affects -- it involves human operations. it involves cyberoperations. to be clear, we welcome competition. we welcome academic freedom. but cheating, not okay. fraud, not okay. cyberhacking, not okay. and as long as they keep

committing crimes and threatening our national security, they are going to keep encountering the fbi. >> thank you. other than that, are we in pretty good shape with china? senator whitehouse? >> thank you, chairman. thank you, director wray. i'd like to take you back to the fbi's role in the kavanaugh background investigation, if i may. there were two letters that were sent to you by law firms in that time frame. one pointed out that the federal bureau of investigation, i'm quoting, declined to interview witnesses whose names we provided to the fbi as possessing information highly relevant to the allegations. and the other referenced agents meeting with a witness whose counsel then, kwoerkts provided the fbi with a list of more than 20 additional witnesses likely to have relevant information, and that letter attached an affidavit from a very apparently

credible person who had been at college at the time. currently an emergency room physician, so on and so forth and there was no follow up on that either. i'd like to ask those two letters to be made a part of the record. we also experienced on this committee considerable difficulty in finding out where the point of entry would be to the fbi for information. i've been a u.s. attorney. i work closely with the fbi as a rhode island attorney general. i have never known the fbi to be fending off information before. so this was a very novel and peculiar circumstance in which witnesses weren't being interviewed and in which when we asked to find out where the point of entry was for information, there was none apparently. you were asked to provide committee confidential contact information, foreign fbi agent, to whom members can send credible contacts regarding individuals seeking to be interviewed. did that ever happen?

>> well, senator, i don't remember all the specifics of that particular background investigation, but what i will say, you referenced your prior experience as u.s. attorney and, of course, we've talked about that before. i think it's important for people to understand that there's a fundamental difference between a background investigation and the kinds of criminal investigations or even counterintelligence investigations the fbi does every day. >> yes. >> a background investigation is something that we do in a completely different way as an investigative service provider to a client agency. in this case, it would have been the white house. and i have -- >> as you testified to senator harris in the homeland security committee, our supplemental update to the previous background investigation was limited in scope and it was limited in scope by the white house. that's correct? >> i also testified -- i did testify to that. and i stand by that testimony. i would also say, though, i also testified that i consulted at

length with our security professionals who are specialists in background investigations to make sure that that investigation, that background investigation, was done consistent with our longstanding policies, practices and procedures for background investigations where the scope -- it's not unusual for the scope to be limited. here's my hypothesis. you don't recall whether you responded to this letter by seeing to it that there was an fbi agent to whom members could send credible contacts. i don't believe there was, because i was trying to vector information to the right place and every door we turned to closed or said, no go to that door and then that door closed or said, no, go to that door. the ultimate up shot it seemed to me was that the fbi established a tip line. and if people wanted to bring in information, they were told to call into the tip line. now i've tried to find out what

the protocol is for dealing with tip lines. and i would ask that, as a question for the record, you provide me whatever is relevant to the standard operating procedure and practice for the fbi with respect to the treatment of tip line information when it comes in. would you be willing to do that? >> i'd be happy to provide you more information about tip lines. >> thank you. what i did find was an fbi video that describes how tip lines work. when it comes in through the fbi.gov interface. the first step it says is that it comes into the public access center unit fbi headquarters. analysts will vet them. they'll review them for believability, credibility, check extern aal databases to ensure it is a valid tip. can you assure those are undertaken with respect to the kavanaugh background investigation tip line? >> what i can tell you, senator,

is that i spoke specifically with the people responsible for the background investigation who are career professionals, specializing in background investigations, not to be confused with criminal investigations or counterintelligence investigations. and i was assured repeatedly that they felt comfortable that the way it was being handled was consistent with our practices, procedures and longstanding -- >> there had been a tip line before in a background invest, had there? >> i don't know the answer. >> i don't think there was. it's hard to say it's consistent with procedures. here's what the procedures apparently are. another one is every single one is looked at by two individuals who have independent quality assurance checks. do you know if that procedure was followed with respect to the kavanaugh investigation tip line? >> well, senator, i would again come back to the answer i gave which is i expect the background investigations, which are different, fundamentally different from criminal investigations and counterintelligence investigations -- >> you don't know -- >> were being conducted in a way

that the professionals who specialize in this area felt comfortable. >> but you don't know whether or not the tip line procedures were followed -- >> i don't have the document in front of me that you're talking about. >> once a tip is determined to have further merit, a supervisor would review the tip and, at that point, it get s vectored into electronic systems for further processing. i guess if you aren't familiar with whether that supervisory step took place either? >> what i am sure of is the assurances that -- >> i heard that. i'm just trying to ask something more specific. and the last is every single piece of information that's submitted by an individual or reviewed by personnel at fbi headquarters. you can't vouch for that having taken place? >> i can't speak to that specifically. >> here's my concern, and i'll be candid about it and you can answer however you want questions for the record to allay my concerns. it looked like every time

someone went to get an fbi agent to get information, they got fended off and the tip line became a tip dump into which information was dumped and never, ever reviewed for credibility and was not treated with the protocol that the fbi has announced that it usually handled with tip lines. i'm happy to continue this conversation. my time is up right now. but, please, i think that's a legitimate question to ask, and i hope that in answers for the record you'll be able to compare the protocols that the fbi uses for tip lines with the way in which this particular tip line was handled by the fbi. and i do understand that you treat these differently and that they don't follow ordinary procedure. but ordinary procedures are fairly reasonable benchmark and i'm interested in finding out how close you came -- how close the fbi came to it in this particular tip line. >> i would be happy to see if we can provide you more information

as follow-up to your questions. i would say that ordinary procedure to use your phrase, there's ordinary procedure for criminal investigations and counterintelligence investigations, ordinary procedure for background investigations is something different in my view. >> couldn't agree with you more. and once we agree on what the facts are of what took place we can have a discussion of whether that met standards of basic responsibility. thank you. >> senator sasse. >> thank you. director wray, thanks for being here. i'd like to talk about human trafficking. one of the great scourges of our time. there are more slaves on earth now than at any point in human history. thank you for the work of the bureau in the jeffrey epstein case. that monster is in the process of being brought to justice, and your agents have done good work in that regard. let's zoom back out to the bigger picture. when is it appropriate for trafficking cases to be investigated by state and local and highway patrol versus the bureau?

how do you divide the responsibilities? >> well, as a general rule, we take the approach with human trafficking that we do with most threats where there's overlapping responsibility, which is we look at where we at the fbi can most add value to the common fight against whatever the threat is. and so in the case of human trafficking, we probably spend more of our efforts on the fbi side focused on sex trafficking and sex trafficking of kids than, for example, on labor trafficking of adults. doesn't mean we don't investigate the others but we try to work with other agencies to share the load. where we think we can most add value is on going after those who traffic kids for sex. and we have extensive investigations. in fact, just this month, ongoing, we have something call "operation independence day" and

i think at last count we had already rescued something like -- rescued or recovered about 40 kids just this month. it's ongoing. it will end at the end of the month. part of the reason i make that distinction is because there are skill sets we can provide and offer that are unique and relevant to child victims. there are authorities we have that help us investigate more thoroughly some of the online effectiveness that some of the traffickers have. and so those are some of the ways we contribute uniquely, but it's very much a common fight. we have task forces all over the country. i think about 85 child exploitation and human trafficking tax forces that work -- that have partners. and i mentioned in my opening statement how much we rely on state and local law enforcement.

they are on the task forces all over the country. we try to go at it together. >> there are great task forces in the bureau and at state and local levels as well. the nebraska attorney general doug peterson stood up a task force that's impressive. creighton university in omaha has a bunch of researchers that have the moving of brothels that have kids in them and average brothel size that they've studied often has 3 to 5 kids. they've moved around, connected to sporting events. praising the work because there's clearly new focus at the bureau on this. this is not retrospective critical. but forward looking, i'm skeptical we have nearly enough resources on this problem when we know tens of thousands of kids are marketed online any given month. and a lot of these brothels of 3 to 5 kids move, they are crossing state lines. do you think we have enough resources in the bureau dedicated to child sex trafficking? >> well, we're devoting a lot of resources to it. but i will tell you that any

additional resources congress would see fit to give us i can assure you will be put to good use. it's absolutely horrifying that in the 21st century, this kind of activity can happen in our country. it's borderline medieval. and some of these kids are just heartbreakingly young and utterly helpless. and so the more resources we can bring to the fight on the federal side and state and local law enforcement, but also why work closely with ngos and various other forms of organizations to help try to prevent some of this activity. a big role for awareness raising from a financial perspective. on the one hand i'm thrilled when we recover a child. on the other hand, i'm a realist and heartbroken because i know that kid will never be the same.

>> there's a lot of estimates that somewhere around a majority -- we don't use the term child prostitution anymore because it's not a crime that has consent in it so we use the term child rape. but of the broad category, the assumption is a broad majority of prostitution in the u.s. involves people under 21, and of those over 21, some large share of them were trafficked into this before they were 21. so we call it medieval, but it does seem like it's a particularly pernicious modern scourge because the numbers seem greater now than at any point in history. do we have a national strategy to combat it, and if so, who is in charge of it? >> well, i know we work very collaboratively with a whole host of other agencies in the federal government, for example. ranging from the department of labor to the department of state because there's a huge role there to department of health and human services. i remember specific meetings

with other cabinet secretaries specifically focused on human trafficking. it's clearly a multidisciplinary problem requiring a multidisciplinary approach and that's what the administration is bringing to it. >> i want to set up a set of questions for you that i'll follow up with you later on and/or for the record. but following on your answers to senator cornyn about ip theft and our counterintelligence efforts against the chinese in the u.s. and the places where there is so much intellectual property being stolen, if you were able to give the elevator pitch to a bunch of folks in silicon valley about what the chinese strategy is when they deal with them. senator cornyn used the example of those of who on the intelligence committee who had conversations with tech ceos who believe people are given visas into the u.s. they've already been vetted. obviously, that's not the case and these are regular assets of the chinese government. i appreciate the distinctions you wanted to collapse between chinese nominally, private

sector institutions and the government and the distinction between the government and communist party as being distinctions regularly without a difference. if you were explaining your elevator pitch to silicon valley ceos when they are approached by chinese investors, and by chinese computer scientists, what's the shorthand of the way you'd try to put them on notice about how ip theft is organized from beijing? >> you can look at the various five-year plans chinese have for technologies that they're seeking to achieve dominant in and then look at some of the cases we brought which raise awareness and what you know is either through lawful means, joint ventures, foreign investment, or in some cases just out and out criminal means. ip theft, cyberintrusions, et cetera, they are determined to push themselves up the economic ladder at other people's expense

at the u.s. and our partners' expense. and so i think anybody, whether it's in silicon valley start-up or fortune 100 company, needs to be clear eyed and thoughtful about who they get into business with because the road is long with victims of this. and a lot of those companies wish they could get it back. there's a company i remember in massachusetts that went down this road and then saw, once they had gotten too far in, saw its stock drop 40-something percent in one day because once they were finished with them, they moved on. it doesn't mean we shouldn't do business with the chinese or have chinese visitors. it shouldn't mean we shouldn't try to co-exist with china as a country on the world stage. but it does mean that there are certain kinds of behavior that violates criminal laws. and we're not going to tolerate it. and it doesn't matter whether it's chinese or anybody else.

we're going to hold people accountable and i don't really care what some foreign government has to say about it. >> senator klobuchar? >> director wray you've said interference in the 2016 presidential election and what we just saw in 2018 in terms of the work that was done was a dress rehearsal for the big show of the 2020 elections. we've had a briefing on this. we know that special counsel mueller made clear how the russians interfered in the 2016 election. in his report, in his words in a sweeping and systematic fashion. i have made clear that i disagree with how the president has handled this in his meetings with vladimir putin where he's made jokes about it. just recently at the g20 where he said he sided with him over his own intelligence. i'm not going to ask you about that, but i'm going to ask if

you have previously briefed the president about -- if you personally briefed the president about these threats. >> we have had a number of meetings with others in the national security counsel to include the president that deal with russian efforts to interfere with, say, the midterms and going forward and things we're doing going forward. were you aware of the report where it said that former director nielsen had been told by officials in the white house to not brief the president on it because it wasn't a good idea for her to do that? >> not beyond what i saw in the press coverage that you just mentioned. >> okay. so i am -- i look at how we solve things, and one of the ways i think it would be helpful to solve this is if there was an intrusion in our election. i heard you talk about how there's two different ways to look at this. one is the physical hacking. and one is the propaganda. and so one of the things that

would be helpful is to have backup paper ballots and audit in case that hacking occurs. do you think that would be helpful for our democracy? >> well, as you know, senator, i think the responsibility for election infrastructure, things like paper ballots, is more in the lane of dhs and its interaction with state and local officials in the election space. my limited understanding in that space is paper ballots would be a good thing and seems redundancy would be in everybody's interest in this -- such an important space for the country. >> i appreciate that. and then secondly, on propaganda issues and particularly purchased ads, as you know last time russia purchased ads with rubles, do you think it would be helpful to know what those ads are in this next upcoming election, whether they are paid for by russia or china or by any outside group to know what they are and who paid for them?

>> well, we certainly are trying to take a number of steps to raise awareness and working with private sector entities which provide platforms for different forms of foreign influence messaging whether it's propaganda, fake news or something else. >> wouldn't it just be helpful to know the facts? >> i tend to believe that more information is better than less. and i tend to believe that the american public will be better hardened against this threat with greater media literacy and resilience. >> okay. thank you. i just want to point out one bill with senator graham which would force those companies to actually the social media company, put out who paid for the ads and what they are. we don't have a patchwork system when it comes to next election and senator langford and i had the secure elections initiative who would have required paper

ballot backups if anyone gets financial money. the second bill was stopped in its tracks by the white house and it very much alarms me. i want to follow up on what senator durbin was asking about, and i want to just focus, not on the home-grown terrorism, which we've seen some of in minnesota. i'm well aware of the fbi's work on that front. and i also want to thank you on the other end of the bombing at the mosque where your agents were helpful and helped solve that crime. and why do you think there's been this increase in the number of hate crimes. i'm talking about the home-grown terrorism. i'm talking about the hate crimes. >> when it comes to the subject of hate crimes, we are seeing an increase in the reporting of hate crimes. we know, i think, fairly widely, i think accepted in the law enforcement community that hate crimes are historically underreported. whether the uptick in reporting is because of an up tick in hate

crime occurrence or whether an up tick in agencies that now understand the importance of reporting it, a little harder to tell. we have been doing a lot at the fbi. we've done hundreds of seminars, workshops, trainings, of state and local law enforcement across the country, community groups to try to raise awareness to increase the reporting. so i think it's a positive sign on the one hand that there's more reporting. hard to say whether it -- >> also more hate crimes. i see. so like many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, we were very concerned and deeply disturbed by the president's tweets, the chants at the rallies about the four congresswomen. and i was particularly concerned because one of those congresswomen is in my state, and she was particularly singled out. she had already, thanks to the good work of your agents and local law enforcement, someone who had made a serious threat against her in the past, had been arrested and sent to jail. and i'm not going to ask you if

these four women or particularly congresswoman omar has sought protection. i don't think that would be appropriate, but can you tell me what type of assistance the fbi offers members of congress who are subject to these threats and what's the efforts under way to track these kind of threats? >> any time someone, including a member of congress, is the subject of a threat, we hope that they will come forward. we want to try to communicate with them. if there's enough predication for an investigation, we'll open an investigation. we'll work with security here up on the hill itself sometimes to try to see if we can be of assistance. as far as tracking goes, we have a variety of ways of tracking investigations. i don't know that i have anything specific to at least sitting here right now that's

narrowly tailored to threats to members of congress, but i'm sure we're keeping track of it in a variety of ways. >> okay. just last on the subject of guns, i appreciate it and share your deep respect for those families and those officers that put themselves, made the ultimate sacrifice. but most of the examples involve guns. and senator cornyn asked the question about the background check system. but there's so much more we can do like closing the gun show loophole and here in congress passing the bill that we had, the bipartisan bill to improve background checks. and then also specifically one of your examples was about domestic violence and domestic violence report that an officer went to the scene and got killed. we had a similar one like this in minnesota. and right now in the violence against women act that passed the house with 33 republican votes is a provision that i have long worked on with senator hirono and others that closes

the gun show loop. the boyfriend loophole. and if this is where an existing law right now, if you live with someone or you're married to them and you've been convicted of domestic violence and you can't go out and get a gun. but half of those domestic homicideses are involving boyfriends or sometimes girlfriends and there's a loophole that says it doesn't apply if you are convicted and can't go out and get a gun if you're convicted of domestic violence against the boyfriend. do you think it would be helpful to close that loophold? >> i haven't reviewed the particular legislation. i would need to be able to take a look at it to give you a sense from an operational perspective. >> i just -- do you agree that there's more we could do besides just the questions from senator cornyn when it comes to making the world safer for our law enforcement with regard to guns? >> well, we're always looking for ways to enhance the nics system, consistent with the law. and i think we clearly need, as i said at the beginning, to take a harder look at violence

against law enforcement in this country in a variety of ways. >> all right. thank you. >> senator cruz? >> thank you, mr. chairman, director wray. welcome. thank you for your service. let me start by thanking you for your opening statement. it was a powerful testament to the men and women of law enforcement who serve on the front lines. like you, i have spent far too much time with grieving families of the men and women in blue who have lost their lives protecting us, keeping us safe. theirs is a difficult job. it's a job -- i think we are all obliged to take the time to appreciate, to say thank you. and i appreciate -- i encourage folks to listen to your opening statement because it was a powerful reminder that every single day an officer wakes up and puts on his or her uniform and straps on his or her gun and kisses his wife or her husband

good-bye for the morning. they may not see their kids again. and thank you for the work the fbi is doing to keep our officers safe and the obligation all of us have to continue to keep officers safe. i want to start with a topic that has been discussed some already this morning, which is chinese espionage. you have described the threat of china as unique and the most significant that we are facing. and your testimony said that the united states significantly underestimates the threat of chinese economic espionage. what avenues are we seeing where chinese economic espionage is manifesting? >> so certainly it covers the waterfront in terms of sectors from start-ups, high tech companies to aerospace, aviation, to agriculture. we had, you know, a case in

kansas not that long ago where they were attempting to steal, you know, highly proprietary rice seeds being developed. the u.s. agriculture is the envy of the world. and that's a place where they have done a number of things. so it covers the whole spectrum of types of sectors but then in terms of size of businesses, it's a fortune 100 companies down to start-ups in silicon valley. and then in terms of types of techniques, it involves everything from cyber intrusions to corruption of insiders. two things that are not illegal but are still a national security threat. different kinds of foreign investment, et cetera. so there is -- it's kind of an all-tools approach by them, and it, therefore, requires an all tools approach by us. >> one sector in particular that i've been concerned about is the academic sector. and our colleges and universities. i've met with quite a few

colleges and universities, research institutions based in the state of texas. some of which have been victims of attempted or completed chinese espionage. and one concern that i have, particularly in the academic sector is their leaders tend to be in some instances less aware of the scope of the threat and less sophisticated and savvy than some in, say, the fortune 100 world in terms of means of defending against espionage and theft of intellectual property. to what extent do you see chinese espionage in the academic world as a problem and what more should we be doing about it? >> so i'm glad you raised it. i, too, share your concerns in that space. we -- there's a number of things that are going on there. one is that the chinese government, the chinese communist party have a number of so-called talent plans. you hear about the thousand

talent plans. and there's nothing inherently unlawful about the talent plans themselves. however -- however, we have seen through lots of investigations abuse of those talent plans. and essentially that we have situations where we have -- it's created a pipeline in some cases at major universities, especially at the graduate level, more so than at the undergraduate level of key intellectual property. sometimes it has dual use potential flowing back to china for the advancement of its various strategic plans. and the irony is that the u.s. is essentially funding that economic resurgence through various money that it provides to -- through grants, et cetera. so we have to be careful that we don't find ourselves in a situation where essentially u.s. taxpayer money is being misappropriated for the advancement of china's

achievement of economic dominance over us. there are a lot of cases where those plans become violations of u.s. law or at the very least violate noncompetes and things like that that might exist. and i think universities need to be more and more aware of who it is they're inviting over and what safeguards they can put in place. one thing the fbi is trying to do a lot of, and we had very good work with texas a&m recently to try to raise awareness in the university space so that, again, we're not requiring universities to do anything. that's not the fbi's role. we're trying to raise awareness so they can make thoughtful, voluntary decisions that are not just in the country's best interest but i would argue in the best interest of their own academic research. >> so i agree with you and look forward to our continuing to work with you to both protect our universities but also to ensure against espionage of

intellectual property. let me turn to a final topic, which is an area of concern for me, which is the group that's called itself antifa, which ironically is short for anti-fascism and yet they engage in the conduct of fascists. they engage in violent protests, masked men and women engaging in physical violence. we saw recently the rose city chapter of antifa in portland, oregon, assaulting citizens, disrupting traffic. violently assaulted one journalist that he was hospitalized for brain hemorrhage. likewise, this weekend, mr. willem van sprasen, another antifa terrorist attacked an enforcement center in tacoma, washington, igniting a vehicle and attempting to ignite a propane tachk. i'm concerned these are not isolated instances but rather

this is a pattern, an organization that is engaged in masked anonymous, violent terrorism. to what extent is the fbi concerns about the threat of violent activity from an organization like antifa? >> so we are absolutely concerned about violence committed on behalf any of ideology, any extremism. and the key there, though, is the point that i think i made in regard to a couple different questions already which is the fbi doesn't investigate ideology. we investigate violent criminal activity, and if it's fueled by some ideology, then that's how it gets wrapped into our mandate. and so, for us, antifa, we view as more of an ideology than an organization. we have quite a number, though, i should tell you, of properly predicated investigations of what we categorize as anarchist

extremists that violate federal law and some of these people do subscribe to what we'd reforeas an antifa-like ideology. we don't think of it so much as an organization but we're saying sort of the same thing. >> although the bureau has significant tools to go after organizations, criminal enterprises that engage, that use anonymity, that use masks to carry out violence. groups like the klan, groups like at times the mafia. and i will, today, be sending a letter to you and the department of justice asking the department to open a rico investigation into antifa because i believe they are engaged in a similar coordinated effort. that letter will likewise focus on some local elected officials who have chosen to deny police protection to their citizens based on political ideology. that is a pattern sadly that we saw. we have seen with politicians who favored klan violence, and i think every citizen deserves law

enforcement protection, regardless of their political ideology. >> i look forward to reviewing your letter. >> thank you. >> senator coons. >> director wray, good to see you again. on behalf of all of us, i want to thank you and the 37,000 men and women of the fbi for what you do each and every day. in my own community, the fbi continues to make a difference in just the last few months in delaware, that ongoing close partnership with state and local law enforcement has produced arrests and convictions in drug traffic, fraud, bribery, cyberstalking. we too easily forget the fbi partnership with state and local law enforcement makes and i greatly appreciate your opening remarks. my own worst days in public service were attending line of duty death funerals for officer chad spicer in georgetown for sergeant joe zerba in my own county police department. those are really difficult and hard days, and i'm grateful that

you continue to remind us of that core part of law enforcement work which is exposure to risk and that we work together in ways to reduce that risk and to improve officer safety. one of the things that my colleague senator cornyn brought up to you was the way in which the nics system was improved after the sunderland springs shooting which ma ining which m information gathered in one silo was shared across the system because had that been done in a timely way, the shooter in sunderland would have been barred from getting a weapon. we talked last may about a bill that i have with senator toomey that would share with state and local law enforcement nics denials. there were, i think, 99,252 nics denials last year which means someone who is a person prohibited from getting a weapon went into a federally licensed firearm dealer and was told you can't purchase.

in some states the state police conduct that initial transfer of information. pennsylvania is one. so they immediately know about it. and they can go follow up and, where appropriate, arrest someone for lying and trying in my home state of delaware and 31 other states, that's not the case. this is a simple bipartisan bill. it would simply require realtime sharing with one state law enforcement contact of any nics denial. since we spoke about it last may, i wondered if you had any more thoughts about it, whether this was something you would support as a simple way to put more information in the hands of our state and local law enforcement partners and whether you'll work with me in my office to try and get this through this committee. >> well, senator, i -- on the one hand, i've not had a chance to review the proposed legislation itself, but i do specifically recall our conversation on this topic and how important it is to you. and i think there are two principles at stake here that i think we're on the same place

with. one is the goal of keeping guns out of the hands of people legally prohibited from having them and, second, consistent with my opening statement, the need to support state and local law enforcement in their efforts. as you say, last year, nics, i think, denied around 100,000 background checks, so the volume is significant. and my own sense is that what would be most helpful here is to have a conversation that brings in and makes sure that state and local law enforcement has the appropriate seats at the table because i hear all the time when i'm out in the field with state and local law enforcement, the burden that they feel they're under. i want to be careful before we just dump all the information on them and -- >> let's move to that quickly if we can. our last conversation was months ago. in response to senator cornyn you said fix nics saves lives. every police chief i've spoken with says they'd welcome this information. i think they'd handle it promptly and thoroughly, and i

think they'd help promote public safety with that information. at least two other questions, and three minutes so let me move, but i'd welcome further engagement on this point. i think this is a common sense, simple way to enforce the laws on the books. election interference has been a lot of questioning which is constructive, i think, about china's intelligence efforts in the united states. i also want to make sure we've talked about russia's election interference. i appreciate your clear statements that they exerted improper influence on our 2016 election. they haven't stopped trying. they are still coming. we haven't successfully deterred them. on the appropriations subcommittee on which i serve, we put $380 million into strengthening election infrastructure two years ago. zero last year. it is my hope we'll invest more in state and local election infrastructure. but you have created in the fbi the foreign influence task force. one of the things i'm concerned about is so-called deep fakes, false manipulated, misleading

media claims very difficult for the average viewer to discern. what steps is the fbi taking to address deep fakes which in a number of briefings i hear is one of the most likely next order threats in the 2020 election? >> well, certainly we share the concern about deep fakes as a potential tool, not just frankly in the maligned foreign influence space that you've referenced but any number of other contexts. one of the things i did was bring together all our top executives for a presentation and then a discussion led by our office of technology division which has the best expertise on this. the real challenge of deep fakes is that without the right kind of training, it's very hard for somebody to be able to distinguish and to be able to unpack what's a deep fake versus not. we are looking at different

technologies that we might be able to have to help unravel that. so there's maybe some technological solutions. we're also trying to look at ways to partner with the private sector on it because there's a role where i think they can play. so i don't think i have anything specific to report here, but this is a subject that has the concern of really everybody at the top of the fbi. >> i appreciate your clear voice on the ongoing efforts by russia to interfere in our election. i hope we'll have the benefit of a similarly clear voice about the risks of deep fakes. last question for you, if i could. i spent friday in mcallen, texas, with a number of my colleagues many colleagues, both parties, have visited the border recently. it became clear to me in the conversations i had with a few dozen migrants that they were all from central america, had all fled significant violence and lack of order. and this is in el salvador and guatemala and honduras. there's a program at the fbi,

the legal attache program that's made a difference. i appreciate you highlighting that in your prepared remarks. tell me more about how the fbi and programs like the transnational anti-gang task force are making a difference in confronting gang violence in the northern triangle and, thus, changing some of the circumstances that drive families to make the very difficult decision to risk a more than thousand mile journey to our southern border. i think it's in all of our interest to use our skills, strengths and abilities like the fbi to change the conditions in central america, to change the outcome on our southern border. >> certainly, senator, we agree with you that our efforts through what we call the t.a.g. units in central america are one of the ways in which we at the fbi can do our part to help contribute to border security and generally, the safety of

americans here inside the united states. the t.a.g. units provide a way for us in el salvador and other northern triangle countries to act -- use the local law enforcement as a force multiplier. we provide some of our expert e expertise, some of our experience and partnership and then, working with the larger group of local law enforcement, it helps them learn while doing but also helps them be more effective in tackling a very serious criminal problem down there. i've met with officials from that part of the world as they've come to visit me in the u.s. and something we're very proud of and we think we want to double down on if we can. >> are you requesting additional funding for that program this year? have you had any difficulty in terms of the continuity of effort? >> we're humming along. we had some scares but i think we're moving forward, yeah. >> i have questions for the record. i'll send you about facial recognition technology and its -- your work with state dmv

databases. i'll just add to what senator whitehouse raised in terms of concerns about how background checks are done and look forward to talking with you about that further. thank you for your testimony. >> senator grassley? >> welcome. when you came to my office, i discussed with you, like i do every person that comes in my office for nomination, confirmation. one to bring up about whistleblowers and respect for whistleblowing and, two, we answer all of our letters. and i usually advise people in the last five years, instead of saying yes, they ought to say maybe. so i don't know whether you said yes or maybe, but it turns out maybe. so, for example, some of my oversight requests, some dating back over a year. february 2018, i inquired into the terrible tragedy at parkland, florida. 17 lives were lost.

march 2018, i chaired a hearing on that shooting. the fbi told the judiciary committee that it was working on a report on internal process failures relating to, among other things, the intake procedure for call-in tips and what transpired in the parkland case. as of today, the fbi hasn't provided a report to congress. is the report complete? >> i don't know that i can speak to report itself, but i can tell you, senator, that we have -- >> not asking you to speak to the report. is the report complete? >> and i -- as i sit here right now, i don't know whether the report you're referring to is complete. what i do know is that we have completed a significant investigation. internal investigation as to what happened out there and made a whole number of changes i'd be happy to provide more information about what's happened out there. >> let's say you don't know

whether the report's complete. you have given us an update on it. i appreciate that. let me ask you this. when the report is completed, will congress get it? >> i'd be happy to see what information we can provide about the work we've done. i'm not trying to play word games with you here. i just don't know enough about the specific report that you're referring to, the document. but i do know that we would be happy to provide detailed information to you and any other member of congress about the hard work that's been done to improve our public access line. >> except for national security or except for privacy, what couldn't be made public about what the fbi did right or wrong? >> i think we'd be happy to provide you more information about it. >> okay. on may the 9th, senator johnson and i wrote you a letter about documents at the state department provided the fbi after it met with christopher

steele. when can senator johnson and i expect a response? >> that one i'm going to have to ask my staff to look into and we'll get back to you. >> okay. according to news reports, the fbi waited months before pursuing sexual abuse allegations made by olympic gymnasts. last july, senator feinstein, bloomenthal and i sent you a letter to request a briefing on the matter. we're still waiting. when can we expect a response to our letter and a briefing? >> well, senator, on that particular matter, we -- as you may know, there's an ongoing inspector general investigation so we essentially turned that matter over from our inspection division to inspector general horowitz and his team. and so we are awaiting the results of that investigation and would be happy to engage with you in your office upon completion of the inspector general's investigation. >> is he supposed to report to

you or to the public? >> probably both, i would assume. >> okay. i have sent several letters to the fbi regarding the investigation into the shooting of bijan guizar by the national park police. i haven't received a substantive response. when can i expect clear answers to my questions and the conclusion of that investigation which i think now is 18 months old? >> well, i'm not intimately familiar with the investigation, but i believe it's still ongoing. so it would be premature for us to provide any substantive information at this point. >> you know, you kind of get the feeling with several of these instances that there might be something out there that's going to embarrass the fbi. are you worried about embarrassing the fbi? if some of this is made public? >> i am not having us withhold any information out of fear of embarrassment to the fbi. >> okay. >> we take our share of lumps,

and i embrace that as part of the process. the fbi has made its share of mistakes over the years, and you have, i think, played an important role in some cases in highlighting some of those mistakes. and i think one of the things that and was dismissed. after he won his case against the bureau and was reinstated, his security clearance was revoked. i haven't received a response. does the fbi revoke security clearances as a way of getting around court decisions favorable to employees? then can i get a response to my letter? >> i'm not familiar with this specific matter so let me ask my staff about it and we'll get back to you on that one.

>> okay. as i've written about publicly the inspector general produced to congress highly classified document relating to clinton investigation. here is an exert from the unclassified report on the clinton investigation related to the classified report. although, the midyear team drafted a memorandum to deputy attorney general in late may 2016 stating that review of a highly classified materials was necessary to complete the investigation and requesting permission to access them, the fbi never sent this request to the department. this tells us four things. one, the fbi apparently had highly classified information potentially relevant to the clinton investigation in its possession. the fbi drafted a memo in may 2016 to get access to the

information. the memo said the review of the information was necessary to complete the investigation. the memo was never sent. question, director wray, how could the fbi complete the clinton investigation if it didn't review all the potential relative information related to it? lastly, do you know of any other examples where the investigation was completed without the fbi reviewing relevant evidence within its possession. >> well, senator, as to the portfolio sz example you cited. i'm familiar with the fact pattern. i recognize are you're reading from an unclassified document. i'm a little concerned my ability to address it in this setting is somewhat limited. let me circle back with my staff and find out if there's a way to be more responsive in a different setting. >> i'll be waiting for that

information. thank you very much. >> senator blumenthal. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for being here, director wray, and thank you for your service to our country and the men and women every day courageously do after threats against our nation and i want to say that i regret some of the attacks that have come from the highest levels of our government and i respect you have to continue to work without responding to them directly. i think you have a lot of supporters and friends in this body and around the country. i want to ask you about threats identified by members of congress. i appreciate the fbi's responsiveness to them. i'm concerned that these threats are increasing, and this they have been condoned and, indeed,

encouraged by the president of the united states. i'd like to know what is being done proactively, not just responsively, but proactively to protect members who have been targeted by the president's attacks which may ignite white supremacists and nationalists organization? >> obviously i can't discuss any particular investigation but i don't take you to be asking me for that. i would say we have a very good relationship, good partnership with the security professionals up here on the hill, and we try to work collaboratively with them especially through our washington field office to try to make sure that we're giving them the right kind of information so that they can be even more effective in helping protect you and your colleagues. >> are you concerned, as i am and others are about the increasing number of intensity of those attacks?

threatened attacks? >> i think we're very concerned about any threats of violence against any americans but certainly that would prominently include our lengthed officials. >> are you concerned the president's rhetoric, in fact, is having a negative impact not only on those threats but other americans in terms of encouraging hate crimes. >> you know, senator, i don't engage on rhetoric or social media commentary. our focus is on -- our focus is on violence, attempts to commit violence, conspiracies to commit violence, and we will aggressively pursue that whether the victims are members of congress or any other americans. > . >> let me turn to another area and i know you're familiar about it. survivors of the 9/11 terror attacks in this country are

engaged in an epic legal battle against the kingdom of saudi arabia for its complicity. there is mounting evidence that it aided and abetted the 9/11 attackers. se seeking justice for them, i was proud along with others to lead sponsors of terrorism act that opened the courthouse doors to their lawsuits. i was proud to work with senator cornyn on a resolution passed unanimously by the united states senate that called on the federal government to declassify documents related to the 9/11 attacks, quote, to the greatest extent possible. those 9/11 families are fighting the government of saudi arabia seeking justice.

they are now also fighting our own government, including your agency, to secure fbi documents that they believe are relevant to their litigation and to finally determining the role that saudi arabia played in those 9/11 attacks, two of those survivors and family members are with us today. brett eagleson lost his dad, bruce, who was last seen climbing the stairs of the south tower seeking to help his colleagu colleagues. he perished. he made it out of the south tower on that terrible day but continues to suffer the physical and mental cost of that experience. he continues to mourn as we all

do the ones that were lost. i'm asking you for a commitment that the fbi will release all of the documents that are relevant to this litigation, that you not invoke the state secrets act, which has been raised as a possibility, and that you will provide full transparency to those families who are simply seeking justice against saudi arabia in the face of very significant mounting evidence, powerful evidence, that the saudis aided and abetted that crime that killed thousands of americans. >> well, senator, i'm not going to engage on the specific litigation certainly here in this setting. what i will say on a very personal level is that i was in

fbi headquarters on 9/11. i met during my time as assistant attorney general with many, many, many victims of the 9/11 attacks, and it was a big part of my motivation for coming back into service. one of the things i've done since becoming fbi director, mindful of the fact as time passes we get further and further away from those attacks and our workforce ages out of the acute realtime appreciation of the horror that occurred on that morning. we have -- i have directed that all new agents and analysts of the fbi go as part of their training to the 9/11 memorial and museum so that they can see in particular the victim impact of our work and of getting it right. i'm very sympathetic, and i say that from a personal level that you know i'm extremely sympathetic to those families.

i'm also extremely sympathetic to all the families of future potential terrorist threats that i want to prevent. and i want to make sure our handling of secret information is done in a way that balances both of those concerns. >> i don't doubt your sympathy. but these documents are absolutely necessary to their having a fair chance to prove their case, and i'm concerned that the fbi may invoke the state secrets privilege to block the 9/11 families from getting the documents that they need. i'm asking you for your commitment that you will not invoke it or block them from getting those documents. >> and as i said, i'm not prepared to make commitments about ongoing litigation or discovery in ongoing litigation in this setting. i will tell you we will be as

transparent as we can responsibly be while at the same time protecting national security. >> will you meet with families who are represented here today? >> i would be happy to see whether there would be an appropriate meeting that could happen between them and fbi. since this the subject of litigation we have to be thoughtful about that. >> have you communicated with the white house about this issue of whether documents will be turned over to the families? >> not to my knowledge. >> will you give me a list of those documents that you think would be appropriate to turn over and the others that would not be? >> i'd be happy to take a harder look at what the status of that lit dpags is and whether therige responsible. >> my final question, i'm not

asking to be involved in the litigation or comment on the litigation but simply provide documents and materials that are in the possession of the fbi. the only reason to keep them secret seems to me at this late date, 19 years later, would be to avoid embarrassment to the saudi. that may be an interest of the state department or white house. they have shown very little interest in seeking justice in connection with other saudi criminal activity, witness the khashoggi murder as the president's willingness to ignore the law and logic, but i think the fbi has an interest in justice. would you agree? >> i certainly agree the fbi has a powerful interest in justice. i also think that you, especially with your background, will appreciate why i'm not going to be making commitments

about document production in this kind of setting. >> i appreciate it, certainly, as a former u.s. attorney and former attorney general having worked closely with the fbi but i hope with can continue this conversation. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you for sending the new agents to the 9/11 memorial. we should all probably go. i've written a letter to senator schumer and mcconnell to give a classified briefing about what's going on in afghanistan. everybody needs to understand what's happening in afghanistan. senator kennedy. >> mr. director, you talked earlier about there being no daylight between the communist party in china and the government in china and the business community. does that include chinese students in foreign countries? >> involves -- certainly includes some chinese students. not all by any stretch of the imagination but some.

>> i need your help in understanding how we're making the distinction. as we know, we have a lot of foreign students that come to our fine universities. our fine universities love them because they pay full freight. they full tuition. in fact, some of our universities are addicted financially to them. when a foreign student, let's just take, for example, say, china, comes to m.i.t., let's say and works in a lab there on new technology that is being developed, are we relying on the universities to determine whether the students are stealing intellectual property?

>> well, i would say the university certainly plays an important role. there may be situations where we, through our investigative work, learn that somebody is trying to steal intellectual property. so there's a partnership there. >> here is what i'm getting to. we have thousands of students coming to our american universities. many of them are in research labs. many of them are privy to sensitive intellectual property. how do we check them? whose job is it to check them? you can't check -- the fbi can't check every single student that comes to the united states. if we're relying on a university to do it, my guess is a lot of them don't know how. frankly some of them probably don't care as long as they are getting the tuition. >> well, i think you're onto the right point, which is there is a role for the universities to

play but we need to make sure we're supplying them with -- you said whether they know and whether they care, whether they have both the tools that we can give them to ask the right questions, to elicit the right information on the one hand, but also to be thoughtful about what of their information is most proprietary and most sensitive. there might be a difference, for example, between a student who comes in to do basic undergraduate work. >> of course. >> and a student on the other extreme who is working on some of the most sensitive technological research this country has. >> of course. >> as far as should they care part of it, one of the things the fbi is spending a lot of times doing is out on the ground engaging with yufrlguniversitie research labs, et cetera, to help them understand the nature of the threat, what to be on the lookout for, et cetera. there is a common defense quality to this. >> should we not have a rule, mr. director, that says, look,

if you're from another country -- not just china but other countries -- and you're coming to this university to be involved with this research, then the university has to apply for and receive a deemed export license. don't tell me that the student is just observing. we're going to be cautious here and say, university, get a deemed export license. >> i'm not an expert on deemed export licenses. i think there may be roles on rule changes that might help us collectively better protect the country. >> i don't think our universities are doing it. i think some are, and some are doing a good job, but i think others say it's not my responsibility. by the way, their tuition check

cashed. >> you know, i see exactly where you're coming from. i guess what i would say, my experience now in having gone out and about around the country and having met with all 56 field offices as well as with partners including in the academic sector in an awful lot of those states is that there's a growing number of universities which are much smarter now about this issue than they used to be. >> sure. >> not necessarily where we ned to be. >> they are, and, of course, the cow is out the barn in many respects. the universities weren't shy about inviting confucius institutes to the campus and glad to have the money. australia has the same problem. many australian universities are addicted to tuition from chinese students. i'm not criticizing australia, wonderful ally, great country,

god pleabless them. but this has become a serious problem. i sense -- you're spread thin. i sense we're relying on our universities -- and it's great to educate them. but as long as those tuition checks clear, some of them aren't going to participate. i think what we need is some sort of rule that in these particular technologies, you've got to get -- you, university, have to get a deemed export license. let me shift gears. is the fbi involved in the investigation in chicago of the jussie smollett police complaint sff i'm not sure whether there's anything i can say about whether or not we're involved in a specific investigation or not. >> okay.

that's fair. i consider you -- first, i consider you to be doing a great job. i think you've settled the waters, and i really appreciate it. >> thank you. >> i don't think you're a politician. that's what i like about you. i think you're a good lawyer and you care about the fbi, and i consider you the nation's chief law enforcement official, if not one of the chiefs. i don't mean to denigrate the attorney general, he's up there, too. why do so many americans today, in your judgment, hate cops just because they are cops? >> you know, i think there's some level of misunderstanding about what law enforcement does and doesn't do, and that's probably part of it. i also think far more americans revere law enforcement than sometimes the media would

otherwise suggest. that's one of the advantages i've found to getting out of washington and trying to visit all 56 field offices and to visit not only the men and women of state and local law enforcement in each of those states, but also to meet with people in the community from each of those states, because that's a better way for me to get a sense of how people think about plmplt. so i don't think most people hate law enforcement. i think most people are grateful for law enforcement. but the reality is there is a level of violence occurring that is occurring in this country and a willingness to use lethality against law enforcement that i think we cannot abide. we need to be finding ways to make those people who work so hard every day more safe. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> the vote is on and will continue and we're going to keep going and try to get you out of here by 1:00 if we possibly can. are you okay to keep going? senator hirono.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. you noted that rookie agents visit 9/11 memorial. there was a time when part of the training for incoming fbi agents was to visit the holocaust museum. do you still do that? >> not only do we still do the visits to the holocaust museum as part of our training but i have personally gone. i wanted to go through it myself. not only did i reaffirm it but i went with a class and into to the class and went on the tour so i can get a sense of what they are learning as we go through that. we also require, you might be interested to know, the third leg of the stool. the holocaust memorial, 9/11 museum which i added, we also have all the agents go to the martin luther king memorial here in d.c. >> your predecessor, director comey, had made note of the importance as far as he was concerned the importance of

visiting the holocaust museum. i don't know if you heard what he said. let me quote him. to see that, although the slaughter, the holocaust, led by sick and evil, sick and evil leaders joined by people who love their families, a sick neighbor who went to church and gave to charity. good people murder millions, that's the most frightening of all. our very humanity made us capable, susceptible to vending moral authority where it can be hijacked by evil. i'm really flad your agents visit these museums. i wonder if you agree with your predecessor's comments about why it's so important for your agents to experience these museums. >> i'm not sure i caught everything you read from the quote. i will say from my own perspective, one of the things i found most eye-opening about my own visit with a class going to

the holocaust memorial was the really scary role law enforcement in nazi germany played. i think most people, i as a kid growing up in the country, assumed most of the atrocities were just committed by the military in nazi, germany. while that is also true, there is also a frightening role law enforcement played in nazi, germany, too. i think that's one of the parts of the tour that's tailored for our classes so they understand in a personal way their profession is one if they don't do things in the right way can have horrific consequences. >> they have responsibility also. have you read the memorial report. >> i've reviewed it. i wouldn't say i've read every single word. >> do you consider mr. mueller to be a personal of integrity

and professionalism in your experience with him. >> in all my experience with him over the years, i consider him to be consummate professional and straight shooter. >> do you have any reason to doubt his report, the mueller report? the findings, basically how he went about the investigation of russia interference with our elections? do you have any reason to doubt the integrity of his work? >> no. >> so in your written testimony you mentioned a threat of domestic violent extremists as one of your priorities. you talked about quoting underlying drives for domestic violence extremism which includes according to you racism, islamophobia. can divisive comments from leaders contribute to the problem of domestic violent extremism. >> my sense is there's all kinds of things that contribute to the

often sort of deranged extremism. >> you never know what will set off a lone wolf. would you say divisive comments from leaders can also create a situation where a lone wolf might act? >> i think extremist rhetoric by anybody can have the effect -- any public figure can have the effect of inspiring people. remember, the people who commit hate fueled violence are not logical, rational people. >> no. that's why it's very dangerous, i would say for national leaders to speak in a way that can encourage or in some way incentivize a person who is unhinged. let me turn to the 37% agency you run. you have hr policies based on standards laid out by equal opportunity commission. if one fbi told another fbi employee, a minority, to go back where they came from, what would the consequences be knowing full

well u.s. equal employment commission has made it very clear that such comments should subject a person to some kind of disciplinary action. >> i'm not going to engage in hypotheticals, but what i will tell you is that all of us at the fbi are committed to core values of respect, of fairness, of diversity. we have all manner of procedures and policies that are in place to provide outlets for people who are the victims of any kind of improper discrimination or harassment. we are firmly committed to our core mission of protecting the american people, all american people, and protecting and upholding the constitution for all americans. >> would that be the case if one employee told another employee to go back where they came from, would that subject the employee to disciplinary action.

>> i'm not going to engage in hypotheticals. we expect all employees to follow core values and rules of law. >> let's hope that means you follow through with some disciplinary action. in 2017 the trump administration launched voice office stands for victims of immigration crime engagement, office for crimes committed by undocumented immigrants, this by repeated evidence that shows immigrants are, in fact, less likely to commit crimes. does the fbi have a mechanism for crimes committed against individuals because they are an immigrant or perceived to be an immigrant? >> i don't believe i've seen information quite like that, but we collect lots of different kinds of information so i'm reluctant to speak with absolute certainty on that. >> so i don't know exactly where the voice office is located, i take it not in the fbi. >> no, not in the fbi. >> we have concerns about the

independence of the fbi, so i wanted to ask you, has the president or anyone at the white house or attorney general or anyone at the department of justice asked or suggest that you do anything unlawful or unethical including opening, altering or closing an investigation. >> as i said to you and your colleagues on the committee during my confirmation hearing, i am committed to making sure the fbi does all of its work by the book, utterly without partisan motivation or interference and that has been true since the day i started and it's been true right on up until today. >> are you testifying the president nor anyone at the white house or the attorney general has not asked you to open, alter, or close an investigati investigation. >> i can't think of a situation where any of those people has asked me to close an investigation or do anything remotely inappropriate.

>> that would be including altering and opening an investigation. so you're very cognizant and committed to the independence of the fbi and the work that you do. >> absolutely. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator. >> director wray, earlier this year i sent the fbi two letters seeking additional information about news reports that the agency, the bureau had opened a counter-intelligence investigation on the president following the exercise of the president's constitutional prerogatives to direct foreign policy and otherwise oversee the executive branch. i did not receive a response beyond a form letter of receipt. since i have you here let me ask you what i want to know, to your knowledge has the fbi launched an intelligence investigation into another president? >> i don't know the answer to that question. >> it would be no since it's not to your knowledge. you're not aware of one. >> it's fair to say i'm not

aware of one. >> is it safe to say to the best of your knowledge, such a move would be and is unprecedented? >> well, again, we've been around for 111 years, so i don't know what is precedent or not precedent in that regard. >> but you don't have any knowledge of any counter-intelligence investigation of a sitting president? >> not sitting here at this moment. >> would it be unusual for fbi agents to hide the results of an investigation from their superiors? >> certainly in my experience for agents to hide information from their superiors would be unusual. >> what can you tell us finally about the internal investigation into the decision to launch this counter-intelligence probe of where it stands, when we might hear about it, and when we might expect results? >> so there are two things going on. one is the ongoing fairly far

along, i guess i would say, investigation by the inspector general, which is somewhat related to the topic you raised. that's by the independent inspector general over at the justice department. then separately, as i think has been testified to publicly, the attorney general has asked some questions about the manner in which the investigation in question began. and we are working with him, or cooperating with him, to try to help him get those questions answered. but i don't think i have any kind of status update or anything like that at this point. it's very much under way. >> you're aware, just to make sure i understand your testimony, you're aware of two different probes, if you will, two different investigations or inquiries under way that touch on this topic we've just been discussing? >> right. there's some overlap between them probably, and they both in their own ways touch on different aspects of what you described. >> and your office, the fbi as a

whole is fully cooperating with both inquiries. is that accurate? >> yes. >> let me shift gears and talk to you a little about china, chinese espionage. i want to ask you about confucius institutes you touched on briefly with senator kennedy a few minutes ago. 18 months ago you said you were concerned about chinese espionage at universities, a quote from you, concerned about the use of nontraditional collectors, especially the academic setting whether professor, scientists, students. you say you see it in almost every field office fbi has around the country. you go on to say chinese is exploiting the open research environment we have and you've reiterated those concerns this morning. do you continue to consider chinese espionage activities focused on research and ip theft a threat, an ongoing threat? >> very much so. an awful lot of the most sensitive research that is conducted across military or

dual use technologies but things like heck are conducted in our leading academic institutions. there is a fairly significant pattern of espionage occurring in that arena. that's something we're concerned about. >> let me ask you about confucius institutes and why you expressed concerned about them and answered senator kennedy the way you did. why should we be concerned, why should american college presidents be concerned about confucius institutes. could you spell that out for us. >> the answer i gave was more broadly about a sector. confucius institutes are a concern but consider it more soft strategy and influence. those offer a platform chinese propaganda, encourage

censorship, acemdiddic freedom, et cetera, so it is an area of concern. we're actually encouraged somewhat similar to the answer i was giving to senator kennedy by the growing number of universities over the last few years that have taken steps to restrict and curtail confucius institutes on our campus. i will say we're more concerned about what we consider more traditional efforts at either cyber intrusion or espionage both in the research facilities themselves and in the private sect or as i've testified abouta little bit here today. >> just on the confucius institutes, what would you say about a university president considering partnering with confucius institutes, allowing a confucius institutes on her campus. what considerations should they have in mind. >> i would think the university

president should do some research and we would sit down and talk about what we know about confucius institutes so they can make a thoughtful decision themselves about whether it's something they want to have on their campus. >> on the, to use your phrase, more traditional forms of the government and militaries employing, do you think it's time for new legislation to help secure and protect our universities from that kind of espionage? are there tools we could give you that you think would be beneficial? >> i don't know that i have specification legislative proposal, but i do think the level of awareness that is starting to increase in this country, including in the academic sector, and of course you and your colleagues have played an important role in helping raise awareness, i think it's positive and i think it's time for a national conversation about how we can all play our respective roles in helping to

protect the country. >> i've introduced legislation that would require students -- graduate students or researchers from china and several other countries we know engage in espionage activity to get an additional screening by the department of homeland security if they are replying to work on a research project that involves either classified information or high security, high-risk security information as designated by the department. i'm not asking you to endorse that. is that kind of -- are those kinds of additional screenings, backgrounds checks for people who come from these countries and want to work on projects sensitive or classified. is that the kind of thing you think we should be concerned about looking for ways to protect? >> as you say, i haven't reviewed the specific legislation but i think as a general rule both making sure that universities, especially some of our universities that are leaders in science and

technology really know who it is they are bringing in. so that's the who on the one hand. on the what, on the other side, what information are they actually giving those people the ability to work on. not all information and research is created alike just like not all visitors are created alike in terms of the potential threat it presents to our national security. >> thank you. senator graham has asked me to keep it somewhere on time. i don't mean to cut off my friend but because there are votes going on, director, good to see you here. i notice in your testimony you said you visited all our states. did you visit vermont or the albany station? >> i visited all 56 field offices. when i was in the albany field office, which as you know has vermont as part of its aor, i met with a number of --

>> to new york. >> i met with a number of law enforcement officials from vermont. >> come to vermont sometime. i'm sure they would like to see you. i know i would. we know from unsealed search warrants in the michael cornyn investigation that president trump is an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal campaign finance scheme to cover up an affair with hush money payment. the crime occurred both during the campaign and while mr. trump was in the oval office as he signed hush money checks while he was serving as president. but the investigation ended abruptly last week. only michael cohen facing consequences. so my question is it's not clear from what was in the press that this investigation ran its full course. certainly no one interviewed the president. do you know whether the decision to close the investigation was made by prosecutors in the southern district of new york or

by appointees at main justice in washington? >> well, the decision to decline a matter involving prosecutorial discretion is made by prosecutors. i don't know who made the decision. >> you don't know washington or new york. >> i don't know which prosecutors were involved in making the decision. >> do you know whether they were in washington or new york? >> i don't know the answer to that. >> thank you. so have you been -- are you aware of any political pressure that may have been brought about that decision in the southern district. >> i'm not aware of any political pressure? >> we know the justice believes a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime. for the time being they leave such matters to congress and the public. now, sips this investigation is now closed, we just talked about, will you release the 302s and other relevant files in the

hush money investigation? >> well, senator, it's not normally our practice to produce investigative information for investigations that are closed, especially when it comes to other individuals in the matter. i think that's part of the protection that we provide through the confidentiality of the work we do. >> that's interesting, because on that confidentiality, you provided congress with 880,000 pages of investigative documents relating to the clinton e-mail investigation. it also included 46 interview 302s provided to senator grassley and myself as chairman and ranking member of the committee. while you served as director, the fbi gave congress thousands of pages related to surveillance

activity, russian contacts in that campaign, that investigation was still ongoing. i'm not suggesting this administration would treat the investigation of hillary clinton differently than the investigation involving donald trump, but it might appear that way. because if you don't release these files now, it's contrary to your recent precedent. is it the case that the fbi only provides investigative records when the request is made by republican officials? >> well, senator -- >> i figure the 880,000 pages and 46 interview and 302s. >> it is certainly the case that in my first two years, almost, as fbi director we have been engaged with numerous committees and countless oversight requests involving all sorts of things. we try very hard to be as

transparent as we can be with congressional oversight while at the same time protecting ongoing investigations, protecting confidentiality, respecting the privacy of uncharged individuals, protecting sources and methods, respecting grand jury secrecy. a whole slew of things we try to balance. my experience is we try to work through each one on a case by case basis. >> the investigation i'm talking about is closed. so will you release 302s and other files in the hush money investigation the same way you did on the clinton investigation? >> i'd be happy to take a look at any request from you or any member of the hill and see if there's more information we can provide. >> consider that a request. let's you and i talk about it in the next few days. i don't want it to be just a run along. i have spent a few years.

i know answers that are real, i want that a real answer. >> i'd be happy to have my staff follow up. >> the nsa stopped using call detail records authority authorized by usa freedom and is not asking to be reauthorized. you mentioned this morning the fbi would like congress to reauthorize business records, wiretap, lone wolf provision, usa freedom which expire december 15. yet we have not heard anything from the white house and their position regarding reauthorization. the only reason i mention, it's only five months away from -- it can be a lifetime in the senate. it's been radio silence from the white house. do you know if they plan to share their position on reauthorization of congress? >> i'm not aware of a formal administration position on the usa freedom act or of the precise timing for when there

will be one. my description earlier in response to questions was not a formal request for reauthorization but rather a description of some of the -- from an operational perspective what we at the fbi feel are some of the most important tools currently in law that we would hate to lose. >> thank you. we can follow up on that, too. you also, the department of homeland security plays a critical role in securing our elections. but based on your testimony from the fbi's perspective, if the 2020 elections were held today, are you fully confident that our state and local election officials are fully prepared to defend against foreign cyber attacks? i ask that because 22 state attorneys general asked congress to bolster their state's election security funding. we'll put that in the record.

>> americans should feel confident in our elections, in our electoral system. that does not mean there aren't threats facing it, and it doesn't mean there isn't a lot of work, hard work, that's already being done and needs to be done still between us, our colleagues at dhs, odni, nsa, state local officials, the congress, the private sector. this is an american issue for all of us, and we all need to work together but americans should feel confident that we have the finest election system in the world. >> thank you. we'll talk further on that. senator black burn, you are recognized. >> thank you, sir. mr. wray, i want to thank you for your patience today. as you are aware. we do have a vote series. i appreciate that you have reached out to local law enforcement when they do have that loss of life from their

force and the tribute that you pay there. i will tell you in tennessee when i talk to people, what they are concerned about with the fbi is that they have agents that are going to tell the truth, because they know if they raise their hand and take an oath, they swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. and building, rebuilding that confidence and integrity in the system i think is is paramount importance. i appreciate you are putting attention on that. i do want to talk to you about the opioid crisis. the opioid crisis has really taken such a toll in tennessee. we know now that it is more than double the deaths from homicide. it's actually 2.4 opioid deaths for each death that is from a homicide.

i know you've had the appalachian strike force. i'd like an update on that. i know you issued the 50 medical professionals had an indictment issued by doj against them. they issued 32 million pills. we know that you are working on the fraud issues. we had a pain clinic with fraud issues. when i talk to local law enforcement, most of the crime they are dealing with has a nexus with the drug issue. so talk with me a little bit more about how you're managing that, the strike force, how you are partnering with dea and local law enforcement and then the continued emphasis that you expect to have on the opioid issue. >> thank you, senator. i appreciate your flagging the

issue. i know it is top of mind for an awful lot of people in this country as it should be. you may be interested to know that the very first of the 56 field offices i visited was knoxville. i've actually now made my way around to round two. now i've been to knoxville twice in addition to memphis field office. the reason i bring up knoxville is that office in particular, for example, has done some very good work in the opioid arena. i would say that our -- overall our focus on this threat is much like i said to some of your colleagues on a couple of other threats we face, try to figure out where do we, fbi best add value to compliment what everyone else is doing, dea, local law enforcement, in this arena, public health. what is that with the fbi. one, we have, and you alluded to it, we have a prescription drug initiative. that's where we're going after in the health care arena medical professionals, pill mills,

medicare and medicaid fraud, nurses, frarm spharmacies, thatf thing. that's a big part of the problem. second, state task forces and those target games distributing opioids and fentanyl and related substances. we also have something called j-code, which is an initiative that's focused on disrupting and dismantling dark net marketplaces for fentanyl and other opioids. we also have through our talk, transactional organized crime program, a focus on international criminal organizations the source of supply so we're getting at that part. i guess the last piece i would mention is from an awareness raising perspective, we have done things like partner with dea on a film called "chasing the dragon" which we put out in schools together and i think

it's got a slew of youtube hits, for example. it's a way to kind of raise awareness from a prevention perspective. >> let me ask you, j-code i know we have 30 child pornography sites on the dark web, this is on top of what we see through what is happening through a lot of apps out there that pedophiles are using and groups are using to traffic women and children. i've done a good bit of work on this issue. it is just heart wrenching to me. is j code and as you're looking at that and through the cartels, are you following the human trafficking with that initiative as well as the drug trafficking or is there an additional emphasis on that human

trafficking component? >> it's a good question. i would say the j code initiative is a dark net focused program that's more geared towards opioid trafficking, drug trafficking and related, but we also have dark net -- all kinds of dark net efforts focused more on human trafficking and various forms of behavior. >> i would say at some point there is a juncture, because right now the cartels are making more money on trafficking human beings than they are on trafficking drugs, or that is my understanding. and we definitely want to get after that. let me ask you one more thing. when it comes to the issue of illegal immigration, illegal entry, ncic is not collecting reentry data or prior

deportation data on these illegal aliens. when we talk about criminal illegal aliens, that is something that our local law enforcement has to deal with quite a bit. and if ncic were to change their protocol and begin to collate, collect and collate that data, do you think that would be helpful? is there a value to doing that? >> i think i'd want to evaluate more closely some of what would be involved but i'd be happy to take a closer look at it. >> okay. that sounds great. let's see. i guess i am the last one. mr. whitehouse. >> thank you. we're into what is a very brief second round because if senator black burn leaves, the only one left, i've been authorized to close the hearing by chairman graham if nobody else comes in

the meantime. director wray, relief is in sight. i do want to follow-up a little bit, we've had a good discussion about foreign interference in elections. i'm interested in your thoughts on the role of shell corporations that obscure the identity of the true actor behind the shell corporation. in the jargon of this area is called the beneficial owner, the true beneficial owner of the corporation. can you tell me the kind of ways in which the on security provided by such shell corporations interferes with law enforcement efforts generally? >> so as a general matter, shell corporations, dummy entities of one sort or another are often used as a way to conceal the

true owner of a business. that then can have the effect of not only frustrating regulatory requirements but also, of course, law enforcement efforts. we spend a lot of our time across a lot of the victectors investigate having to cut through the form over substance quality that exists, the alter egos created through beneficial ownership. >> money laundering, fraud, criminal investigations, counter-terrorism investigations all affected by this? >> i can't think of a lot of counter-terrorism investigations off the top of my head but i'm sure there have been some. certainly the first few you listed. >> and does this problem create national security concerns in addition to law enforcement concerns to the extent that foreign actors might be behind those shell corporations? >> there certainly can be times

when there are national security concerns. for example, one of the things that we are trying to do more now in the foreign influence space is more aggressively use far a, foreign agency administration act, for not just openly tlard foreign agents but various other entities that are created that might affect the operating that way. we're sort of pushing into new territory there. >> foreign interference in our political system can be directly facilitated by these shell corporations, correct? >> absolutely. >> i would flag for you that when mr. zuckerberg of facebook was here, he rolled out his new and improvement facebook method for detecting efforts to buy advertising on facebook and disclosed that he was going to go as far as the nominal buyer but not look behind the nominal

buyer to see who the real parting interest was. i described this as boris and natasha llc in delaware and suddenly, boom, that's the end of their inquiry. i think it's important we continue to focus on this area because some of our leading political platforms seem to be taking very little interest in finding out who is actually behind the shell corporation. obviously you need to know that if you're going to be effective. the last thing that i'll ask you about, there's the famous phrase on law enforcement, follow the money. clearly money is a tool used for foreign influence in political systems by russia and other adversaries, correct? >> yes. >> and if you cannot tell who the real donor is for a big political expenditure, that leaves a very obvious avenue for

foreign interference to insert itself, does it not? >> certainly any effort to conceal the true source behind an effort at foreign interference is something we have to take seriously and can present significant challenges. >> and money flowing into politics is a vector for that foreign interference. >> it can be. >> okay. that's it for me. >> thank you very much. senator booker will do his first round and then we'll go to senator lee and finish right at 1:00. thank you, director wray, for your patience. >> chairman, thank you very much. director wray, thank you very much for being here. i'd like to go into subject matter you and i have discussed before traditionally with congressional black caucus and others and senator durbin brought it up. i watched that back and forth. you said in that conversation you don't investigate ideology, but clearly for jihadists to white supremacists, ideologies

help the investigation, correct? >> certainly ideology can be a very important part of the investigation if there is all the other pieces we have to have to be able to investigate. >> yeah. so this is what's worrying me right now is the significance of white supremacist attacks. we've had since 9/11 a lot of terrorist attacks but the majority have been right wring -- attacks here in the united states. if i'm correct the majority have been right wring extremist attacks and the majority have been white supremacists. is that correct? >> i want to be a little careful what i'm counting, what's the numerator and denominator of what. i will say certainly domestic terrorism, violent extremism of all shapes and sizes when it turns to violence is something of great concern that is a continuing, steady, persistent, serious threat that we're taking very seriously. and i will say at least over,

you know, some recent memory, an awful lot of the racially motivated violent extremism is motivated by what you might call a white supremacist i want to drill down on. you know, we know from a 2017 classified joint intelligence briefing from 2000 to 2016 that white supremacist extremists were responsible for more homicides than any other domestic violence groups. based on your testimony the number of arrests of internationally home grown extremists is roughly the same as violent extremists, the majority of white supremacist groups. no to me that's a stunning amount of violence motivated by white strem si, and why it's all the more important that we understand the scope of that threat. i know you take this seriously. for more than a decade the fbi

used 11 categories to describe and document domestic terrorist threats. these included a separate category for white activity -- white supremacist activity or instance. that's correct. right? >> yes. >> okay. and but now the administration is using a system with only four categories. and one of those categories is called racially motivated violent extremism. that's correct. right? >> we do have four categories. one is called racially motivated violent extremism. >> it involves white supremacists with a new category we've discussed before called black identity extremists. and so that's really a problem to me, and when did the fbi eliminate the white supremacist category in favor -- that was in the last number of years. right? in favor of that racially

motivated violent extremism category? >> we have tried to make clear, and some of it is based conversations you and i had not on white supremacist part but the other part, remember, we had constructive, hard hitting conversations early on about that. one of the points we've tried to emphasize to our folks across all these vectors is that we only investigate violence. we don't investigate extremism. we don't investigate ideology or rhetoric. i doesn't matter how abhorrent or whatever it is. there's got to be those three things we talked about before for there to be an investigation. what we have tried to do by our recat gorization is make clear it's about the violence, not the ideology, and that's the nature of the categories. >> and if i can make this point, this then, this new black

identity extremism has caused extreme concern. it's caused concern among the law enforcement community and you know that members of the law enforcement, the national organization of black law enforcement executives issued a strong statement that black identity extremism is hurting the community and the ability for law enforcement. you've seen the reaction from both congressional leaders and the more. the report resurrected the historically negative legacy of african american civil rights leaders targeted and attacked by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. the investigative merits of the report do not warrant the belief that an ideology movement is even there that exists among african americans. it predisposes them to negatively target law enforcement officers. and so specifically, how many violent attacks if you're investigating violence, how many violent attacks and facilities

have been attributed to white supremacists since 2017 and how many violent attacks and fatalities have been attributed to so-called black identity extremists since august of 2017? >> i don't have numbers. that's -- >> has there been any to your knowledge -- >> any what? >> attacks attributed to so-called black identity extremists? has there been any since 2017 whatsoever? this so-called new movement? >> i think we have had attacks within the racially motivated violent extremist category that cover both ends of the spectrum, if you will. >> i mean, with that language you said both ends of the spectrum. the murders at synagogues, murders that we've seen motivated since 2017 that you've grievously had to deal with, you said both ends of the spectrum as if there is actually a movement of, again, black

identity extremism. it's almost creating a reality that there's a spectrum that goes back and forth. i'm questioning that lnl. >> we won't use the term black identity extremism anymore, first, second, you mention noble, the national organization of black law enforcement executives. i have met on countless occasions with them. i value that partnership. i've significantly energized it, and we have discussed with them as well some of the efforts we're making to try to better characterize the work we're doing. >> forgive me. this is news to me. you no longer use the black extremism category? >> no. >> that's great. nobody is -- >> we don't use that terminology anymore. that was part of the reorganization of all of our domestic dr. threat cat gorization. that terminology went away as part of this racially motivated

violent extremism category. whatever properly predicated investigations there are or were that would be under that label would be within this racially violated extremism category. >> okay. i look forward to continuing the conversation. thank you, sir. >> senator lee, you'll take us to one, and thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. a few months ago we held a series of confirmation proceedings regarding justice kavanaugh. those became contentious and something of a public spectacle. there were a number of allegations made in some cases then committee chairman senator grassley concluded that some of the people making the accusations had knowingly made materially false accusations against justice kavanaugh. and on that basis, referred the matter to the fbi for

investigation. what if anything can you tell me about what action the fbi has taken on that or whether it's followed up? >> i am aware as a general matter of the letters or referrals you're describing, and i know we have ri viewed them, but i'm not, as i think you would expect, going to be commenting on or confirming the existence or nonexistence -- >> i understand? . >> of the investigation. >> i understand. i appreciate the fact that you've received it and as you can imagine, it's important to the process and to this committee that those appearing and testifying in front of it not be allowed to knowingly make materially false statements, and hope and expect that that's going to be just fine. the reports recently indicating the fbi has been using photos

from various states' driver's license databases including utah's to conduct facial recognition. the fbi maintains a number of databases, including some databases with photos in them. but unlike other databases containing photos that it maintains, most of the photos in any state's driver's license database are not going to be of people convict who have been convicted of crimes. under what authority, what legal authority does fbi access and use these driver's license databases for criminal investigations? >> so there are a couple things on this topic. i think the first is when we use facial recognition i think a lot of people don't understand this. we use it for lead value.

there's no one out there getting arrested much less convicted based solely on a facial recognition match using the kind of database that you're describing. second, i think there's a level of confusion about where the photos reside. we the fbi don't have the dmv photos -- we have a database of photos but we have access -- we can make requests to states for them to run searches in their dmv photos only subject to memorandums of understanding that are negotiated with those states to ensure proper kplans with the law. i think the third thing people don't necessarily understand is that we only provide access to the database to people properly trained on the technology. the last thing people don't necessarily understand is we're

working very closely with nist to develop an even better algorit algorithm. and we're on track to have one with over 99% accuracy by the end of the calendar year. >> you're saying you don't download them in the entirety? >> correct. >> instead -- >> the dmv photos. fbi generates photoses in our investigations, and we have some other databases that we get some photos from, but we don't -- the dmv photos, i think there's confusion in some of the press coverage. it's not like all dmv photos are available for the fbi to roam around in. we have to make requests to those states, again, only subject to the mou's we've negotiated. >> and then it's a case by case basis where you're conducting an investigation. there's an individual involved in that investigation, and you want to match it against the -- >> right. for lead value. for lead value.

in other words, that helps us then figure out whether we're on the right track. it is not evidence that allows somebody to then get arrested much less convicted. >> okay. thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, director wray. outstanding job. tell the men and women of the fbi we appreciate their hard work, and the hearing is

adjourned. >> next a hearing on agriculture research and the status of the implementation of the 2018 farm bill. we also hear about relocating parts of the agriculture department to the kansas city region, and potential suppression of climate research. this hearing was held by the senate agriculture