good day. our live coverage kbibegins hern new york. we'll be covering the goings-on in washington as hearings begin today for former acting attorney general sally yates and the former director of national intelligence, james clapper. they'll be appearing before a senate committee. the hearing room is set at the hea art senate office building. president obama figures into this coverage. there is a report that there was a warning from president obama to president-elect trump to distance themselves from retired general michael flynn. michael flynn was, in fact, appointed the national security adviser to president trump.

michael flynn vacated that job, and it's just that chain of events that we'll be talking about today. it's that chain of events and this story specifically that dominated the white house briefing within the last hour here as part of the exchange with press secretary sean spicer. >> president obama warned president-elect trump from hiring general mike flynn. why did he not heed that warning? >> it's true that president obama made it known that he wasn't exactly a fan of general flynn's. the question you have to ask yourself, really, is if president obama was truly concerned about general flynn, why didn't he suspend general flynn's security clearance which they had approved just months earlier? how did they not do that besides

not liking some of the comments he made? >> as we get to our correspondents as well, hallie, it's been called a connard for the trump house to rely on their reasoning, why wasn't general flynn's security clearance canceled? do you know why? >> this is a line you'll keep hearing over and over again from the trump administration and sean spicer today, being that flynn was politicized. his argument says they should have revoked his clearance if they had concerns. multiple former national security officials and intelligence officials are telling nbc news that there actually is a tougher vetting process, essentially, needed for a broader security clearance for very high-level positions, for,

for example, cabinet positions as well. multiple u.s. officials are telling nbc news that mike flynn never actually received that broader security clearance before he was fired by president trump very early on in this administration. so that does, i think, add broader, perhaps, context to sean spicer's comments to our colleague kristen welker at the briefing today. we're continuing to see the administration, and i expect we'll see after the sally yates briefing expected to begin in just a couple minutes here, was the nation pivoting tie succession of leaks. as you heard before, wondering why they weren't focusing on news information. the president seemed to imply earlier this morning that sally yates may have had something to do with those leaks. he was pressed on this repeatedly in just the last hour here at the bhwhite house, and sean spicer relied on a line we have heard before, that the tweet speaks for itself, brian. >> hallie jackson on a beautiful

spring day at the white house. hallie, thanks. mike vacarra standing by on the hill. mike, give us a prelude to what we'll be hearing. >> some very famous well known hearings have taken place here over the years. however, i'm in the back side of that where you can see the entrance where we expect many to come in. the senator, sally yates as well, waiting for people to arrive just before the hearing gets started in about 20 minutes now. but lindsey graham is the chairman of the subcommittee. it's the intelligence subcommittee of the senate judiciary committee. recall that they had planned this hearing for quite some time on the house side. there was a hearing called. sally yates was to testify, canceled at the last moment. they asked susan rice to come to this hearing, the national security adviser in the obama

administration. she declined. she called that a diversionary tactic to try to take attention away from what is the essential element here, the essential question, and that is nothing less than potential blackmail of the national security adviser. that evidently was the concern of sally yates when she went in her very brief tenure as acting attorney general ten days into the trump administration. the white house counsel worarne him of this conversation that michael flynn had with the russian ambassador sergei kisly kislyak. we later learned it was something more substantive of that, talking about sanctions slapped on certain russians over their actions in ukraine, ove vladimir putin's actions in ukraine, the continuing tions, even more sanctions. then michael flynn telling vice president pence the conversation was nothing more than niceties

when it turns out it was more than that. the concern from sally yates that that discrepancy, the difference between what happened in public and what happened in private is a potential matter of national security concern. again, potential blackmail. so that's what many of these senators will be getting after today. yes, we can expect many republicans to hit on susan rice, to hit on this subject of unmasking so the civil administration can go to the intelligence community and ask exactly who it is that were in these conversations that were intercepted, much like the one that was entintercepted betweene russian ambassador and michael flynn. >> we've been watching the activity. nothing to see here yet. that is neither drapper clappery yates. that is a technician getting things ready. again, the intelligence subcommittee, the senate judiciary committee, will get

into some of the players a bit later, including the format. opening statements, volleys of questions and so on. our justice chief correspondent pete williams along with our players in the lead-up coverage. pete, we have some experts assembled as well to talk about sally yates. give us the thumbnail sketch. who is sally yates and what about her assignment today, what she can and can't talk about, is going to be difficult? >> former career prosecutor in georgia then became the u.s. attorney nominated and confirmed by the obama administration. then she became deputy attorney general when lore rhetta lynch attorney general. so she's had a partisan and nonpartisan role in the government. she was asked to stay over by the trump administration to be acting attorney general until jeff sessions could get confirmed. that didn't last, because after she said justice department lawyers should not defend the trump travel restrictions, the

first executive order, she was fired, and another prosecutor was put in as the acting attorney general. i think, obviously, she's going to be asked about the russia investigation, and there's not much she can say about that because it's classified. and it seems to me, brian, in terms of the sort of dramatic moment in this, her meeting you heard mike viquera talk about, saying you need to know what mike flynn is talking about, there seems to be two things about that examined by the committee. one is merely fact. what facts did she relay to the white house council and say, you need to know what happened? that's a. b is then the gloss she put on that as the acting attorney general, saying it's my view, it's the view of some of the people of the justice department that that could put him in a compromised position. that's her judgment. the first is the facts. the second is her judgment. and i think the committee is

going to want to examine both of those, and to some extent they're independent of each other. >> pete williams in our washington bureau who will be among our team members watching and listening to this hearing. when we get underway again, we're expecting to get gavelled underway in about 22 minutes. let's bring in our guests assembled here in new york, starting with nicolle wallace, familiar to our viewers in the bush 43 white house and then some. we also have matthew miller with us, former spokesman for attorney general holder, and jeremy bash is with us, former chief of staff at cia, at dod and formerly counsel for the house intel committee. welcome to you all. hard to know where to begin. let's go to the political stakes today. the story that nbc news put out that has kind of dominated the attention today, nicolle, and

what that's likely to generate in the hearing room. >> take a step back and remember how we got here. we got here -- and i remember when you went on the air at 11:00 because it happened late in the day, reporting that flynn had resigned and that the news had broken how it was sally yates who had gone to the white house saying he may be compromised. the news today is that obama had warned trump about flynn. obama wasn't the only one. chris christie was one of the early people signalling alarms abou the role that was imagined for mike ynn. and i learned that on all the lists that were made for all the candidate for national security adviser, he was never on any of those lists. neither was he on the list to be the secretary of defense or state. the role was suggested because the family and the president-elect felt so loyal to him because of the loyalty that flynn had displayed to him was maybe something dni or something in the intel services where he had served in the defense intelligence agency. so before we get wrapped up in the revelation that obama

actually used that first meeting where he sat down with donald trump to say, hey, you know, alarm bells should be ringing before you place mike flynn as your national security adviser, he had been warned by people at the highest levels of his own campaign, and by at least one person who was initially involved in that transition. >> jeremy bash, when we touched on this earlier, when the white house says, well, then, why didn't the obama administration -- they fired general flynn -- pull or revoke his security clearance, what's wrong with that argument? >> giving somebody a security clearance is done for about a million and a half people in our government. it's like basically saying, u a pilot's license, you can fly. it's not the same as saying, you can be the pilot at air force i. you have the judgment and the seriousness to take on this job. only one person gets to be that in our government. that person is responsible not

only for the advice of the president, they're also responsible for seeing all covert action requirements in the united states of america. that is not the same thing as the million and a half people who have security clearance. these are apples and oranges, brian. >> is there a kind of upper echelon for those with security clearances, or is it one and done? >> no, there is an upper echelon and the national security adviser sits on that tier. the thought that you may have access, the team would think, he has one important job. now should we vet him for that job? they would have discovered that he took payments fis speech in moscow they would have disclosed he was a paid foreign agent for the governmentf turkey unregistered as a department of

justice as he was required to by law. he did not disclose his financial disclosure forms in 2008. all of those things should have been warning flags even if they had done the most basic vetting, not to mention, hey, does this guy have the judgment, the capability, the patience to do this very demanding job? >> we'll take a break. when we come back, the one man at this table who has worked with and can talk about sally yates. let's call her the headline witness in this subcommittee hearing we'll be witnessing at the bottom of the hour. but our live coverage will continue right after this. it's more complete allergy relief in a gentle mist you may not even notice. using unique mistpro technology, new flonase sensimist delivers a gentle mist to help block six key inflammatory substances that cause your symptoms. most allergy pills only block one.

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the acting attorney general didn't come in and say there was an issue. she said, want to give you a heads up that there may be information. she couldn't confirm there was an investigation. so it would be unbelievably short-sighted and wrong to go i and dismiss someone immediately. >> that was on valentine's day in the white house briefing room, a little valentine from the white house to the lead witness today, sally yates. the hearing is set to begin at the bottom of the hour. lindsey graham has entered the hearing room. we'll see members of the hearing trickle in before we see the witnesses. but this will be interesting from the opening statements to the first round of questions.

as i mentioned, matt miller is here with us. he's a veteran of the justice department and the only member of our group here in the studio who knows and has worked with sally yates. matt, i think it's fair to say that even people who follow politics closely first heard the name sally yates the night she refused to put into motion the muslim ban as proposed and signed and enforced by the trump administration. she was dismissed. she was acting attorney general. in my memory, what gave her that distinction was she could act on warrants, and they needed someone in that job. are we correct so far? and tell us about the sally yates you know. >> you're right, she was one of the only people that could approve them. sally yates is a classic career prosecutor. she spent years as a line assistant attorney general in

georgia, prosecuted the mayor of atlanta, prosecuted the bomber terrorism case of eric rudolph, the most far reaching case the justice department had. she became u.s. attorney at the beginning of the obama administration. there are 93 u.s. attorneys across the country. when there is a vacancy, either at the deputy attorney general or the attorney general level, all 93 think they're the leading candidate. she is the one that donald trump and eric holder picked as the leading candidate. she was the leading prosecutor most respected by people, and you saw her at the confirmation hearing where she was supported by democratic senators. >> jeremy bash, for those people not watching "billions" this season, what is the job of u.s. attorney like? how is it regarded in the federal system? >> it's the pinnacle of law

enforcement of the prosecutorial system. in atlanta, those people are responsible for working day in and day out with career prosecutors, with fbi agents, running cases and then bringing those cases before federal judges. you need the maximum amount of credibility, the maximum amount of professionalism to hold those positions. >> pete williams is in our national bureau, still, and pete, talk to me about -- a lot of people have been clued into the vacancies in the administration, and that brings us to the number of vacancies each new administration is able to fill, the consequences of elections. but to matt's point and to jeremy's, below that there are these career, in this case, lawyers, prosecutors. they go after bad men and women

who do bad things, and they prosecute ideally regardless of party. >> a couple of points to make here. one is the administration is off to a slow start in terms of getting its political appointees in the job. the top two vacancies of the justice department have been filled, attorney general and deputy attorney general, but that's it. we still don't have any of the other political jobs confirmed yet. none of the 93 u.s. attorneys that were fired, some quit on their own at the beginning of the administration, a little less than half were asked to leave. none of those have been filled yet. the president will make some headway today toward filling 100 vacant judgeships by announcing ten names today. one of the things we have to listen to as we prepare for this hearing is questioning whether michael flynn was under fbi investigation for potentially misleading to agents whether, in fact, he talked to the russian ambassador about sanctions.

and there is some question to what extent she can talk about that. the initial impression i got was that there was no interest in prosecuting that, that the people who came away from the conversation and the career prosecutors who looked at it didn't think it met the test of the federa law of lying to federal agents, but that's a question that is sort of in the background here, and she mayor may n -- may or may not be able to discuss that today. >> hallie jackson over at the white house. hallie? >> reporter: one of the things we'll be listening to in about six minutes is whether what sally yates says matches to what sean spicer said earlier today. she came in to give a heads up. she said she did not warn

anybody about an investigation into mike flynn. what's said here today is significant, and that's what a lot of folks are looking to see. will her alarm bell match up to what sean spicer said her alarm bell actually was? >> nicolle wallace, it has been written and i have read that michael flynn is the one person that trump aides are pretty unified on wanting some distance. >> yeah, that's true. and there were some stories that broke about him late friday night when jeremy and i held that meeting late night. the white house seemed to respond this morning and late yesterday making it clear that president trump still wants people to defend michael flynn and to say he was a good man that was the victim of a witch hunt. what's fascinating to me, we're 20 minutes in and nobody accepts the white house rationale that

sally yates was fired because of the briefing. the best reason for why she no longer works in a government that no one said she didn't serve faithfully was not obeying the unconstitutional travel ban. so this whole thing hinges on what she told the white house on flynn and whether or not they ignored her and whether or not they acted quickly enough. she left the government that served under democrats and republicans. a lotf people who come up as u.s. attorneys do. it's pretty stunning. >> i think it's an important point, because in some ways this attorney. was mike flynn in freelancing or did he have the authorization from the president. he is loyal to people.

he would have been resistant as a vp candidate. i think he --. donald trump didn't want to cut ties with him, but i think what we may learn is just how di. flynn was a true believer. >> absolutely. and donald trump first met flynn back in 2016, right before this second gop debate in california. at that point of impact. aides who were trying to orgts for him, but mike is someone who did relent, he did go and sit

down with donald trump. he was meeting with other ran. ment. donald trump liked him because he was willing to stick by him early on when nobody else was. and their world views aligned. mike flinl was and social security. donald trump bleefz that he see. mike viquera has button-holed senator as part of the new incoming new administration, she did do exactly what -- >> i think that is childish. i mean, as we know it.

you don't attack people like that. >> interesting. not because senator leahy is on this subcommittee, he is not, but just given his prominence and seniority in the democratic party. i also, as we watch the hearing room, people are going to start to get their photographs when both witnesses come in and the senators will be taking their seats. now i'm told dick durbin has arrived at our camera location. >> it was pretty clear that she believed, others in the government did, that he had been engaging in conduct with the russian. which may compromise the. >> she was questioned whether or not she was the source behind

any of these. >> i'm not going to act surprised at any twit. >> senator, are you concerned about the unmasking issue? republicans have raised -- >> well, of course they have. let's wait and see. it's a procedure to find out who the suspect was speaking to. in this case, when they ask for unmasking, they don't know the identity when. from what i've. . a homeland security business and the ski. >> tell what you're fwfring

that's a question of, is the timeline of what we know now starting with when sally yates was fired, wasn't it related to michael flynn and her obama team giving warnings to the trump administration and not the story we've been told so far, which is that she was fired related to the muslim ban. if this is the case, if she actually was the ka sandra in this story and came out and was giving direct warnings to theme thement to quite possiblily with regards to his contacts with the russian.

. given how many are looking at tt and the. i think i think are not just the committees looking into it, but the very fact that the e. that is to find potentially americans who may be working for foreign snulgs agencies, if i can russia many -- mischaracter zagtss of what he is doing seriously or did they order him to contact the russian ambassador the five times that they were actually kicking out russian intelligence collectors from the united states. and that will determine whether this thing goes into a much, much deeper place. >> malcolm nance, we appreciate having you go along with us.

let's look in the hearing room and look as members of this subcommittee get settled. there at the center is john cornyn. beyond him is lindsey graham, sheldon, white house of rye. jim rosenthal of connecticut is joining them non a council seat. he is not a member of this particular subcommittee. >> this is a subcommittee, the subcommittee on crime and terrorism of the full judiciary committee. we should know, brian, that the crime they're looking into is espionage, the potential hacking into of our election services on novemb 19. the subcommittee ranking member is sheldon.

>> we're going to haveer enr r. you can see the still photogs depending on sally yates. let's listen in. there's former dni clapper sitting next to her. at some point the photographer will be given the order to clear. >> give them some peace. >> and i think we're underway. >> back in your cages. the hearing will come to order. thank you all for coming. i'll give a brief opening statement along with senator whitehouse and then we'll have

senator feinstein follow us in questioning. it will be 7-minute rounds initially and we'll try to do a second round of five minutes. to both of the witnesses, thank you for coming. we'll try to make this as reasonably short as possible, and if you need a break, please let us know. people wonder what are we doing and what are we trying to accomplish? in january, the intelligence community unanimously said that the russians, through their intelligence services, tried to interfere in the 2016 american presidential election, that it was the russians who had podesta's e-mails, it was the russians who broke into the democratic national committee, and it was the russians who helped empower wikileaks. no evidence that the russians changed voting tallies. how people were influenced by what happened only they know and god knows, but i think every american should be concerned about what the russians did. from my point of view, there is no doubtn my mind it was the

russiansnvolved in all the things i just described, not some 400-pound guy sitting on a bed in any other country. russia is up to no good when it comes to democracies all over the world, dismembering the ukraine, the baltics are always under siege by russian interference. so why? we want to learn what the russians did. we want to find a way to stop them because they're apparently not going to stop until somebody makes them. the hearing that was held last week with director comey asked a question, is it fair to say that the russian government is still involved in american politics, and he said yes. i want house members and senators to know it was the presidential campaign of 2016. it could be our campaigns next. i don't know what happened in france, but somebody hacked into mr. macron's account, and we'll see who that may have been, but this is sort of what russia does to try to undermine democracy.

so what are we trying to accomplish here? to validate the findings of the intelligence committee as much as possible and to come up with a course of action as a nation bipartisan in nature, because it was the democratic party of 2016 were the victims. it could be the republican party of the future. when one party is attacked, all of it should fill in the attack. . when a foreignower interferes in our election, it doesn't matter who they targeted, we're all in the same boat. quite frankly, when i got involved in this investigation, i didn't know much about it. director comey said the 702 program, which allows warrants for intelligence gathering and a vital intelligence tool. i've learned a bit about unmasking and what i've learned is disturbing. so i don't know exactly all the

details what goes into unmasking an american citizen being instantly surveilled when they are involved with a foreign agent. i'd like to know more and i want to make sure that unmasking can never be used as a political weapon in our democracy, so i'm all for hitting the enemy before they hit us, intelligence gatherings are essential. but i do believe that we need to take a look at the procedures involved in 702, particularly when is unmasking requested, who can request it and what limitations exist, if any, on amount of use. that's why we're here. we're here to find out all things russia. and the witnesses are determined by the evidence and nothing else. t the. i for one have a lot of questions i didn't have before.

senator feinstein and grassley have been terrific. the subcommittee has allowed us to do our job, have empowered us and it's been much appreciated. with that i'll recognize senator whitehouse. >> thank you, mr. chairman. in january america's intelligence committee disclosed that the russian government on the orders of vladimir putin engaged in an ection-influenced campaign throughout 2016. in march, fbi director come confirmed that, and i quote him here, the fbi as part of its counterintelligence mission is investigating the russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, and that includes investigating the nature of a trump campaign and whether there was a coordination between the campaign and russia's ordinance.

our inquiry serves broader aims. to give a third one to help defend our government. we heard from expert witnesses on april 23rd about tool boxes to empower other countries. now we can ask, which toolboxes were used in the election of 2016? as clint watts told the senate select committee on intelligence in march, russian state-sponsored natives turned out manipulative truths, false news stories and conspiracies, end quote, following a weaponized fake news effort openly discussing donald trump's candidacy, quoting again while specifically offering coverage

of president. using trolls across social media. these facts are not disputed by any serious person, so this is a yes on the checklist. hacking and theft of political information. tl tlut. including state or election boards, stealing vulnerabilities and private information and e-tails. so this is another yes. timed leaks of damaging material. russian intelligence cut out simple organizations like dcleaks.com and wikileaks, then timed the release of stolen victim data to maximize its

political effect, by influencing the outcome of an election. system. the shadowed releases of stolen data on twitter in august of 2016. timing can matter. on october 7, just hours after the access hollywood tapes were made public, wikileaks began. last october russian. i saw the prime minister. he was disfigured when echls opposition figures are routinely targets of state political

violence. bore is yemsoff was murdered near the kremlin in 2015. luckily we have no evidence of that happening here. we learned from heather conley's in our last hearing that the playbook is meant to manipulate other countries in tyration. putin's petrol politics was used to raise political pressure. none of that tactic here so far. shade i business and financial ties. russia explores the dark shadows of more. they allow for the concealment of political funds and can have money directly or indirectly for

our public system. we have seen a dark money flow in our elections from 5-1-c4 organizations. we don't know that amount of money or what they're demanding in return. we ask for leverage to drop louvres or the stick. he is purported to have done or sought to have done business there since the. seder's family has links to russia and organized crime and feels like themselves they sometimes have difficulty with the law. seder said in a two-hour deposition that he would drop

ideas to his team on less than an order basis. donald trump jr. said in september 2008 that he made half a dozen trips to russia in the preceding 18 months,oting that russian investors were heavily involved in trump's new york real estate projects. we see a lot of money pouring in from russia, he said. one trump property am midtown, manhattan had become, within a few years of opening, a drama of rushing money. here there are still big questions. . he could save a lot of time and money by releasing federal and state tax returns. in testimony before the judiciary committee last monday, they will be subject to come proo. easy to manipulate targd

individuals with the prospect. >> p. his transition team, his campaign or his businesses. another big question mark. >> we know that president trump has had in his orbit very russia friendly figures. in 2014 who is director of the intelligence committee. had developed strong relationships with russian mirror taer. he flew to moskos at a pained kpur arns where he was once seated near vladimir putin. such a trip for a retired attorney general. .

in late march 22016, paige told bloomberg colleagues that friends had been hurt by u.s. francs. >> on april 27, 2016, trump and several of his advisers, includi including. which wa hesed by the center. kiz knee ak attended the trump. in the days after the november election, russia's four-day deputy confirmed that the government had created. on december 29, the same day that president obaserv obama an

that there would be no more election. they made notes about the content of credit tichl. they asked for flynn's resignation, something i'm hoping ms. yates can she had light on in her testimonied. dismissing fact as fake news and downplaying the significance of individuals involved. more than 100 into the trump administration and nearly two years after he declared his candidacy for president, only one person has been held accountable for improper contacts with russia: michael flynn flynn. some were saying his actions were not improper, he just lost trust with the president.

an 18-minute gap filled well. in this case we have an 18-day gap between the notification of the white house that a senior oe fes officials' role. these irregularities may compromise corruption at the hands of the russian intelligence. my hope is that these hearings and yet to come will help us find out. thank you, jeremy. >> our two witnesses are well known and i will be sworn in. but mr. clapper, the former director of national intelligence, has served.

thank you both for coming raise your right hand, please. >> do you confirm that the information you're about to give to the subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god? >> i do. [ inaudible ] >> general graham, ranking members of the white house and is members of the subcommittee, i certainly didn't expect to be before this committee or any other committee. i thought i was all done with this when i left the government. this is only my first. the egregious interruption in our presidential election is

unacceptable. a special process resulted in an assessment or ica, as we call it. i'm here today to provide any information that i can now as a private citizen on how the intelligence committee came up with its analysis, pulled up its fundings additionally, i'll briefly address four related top. . of course, my direct official knowledge of any of this stopped on 20 january when my term of office was happily over. as you know, the ic was a coordinated product from three agencies, cia, nsa and the fbi. not all 17 components of the

intelligence committee. those three under the agents of my former office. following extensive television reporting about many russian efforts to collect on and influence the outcome of the presidential election, president obama asked us to do in early december and have it completed before the end of his term. the two dozen or so analysts for this task were hand picked, seasoned experts from each of the contributing agencies. they were given complete unfettered mutual access to all sensitive raw intelligence data and imrtantly, complete independence toeach their findings. they found the russian government pursued a multifaceted influence campaign in the run-up to the election including aggressive use of cyber capabilities. they used both political parties including hacking. and releasing stolen data to wikileaks and other media outlets. russia also collected uncertain

party affiliated targets but did not release any republican-related data. the assessment concluded first president putin directed an influenced campaign to erode the faith and confidence of the american people and our presidential election process. second, that did he so to demean secretary clinton, and third that he sought to advantage mr. trump. these conclusions were reached based on the richness of the information gathered and analyzed or authorizely vetted by the three agencies and me. these russian activities result were briefed first to president obama on the fifth of january, then to president-elect trump at trump tower on the 6th, and to congress via five briefings from the 6th through 13th of january. it was profusely annotated with footnotes drawn from thousands of pages of supporting material. the key judgments in the unclassified version published on january 6 were identical to

the classified version. it's been over four months since the issuance of this assessment as the directors testified before the house intelligence committee on march 4. the comfort levels reached at the time still stand. i think that's a statement to the quality of the intelligence committee who produced such an intelligence report during a tumultuous controversial time under intense scrutiny and with a very tight deadline. throughout the public dialogue with b the issue over the last four months, four related topics have been raise that had could use clarification. i would like to take a few moments to provide that. first i want to address the meaning of quote, unmasking, an unofficial term that has occurred frequently in the media as often misused and misunderstood. so what frequently happens that in the course of conducting

lawfully authorized surveillance on foreign targets, they pick up communications involving u.s. persons. either their direct interface with a validated foreign inigence target or where there's disssion abo those u.s. persons by validated foreign intelligence targets. under intelligence community minimization, they are typically mask in the reports that go out to the consumers and they're referred to each report at a time as u.s. person one, u.s. person two, et cetera. however, there are cases when to fully understand the context. communication has been obtained or the threat that is poetsed, the consumer of that intelligence may and the identity of the u.s. person be revealed. such requests explain why the unmasking is necessary and that explanation is conveyed back to the agency that collected the information. it is then up to that agency

whether to approve the request and to provide the identity. and if the person's identity is revealed, that identity is provided only to the person who properly requested it. not to a broader audience. this process is subject to oversight and reporting and in the interests of transparency, my former office publishes a report on the statistics of how many u.s. persons identities are masked. in 2016 that number was 1934. on several occasions, during my six and a half years, i requested the identity of u.s. persons to be revealed. in each such instance, i made these requests so could i fully understand the context of the communication and the potential threat being posed. at no time did i ever submit a request for personal or political purposes, or to volunteeristicly look at raw

intelligence, nor am i aware o such abuse by aone else. stekd issue of leaks. leaks have been completed with unmaskings in some of the public discourse but they are two very different things. an unmasking is done by proper authorities as i've jufd described. a leak is an unauthorized disclosure of classified or citizen information that is improper under any circumstance. i've long maintained during my 50 plus year that leaks endanger national security, they compromise and they can put assets' lives at risk. for the record in my long career, i've never knowingly exposed classified information in an inappropriate manner. third is the issue of counter intelligence information conducted by the federal bureau of investigation. while i can't and won't comment in this setting on any counter intelligence investigation, it is important to understand how such investigations fit into and

relate to the intelligence community and at least the general practice i followed during my time as dni with almost to fbi counter intelligence investigations. when the intelligence community obtains information suggesting that a u.s. person is acting on behalf of a foreign power, the standard procedure is to share that information with the lead investigatory body which of course is the fbi. the bureau then decides whether to look is that that information and handles any ensuing investigation, if there is one. given the sensitivity, even the existence of a counter terror investigation is held at the highest levels. during my tenure, it was my practice to defer to the fbi director. both director muller and then director comey to what extent they would inform me about such investigations. this stems from the unique had

involvement of the fbi. as consequence, i have not aware of the counter intelligence investigation director comey first referred to during his testimony before the house. and that kfrs with my public statements. finally i would like to comment on the surveillance act amendments act as it is called. what it governs and yits violen this prosion authorizes a foreign intelligence surveillance core to prove electronic surveillance of naunl u.s. person, let me repeat that. nonu.s. person, foreign intelligence targets outside the united states. section 702 has been a tremendously effective tool in identifying terrorists and others to us while at the same time protecting the privacy and civil liberties of u.s. persons. as chairman grant indicated, diets for reauthorization by congress this year. it was renewed in 2012 for five

years and it expires on 31 december this year. with so many misconceptions flying around, it would be tragic for section 702 to back casualty of misinformation and for to us lose title so vital to the safety of this nation. in conclusion, russia's influence activities in the run-up to the election konls stootd the high water marshall of the long water mark since the 1960s to disrupt our elections. they must be congratulating themselves that and i believe they are now emboldened to continue such activities, both here and sxrauld to do so even more intensely. if there has ever been a call for vigilance and action against a threat to the very foundation of our democratic political system, this episode is it. i hope the american people

recognize the severity of this thre threat. i'll now turn to my former colleague sally yates for any remarks she has to make. >> chairman graham, ranking members, i am pleased to appear before you this afternoon on this critically important topic of russian interference in our last presidential election and the related topics this sub committee is investigating. for 27 years i was honored to present the people of the united states with the department. justice. i began as an assistant united states attorney in atlanta in the fall of 1989. like all prosecutors, i investigated and tried cases, and worked hard to try to ensure the safety of our communities, and that those who violated our

laws were held accountable. over time through five democratic and republican administrations, i assumed greater leadership positions within the department. in the u.s. attorney's office in atlanta, i served as chief of the fraud and corrupt had administration, and then was appointed the united states attorney. and then i had the privilege of serving the deputy attorney general for a little over two years. and finally, the current administration asked me to stay on as acting attorney general. throughout my time at the department, i was incredibly formt to be able to work the talented, career men and women at the department of justice who followed facts and applied the law with tremendous care and dedication. and who are in fact back bone of the department of justice. in every step, in every position, from a