we will start with either -- with peter clements to my right, and then we will go to my far left. and my colleague george will wrap up. peter clements, to my right, is a senior research fellow and an adjunct professor at columbia university at the school of international public affairs. he left the cia just several months ago, after a career there on the analytical side of the agency. as as a deputy director for -- as a deputy director for intelligence, for analytics programs. and a number of other key posts . peter is a long time russia watcher and we are very pleased that he could be with us today. so peter, let's start with you, and i would ask each of you to try to limit it to 10 minutes. we have a big group, i'm sure we will have a lot of questions and discussion. peter: thank you for having me. it's always a pleasure to see all old friends from the intelligence community, from the think tank and world of academia and other agencies around town. and even some media friends i have made over the years, so thank you for having me today. in the interest of time i'm going to cut r

peter clement, to my right, is a senior research fellow and an adjunct perfec professor at columbia university at the school of international and public affairs. he last was at the cia several months ago after a career on the analytical side of the agency as director of the office of eurasian programs and analytic programs in a number of key posts. he is a longtime russia watcher and were very pleased he could be with us today. >> thank you so much. >> let's start with you. i would ask each of you to try to limit it to ten minutes. we have a big group. i'm sure we will have a lot of questions and discussion. >> thank you for having me. it's always a pleasure to see a lot of old friends and colleagues both from the intelligence community, from the thing tank world and other agencies around town. even some media friends i've made over the year. thank you for having me today. in the interest of time i will cut to the chase. i tried too identify four core questions and give you my thoughts on that and hopefully frame the discussion that we have on the panel but also during thean q&a. the core ques

this was -- peter clements. just one quick point. you haven't reread it recently, it is really worth reading. the on classified -- on classified -- assessment when it came out. part of the -- there was, the russians did actually think that hillary probably was going to win, like everybody else on earth. part of their motivation in trying to discredit her, put out all the stuff about her health and well-being, how cranky she could be, or whatever. that was in part designed to make her less effective as president after she got elected. and, i think they, like everyone else, was surprised at the outcome. because, more and more has come out about the extent of their interference, use of social media and so on. they actually created this problem that they now have, which is it is impossible to engage the united states. the ambassador was complaining how they won't give us the time of day. you can speak to anyone on capitol hill. it's rare to get him to get people to answer the phone. this is the net result of all the spec they have become