[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                    OVERSIGHT OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU
                            OF INVESTIGATION

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                     ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                      WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2020

                               __________

                           Serial No. 116-73

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
         
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               Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov

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                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
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                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                    JERROLD NADLER, New York, Chair
               MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania, Vice-Chair

ZOE LOFGREN, California              DOUG COLLINS, Georgia, Ranking 
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas                Member
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee               F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., 
HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,          Wisconsin
    Georgia                          STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida          LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
KAREN BASS, California               JIM JORDAN, Ohio
CEDRIC L. RICHMOND, Louisiana        KEN BUCK, Colorado
HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York         JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas
DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island     MARTHA ROBY, Alabama
ERIC SWALWELL, California            MATT GAETZ, Florida
TED LIEU, California                 MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland               ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington          TOM McCLINTOCK, California
VAL BUTLER DEMINGS, Florida          DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona
J. LUIS CORREA, California           GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas              BEN CLINE, Virginia
JOE NEGUSE, Colorado                 KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota
LUCY McBATH, Georgia                 W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida
GREG STANTON, Arizona
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
DEBBIE MUCARSEL-POWELL, Florida
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas

        PERRY APELBAUM, Majority Staff Director & Chief Counsel
                BRENDAN BELAIR, Minority Staff Director
                               
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                            C O N T E N T S

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                      Wednesday, February 5, 2020

                                                                   Page

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the 
  Judiciary from the State of New York...........................     1
The Honorable Doug Collins, Ranking Member of the Committee on 
  the Judiciary from the State of Georgia........................     4

                                WITNESS

Christopher A. Wray, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
  Oral Testimony.................................................     8
  Written Testimony..............................................    11

          LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

An article entitled, ``The Plot to Subvert an Election: 
  Unraveling the Russia Story So Far,'' New York Times, submitted 
  by the Honorable Mary Gay Scanlon, Vice-Chair of the Committee 
  on the Judiciary from the State of Pennsylvania for the record.    74
An article entitled, ``Justice Department Investigating Migrant 
  Shelter Provider,'' New York Times, submitted by the Honorable 
  Sylvia Garcia, a Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from 
  the State of Texas for the record..............................   112
An article entitled, `` `Chaos Is the Point': Russian Hackers and 
  Trolls Grow Stealthier in 2020,'' New York Times, submitted by 
  the Honorable Joe Neguse, a Member of the Committee on the 
  Judiciary from the State of Colorado for the record............   122

                                APPENDIX

A statement from the Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC, 
  submitted by the Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the 
  Committee on the Judiciary from the State of New York for the 
  record.........................................................   146
A letter from Brian O'Hare, President, Federal Bureau of 
  Investigation Agents Association submitted by the Honorable 
  Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary from 
  the State of New York for the record...........................   160
Articles submitted by the Honorable Doug Collins, Ranking Member 
  of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Georgia for 
  the record
  An article entitled, ``Radical feminists vandalize 2 churches, 
    burn prolife journalist's car,'' The Christian Post..........   164
  An article entitled, ``Exclusive: `I Will F**in' Slit Your 
    Throat': Protester Threatened Girl At March For Life, Student 
    Says,'' Daily Caller.........................................   169
  An article entitled, ``WATCH: New video documents abortion 
    activists' attacks on peaceful pro-lifers,'' LifeSite........   175
  An article entitled, ``Louisville woman charged with assaulting 
    elderly anti-abortion activist outside clinic,'' Louisville 
    Courier Journal..............................................   178
  An article entitled, ``Jordan Hunt: Man Arrested For Kicking 
    Anti-abortion Protestor Has History of Alleged Attacks,'' 
    Newsweek.....................................................   181
  An article entitled, ``Video shows assault, vandalism against 
    campus pro-lifers,'' The College Fix.........................   183
  An article entitled, ``Woman who was roundhouse kicked at anti-
    abortion rally speaks out,'' Toronto Sun.....................   185

                 QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES FOR THE RECORD

Questions from the Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the 
  Committee on the Judiciary from the State of New York for the 
  record.........................................................   192
Questions from the Honorable Theodore Deutch, a Member of the 
  Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Florida for the 
  record.........................................................   199
Questions from the Honorable Sylvia Garcia, a Member of the 
  Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Texas for the 
  record.........................................................   201
Questions from the Honorable Ted Lieu, a Member of the Committee 
  on the Judiciary from the State of California for the record...   202
Questions from the Honorable Joe Neguse, a Member of the 
  Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Colorado for the 
  record.........................................................   203
Questions from the Honorable Eric Swalwell, a Member of the 
  Committee on the Judiciary from the State of California for the 
  record.........................................................   205
Questions from the Honorable Ken Buck, a Member of the Committee 
  on the Judiciary from the State of Colorado for the record.....   206
Questions from the Honorable Mike Johnson, a Member of the 
  Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Louisiana for the 
  record.........................................................   207

 
            OVERSIGHT OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

                              ----------                              


                      Wednesday, February 5, 2020

                     U.S. House of Representatives

                       Committee on the Judiciary

                             Washington, DC

    The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:08 a.m., in Room 
2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jerrold Nadler [Chair 
of the Committee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Nadler, Lofgren, Jackson Lee, 
Cohen, Johnson of Georgia, Deutch, Bass, Richmond, Jeffries, 
Cicilline, Swalwell, Lieu, Raskin, Jayapal, Demings, Correa, 
Scanlon, Garcia, Neguse, McBath, Stanton, Dean, Mucarsel-
Powell, Collins, Chabot, Gohmert, Jordan, Buck, Ratcliffe, 
Roby, Gaetz, Johnson of Louisiana, Biggs, McClintock, Lesko, 
Reschenthaler, Cline, Armstrong, and Steube.
    Staff Present: Aaron Hiller, Deputy Chief Counsel; Amy 
Rutkin, Chief of Staff; Arya Hariharan, Deputy Chief Oversight 
Counsel; David Greengrass, Senior Counsel; Madeline Strasser, 
Chief Clerk; Moh Sharma, Member Services and Outreach Adviser; 
Sarah Istel, Oversight Counsel; Kerry Tirrell, Oversight 
Counsel; Priyanka Mara, Professional Staff Member/Legislative 
Aide; Anthony Valdez, Staff Assistant; John Williams, 
Parliamentarian; Ben Hernandez, Counsel, Subcommittee on Crime; 
Ebise Bayisa, Counsel, Subcommittee on Crime; Brendan Belair, 
Minority Staff Director; Bobby Parmiter, Minority Staff 
Director/Chief Counsel; Jon Ferro, Minority Parliamentarian/
General Counsel; Erica Barker, Minority Deputy Parliamentarian; 
and Ryan Breitenbach, Minority Chief Counsel, National 
Security.
    Chair Nadler. The House Committee on the Judiciary will 
come to order.
    Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare 
recesses of the Committee at any time.
    We welcome everyone to this morning's hearing on Oversight 
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I will now recognize 
myself for an opening statement.
    Thank you, Director Wray, for being here. Although we have 
a great deal of ground to cover today, nearly every topic we 
discuss will be linked to two questions. How is the FBI working 
to address some of the most serious threats to our Nation? When 
it falls short, how is the Bureau working to correct its course 
and live up to our ideals?
    The FBI is filled with brave, devoted public servants who 
work hard to keep us safe from threats both domestic and 
foreign, but it is clear that more work needs to be done to 
shore up public confidence in the Bureau. The FBI's 
jurisdiction is broad. Among other critical matters, the FBI is 
responsible for election security, criminal and 
counterterrorism investigations, our fight against domestic 
terrorism, and oversight of our public servants. I would like 
to talk about each of these in a bit more detail.
    First, we are heading toward the 2020 elections. There is 
nothing more important than ensuring that each and every 
American has confidence in the integrity of his or her vote. As 
you have warned us, foreign attacks on our elections continue 
to this day. You recently stated, ``Russia represents the most 
significant threat to the election cycle itself.''
    Other nation-states, including China and Iran, may have 
interest in interfering in our next election, too. We must be 
unified in our fight against anyone who tries to undermine the 
very foundations of our democracy. Our priorities should be 
preventing and deterring any of our adversaries from attacking 
us ever again, and when attacks do happen, we must respond 
swiftly. Our democracy depends on it.
    Now, some have tried to deflect the attention from the 
clear evidence of Russia's attack in 2016 because it does not 
suit them politically. In a recent interview, Director Wray, 
you confirmed that these alternative theories have no 
evidentiary support. For example, there is no evidence 
whatsoever to suggest that Ukraine, not Russia, hacked into the 
Democratic National Committee's computer networks.
    We know the evidence. We know who our allies are and we 
know who our adversaries are. Now, we must work with our allies 
and come together as a Nation to protect our voting systems 
from our enemies. As you testify today, I will be listening to 
how the FBI plans to counter these threats and secure our 
elections.
    I will also be listening for your plans to counter attempts 
to undermine the integrity of our elections from within. I am 
deeply concerned that every time the interagency team tasked 
with securing our elections takes a significant step forward, 
President Trump undercuts that progress with a statement or a 
tweet that spreads misinformation or directly invites our 
adversaries, other nations, to meddle in our elections.
    You may not be able to control the content of the 
President's Twitter account, but our Government has an 
obligation to be unified in protecting every American's right 
to vote from anyone who threatens to undermine that right.
    Second, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is a tool 
entrusted to the Government to protect our country. This 
Committee's job is to make certain that the use of that tool 
complies with the law and with our commitment to privacy and 
civil liberties.
    On December 9th of last year, the Department of Justice 
Office of the Inspector General released a report entitled 
``Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the 
FBI's Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.'' The Inspector 
General found deep and systemic problems with how the FBI has 
used the FISA Act to target United States citizens. I will 
remind you that this Committee expressed concerns along those 
lines for the last 3 or 4 years.
    The report found ``basic fundamental and serious errors in 
the process designed to ensure the factual accuracy of 
information presented to the court.'' In so doing, the Bureau 
``fell short of what is rightfully expected from a premier law 
enforcement agency entrusted with such an intrusive 
surveillance tool.''
    Simply put, the FBI failed in its responsibilities with 
respect to FISA, and that requires action. Congress must 
address these systemic failures if we are to leave such a 
powerful tool in the hands of the FBI.
    I am encouraged, Director Wray, that you have volunteered 
to make dozens of important changes to address the findings of 
the Inspector General, but a recent submission by a court-
appointed Amicus suggests that new procedures, new checklists, 
and new training modules may not be enough to address the 
problem.
    The Committee has a responsibility to renew certain aspects 
of FISA in the coming weeks. Having read the report, I feel 
strongly that we must address these problems in that 
legislation without delay.
    I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. 
Sensenbrenner, among others, for encouraging us to wait until 
after the Inspector General released his report to take up this 
matter. Now, of course, some have suggested that the report 
provides evidence of a far-reaching conspiracy to remove the 
President. As you know, that is utter nonsense.
    The Inspector General, and I am quoting, ``did not find 
documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or 
improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the 
individual investigations.'' At bottom, the report documents 
important issues that affect the sacred liberties of American 
citizens. I hope that we can focus on those substantive issues 
where we are bound to find common ground and not derail our 
conversation with long-debunked conspiracy theories by the 
President or any of his minions.
    Third, we must address the sad and frightening resurgence 
of White supremacy and other forms of nativist extremism that 
plagues our country. The FBI's most recent hate crime 
statistics are a testament to the rise of antisemitic violence. 
The year 2018 marked the deadliest year of antisemitic attacks 
in American history. Hate crimes attacks against LGBT 
individuals and Latinos were also markedly up in 2018. These 
grave statistics demand a swift and immediate response, 
starting with the FBI's making concerted efforts to improve 
hate crime statistics reporting.
    Recent State and Federal prosecutions have shown that White 
supremacist groups are increasingly coordinating their 
messaging beyond our borders. Through social media, White 
supremacists are spreading their hate, their message of hate, 
inspiring attacks both at home and abroad.
    This growing problem hits close to home. The Anti-
Defamation League's ``Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents'' 
reported more than 1,800 acts in 2018, one of the highest 
totals since it began tracking such incidents 40 years ago. In 
New York City alone, the NYPD--the New York Police Department 
reported more anti-Jewish, antisemitic incidents in 2019 than 
all other hate crimes put together.
    So, as you testify today, Director Wray, I will be 
listening for how the FBI is working to address this threat, 
and, in particular, whether the Bureau has properly prioritized 
White supremacy and similar forms of domestic terrorism over 
other threats that pose far less immediate risk to our Nation. 
Concrete steps are needed now to address the rising tide of 
hate.
    Finally, the FBI's investigations are meant to be 
independent from political influence. That is critical, 
especially as it relates to your investigations of public 
servants. To that end, Director Wray, I expect that you will 
take a moment to provide the American public with an 
explanation of the Bureau's role in Justice Kavanaugh's 
confirmation to the Supreme Court last year.
    To be clear, I have no intention of relitigating the 
confirmation process here, but there remains a great deal of 
mistrust and uncertainty around the FBI's supplemental 
background check of Justice Kavanaugh during the last few days 
of that confirmation. The country needs a better understanding 
of that process.
    For example, I hope to hear what it means for the Bureau to 
take direction from a client agency--in this case, the White 
House--when it conducts a background check of this nature. If 
that process is as strictly curtailed as I believe it to be, 
then the country can, at the very least, approach the next 
high-profile confirmation with its eyes open.
    As you are about to see, Director Wray, many of our Members 
on both sides of the aisle feel quite passionately about these 
and other issues. My hope is that we will enter these 
discussions with the same goals, fulfilling our mandate, 
fulfilling our duty to uphold our country's values, providing 
oversight of this agency, ensuring increased transparency for 
the American people, and working toward solutions that are best 
for all of us as a nation.
    We have great respect for the manner in which you have led 
the FBI these past years and even greater respect for the men 
and women of the Bureau. I look forward to your testimony.
    I now recognize the Ranking Member of the Judiciary 
Committee, the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Collins, for his 
opening statement.
    Mr. Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it. It is 
good to be back in this room. It has been a while.
    It is also good to see a Former Chair here. Mr. Goodlatte 
is here with us, who has actually been a part of many of these 
investigations before, and it is good to see him.
    It does appear, though, we have a new year. We have the 
first time back in this room, but it seems things have never 
changed in this committee. One of the things that I have 
noticed here is it is interesting that we like to talk about 
the Inspector General's report, but my Chair could have 
actually called the Inspector General to sit where you are, Mr. 
Wray, but we chose not to. We would rather talk about that 
process. We would rather talk about his report.
    It is interesting to me, though, the one thing the Chair 
didn't say was, is the Inspector General said no one should 
feel vindicated by this report. I think it is interesting that 
we, again, like to gloss over problems and discuss that without 
actually bringing witnesses here to do that. As our Committee 
showed in December, we are not about Witnesses. We are about 
rubberstamps. That is exactly what happened here.
    So, the problem I have is, so we are not going to 
relitigate issues. I love what was said here in this issue of 
that we are not going to relitigate the hearings of the Supreme 
Court Justice. It is okay to not relitigate it by actually 
talking about it, but actually to take a shot at it in the 
opening statement seems to be okay. Again, we have not changed 
a whole lot here.
    It is also interesting that we will bring up voting systems 
and election stuff, which we have talked about a little bit in 
this Committee, but when it comes to the foreign side of it, we 
have ignored that. We have talked about moving more toward a 
federalizing of our elections. This is what we have done in 
this hearing. This is what we have done here.
    That is just from the opening statement. I will get to you 
now, Mr. Wray, and I appreciate it, for you being here.
    You have led the FBI during turbulent times, unparalleled 
really by any other Director. You have stepped in at a time 
probably as difficult as has been a part.
    Your agency is respected for its tireless efforts to keep 
Americans safe from all manners of threats. As you know, I have 
a great deal of affection for the men and women of law 
enforcement.
    As outlined in the Inspector General's report, which, 
again, as I shared with you earlier, it would have been nice to 
have had him here. This is the first opportunity to discuss 
that. So, it will be a lot of this discussion today.
    The Bureau engaged in some of the most shocking 
surveillance abuse in history. Specifically, the FBI improperly 
surveilled a U.S. citizen who had been affiliated with then 
presidential candidate Trump. The basis for this electronic 
surveillance, which is among the most intrusive investigations 
the FBI employs, was predicated on opposition research paid for 
by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee and 
procured by foreign--former foreign intelligence officer using 
Russian sources as his basis for reporting.
    To make matters worse, Republicans investigating events 
surrounding the 2016 election learned an FBI attorney falsified 
evidence to renew a surveillance against Carter Page, a law-
abiding U.S. citizen and Naval Academy graduate. This was 
confirmed by the Horowitz report.
    In fact, I had hoped we would have had him here before you. 
We did not. We wrote to the Chair to have this happen. It never 
happened.
    Mr. Director, I understand perfectly well that this abuse 
did not occur on your watch, and I want to make that fully 
clear to every question that is made today. However, I think 
you would agree that it is on your shoulders to take 
responsibility and address it vigorously.
    The flaws in this surveillance are too voluminous to break 
down in one opening statement, but the bottom line is that the 
FBI failed as an institution to adequately protect the American 
civil liberties, and the system itself exhibited glaring 
deficiencies that must be corrected to regain confidence of the 
American people.
    I want to argue an even larger point, though. Whether one 
supports or does not support this President, it is undeniable 
that an unfair, unfounded cloud was cast upon President Trump's 
Administration for the past 3 years, largely stemming from the 
abuses committed in some of the intelligence community. Sadly, 
we have seen this before.
    In the 1970s, the Church and Pike Committees were formed to 
safeguard American citizens against the overwhelming powers of 
the Government. For example, Robert Kennedy spying on Martin 
Luther King Jr. and the unconstitutional surveillance of anti-
war and other political protesters. These actions sparked the 
advent of a law intended to protect U.S. citizens, the Foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Act, as well as the creation of the 
special court to oversee implementation of the new legal 
restrictions on surveillance.
    We have lived with this surveillance regime since the 
1970s, and it has undoubtedly prevented attacks on the 
homeland. I am confident it has saved American lives. However, 
recent events show that there are also substantial holes in the 
law that need patching or possibly wholesale change.
    Prior to March 15th, our Committee and this Congress must 
take critical decisions about reauthorization of specific 
provisions of FISA. This is a matter of vital importance 
because this law is primarily about fighting terrorists, but it 
is also a tall order.
    Make no mistake. While I believe that we must reauthorize 
several provisions, such as collection of business records, 
roving wiretaps, lone wolf authority, the reauthorization of 
these specific provisions in no way addresses the abuses. In 
the matter of the 2016 election, the FBI fell short of what is 
expected and demanded from our law enforcement and intelligence 
institutions. Plainly, the improper spying of an American 
citizen can never happen again.
    That is the great irony. This law was passed to address 
abuses and protect American civil liberties and was abused for 
political purpose, for those violations of those liberties.
    Director Wray, you have proposed solutions, and I am glad 
to see that. I am proud of the work that you have done, though 
I worry about some of those are going to fall short. That is 
why we are here today.
    In substance, you have hit on necessary reforms to training 
and documentation, but there also must be a change, a 
corresponding change to cultural attitude and the threat of 
swift and certain disciplinary measures. I am concerned words 
like ``omission'' and ``misstatements'' downplay the 
intentional conduct and bias exhibited by central players 
involved in the Carter Page surveillance and the conduct of the 
investigative measures taken against others affiliated with 
President Trump.
    From my vantage point, this is not a time to parse words or 
attempt to sugarcoat the fact that public servants abused their 
positions in our intelligence agencies for political purpose. 
Of course, the FBI keeps us safe, and you have personally and 
admirably served the American people for many years in law 
enforcement. I appreciate your Georgia connection and Georgia 
family roots. You have served us well in my district of the 
Northern District of Georgia as a prosecutor, and the men and 
women of the FBI have dedicated their lives to protecting the 
American people from external and internal threats.
    As the son of a trooper and one who also serves, I have 
grown to respect the institutions and been a part of those 
whose goal is protecting our common defense. Your leadership 
over the FBI is a hefty responsibility. These times call for 
leadership which reignites the discipline required to operate 
fairly and effectively. I hope you bring that to the forefront 
of your mind as you consider the efforts to prevent future 
abuses by our intelligence community.
    Now, there are a lot of things I would love to talk about 
today, and I think both sides would. Unfortunately, we are 
going to be clouded by the fact that you are the first real 
oversight of the Department of Justice that we have had under 
this majority. We have not had the Horowitz report here. We 
have not had other things here because the majority chose not 
to.
    When we look at this, though, the men and women of the FBI 
are some of the most valuable assets we have, and their 
dedication should never be questioned. There are some bad 
actors, and bad actors need to be called out. Bad actors need 
to be removed. Those vast majority of good actors need to be 
applauded, and their families need to be thanked for what they 
do.
    I want to thank you, Director Wray, for this. I look 
forward to this hearing, as we continue to do our proper job of 
oversight as we move forward with this. I thank you for being 
here and look forward to talking to you more.
    I yield back.
    Chair Nadler. I thank the gentleman.
    Before we continue, I want to note the presence of the 
former Chair of this Committee, my good friend Bob Goodlatte. 
It is good to see you in this room again.
    I just want to remind the Ranking Member that this is not 
our first attempt at oversight of the Justice Department. In 
fact, we invited the Attorney General, Mr. Barr, here last 
year. He refused to come. We subpoenaed him. He refused to obey 
our subpoena.
    So, we have gone to considerable lengths for oversight of 
the Justice Department. I am glad Mr. Wray is here today.
    I will now introduce today's witness. Christopher Wray 
became the eighth Director of the FBI in August 2017. Before 
becoming Director, Mr. Wray served in various roles at the 
Department of Justice, including Assistant U.S. Attorney for 
the Northern District of Georgia and Principal Associate Deputy 
Attorney General. In 2003, Mr. Wray was nominated by President 
George Bush to be the Assistant Attorney General for the 
Department of Justice's Criminal Division.
    Before working in law enforcement, Mr. Wray clerked for 
Judge Michael Luttig of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 
Fourth Circuit and worked at the international law firm of King 
& Spalding.
    Mr. Wray received his B.A. from Yale University and his 
J.D. from Yale Law School. We thank Director Wray for 
participating in today's hearing.
    Will you please rise? I will begin by swearing you in.
    Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the 
testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best 
of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you God?
    [Response.]
    Chair Nadler. Thank you. Let the record show the witness 
has answered in the affirmative.
    Please note that your written testimony will be entered 
into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, I ask that you 
summarize your testimony in 5 minutes. To help you stay within 
that time, there is a timing light on your table. When the 
light switches from green to yellow, you have 1 minute to 
conclude your testimony. When the light turns red, it signals 
your 5 minutes have expired.
    Director Wray, you may begin.

           TESTIMONY OF THE HON. CHRISTOPHER A. WRAY

    Mr. Wray. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Ranking Member Collins, and 
the Members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to 
be here today to discuss how the men and women of the FBI are 
keeping us all safe from an ever-growing array of threats.
    In the 2 years since I became the FBI Director, I've 
visited all 56 of our field offices around the country and met 
with State and local law enforcement, partners from all 50 
States, every State represented by this committee. I have met 
with all of our headquarters' divisions, with scores of our 
foreign law enforcement partners and intelligence community 
partners, leaders of small businesses, big businesses, 
community leaders, prosecutors, judges, and with crime victims 
and their families. I know up close that the threats are real 
and challenging and that the 37,000 men and women of the FBI 
are working around the clock to combat them.
    As this Committee is well aware, we face a diverse and 
increasingly dangerous terrorism threat. We continue to worry 
about international terrorism by groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, 
but now the threat from lone actors already here in the U.S. 
and inspired by those groups, the homegrown violent extremists, 
that threat is even more acute. At the same time, we are 
particularly focused on domestic terrorism, especially racially 
or ethnically motivated violent extremists.
    Not only is the terror threat diverse, but it is also 
unrelenting. In the last several months alone, just to name a 
few important examples, our joint terrorism task forces have 
foiled synagogue bombings in Colorado and Nevada, arrested 
eight Members of the violent extremist group called the Base 
across four different States, arrested a guy down in Miami for 
planning ISIS-associated acts of violence. I could go on.
    We are also facing the growing and increasingly blended 
threats of cyber intrusions and state-sponsored economic 
espionage, and we're worried about the threat of malign foreign 
influence, including the security of our elections, a topic, of 
course, on everyone's mind this year. We know that our 
adversaries are actively trying to influence national policy, 
public opinion, and our elections. So, together with our close 
partners in the intelligence community, at DHS, State 
governments, and elsewhere, the FBI remains laser focused on 
protecting our democracy as we move through this election year.
    As if that weren't enough, we face ruthless gangs 
threatening our neighborhoods and our schools, the scourges of 
opioid trafficking and abuse, human trafficking, crimes against 
children. The list of threats that we face is not getting any 
shorter, and each of those threats is evolving in scale, in 
impact, in complexity and agility.
    What's more, hanging over all them are broader challenges, 
like maintaining lawful access to increasingly encrypted 
electronic evidence that we actually need to find, stop, and 
prosecute criminals. To tackle these threats, we're relying on 
our deep well of expertise, intelligence, and partnerships. At 
the same time, we're making some important changes to the way 
we operate at the FBI.
    As both you, Mr. Chair, and Ranking Member Collins have 
noted, in December the Inspector General's office released its 
report on the 2016 Crossfire Hurricane investigation on certain 
related FISA applications. The failures highlighted in that 
report are unacceptable, period. They don't reflect who the FBI 
is as an institution, and they cannot be repeated.
    The FBI has embraced every last one of the Inspector 
General's recommendations, but we're also making a number of 
improvements above and beyond those recommended by the 
Inspector General. I've already ordered more than 40 corrective 
actions, including significant modifications to our FISA 
policies and procedures.
    We're training every employee with FISA responsibilities on 
those new processes, and I will tell this Committee that I see 
every day how indispensable our FISA authorities are to 
protecting the American people.
    I also recognize that these tools are powerful and 
intrusive. So, it is our responsibility as public servants to 
honor our duty of candor to the FISA court when seeking to use 
our authorities and to exercise those powers, when approved by 
the court, in trust, carefully and responsibly.
    Since taking on the leadership of the FBI in August 2017, I 
have spoken to every FBI field office and every headquarters 
component in the Bureau about the importance of getting our 
processes right, about operating at all times by the book. I've 
installed a new leadership team, helping me drive home that 
insistence on doing the right thing the right way every time, 
and the need to hold ourselves accountable when we fall short 
of that mark. That's what I think the American people expect. 
That's what I think the American people deserve.
    Now, I may not have been in this job during the problems 
described in the IG's report, but I'm here now, and my 
leadership team and I are fiercely focused on preventing these 
kinds of failures from happening again. At the end of the day, 
while this kind of scrutiny can be difficult and even painful, 
I am confident that the FBI will emerge an even better and 
stronger organization.
    I also want to note, as Ranking Member Collins pointed out, 
that our crucial USA FREEDOM Act authorities are expiring in 
March, including in particular I would call out the roving 
wiretap, business records, and lone wolf provisions. None of 
those authorities were in any way at issue in the IG's report, 
and I would urge Congress to permanently reauthorize them. They 
are vital to our relentless efforts to keep something like 325 
million American people safe.
    The American people can be confident that the FBI will 
never stop working to safeguard our country against a wider 
than ever range of criminal and national security threats and 
confident that we're going to be doing the right thing in the 
right way.
    So, I want to thank this Committee for your continued 
support of the Bureau. I'm happy to take your questions.
    [The statement of Mr. Wray follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chair Nadler. Thank you. I will now begin the questions by 
recognizing myself.
    Director, you referred to the IG report--and Mr. Collins 
and I both referred to it--and that report found considerable 
mistakes and considerable bad practices in the incident 
reviewed in those FISA warrant applications. Correct?
    Mr. Wray. Correct.
    Chair Nadler. Okay. You understand that, and you are going 
to do everything you can to correct that. I think we all know 
that.
    Is it correct that the report also found that there was no 
evidence whatsoever that the mistakes that the FBI made or that 
the people in the FBI made had any political motive against the 
President or anyone else?
    Mr. Wray. Well, Mr. Chair, I would just refer you to the 
report itself. Obviously, the Inspector General put a lot of 
hard work into that investigation. I think a million-something 
documents, 170 interviews, very thorough, very independent 500-
pages report.
    Chair Nadler. Isn't it correct?
    Mr. Wray. So, I would prefer to rely on his description of 
what he found. He made some very specific findings on that, 
both about what he found and, Mr. Chair, as to what he did not 
find.
    Chair Nadler. Okay. Now, recent reporting suggests that the 
President plans to seek payback against those individuals he 
believes crossed him during the impeachment proceedings. I am 
sorry to have to ask. Has the President, the Attorney General, 
or any other Administration official asked the FBI to open an 
investigation into Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, John Bolton, or any 
Member of Congress?
    Mr. Wray. Mr. Chair, I have assured the Congress and I can 
assure the Congress today that the FBI will only open 
investigations based on the facts, law, and proper predication.
    Chair Nadler. I understand that, and I assume that it is 
correct that neither the President, the Attorney General, or 
any other Administration official has asked the FBI to open 
improper political investigations?
    Mr. Wray. No one has asked me to open an investigation 
based on anything other than the facts, law, and proper 
predication.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you. What reporting mechanisms are 
available for FBI officials and employees to report concerns if 
they believe the agency or they are being asked to pursue 
politically motivated investigations?
    Mr. Wray. Well, there are a number of avenues that an 
employee who is troubled by any number of things. There are 
whistleblower provisions. They have the ability to go up to 
their supervisory chain. We have a number of mechanisms 
independent of the supervisory chain inside the organization, 
and under certain circumstances, there are, of course, 
reporting mechanisms I think even to Congress.
    Chair Nadler. Okay. Of course, there are provisions 
designed to protect the anonymity of whistleblowers so that 
they can't be retaliated against?
    Mr. Wray. Again, it depends on the specific vehicle, but 
there are a number of provisions that deal with protecting 
whistleblowers, which I think is important.
    Chair Nadler. Now, to switch topics. The FBI's position on 
encryption is well known. For example, last October when 
speaking on Facebook's plans to encrypt its messaging services, 
you said this would be a ``dream come true for predators and 
child pornogra-phers.''
    That is if they were able to totally encrypt without a 
backdoor, this would be a terrible thing. That is what you 
said.
    Mr. Wray. We don't think we're asking for a backdoor.
    Chair Nadler. No, no.
    Mr. Wray. The first part of what you said is correct, yes.
    Chair Nadler. Okay, fine. Now, there are a lot of people in 
the Federal Government who share these views and argue that 
encryption represents a risk to public safety. An October 15, 
2019, letter from the Department of Defense highlights DOD's 
reliance on encryption. The letter goes on to state, ``It is 
imperative that innovative security techniques, such as 
advanced encryption algorithms, are constantly maintained and 
improved to protect DOD information and resources. The 
Department believes maintaining a domestic climate for state-
of-the-art security and encryption is critical to the 
protection of our national security.''
    I am curious to understand how the FBI squares its position 
on encryption and the need to make sure that there are means 
that will arguably weaken encrypted systems everywhere, how 
they square that with the effect it will have beyond the 
Bureau's investigations. In this case, an apparent impact on 
the Pentagon's ability to protect our national security.
    In other words, it seems from the various statements we 
have seen that the FBI is taking one position, and the 
Department of Defense totally opposite position. Could you 
comment?
    Mr. Wray. Well, first off, I would say that I don't think 
the Department of Defense, having read the specific report 
you're talking about, is taking a position on what Facebook 
should be doing about its messaging platform. I would tell this 
Committee that the FBI believes strongly in encryption. We, 
after all, have a cybersecurity mission, which is one of our 
top priorities.
    I think we also have to have mechanisms that allow lawful 
access to protect flesh and blood Americans. Right now, even as 
we speak, NCMEC, the National Center for Missing and Exploited 
Children, gets about 18 million tips--and I think it's 
important for Americans to understand this--get about 18 
million tips a year related to child exploitation, 18 million. 
Some vast swath of those come from Facebook.
    Now, if Facebook moved forward with the plans that they 
have at the moment, we will be blinded. They will blind 
themselves and law enforcement. No matter what lawful process 
this Committee ever comes up with to allow us access to that 
content, those children and those predators will still be out 
there. That will not have changed. What will have changed is 
that no matter what lawful authority we've been given, that 
will disappear.
    I don't think that's a decision that one company--in that 
instance, Facebook, but it could be any number of other 
companies--should be making on behalf of the American people.
    Chair Nadler. That is a very well-stated summary of the 
FBI's well-known position, but the DOD seems to have exactly 
the opposite position. You may not know the DOD, but I am 
asking if you do know. These positions seem completely at odds 
with each other, and the DOD is not commenting only on 
Facebook, and you are not commenting only on Facebook.
    So, if you know, if you are familiar with the contradiction 
here, would you comment on it?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I don't think there's a contradiction 
between the steps we take to protect the country's most 
sensitive national security and defense information and having 
individual manufacturers design their systems in a way 
knowingly to blind law enforcement all over this country from 
content.
    Chair Nadler. I have one more topic. There has been a lot 
of confusion in the public about the Bureau's role in 
conducting background checks for Senate-confirmed appointments, 
including judicial nominees. My understanding is that when 
conducting these background checks, the FBI is restricted to 
the scope and subject matter requested by the client agency.
    In the case of Justice Kavanaugh's appointment, I 
understand that the client agency was the White House, 
specifically the White House counsel's office. So, yes or no, 
if the White House had directed the FBI to interview some 
witnesses, but not others, or if they had told you to complete 
the process by a certain date, would the FBI have followed that 
request?
    Mr. Wray. The process that exists for background 
investigations, including supplemental updates to background 
investigations, is very different from a criminal investigation 
or a national security investigation. As you've noted, Mr. 
Chair, by longstanding practice and process under background 
investigations, the FBI is what's called the investigative 
service provider, or the ISP. We do whatever we do in a 
background investigation, much less an update to that 
background investigation, only at the direction or request of 
the adjudicating agency which, in this case, would be the White 
House.
    Chair Nadler. That is what I am.
    Mr. Wray. They set the scope for what we investigate.
    Chair Nadler. That is what I am seeking to get at. They set 
the scope. In other words, if the White House or the Senate or 
whoever is requesting the investigation says tell us everything 
you know about this fellow, you would do that, and if they say 
only look at this or that, you will only look at this or that?
    Mr. Wray. Right. We follow the request of the adjudicating 
agency. I would say that it is not unique to the Justice 
Kavanaugh situation or anything else. That's longstanding 
process, and I've consulted with our background investigation 
specialist, as I did back at the time, to ensure that this 
process, as it was in that instance, was done by the book.
    Now, the book for background investigations is different.
    Chair Nadler. So, I understand that. So, if there is 
criticism, if there is criticism of the limited scope of the 
FBI investigation, the criticism would be properly directed not 
at the FBI, but at whoever issued the instructions delineating 
the scope of the investigation?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I can't speak to whether there should be 
criticism, but as I said, yeah.
    Chair Nadler. I didn't say whether there should be. I said 
if there is to be criticism, the criticism would be directed, 
validly or invalidly, at whoever gave you the instructions as 
to the scope of the investigation, not at the FBI.
    Mr. Wray. I think if the Senate or the Congress wants the 
scope to be broader, then they should direct that request to 
the adjudicating agency.
    Chair Nadler. Very good. Thank you very much.
    I now recognize the Ranking Member Mr. Collins, for his 
questioning.
    Mr. Collins. I appreciate it, Mr. Chair, and are we, I am 
assuming, operating under--this is going to be a long hearing 
if we are operating under basically a 10-minute question time. 
It is an interesting timeframe here for today, but it is also 
interesting to me is that we have come back now to something 
that I have been waiting for a while because I heard this and I 
am before my question time, and I am going to have plenty of 
time.
    So, I had heard this before we actually started this 
majority's Chairmanship that we were going to reinvestigate the 
Kavanaugh hearing. It took almost 12 months, 13 months to get 
there, but we have started that process this morning. It is 
interesting that the Chair couldn't let it go. Don't want to 
have a hearing about it, but he will get it in right now. 
Again, just the drive-bys of this Committee still just amaze 
me.
    Let us go back to something that is actually here for you 
to discuss. Under the criminal wiretap statute, an agent must 
exhaust other feasible options before seeking a wiretap to a 
subject. Meaning the agent must attempt to seek evidence in a 
less intrusive manner first, assuming it is safe to do so. FISA 
also requires, albeit not as stringently, that the information 
sought cannot be obtained through normal investigative 
techniques.
    Are you aware whether agents sought to interview Carter 
Page before seeking a FISA on him?
    Mr. Wray. Congressman, I would just--as to the facts of the 
Inspector General's report, I would refer to the report itself. 
I'm very sensitive about not trying to characterize or 
summarize his findings, just like I don't like it when people 
do it to my investigations.
    Mr. Collins. I appreciate it. Let us take it from just a 
step away from the investigation itself. Should they have tried 
any other means before seeking a FISA against Carter Page? This 
would be--or Joe Smith, whatever you want to call it. Proper 
procedure here should be that they have to go through less 
intrusive means other than going straight to a FISA issue. 
Would that not be proper procedure?
    Mr. Wray. I think every investigative decision, including 
the decision about when to seek a FISA wiretap, has to follow 
specific procedures and safeguards, and its fact dependent and 
fact specific, based on a whole slew of circumstances. So, it's 
hard for me to answer one hypothetic in that regard.
    Mr. Collins. So, fact dependent is also--the facts in 
different cases also don't give you a carte blanche to just 
bypass rules that are set in place for specific stuff like 
that?
    Mr. Wray. Absolutely right. I do not think anyone has carte 
blanche to bypass rules, and I intend to make it painfully 
clear that that would not be acceptable in the FBI today.
    Mr. Collins. I appreciate that, and I think that is one of 
the things that in discussing this, I do believe that you have 
set forth and attempted to find ways to reassume trust in the 
agencies involved here. I appreciate that.
    In fact, I spoke about it in my opening statement. I talked 
about how we come to this part. Most people forget the reason 
that we have a FISA court now was because of the abuses when 
left uncontrolled outside of FISA.
    I understand on my side, and possibly on the Democratic 
side as well, there is a lot of concern about the FISA process, 
the FISA court. There is a lot of us who have concerns about 
it, in the secretness of it and the way it goes about. We also 
must remember where it came from to start with. It came out of 
a time in which these agencies had problems. They came together 
with this, the Pike and Church Committees, to actually find a 
solution because left unregulated, we also see what happens 
there as well.
    The problem is now that we have found it at least to be 
abused or had problems under a regulated system. So, the 
question is, is not necessarily could we do a new Committee to 
say, okay, let us look at this from a wholesale perspective, 
but more specific questions from your perspective. If you are 
looking at changing FISA, not the issues that you have talked 
about and I have agreed upon that need to be reupped, but in 
macro level, how can we restore--and you and I have talked 
about this--how do we macro-level restore trust in the American 
people in the agencies and in the intelligence agencies?
    Are there things that you--should we believe top-level 
officials in the intelligence community can now be trusted to 
self-police?
    Mr. Wray. I believe the American people can have confidence 
in the intelligence community, as I sit here today. I think 
there are a number of things that the Inspector General's 
report identified that should be changed and can be changed and 
need to be improved, and we've accepted and agreed with every 
single one of those.
    I've gone above and beyond. So, I can't go through my 
entire list of 40 corrective--40-plus corrective actions here, 
but they're all designed to improve the process, to improve 
accountability internally, improve the rigor, the discipline, 
the safeguards that exist for that very, very important tool 
that we rely on every day to keep people all over this country 
safe.
    Mr. Collins. I appreciate that, and I think sometimes that 
is missing in the rhetoric and the discussion here that you and 
the Attorney General both have taken corrective action. Now, 
some of us may not agree they went far enough. We don't believe 
that maybe some were not held accountable to a different 
standard, the euphemistic ways it was discussed in the Horowitz 
report of mistakes. I think most Americans don't understand 
that concept, especially when you are dealing with their civil 
liberties.
    One of the issues that has been coming up in this is I am 
concerned that many of the FISC--and we will go to the FISA 
court here--Amicus Attorneys appear either conflicted or have 
taken active positions hostile to, frankly, Republican 
positions. Why should we trust--again, there is some discussion 
here? Why should we trust Amicus Attorneys to impartially 
present a case to the court in favor of civil liberties 
interests while ignoring affiliations of the surveillance 
target, a political affiliation, or even the affiliation with 
the Administration seeking the warrant?
    This is a question for you. Do you trust the Amicus 
Attorneys to fairly present cases to court? Because that is a 
big discussion here on is civil liberties actually being 
protected in a way now under the court system, in the FISA 
court?
    Mr. Wray. Well, the whole Amicus process is the purview of 
the FISA court itself, and I think it's a mechanism that can in 
the right circumstances be useful, as the law was changed, I 
think in 2010 to clarify, for novel issues of law. We do lots 
and lots of FISAs that don't raise any remotely controversial 
issues for any Member of this Committee all the time, and 
they're incredibly important. So, I would be very leery of 
entertaining any kind of change that would have all kinds of 
unintended consequences.
    We do a lot with FISA to protect this country from the 
terrorist threat. As somebody who lived through 9/11 in the FBI 
building itself, and in my prior DOJ tenure worked very closely 
on the 9/11-related investigations, met with the families and 
everything else, I can assure the Members of this Committee 
that we need those FISA authorities. We need the agility to 
stay ahead of the threat, or we're all going to regret it.
    Mr. Collins. I think you are right on that. The question 
comes in the bigger scope of what this Committee is having to 
deal with--and other parts of this Committee will have to deal 
with as well, because the priority of that court comes under 
this jurisdiction the perception is now that it become a 
problematic process.
    You can have 100 very proper or 99 very proper, none as you 
said unique, but that one or two, especially when they have the 
emphasis that it has had in the last 3-4 years, does cause a 
perception issue. That perception issue, is it was a 
politically motivated end? There was a bias in the process. 
That no matter how euphemistically the Horowitz report wanted 
to describe it, there was a problem.
    I do want to come back to something, though. Did the FBI 
conduct a Woods review on the Carter Page FISA application?
    Mr. Wray. Well, again, I would refer you to the Inspector 
General's report. I don't want to try to characterize exactly 
what he said about the Woods process in the Carter Page 
application.
    Mr. Collins. In all due respect, from your agency, you 
would have seen and have access to these records. So, I'm 
asking as more of a direct question here. Did the FBI conduct a 
Woods review on the Carter Page FISA application? I'm not 
asking for the Horowitz report. I'm asking a specific question 
about this issue.
    Mr. Wray. We have done significant reviews of the materials 
underlying the Carter Page FISA applications, including a 
number of steps that we've taken lately to, in effect, claw 
back the information that was collected under those 
applications.
    Mr. Collins. So, I am not to push it, but so is that a yes? 
Was a Woods review done on the Carter Page FISA application?
    Mr. Wray. We've reviewed the Woods file underlying the 
Carter Page applications.
    Mr. Collins. Okay. So, there was a review of it. So, what 
are the findings that you can share?
    Mr. Wray. Again, I don't think there's any findings that I 
can share here today beyond the findings that are in the 
Inspector General's report.
    Mr. Collins. Okay. So, we are past this. So, you have 
looked at this. You are now saying that you have looked at the 
Woods review process on this FISA application. Is there 
concerns that have brought out? What would be your concern as 
the Director of the FBI that this would not happen again, 
especially finding the issues that were found, or the lack of 
issues in the Woods review that goes before this FISA 
application under Carter Page?
    This is becoming--so if you have looked at it, how is that 
compatible with what should have happened, and why more 
processes or changes not taken place?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I think a number of the 40-plus corrective 
actions that I've already directed go to ensuring the rigor and 
discipline of the Woods process.
    Mr. Collins. Knowing exactly what you said there, let me 
ask you this directly--the final and direct question on two 
points here. Number one, knowing what you know because you have 
looked over the Woods reviews process for the Carter Page, do 
you think that it was a properly done investigation, especially 
given the Woods review of this application to the FISA court? 
This is you. I am not talking about the Horowitz report.
    Mr. Wray. I think the report describes conduct that is 
unacceptable and unrepresentative of the FBI as an institution, 
and that includes in a number of respects ways in which those 
particular applications were handled.
    Mr. Collins. So, you are saying that you agree on that. One 
last question. Have there been any determinations who leaked 
the Page FISA to the press?
    Mr. Wray. I'm sorry. I couldn't hear that.
    Mr. Collins. Has there been any determination, or have you 
determined who leaked the Page FISA to the press?
    Mr. Wray. I don't have anything I can share on that.
    Mr. Collins. Could you share it in a classified setting?
    Mr. Wray. No, I don't think so.
    Mr. Collins. So, we have not determined it. Have we looked?
    Mr. Wray. Again, I can't speak to specific leak 
investigations or anything of that sort, Bureau or otherwise.
    Mr. Collins. So, are we saying there is an ongoing 
investigation into that?
    Mr. Wray. No, I'm not saying that.
    Mr. Collins. I yield back. Thank you. Thank you for being 
here, and I appreciate it.
    Mr. Chabot. Point of order, Mr. Chair.
    Chair Nadler. The gentleman will state his point of order.
    Mr. Chabot. Mr. Chair, since the Chair and the Ranking 
Member have each consumed about 10 minutes, is it safe to 
assume we are going back to the 5-minute Rule for everybody 
else?
    Chair Nadler. We are always under the 5-minute rule, 
subject to my lenient interpretation of it.
    Mr. Chabot. How lenient will the Chair be with all the rest 
of the Members?
    Chair Nadler. I try to be as lenient as possible.
    Mr. Chabot. I don't know that we necessarily want leniency 
because we have got a 5-minute Rule for a good reason, and I 
think we ought to stick to it.
    I yield back.
    Chair Nadler. Ms. Jackson Lee?
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Director Wray, I would like leniency, but 
let me welcome you and thank you for your service, and as well 
make a point on the record that the IG report did point to 
unsavory behavior, but it did not condemn the entire agency of 
men and women who have served. The G-men stereotype, I hope, 
has expired, and these are men and women who serve the Nation. 
Is that correct?
    Mr. Wray. I think the Inspector General's report, as you're 
saying, describes conduct that is, in my view, unacceptable and 
unrepresentative of who the FBI is today. I don't think it is a 
referendum on the 37,000 men and women of the FBI and the 
thousands and thousands of investigations they do all the time 
to keep Americans safe.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I would like to take that for the record. 
Thank you so very much.
    Let me acknowledge, of course, our Former Chair, Chair 
Goodlatte. Let me also associate myself with Chair Nadler that 
we attempted many times to have oversight with Attorney General 
Barr, and as well we did oversight with the Mueller report and 
a number of individuals who had relevancy to that. So, we have 
been doing our job. We have had a difficult time. So, we are 
glad that you are here.
    Let me state on the record as well that I would like a 
letter directed to me about the individual ASACs, Special 
Agent-in-Charge, and their ability to participate in 
nonpolitical events dealing with gun violence or human 
trafficking. I want an actual letter on the procedures because 
when one has requested it, you get a yes, and then someone 
says, ``I have got to call Washington.''
    I have said this to you over and over again, and I just 
don't want to have this. So, I need a letter directed to me on 
that policy.
    I want to ask a question, I have to ask very quickly on 
hate crimes. There is a rage of hate crimes by White 
nationalists and White racists. You have indicated a number of 
cases, but specifically, by one sentence or two, can you give 
me what the FBI is doing proactively to deal with the rise in 
the hate crimes against religious groups and certainly against 
racial groups, minorities, and immigrants?
    Mr. Wray. Thank you for the question.
    We have domestic terrorism and hate crimes, as a close 
cousin of domestic terrorism, at the top of the priority list. 
There are a few things that I've done recently to further 
intensify our efforts.
    One, I created a few months ago a domestic terrorism and 
hate crimes fusion cell in the FBI to bring together the 
expertise of both our domestic terrorism folks and our hate 
crimes folks so that they're working together to not just focus 
on the threats that have already happened, but to look ahead 
around the corner and anticipate where else we need to be.
    We have also ensured that all our 200-plus joint terrorism 
task forces have domestic terrorism squarely in their sights as 
another example. Last, but not least, I would add that I have 
elevated racially motivated violent extremism as a national 
threat priority for fiscal year 2020, which puts it on the same 
footing as ISIS and our homegrown violent extremists.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I would like to be able to have a briefing 
on that, whether classified or appropriately in a briefing. I 
would like to understand better what they do, and I would like 
to make sure that it is broad based. I would also like a 
classified briefing on the FISA and the response going forward.
    In the IG's report, it specifically talked about 
discrimination against women. I would add to that 
discrimination against African Americans, in particular. In 
terms of the hierarchy of the FBI, what are you doing about 
that? Again, I am going to officially ask for a letter 
detailing what you are doing because I have just a short period 
of time, and I have two more questions.
    So, if you can just give me just a moment of what you are 
doing so I can ask my other questions, please.
    Mr. Wray. On the issue of diversity, that's very important 
to us. It's one of our core values, and I've made significant 
efforts to energize our diversity agent recruiting, including 
speaking at some of those events myself around the country.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Do you have any Directors, African 
Americans, in that top leadership?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I've appointed a number of African 
Americans to lead some of our biggest field offices, for 
example, and I just recently--
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I know you made progress, Director, but 
let me--my apologies for cutting you off. I, too, want an 
official letter of where they are placed and other minorities 
and what you are specifically doing regarding women and gender 
discrimination.
    Let me move quickly. I hope that the Iowa Democrats will 
ask for an FBI investigation on the app. I believe that Russia 
has been engaged in interfering with a number of our elections 
dealing with the '21 elections--I am sorry, the 2016 election. 
Would you answer these two questions about voter suppression 
and about your work to end racial profiling?
    I have introduced legislation on that, and there is 
extensive racial profiling, specifically in groups that may be 
considered Black identity groups that are really nonviolent, 
the New Black Panther Party and other groups that may be on 
labels. I am going to end so that you can answer those two 
questions, voter suppression and the as it relates to Russian 
involvement and the work on end racial profiling at the Federal 
level.
    I thank the Director for his service. You can answer those 
two questions.
    Mr. Wray. Maybe it'd be better for me to answer both of 
those with a follow-up communication to you because neither of 
them is a short answer.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. If you can give just a brief and then an 
answer, I would appreciate it. Then a letter, rather, I would 
appreciate it. On the record, thank you.
    Mr. Wray. Well, certainly we are also concerned about 
potential Russian interference with our elections, and that's 
why I created the Foreign Influence Task Force, which is 
acutely focused on that topic, among other nations--states that 
are attempting to influence our elections.
    On the question of the so-called Black identity 
extremists--
    Ms. Jackson Lee. The end racial profiling, yes. Thank you.
    Mr. Wray. Well, racial profiling, that would be a longer 
answer than I can try to address here in this setting. On the 
Black identity extremism issue, as you may know, we no longer 
use that term, and I've taken to heart a lot of the feedback 
that I got from a number of people, have met, worked very 
closely with NOBLE, for example, among others. So, I think 
we're moving in the right direction on those topics.
    We don't investigate ideology or rhetoric or anything of 
that sort, no matter whether it's in that context or anything 
else. We investigate when there are three things--credible 
evidence of a criminal violation, credible evidence of violence 
or threat of violence, all in support of some ideology. If we 
don't have those three things, we don't investigate in the 
domestic context.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. I yield back.
    Chair Nadler. The lady yields back.
    Mr. Chabot?
    Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for being here 
today.
    Director Wray, we appreciate you testifying before this 
Committee again. You have, of course, already referred to the 
review of a so-called Crossfire Hurricane investigation by 
Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
    As you know, the Inspector General reported serious flaws 
and overreach by the FBI in the application process to 
surveille Carter Page who, at the time, was a foreign policy 
advisor to the Trump campaign.
    While the review did not conclude that your predecessor or 
any of his agents were politically motivated, the way that they 
went about obtaining these FISA warrants was, at the time, and 
continues to be deeply concerning to many people.
    Given that there is an election less than a year away, it 
seems to me that significant changes need to occur to address 
past FISA application abuses by the FBI, and you have referred 
to them to some degree already.
    What are some of the changes that you are implementing that 
will help to ensure that politically motivated agencies and 
attorneys are unable to pursue FISA applications with 
unverified, uncorroborated, or even downright false 
information?
    Mr. Wray. Well, Congressman, thank you for the question.
    I, too, was deeply concerned by what I read in the 
Inspector General's report and, as I have said, I consider it 
to have described conduct that I consider unacceptable and 
unrepresentative of the FBI that I know.
    Now, there are a number of things that I think go to 
addressing those concerns, and I will just name a few of them 
here. I will say it starts with the one at the top.
    I have been communicating unambiguously in field office 
after field office, headquarters division after headquarters 
division, that how we do what we do matters--that the American 
people expect the FBI not just to get to the right result but 
to go about it in the right way.
    So, I have been pounding process, process, process 
everywhere I go, and I have put in place a whole new leadership 
team that is helping me amplify that message.
    Second, we have put in place a whole number of--and they 
get kind of technical, but a whole number of process and policy 
changes that go both to our use of FISA, but also to our use of 
things like confidential human sources and those kind of things 
and how those get incorporated into the FISA process.
    We have put in place new training. I put in place last 
summer, actually, over 18 months ago, a training that did not 
exist before, all focused on not just avoiding bias but 
avoiding even the appearance of bias, and I started--this is 
important--I started by requiring all the top people--it is not 
the way government usually works.
    I started by requiring everybody at the top of the house, 
all 200-plus SES folks in the Bureau to come into Quantico for 
a full day to get coached on that by judges, the Inspector 
General, and others, trying to set, again, the tone--the idea 
that it starts at the top.
    I put in place training that didn't exist before, policies 
that didn't exist before, processes that didn't exist before, 
oversight that didn't exist before, and where there are people 
who are still left, most of whom are effectively at the line 
level or at least were at the time of the Inspector General 
report, they have been referred to our Office of Professional 
Responsibility, which is our disciplinary arm.
    Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Mr. Director. I would like to get 
one more question in and, hopefully, get you time to answer it.
    Mr. Director, the President signed into law the Fix NICS 
Act--and I think you mentioned that earlier--in March 2018 to 
help close reporting gaps in the National Instant Criminal 
Background Check System, commonly referred to as NICS.
    Having access to accurate records is critical to ensure 
that missing records or access to those records doesn't put the 
lives of innocent men, women, and children at risk.
    Just a few months ago in November the Attorney General 
released a report detailing improvements in the NICS system 
since the enactment of this important legislation based on 
preliminary data.
    Instead of highlighting and building upon the improvements 
detailed in that report, unfortunately, this Committee spent a 
considerable amount of time trying to impeach the President.
    In light of the reported results, what can Congress do to 
help build upon those efforts to keep individuals who should 
not possess firearms from obtaining them?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I think the Fix NICS Act was a very 
important step forward and, at the end of the day, we all share 
the goal of trying to keep guns out of the hands of those 
prohibited by law from possessing them, and that is what our 
NICS examiners do every day.
    We have thousands and thousands of NICS checks that we have 
to do all the time, and making sure that we have accurate and 
complete records in the NICS system is critical to making that 
happen and that is why I think the statute was such a step in 
the right direction.
    So, we continue to march forward on that effort. Obviously, 
resources to our folks out at the NICS shop would be very much 
appreciated.
    I have actually gone out there myself and put on the 
headset and listened so that I can actually experience 
firsthand what those calls look like so that I can actually 
feel and experience it and not just observe it from some 
conference room in DC.
    So, they do very, very important work and, again, I thank 
the Congress for the Fix NICS Act.
    Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Chair, my time has expired.
    Chair Nadler. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Cohen?
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Director, 
for your service. You have brought distinction to the FBI and 
to the State of Georgia. Congressman Johnson hasn't done that 
as well, but you have certainly done it in a spectacular 
fashion.
    Hate crimes is something that concerns me, as it does the 
Chair, and collecting data on hate crimes is important and that 
is something the FBI does.
    Eighty-five local law enforcement agencies with populations 
of 100,000 and more either did not report to the FBI or 
affirmatively reported zero incidents.
    That is hard to fathom. What can we do to improve 
participation in collecting that hate crimes data? Should there 
be a link to funding for agencies and communities to report?
    Should the FBI field offices, which there are in 26 of 
those cities, have some effort to see that there is information 
sent in? Do you have any suggestions on how we can get better 
reporting?
    Mr. Wray. Well, Congressman, I would say that I share your 
desire to make sure that we have as complete and accurate 
information reported about hate crimes as possible. We know 
that hate crimes are historically underreported.
    We also know that hate crimes reporting has increased 
significantly over the years and part of that is through 
outreach efforts that we have made with our State and local 
partners to encourage them to collect and report that 
information.
    The point that I always try to make to departments 
everywhere is that it is far better to have these issues 
evaluated based on the facts and the actual data rather than 
based on rumors or conventional wisdom or potentially 
inaccurate news reporting.
    So, they should all share the same goal that we have of 
making sure that it is the facts and the facts will speak for 
themselves.
    So, anything that can be done appropriately to encourage 
more of that is something that I think we are always interested 
in.
    Mr. Cohen. Well, if you could--whatever you can do to see 
that they are reported. Hate crimes have risen in this country 
and it has been the Klan, which used to use Stone Mountain as a 
place to assemble, and neo-Nazis, which we all saw in 
Charlottesville and we knew there were not fine people on both 
sides.
    That has been really harmful to a lot of people in this 
country who saw that and have seen the harm that the communists 
and the Nazis and Klan have done over the years to Jews, 
African Americans, and others.
    So, things like that go on forever and people are reminded 
of them. One of my early memories from my childhood going to 
Atlanta, driving through, was knowing about the bombing of the 
temple there in about 1960 and that is an image that is hard to 
forget. So, we need to work on that.
    Emmett Till is one that the country suffers from, and I 
know there is still an investigation going on and I believe the 
Department of Justice has reopened that investigation.
    Can you tell me anything about that and where that 
investigation stands?
    Mr. Wray. I am sorry. I couldn't quite hear the question.
    Mr. Cohen. The Emmett Till investigation. Has the FBI 
opened, or the Department of Justice reopened and investigation 
into that?
    Mr. Wray. I can't comment or discuss any investigation in 
this setting.
    Mr. Cohen. Are you conducting some old hate crimes and 
civil rights violation laws or civil rights violations? Are you 
going to civil cold cases?
    Mr. Wray. We are doing a lot of investigations in the hate 
crimes arena, both racially motivated and religiously 
motivated. It is one of the more active areas that we have 
right now.
    Mr. Cohen. In cold cases as well to try and open them up?
    Mr. Wray. In some instances there are cold cases that are 
being looked at as well.
    Mr. Cohen. Let me ask you just a general question. What we 
do is legislation, do you have any suggestions of legislation 
you would like to see us consider to help the FBI in its 
mission?
    Mr. Wray. I don't have any legislative proposals for the 
Committee as I sit here right now.
    Mr. Cohen. Okay. You have made clear that Mr. Trump himself 
was not under investigation by the FBI prior to his election 
and taking office, is that correct?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I was minding my own business in private 
practice when all of that happened. So, I didn't advise the 
President of anything related to--
    Mr. Cohen. In your historical reflections on it and looking 
at what the FBI did, the FBI did--I don't want to get you in 
any more trouble than you are already in.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Cohen. Let me pass on that and withdraw that question 
for you and just say that you should have considered all those 
histories in your family of going to Vanderbilt.
    Yale is an okay school, but Vanderbilt is an even better 
school, and I saw Taylor Malone in your bio and I knew the 
Malone family and helping get Malone & Hyde started, which was 
a great company in Memphis, and thank you for that.
    I yield back the balance of my time.
    Mr. Wray. Thank you.
    Chair Nadler. Mr. Gohmert?
    Mr. Gohmert. Thank you.
    Director Wray, thank you for being here. I wish I had 
enough time to address some of the things that the Chair said 
that needed correcting. Questioning you is too important.
    First, have you ever signed an application for a warrant or 
an affidavit in support of an application for a warrant 
yourself?
    Mr. Wray. I have signed--right now as FBI director I sign 
the certifications for FISA applications for FISA warrants, if 
that is what you are talking about. I am not sure if that is--
    Mr. Gohmert. Do you ever read them before you sign them?
    Mr. Wray. Of course.
    Mr. Gohmert. All right. Well, Mr. Rosenstein would not 
admit ever reading any of the things he signed, especially with 
regard to a FISA application. So that concerned me greatly. I 
am glad to hear you do.
    Now, there is a report that Mr. Clinesmith did that altered 
information that was supplied to the FISA court--that he was 
allowed to resign. Is that accurate?
    Mr. Wray. Well, Mr. Clinesmith is no longer with the FBI, 
and I don't think I can comment on a specific personnel matter 
beyond that.
    Mr. Gohmert. Okay. Well, let me tell you--
    Mr. Wray. --as we sit here right now.
    Mr. Gohmert. --when you have an FBI agent, and you don't 
need to defend the 37,000 employees. They are not being 
questioned here. I can tell you as a former Felony Judge I had 
FBI agents come to me.
    They would never have dreamed of lying in an affidavit or 
changing information to misrepresent the facts to me or any 
other judge.
    There are people across the country whose reputations have 
been sullied by the improper or, I believe you said, 
unacceptable and unrepresentative actions at the FBI here in 
Washington, DC.
    They are not under attack. The reputation of the FBI has 
been so sullied, and we all hoped that when you became director 
you were going to help fix that.
    I can tell you, I know that you wouldn't be in this 
position if you didn't believe that there was deterrent effect 
in punishment. That is what law enforcement is engaged in, at 
least part of the job.
    So, when you have somebody that violates Americans' civil 
rights and commits a fraud upon the FISA court and the court 
doesn't do anything but appoint somebody that is friendly to 
the position of the fraud as an Amicus, then we continue to 
have questions not only about what needs to be done to fix 
FISA, but if we ought to go back to the way it was before the 
'70s.
    So, this is serious. So, when you have an FBI agent and, 
surely, you are aware, to commit a fraud upon a FISA court or 
any court or to misrepresent facts in something that is sworn, 
those can involve crimes and this guy is not even fired and 
there is no indication he is going to be prosecuted.
    I know you are saying it is a personnel matter, so I can't 
get into it. I am telling you, the FBI reputation here in 
Washington cannot be cleaned up until there are people that are 
held to account for the unacceptable actions here in Washington 
and letting somebody resign sends a message to anybody else 
that wants to get politically active and use their job at the 
FBI to further a political will.
    The message to them is, well, if I get caught, I will be 
asked to go take a better paying job somewhere else. Great 
punishment. No deterrence, and business goes on as usual.
    We needed an FBI director that would clean this mess up so 
America could feel good about it, and I can tell you when you 
come in and say it is a personnel matter--I can't really deal 
with it or talk about it, you are not helping improve the 
reputation.
    I want to bring up another matter. You know about 302s. The 
FBI is about the last law enforcement agency or department in 
the country that doesn't video or audiotape statements that are 
made and that is--they have been allowed to do that because 
they have such a great reputation or did.
    Now that we have seen 302s get changed, different opinions, 
what did he say, what did he not say, especially with General 
Flynn, many of us are wondering if it isn't time if not 
bringing the FBI into the 21st century at least into the last 
half of the 20th century and start having FBI agents record 
statements by people that are being questioned by FBI agents to 
help the FBI get their reputation back.
    I mean, some justices of the peace will look for that. 
Would you consider supporting the recording of statement to FBI 
agents rather than just a written summary that can be changed 
later by an FBI agent?
    Mr. Wray. Well, Congressman, there are certain 
circumstances under which statements are currently recorded 
already at the FBI and that is a change.
    I think this is a subject that requires longer discussion. 
I would be happy to have my staff follow back up with you.
    As to the question of the FBI's reputation and candor to 
the court, I don't want to let this time expire without telling 
you how strongly I feel about candor to the court.
    I have been a prosecutor. I have been a Defense Attorney. I 
have been an Assistant Attorney General. I have been an FBI 
Director.
    To me, candor to the court is sacrosanct, and I don't think 
there is anybody in the FBI that is belaboring under the 
misimpression that I think it is okay to mislead a court.
    Now, the vast majority of the senior people involved in the 
investigation at issue here are gone from the FBI. Of those who 
are left--
    Mr. Gohmert. The vast majority.
    Mr. Wray. And the--
    Mr. Gohmert. There are people there still.
    Chair Nadler. The time of the gentleman has expired.
    Mr. Wray. If I could just finish my answer.
    Mr. Gohmert. No, we are now up to 9 minutes--
    Mr. Wray. None in the National--
    Mr. Gohmert. At least let him answer the question.
    Mr. Wray. None in the National Security Branch.
    Chair Nadler. The witness may answer the question.
    Mr. Wray. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    The people who are left were, largely, line-level people at 
the time of the matter in question. Those people have all been 
referred to our disciplinary arm.
    The reason I am not engaging with you on a specific 
personnel matter is because my commitment to ensuring proper 
accountability ensures that even that is done by the book, and 
by the book, to me, does not include discussing a pending 
personnel issue in this hearing.
    So, I respect the reason for your question. I share your 
passion both about the reputation of the FBI and about the 
importance of candor to the court.
    Chair Nadler. Mr. Johnson?
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I want to commend the FBI director. You came out of a very 
lucrative private practice of law. You were at the pinnacle of 
your career as a lawyer after having served in government for a 
number of years at a very high level.
    So, after 10 years of being out in the practice of law, 
both as a defense lawyer and handling other matters, you were 
called upon to return to government service and you accepted 
the call at a considerable financial disadvantage. You still 
accepted the call to come back and head up the FBI.
    In your confirmation proceeding you were asked a question 
in the Senate if you believed that the investigation into the 
Russian 2016 election interference was a witch hunt and under 
what many would have felt would be pressure to equivocate in 
some way, you came right out and you said that no, you did not 
believe that it was a witch hunt.
    Ever since then, you have conducted yourself as FBI 
Director in that same honest and forthright way and that is a 
refreshing conduct that you have exemplified in the midst of an 
anti-institutionalist Trump Administration which has applied 
pressure to you to conform just like most others have conformed 
to its anti-institutionalism.
    You have protected the FBI, and isn't it a fact that there 
was no finding in the IG report that the FBI committed a fraud 
upon the FISA court? Isn't that true?
    Mr. Wray. Well, Congressman, as I want to be consistent in 
the way I am answering everyone's questions.
    As to the Inspector General's report he put an enormous 
amount of work--over a million documents, 170 interviews--and I 
just really don't want to be characterizing his findings.
    He made very specific findings both about what he found and 
about what he did not find in that report.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. He say that it was a fraud. He said 
that the FBI committed a fraud on the FISA court and I just 
don't read the report to say that.
    Now, he did identify some deficiencies in the warrant 
reauthorization application process, and I think you will 
probably find those kinds of shortcomings in every law 
enforcement agency in America. If you look carefully enough you 
will find some of that going on.
    I am convinced that you have made it clear that no cutting 
of corners, no taking the easy way out, do it the hard way, and 
I expect that from the FBI.
    So, I want to thank you for your conduct in protecting the 
FBI as an institution. It is not a rogue agency out there 
hurting people.
    I will say this about encryption. When it comes to domestic 
terrorism and hate crimes and right-wing extremists, 
nationalist groups, antisemitic groups out here, using 
encryption to organize, to plan, and then to conduct operations 
that actually result in people being killed and injured and our 
government being destabilized and you are doing it in a way 
that you cannot be surveilled, you cannot be held to account in 
any way after the fact for what you did, I think that is a 
danger to our society.
    On the other hand, when it comes to the government of, by, 
and for the people, to provide for the common defense and 
promote the general welfare, if we can't rely on our government 
to have the ability to protect its own secrets while at the 
same time getting at wrongdoing that wrongdoers try to keep 
secret, then we are in dangerous territory.
    So, I think we need to honestly take a look at these 
things. Now, I had some questions I wanted to ask. I am running 
out of time and I am going to abide by the five-minute period.
    Once again, I will say thanks. Last, I will say I look 
forward to the day when I can look at the front row of folks 
behind the FBI director who comes to present with staff and I 
look forward to the day when I can look forward to the day when 
I can see some diversity on that row.
    I look forward to the day when I can see somebody who looks 
like me on that row. I know that there is a lot of young Black 
kids out here who aspire to go into law enforcement and, as far 
as I am concerned, the FBI is the pinnacle of law enforcement 
and I want them to feel like they have a chance to reach the 
top.
    So, I thank you for your service to the nation.
    Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
    Mr. Jordan?
    Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Director, thank you for being here. Thank you for your 
leadership of those 37,000 people you talked about who are 
busting their tail every day to help protect all of us in this 
country.
    We do appreciate that, and I appreciate your comments about 
Mr. Horowitz's report, saying it was unacceptable. I am a 
little concerned because it didn't seem to me that you had 
quite the same outrage in your response letter to Inspector 
General Horowitz.
    December 6th, 2019, you wrote a letter. It is the last few 
pages of Mr. Horowitz's report. In the third sentence of that 
letter, you said this, ``The report's findings and 
recommendations represent constructive criticism that will make 
us stronger as an organization.'' Constructive criticism that 
will make us stronger.
    Director, you know what we all know. On July 31st, 2016, 
the FBI opened an investigation, spied on four American 
citizens associated with the Presidential campaign.
    The FBI went to the FISA court and lied to the court 17 
times. The FBI took the dossier, the now-famous dossier, to the 
FISA court and didn't tell the court--you just talked about 
candor to the court--they didn't tell the court the guy who 
wrote it was desperate, had communicated to the Justice 
Department that he was desperate to stop Trump.
    Didn't tell the guy who wrote it, Mr. Steele, was paid by 
the Clinton campaign to put the document together. when all 
that is pointed out to you in a 400-page report, you say, 
thanks for the constructive criticism.
    Four-hundred-page report that says there were 51 assertions 
that top people at the FBI made to the court that weren't 
backed up, that weren't supported at all, and it is called 
constructive criticism.
    Constructive criticism is when your grade-school teacher 
tells you to study more for the spelling test. Constructive 
criticism is one of my colleagues says, hey, Jim, you should 
have asked your questions different last week in a hearing. 
That is constructive criticism.
    Here is what Mr. Horowitz said. Here is what the Inspector 
General said. So, many basic and fundamental errors were made 
by three separate handpicked teams on one of the most sensitive 
FBI investigations that was briefed to the highest levels in 
the FBI.
    Maybe more importantly, here is what--here is what Judge 
Collyer wrote. She said this in her public order, ``The 
frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel 
turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in 
their possession and with which they withheld information 
detrimental to their case calls into question whether 
information contained in other FBI applications is reliable.''
    Put that in plain English that is they gave so much wrong 
information here how are we supposed to trust any other 
representations made to the court.
    Even Jim Comey, on December 17th, said something I never 
thought I would hear Jim Comey say. He said, ``I was wrong. We 
were overconfident.''
    So, I am a little concerned. I appreciate what you are 
saying today but this is unacceptable. I appreciate what you 
said just to Mr. Gohmert's questions about candor to the court.
    That is not how--that is not what took place in this 
report, is way past constructive criticism.
    This was a major royal screw up. This is way past 
constructive criticism.
    Mr. Wray. I am sorry. Is there a question?
    Mr. Jordan. There is.
    Mr. Wray. What is the question?
    Mr. Jordan. I am concerned you are not taking this serious 
enough. Are you taking it seriously enough, Director Wray?
    Mr. Wray. I think I have demonstrated unambiguously that I 
take this very seriously. At the same time that the letter that 
you read occurred, I communicated in no uncertain terms to my 
leadership team and to the entire FBI workforce that I consider 
the Inspector General's report to have described conduct that I 
consider unacceptable.
    Mr. Jordan. So, it was more than--
    Mr. Wray. Unacceptable and unrepresentative of who we are 
as an institution.
    Mr. Jordan. Why didn't write that in the initial--this is 
the first--it is the last 10 pages of this report.
    Mr. Wray. I addressed the letter because I think--
    Mr. Jordan. Let me just--
    Mr. Wray. The letter, I think, to me, describes the--
    Mr. Jordan. Let me point out one--
    Mr. Wray. I am sorry. Go ahead.
    Mr. Jordan. Let me just point out one of the things you 
said. One of the recommendations that Mr. Horowitz says is if 
you are going to do a headquarters special--if you are going to 
pull this from the field offices, run an investigation out of 
the headquarters on a sensitive investigative matter, he said 
you should have some proper protocols in place and some checks 
and balances.
    You said, we accept this recommendation. We got to be 
careful about doing these headquarters specials, which is what 
the mid-year exam was, what Crossfire Hurricane was. It was run 
by the top people at the FBI.
    As you rightly say, they are all gone. Well, one of the 
recommendations that you say you are going to do to deal with 
this concern, you said we are going to require FBI Deputy 
Director approval prior to opening any FBI headquarters 
sensitive investigative matter.
    Well, shazam, you know what that means? That means Andy 
McCabe had to sign off on it. Well, isn't that how we got here 
to begin with?
    Andy McCabe has to sign off on it, so now, the Deputy 
Director has to sign off if you are going to run an 
investigation out of headquarters and pull it from the field 
office. Is that really going to solve this problem?
    Mr. Wray. That is not the complete recommendation for 
corrective action.
    Mr. Jordan. I am reading it right here.
    Mr. Wray. No. No. Let me--if I may--sorry, go ahead.
    Mr. Jordan. I am reading it. I am just reading what you 
wrote. Requiring the FBI Deputy Director approval prior to 
opening any FBI headquarters sensitive investigative matter.
    Mr. Wray. The corrective action that we put in place on 
that particular issue involved a number of things.
    One, to communicate to the field that only in the rarest of 
circumstances, which was not communicated before, should any 
investigation--sensitive investigation be conducted out of 
headquarters.
    Two, that, in addition, to requiring the Deputy Director 
sign-off for those rare circumstances where that strong 
presumption would be rebutted that it not only required sign-
off by the Deputy Director, but also by the affected field 
offices and that is a difference.
    That is what is different. So, you couldn't have some small 
group of people at headquarters making the determination that 
this is an exception.
    Now, the field offices that would otherwise be the 
presumptive offices to run those investigations, their 
leadership have to be involved in the discussion, so that 
people can make sure that any decision to do this--
    Mr. Jordan. Who makes the call? Who makes the final--
    Chair Nadler. Gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Deutch?
    Mr. Deutch. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Director, first, I want to add my voice to those who thank 
you and the 37,000 men and women of the FBI who work every day 
to keep us safe.
    I also want to thank the FBI for its work in trying to 
bring Bob Levinson home. As you know, Bob's the longest-held 
American hostage in history.
    He went missing off around Kish Island in March of 2007 as 
he served in the FBI for 25 years and the Levinson family, its 
community of Coral Springs, all of Florida and America, are 
desperate for him to return.
    As one of the Bureau's own, I, again, ask that you 
prioritize his case in the Bureau and in your interactions with 
your interagency counterparts.
    I want to talk a bit about gun violence, and I want to 
start just by making an observation, and I mean this not as a 
slight against the Ranking Member.
    Every time there is a reference to actions by this 
Committee as drive-bys a number of us cringe. I just want to 
point out that over the past 24 hours there were drive-by 
shootings in Connecticut, Texas, Michigan, Illinois, 
Washington, Nebraska, Florida, and Wisconsin.
    We are very sensitive. I am glad you are here to be able to 
talk about the issue of gun violence. In your testimony, you 
said the FBI is most concerned about lone offender attacks, 
primarily shootings, as they have served as the dominant lethal 
mode for domestic violent extremist attacks.
    You spoke earlier in your exchange with Mr. Chabot about 
the role that Fix NICS has played in helping to keep guns out 
of the hands of dangerous people.
    So, I would ask you whether you believe that Congress 
should strengthen gun laws to further prevent the types of 
attacks that you reference.
    Mr. Wray. Well, the FBI won't be taking positions on 
specific pieces of legislation but would be happy to provide 
operational input in the way we normally do on any specific 
proposal.
    I will say that we all share the goal of keeping guns out 
of the hands of those who are prohibited from having them and 
things that take steps in that direction, and I think are 
things we should encourage.
    We share deeply the concerns about violence committed with 
guns around this country and I think we have demonstrated that 
through our investigations, through our NICS examiners, and 
through a variety of other means.
    Mr. Deutch. Director, I would just like to follow up on a 
question that Senator Blumenthal asked you at your confirmation 
hearing.
    He asked about support--whether you would support 
strengthening gun laws and specifically mentioned background 
checks.
    You said at the time, and I quote, ``I would want to take a 
look at any specific legislative proposal and get back to you 
once I had evaluated a specific piece of legislation. But, I do 
support efforts to deal with gun violence aggressively and 
effectively and I think my record both as a line prosecutor and 
in leadership with the department is consistent with that,'' 
closed quote.
    Director Wray, it has been 343 days since the House passed 
H.R. 8 and H.R. 1112. The first, as you know, requires 
background checks on private sales.
    The second would increase the minimum waiting period from 
three to 10 business days if an initial check is inconclusive, 
and if an additional 10 days lapsed without confirmation of 
eligibility, then the dealer could sell the firearm to that 
buyer.
    Have you had the opportunity over these past 343 days to 
review those specific proposals?
    Mr. Wray. I have not.
    Mr. Deutch. I will be honest. That is the answer I expected 
and, yet it is shocking. I understand that the role of the FBI 
is not to advocate.
    I also know that for those 37,000 men and women who are out 
there every day trying to keep us safe that we share the same 
commitment to do everything we can to keep them safe while they 
are doing their job.
    You told Senator Blumenthal that you just needed an 
opportunity to review before making a determination about 
whether it could help.
    You talked today with my colleague, Mr. Chabot, about how 
Fix NICS does the job to help keep guns out of the hands of 
dangerous people.
    There is a piece of legislation that the House passed that 
would help to do exactly that, and you sit there, Director 
Wray, and tell us that you haven't really had a chance in 343 
days to even consider whether this is the type of thing that 
can help protect the lives of the public and the lives of those 
37,000 men and women who put themselves out there every day to 
keep us safe.
    It is beyond discouraging. We need to work together on 
this. We can't be silent on this. I hope that when the Senate 
ultimately is forced to take up a piece of legislation that 90 
percent of the American people believe is the right thing to 
do, that will help keep us safe and your agents safe, that we 
will be able to celebrate that together.
    Until then, I hope that you will have the opportunity to 
dig in to understand that what we did here will help to save 
the lives of the men and women who work for you.
    I yield back.
    Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
    Mr. Buck?
    Mr. Buck. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Director Wray, for 25 years I was a prosecutor. I worked 
closely with FBI agents. They are bright, hardworking, 
dedicated professionals and it was an honor to work with them.
    I am deeply concerned about revelations concerning 
corruption in the past leadership of the FBI. I am particularly 
troubled with the FBI's treatment of investigative journalists 
like Sharyl Attkisson.
    When the FBI spies on journalists, it undermines the 
integrity of our government, and it tarnishes the badge. In 
early 2011, Sharyl Attkisson began reporting on Fast and 
Furious, where the Obama ATF recklessly allowed illegal gun 
sales and watched as straw purchasers walked guns across the 
Mexican border straight into the hands of drug cartels.
    Attkisson exposed the scandal and the fact that the illegal 
guns were found at several crime scenes, including where U.S. 
Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered.
    For her work on Fast and Furious, Attkisson received an 
Edward R. Murrow award, an Emmy award, and an investigative 
reporting award.
    Another Attkisson story involves Solyndra, a solar company 
involving an Obama donor. Obama Energy Secretary Chu approved 
more than half a billion dollars in taxpayer loans to Solyndra.
    Chu ignored Treasury's legal guidance and put the rights of 
private investors above taxpayer interests. When Solyndra when 
bankrupt, taxpayers lost $528 million. The Administration 
sought to delay Solyndra's layoff announcement until after the 
2010 election.
    Ms. Attkisson also covered Obama's Benghazi cover-up. 
Thanks to her, we know Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 
ignored the warning signs. As allies were withdrawing from 
Libya, we did not.
    We know four Americans died waiting in vain for our 
government to send help. We know Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, 
and Ben Rhodes then lied, blaming the attack on a video.
    Attkisson was nominated for an Emmy for her Benghazi 
reporting.
    Director Wray, you and I are public officials. Media 
criticism comes with the job. Some criticism may be unfair. In 
fact, much of the criticism may be unfair.
    A free press is indispensable to our republic. America is 
better because of Sharyl Attkisson and investigative 
journalists. The American people deserve to know the truth 
about their government, including with respect to Fast and 
Furious, Solyndra, and Benghazi.
    So, did the Obama Administration thank Sharyl Attkisson for 
her work? Did the White House recognize her for keeping the 
public informed and holding government accountable?
    Did President Obama present her with a Presidential Medal 
of Freedom?
    No. Using a highly politicized FBI, the Administration 
spied on her, and that is what small-minded people do. 
Government emails show the Obama White House plotted to silence 
her stories.
    After suspicious incidents involving her home Internet, 
computers, and phones, Attkisson hired a forensic computer 
expert who determined she was hacked by an IP address used by 
the FBI to conduct domestic surveillance, and that spyware, 
proprietary to the Federal government, and several classified 
files had been inserted on her computer.
    CBS News, Ms. Attkisson's employer, undertook a second 
forensic exam confirming those conclusions. Former government 
officials, including one from the FBI, later admitted that they 
took part in this illegal surveillance.
    When confronted with the facts, Attkisson did what a good 
investigative journalist does. She sought the truth. As a last 
resort, she sued DOJ and the FBI in search of justice.
    Did the FBI come clean and admit what happened? No. They 
engaged in delay tactics, prompting Federal Judge James Wynn, 
an Obama appointee, to write a scathing rebuke of the 
government's conduct.
    I am short on time, so I will forward your office several 
written questions for a response. Basically, I am interested in 
knowing whether the FBI was ever directed to obtain information 
about investigative journalists by the Obama White House 
including for purposes of creating or maintaining an enemies 
list.
    Has the FBI ever attempted to retrieve data from any 
electronic device used by Sharyl Attkisson, James Rosen, or any 
journalist with the Associated Press?
    In each instance where that occurred, I would like it if 
the FBI would identify what legal authority such actions took 
place.
    Director Wray, the FBI must put restrictions in place to 
prevent an Administration regardless of party from using the 
FBI for political purposes.
    If you do not Act to expose past abuses by the FBI--
expose--I believe it will be very difficult to receive 
congressional support for your priorities like FISA or 
preventing online platforms from blocking information from law 
enforcement.
    I yield back.
    Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
    Mr. Jeffries?
    Mr. Jeffries. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Director 
Wray, for your presence here today and for your continuing 
service to the country.
    According to the FBI's website and your testimony earlier 
today, one of the highest priorities of the FBI is to deal with 
the impact that hate crimes have on the people of America. Is 
that right?
    Mr. Wray. Yes. Counterterrorism is the number-one priority 
of the FBI.
    Mr. Jeffries. Within that counterterrorism priority, 
domestic terrorism, which leads to some of the hate crime 
incidents that we have seen, falls within that scope. Is that 
right?
    Mr. Wray. Yes.
    Mr. Jeffries. I think each year the FBI releases a hate 
crime statistics report. Is that true?
    Mr. Wray. Yes.
    Mr. Jeffries. In the context of that report, I think you 
identify single-bias incidents as an incident in which one or 
more criminal offenses are motivated by a particular bias. Is 
that right?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I haven't--I don't have the report in front 
of me. That sounds consistent with my recollection.
    Mr. Jeffries. Is it fair to say that since 2017 there has 
been a significant increase in hate crime incidents here in 
America?
    Mr. Wray. Between 2016 and 2018 there was definitely an 
increase in hate crimes reported, and I think we have reflected 
that in our report.
    Mr. Jeffries. So, a significant amount of those incidents 
are directed at individuals as a result of racial bias. Is that 
true?
    Mr. Wray. Yes.
    Mr. Jeffries. So, we have seen an increase in hate crimes 
directed at communities of color, correct?
    Mr. Wray. Yes.
    Mr. Jeffries. An increase in hate crimes directed at 
immigrant communities. Is that right?
    Mr. Wray. Less so of that, but yes.
    Mr. Jeffries. Have we seen an increase in hate crimes 
directed at members of the Jewish faith as well?
    Mr. Wray. I don't know that we have reliable data on that. 
Certainly, we are deeply concerned about the antisemitic 
violence that we have been seeing in this country and there 
have been a number of attacks just over the last 18 months that 
we have observed.
    So, I don't know that we have reliable data on that one. 
Certainly, there is plenty of reason to be deeply concerned.
    Mr. Jeffries. I think based on your report--I believe this 
is the 2018 report--in 20 percent of the incidents that fall 
within the hate crime category are crimes directed at 
individuals as a result of racial bias. Is that right?
    Mr. Wray. I don't have the percentages in front of me.
    Mr. Jeffries. Think in that category of antireligious hate 
approximately 55 percent of those antireligious hate incidents 
are actually directed at Members of the Jewish community. Is 
that fair to say?
    Mr. Wray. That sounds quite possible. Again, I don't have 
the report in front of me. As I said, we are extremely focused 
right now on antisemitic attacks, of which there have been an 
alarming number over the last 18 months alone.
    Mr. Jeffries. In terms of this troubling increase that we 
have seen since 2017 directed at African Americans, Latinos, 
people of color, immigrants, certainly Members of the Jewish 
community, what are some of the steps that you are taking in 
this climate of hatred that has festered over the last few 
years to address this alarming rise?
    Mr. Wray. Well, we will not tolerate hate-fueled violence 
in our communities, and we are addressing them investigatively. 
I have mentioned a couple, but I will just recap a few and then 
add a few.
    Number one, we are using every tool in the toolbox. We are 
trying to be creative. So that is not just traditional gun 
charges, explosives charges, things like that but, for example, 
rising out of the Charlottesville incident we used the federal 
rioting statute to charge some people there, which was a fairly 
novel statute to rely on.
    I have created the Domestic Terrorism-Hate Crimes Fusion 
Cell, which didn't exist before, to bring together those two 
disciplines to ensure we are maximizing our effectiveness.
    I have elevated racially-motivated violent extremists' 
threat on the same level as a national threat priority along 
with ISIS and homegrown violent extremists.
    Mr. Jeffries. Mr. Wray, can I just stop you right there 
because I am running out of time, and I appreciate you 
articulating that.
    Mr. Wray. Yeah.
    Mr. Jeffries. You mentioned Charlottesville, and one of the 
troubling things that came out of Charlottesville beyond the 
death of a young woman who was there, which is incredibly 
tragic, is that some of the White nationalists, the White 
supremacists, the neo-Nazis were heard to have chanted, ``Jews 
will not replace us.'' Is that right?
    Mr. Wray. I believe I remember hearing that was said.
    Mr. Jeffries. Is that connected to a theory amongst White 
nationalists called replacement theory where, apparently, there 
is this view that Jews are genetically programmed to undermine 
Christian civilization and seek to replace White Christians 
with a more ethnically diverse population. That is replacement 
theory. Is that right?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I am not an expert on the different strands 
of White supremacist ideology.
    Mr. Jeffries. Why were they chanting ``Jews will not 
replace us'' in a context where there is all of this xenophobic 
activity, anti-immigrant activity, and then we see a rise in 
antisemitic incidents?
    I mean, is the FBI actually looking into the connectivity 
between a theory that exists and the xenophobic attacks that 
have come from the highest office in the land, and then a 
troubling increase for a variety of reasons and we need to deal 
with all of those reasons--but a troubling increase in 
antisemitic incidents?
    Mr. Wray. We are investigating antisemitic violence. So, we 
don't investigate ideology or rhetoric no matter how abhorrent 
it is.
    What we do is investigate violence, and when it is violence 
that is fueled by some despicable ideology then that is part of 
the investigation.
    Mr. Jeffries. Thank you. I yield back.
    Ms. Scanlon. [Presiding.] Thank you.
    The gentleman from Texas is recognized.
    Mr. Ratcliffe. Director Wray, good to see you. Thanks for 
being here.
    I originally intended to talk to you about the encryption 
issue today. Given where this hearing started and where I think 
it is going as it relates to the issue of FISA abuse, I am 
going to ask you about this.
    I want to give you an opportunity to hopefully answer these 
questions once and for all so that the rest of your testimony 
can be properly directed.
    It seems like some of my Democratic colleagues, because 
this FISA process was initiated during the Obama 
Administration, that they want to focus on the fact that there 
was no abuse of the FISA process or that the abuse was not 
politically motivated.
    It started with Chair Nadler. The very first question to 
you was trying to establish that the Inspector General found no 
evidence of political motive or bias against the President, and 
you responded that the Inspector General's report speaks for 
itself.
    So, does the Inspector General, and Inspector General 
Horowitz, on December 11th before the Senate Judiciary 
Committee, said this quote, ``On the FISA side, we found, as 
you noted, a lack of documentary or testimonial evidence about 
intentionality. But, we also noted the lack of satisfactory 
explanations and, in fact, we have opened the possibility that 
for the reasons you indicated it is unclear what the 
motivations were. On the one hand, gross incompetence, 
negligence. On the other hand, intentionality and everywhere in 
between,'' end quote.
    Just because no FBI agent tells the Inspector General, I 
admit, I am biased and politically motivated against President 
Trump, doesn't mean there isn't overwhelming evidence of bias 
and political motivation in the record.
    To use just one example, an FBI lawyer involved intimately 
in this FISA process against a Trump campaign associate, Carter 
Page, sent a number of texts in and around the election of 
President Trump. Here are a few of them.
    ``The crazies finally won.'' Another one. ``This is the Tea 
Party on steroids.'' Another one. ``Pence is stupid.'' Another 
text that he sent, ``I just can't imagine the systematic 
disassembly of the progress we have made over the last eight 
years.'' Finally, when asked whether he intended to keep 
working during the Trump Administration, he said, quote, ``Viva 
la resistance.''
    Regardless of what that FBI lawyer admitted, do you see 
evidence of political bias or motivation against President 
Trump in those text messages?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I would just say, Congressman, as I have 
said before that I consider the report to have described 
conduct that I consider unacceptable and unrepresentative of 
who we are as an institution.
    I am not going to comment on specific people's conduct for 
a variety of reasons. I will say that political bias has no 
place in today's FBI.
    Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, I appreciate that. I am going to ask 
you to comment on someone's specific conduct because that very 
same FBI agent is the one the Inspector General found in his 
report was the one that tampered with evidence by 
counterfeiting an email from an intelligence agency to 
illegally continue surveillance of a Trump campaign associate. 
That is what happened, right, Director?
    Mr. Wray. Again, I would just refer you to the report.
    Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, the report acknowledges that. So, does 
the Department of Justice and the FISA court. They acknowledge 
that this was illegal surveillance with respect to at least 
several of these FISA applications because there was not 
probable cause or proper predication, correct?
    Mr. Wray. Right.
    Mr. Ratcliffe. So, to the point of one of my Democratic 
colleagues that there was no fraud on the court, illegal 
surveillance, and changing evidence to conduct illegal 
surveillance is the very definition of fraud on the court, is 
it not?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I certainly think it describes conduct that 
is utterly unacceptable.
    Mr. Ratcliffe. It is what took place here.
    Mr. Wray. Well, again, I refer to the report. We have 
accepted, and I have been very clear about this--we have 
accepted every finding in the Inspector General's report, 
including some that are extremely painful to us as an 
institution.
    Mr. Ratcliffe. I appreciate it, Director Wray. I love the 
FBI. You know my background. I know what you are trying to do. 
I know the difficult position that you are in.
    I think the record is clear. I remain convinced that the 
prior Administration weaponized the FBI for political 
motivation and purposes.
    I just wonder whether or not you are going to be able to 
put the genie back in the bottle. I truly know that your 
motivations are to do that.
    I wish you the best of luck.
    I yield back.
    Ms. Scanlon. Thank you.
    The gentleman from California is recognized.
    Mr. Swalwell. Thank you, and thank you, Director, for 
appearing today and thank the agents that you oversee every 
day. Please extend to them our thanks for what they do for our 
country.
    Mr. Deutch talked about our hope that the bipartisan 
background checks bill will receive a vote in the Senate. I 
hope that is the case, too.
    I am the brother of two police officers, and while my 
brothers and I don't agree on every gun safety proposal that I 
have, I tell them every day they are all rooted in wanting to 
protect them and the people in our communities, including FBI 
agents.
    I know here today are young people who are marching for our 
lives and even a father who was asked to leave the State of the 
Union last night because the passion he brings to this issue--
Fred Guttenberg, who lost his daughter, Jamie, at Parkland, who 
does not seek to take anyone's weapons who possesses them 
legally but just wants to make sure we are all safer in our 
communities.
    So, I look forward to working with the Bureau to make sure 
that we can keep our pistols, keep our rifles, keep our 
shotguns to protect ourselves, but also make sure the most 
dangerous weapons don't end up in the hands of the most 
dangerous people.
    Shifting to election interference, Director, are the 
Russians interfering in our election right now?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I don't think we have seen any ongoing 
efforts to target election infrastructure like we did in 2016. 
We, certainly, are seeing and have never stopped seeing, 
really, since 2016 efforts to engage in malign foreign 
influence by the Russians.
    So, that is the use of false personas, fake media accounts, 
social media stuff, the trolls, the bots--all that stuff that 
is described at great length both in the ICA and in some of the 
indictments that have been returned since then.
    So, that kind of effort is still very much ongoing. That is 
not just an election cycle issue but, of course, now that we 
are in an election year it is an effort to influence our public 
in that regard.
    Mr. Swalwell. Does the FBI see the Russians amplifying 
content of certain campaigns in the 2020 election, meaning, 
creating accounts, trying to create discord, or not just in 
general political discord but does the Bureau see an effort to 
try and help or hurt any particular campaign through social 
media amplification?
    Mr. Wray. I would have to think about whether or not I 
could say anything in an open setting on that. Certainly, I 
would say in general that the efforts to sow divisiveness and 
discord on both sides of an issue and to generate controversy 
and to generate distrust in our democratic institutions and our 
electoral process, that is very much ongoing.
    Mr. Swalwell. Are other countries also capable of doing 
that or are doing that right now?
    Mr. Wray. I don't know that we have seen other countries 
trying to do exactly that. Certainly, other countries like 
China, for example, have very active malign foreign influence 
efforts in this country. Theirs is a little bit different than 
the efforts that I was just describing.
    It is still very, very active and very serious. It is more 
geared--in their instance, it is more geared towards trying to 
shift our policy and our public opinion to be more pro-China on 
a variety of issues.
    We do know that other adversaries besides Russia are 
looking very closely at what the Russians have done and taking 
note of it and giving active consideration as to whether that 
is a playbook they should adopt.
    Mr. Swalwell. Director, you are sitting in the same Chair 
that Director Mueller testified to this Committee from. He laid 
out a number of instances of obstruction of justice in his 
report, but also cited a DOJ policy that prevents a sitting 
President from being indicted, and it has raised the question 
for me and many on this Committee--and we have introduced 
legislation that would toll the statute of limitations for a 
sitting President to have them start running again once they 
leave office.
    As far as the Bureau goes, as far as I know, the Bureau has 
procedures to open an investigation, and there is different 
phases of an investigation before presenting it to the 
Department of Justice for prosecution.
    So, if the DOJ policy prevents a sitting President from 
being indicted, is the Bureau even able to investigate 
allegations of wrongdoing?
    I just want to take this President out, and just any 
President in the future as long as that policy is in place. Are 
you able to even start an investigation or would you have to 
wait until the President left office?
    Do you understand the question?
    Mr. Wray. I think I do, and I am not sure I have an answer 
sitting here right now about a specific hypothetical.
    Obviously, the FBI investigates not just crimes but 
national security threats, and I think something that a lot of 
people don't understand is that we have counterintelligence 
investigations that often aren't geared towards crimes or 
charging anybody at all.
    They are geared towards identifying and understanding 
national security threats and mitigating or neutralizing those 
threats.
    So, there might be some difference there.
    Mr. Swalwell. If you had an allegation--if you had an 
allegation of wrongdoing, do you see that DOJ policy as 
limiting you from even conducting an investigation while the 
person is in office?
    Mr. Wray. I would have to give that more thought. I don't 
have an answer sitting here right now.
    Mr. Swalwell. Thank you. I yield back.
    Ms. Scanlon. The gentleman from Florida is recognized.
    Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Director Wray, it is often the case that it is in a 
community's worst moment or toughest day that they interact 
with the FBI. That was certainly the case for my community in 
Pensacola following the terrorist attack at NAS Pensacola.
    I wanted to begin by thanking the FBI and the very talented 
professionals who brought comfort and competence and a very 
thorough investigation into that fact pattern.
    I am confident, based on the work of the FBI in concert 
with the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland 
Security, that on a going forward basis will be able to work 
with our allies more closely so that there is ongoing robust 
review of communications and social media content.
    I know that investigation is concluded with the press 
conference that Attorney General Barr had.
    I wanted to give you the opportunity to reflect on any 
lessons learned and any strategies that we might use to ensure 
that our military communities are safe as we host some of our 
foreign partners.
    Mr. Wray. Thank you, Congressman. Thank you for the 
question and thank you also for the kind words about our folks 
who work very hard on that investigation, also with their 
military partners, especially NCIS, among others.
    Certainly, that tragic event highlighted a number of 
things. One, the importance of making sure that we get adequate 
information from our foreign partners and that they do the 
diligence that often they are in the best position to do on the 
people before they come our way, and I think the kingdom has 
indicated an interest in being more engaged on that and I think 
that is a healthy and positive sign.
    Another different lesson learned, though, from that 
investigation, which ties into a topic that has come up a few 
times already here this morning and, as the Attorney General 
commented, I think, very forcefully on, one of the things that 
the shooter in Pensacola did in the heat of the moment while 
people were coming at him and he was coming at them, took the 
time to shoot one of his own phones to destroy it so that, 
presumably, we, in law enforcement, wouldn't have access to 
what is in it.
    Now, remarkably, the men and women of the FBI in our Office 
of Technology Division (OTD) were able to reconstruct that 
phone as an engineering matter so that we could have access to 
it for a technical perspective.
    Because of the way the encryption is on the phone, we don't 
have meaningful access to the content of that phone. So, 
whatever it is he was trying to prevent us all from seeing, we 
don't know, and we are currently engaged with Apple hoping to 
try to see if we can get better help from them to try to get 
access to the contents of that phone.
    It illustrates why this lawful access issue is such an 
important one. I appreciate the question.
    Mr. Gaetz. Given the fact that recently al-Qaida Yemen has 
taken responsibility for the terrorist attack in my community, 
it would seem to elevate our need to have access to those 
communication devices and tools.
    Apple responds that the government should not be forced to 
compel them to make a key for a lock that exists. Do you 
believe that there is meaningful legislation that the Congress 
should consider so that technology partners have a yellow brick 
road to work with the government to not put burdens on them 
that could be used by our adversaries but that, in fact, could 
help the FBI with these important investigations that involve 
these complex issues of international criminal and terrorist 
organizations?
    Mr. Wray. Well, whether it is done by legislation or done 
by the companies doing it voluntarily, I think we have to find 
a solution. This problem is real. It is now. I hear about it 
from law enforcement from every State in the country all the 
time.
    It affects every threat we are contending with. We believe 
strongly in encryption, as I said to the Chair earlier. We also 
believe that law enforcement has to have lawful access to the 
content of where the information is or we are not going to be 
able to protect people.
    There are some countries that have already passed 
legislation of the sort that you are referring to--Australia, 
for example.
    One way or another, we have got to figure out a way to 
solve this problem or we are all going to wake up one day and 
realize that law enforcement--the hardworking men and women of 
law enforcement in Pensacola and everywhere else are blind.
    If you were a criminal and you had a choice between doing 
all your information and communications in a device that was 
utterly beyond reach of law enforcement and doing it in one 
where law enforcement with a warrant could have access, which 
one would you pick?
    Of course, you would pick the first one. I think these are 
decisions that should be made by the American people through 
their elected representatives, not through one company making a 
business decision on behalf of all us.
    Mr. Gaetz. Well, I hope as we unpack these difficult and 
complex questions that the FBI will work with my office because 
my community is deeply vested in these questions now, because 
we have seen the impact and as we see the involvement of 
international terrorist organizations claiming credit, we are 
even more interested to ensure that those who are killing and 
maiming my constituents are held accountable.
    I thank the Chair and I yield back.
    Ms. Scanlon. Thank you.
    The gentleman from California is recognized.
    Mr. Lieu. Thank you, Madam Vice-Chair.
    Thank you, Director Wray, for your service. I would like to 
first ask about election security. There are various components 
of election security. I would like to focus on two.
    The first is the actual hacking of voting machines and 
databases containing voter files--what steps are the FBI taking 
to make sure that it doesn't happen?
    Mr. Wray. So, on the cyber side, if you will--the hacking 
side--we are taking a three-prong approach. We have 
investigations, intelligence sharing, and engagement.
    So, on the investigation side we have investigations that 
we will conduct into potential cyber intrusions into election 
infrastructure. A lot of times it is not clear when there is an 
intrusion who is behind it, right.
    It could be somebody for a financial motive or just 
mischief, or it could ultimately trace back to a Nation State 
and foreign adversary, and that is one of the things we try to 
do on the cyber side.
    On the intelligence-sharing side, we have tried to push out 
to State and local election officials and campaigns indicators 
to be on the lookout for so that they are more likely to, if 
they spot something, think, wait a minute--this might be 
something I should contact FBI or law enforcement about.
    Then on the engagement side, we have tried to do things 
including we have created a protected voices website that puts 
out information to campaigns all over the country about cyber 
hygiene to better protect their not necessarily election 
infrastructure but the campaign infrastructure, if you will, 
from cyber-attacks.
    Mr. Lieu. Thank you.
    So, the second component, which I think could have even 
more of an influence on elections, is disinformation--spy op 
operations--and as you know, the Mueller investigation the 
special counsel indicted a Russian troll farm.
    So, what steps are FBI doing to try to mitigate 
disinformation in the upcoming election?
    Mr. Wray. So, I think you are right, that in some ways that 
is an even more challenging area, not the least because it 
never stopped, right. It happened in 2016 and it has been 
continuing ever since then.
    It may have uptick during an election cycle, but it is a 
24/7 365 days a year threat.
    Second reason it is challenging is that, unlike a cyber-
attack on an election infrastructure, that kind of effort 
disinformation in a world where we have a First amendment and 
believe strongly in freedom of expression, the FBI is not going 
to be in the business of being the truth police and monitoring 
disinformation online.
    So, it requires not just the investigations when we do get 
leads that we can pursue but also engagement with the social 
media companies in particular, and that is one of the places 
where there have been great strides since 2016 where we have 
made--and we saw it in the midterms with a lot better 
engagement with the social media companies where there are 
things that they can do as private companies voluntarily, based 
on their own terms of use or terms of service, where they can 
use the resources they have to find and shut down accounts and 
sort of nip some of these things in the bud.
    So, I think this is going to require not just a government 
solution, but a sort of private industry solution as part of 
dealing with that threat.
    Mr. Lieu. Thank you.
    I would like to shift subjects to the Department of Justice 
bias training. As a Member of the Congressional Asian and 
Pacific American Caucus, I want to follow up on a question I 
submitted for the record the last time you had come in and 
testified regarding the DOJ's department wide implicit bias 
training.
    Do you know what the status of that training is, and if you 
don't, could you submit us information of the status of the 
training?
    Mr. Wray. I would be happy to provide you more information 
as a follow-up.
    Mr. Lieu. Okay. All right.
    There is always an issue of folks in the United States who 
are engaging in spying. There are also folks who may be 
intimately caught up in that. So, I think it is better if we 
had a classified briefing on this.
    In terms of Asian Americans who are surveilled or targeted 
by the FBI or Asian nationals who are, would you be willing to 
give a briefing to the Members of the Congressional Asian and 
Pacific American Caucus in a classified setting what the scope 
of that program is and the status of it?
    Mr. Wray. We would be happy to arrange some kind of closed 
session briefing on the counterintelligence efforts in the 
space that you are talking about.
    Exactly what would be in the briefing we would have to sort 
of think through. Certainly, I am sure there is helpful 
information we could share and it would probably be 
constructive.
    Mr. Lieu. Thank you. I yield back.
    Ms. Scanlon. The gentleman from Arizona is recognized.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Thanks, Director Wray, for being here today. We have talked 
a bit about this order from Judge Collyer from December 17th of 
2019, in particular, a couple of references she makes that FBI 
personnel provided information which was unsupported or 
contradicted by information in their possession and also 
several instances in which FBI personnel withheld from the 
National Security Division of DOJ information in their 
possession, which was detrimental to their case and their 
presentations to the FISA court.
    In particular, she expands specifically on what some of 
those were. The fact that there were allegations that Carter 
Page had met with two different Russians in July in Russia--in 
July of 2016, even though Page said he had never met them.
    That was never included--this kind of exculpatory 
information. Nor did they talk about the actual origins of the 
information that they were relying on.
    You have said repeatedly today that the conduct was 
unacceptable, and I am trying to determine in my mind whether 
you find some distinction between unacceptable and whether 
there was any kind of criminal conduct on the part of these 
people who were giving sworn--effectively, sworn testimony by 
signing these sworn affidavits to the court, neither altering 
evidence or failing to disclose evidence that was exculpatory 
as required.
    Do you find anything criminal in their conduct?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I think each case depends on the facts of 
the specific individual, right. So, when you start talking 
about criminal liability, there is always a question of the 
level of intent--the mens rea, right.
    So, whether or not the particular individual knowingly 
misled somebody that might be different from somebody who made 
a mistake and omitted some information.
    Either way, the reason I use the word unacceptable is not--
I am not trying to sort of split hairs or engage in semantics. 
What I am saying is I hold the men and women of the FBI to a 
heck of a lot higher standard than not violating the criminal 
law.
    I expect the men and women of the FBI to be the best of the 
best and to do everything by the book, which is why in speech 
after speech, in every field office and every headquarters 
division, the first topic I raise is the importance of not just 
getting to the right result but, rather, letting the process be 
followed and ensure that the way we do what we do defines the 
FBI's brand way more than whether or not we are successful in a 
particular investigation.
    I specifically have been raising, and this goes all the way 
back to my first few months as director, the importance of 
making sure that the judges who sign our warrants can trust our 
work.
    That is not something that I started saying in response to 
this report. I have been hitting that theme since the outset 
because it is so important to me, having been not just a 
prosecutor but a defense attorney.
    To me, it is at the very heart of who I am as a 
professional and what I expect of our people--the candor to the 
court.
    Mr. Biggs. I get that. So, what you are talking about is 
ethical actions regardless of what the criminal liability may--
or exposure may be because of a culpable mental state.
    I get that, and I think we could have a philosophical 
debate of whether criminal law is reflective of the morality of 
our culture and our society.
    That is not why we are here today. What happened here was 
so systemic or systematic that the judge said it was so 
questionable I don't know if we can even rely on other FBI 
affidavits.
    That indicates that there might have been some kind of 
imputation of some kind of criminal mens rea requirement. I 
don't want to get into that right now, because I want to ask 
another question.
    I think that maybe you--I would hope that you have really 
considered whether there was criminal culpability on the part 
of these people who misled the court and spied--and resulted in 
spying on American citizens without, in my opinion, real 
probable cause to do so.
    So, one of the things that you talked about as your reforms 
is to have the field office involved when you are bringing 
something into the home office to investigate.
    The problem that I see with that is that you are asking, 
effectively, a subordinate to go to have input that might be 
counter to their superior, somebody who actually has, 
basically, some impact on their career even.
    So, this becomes problematic. I would like you to address 
that in a second. I would just give you my example. I was a 
trial lawyer myself on both sides, prosecuting and defending.
    I did international law for a while. When I went back to 
get a graduate degree, I could tell you this. Even with my 
experience, I was wary to cross the professor because I knew 
they had control over my grades. They had control over whether 
I would be able to finish my degree in the time I wanted to get 
my degree finished.
    So, I would suggest to you that maybe that might not be a 
reform that actually is more than cosmetic in nature and I 
would like you to address that, please.
    Mr. Wray. So, I certainly understand the concern and the 
dynamic that you are describing. What I would say is this. The 
changes that I put in place there have a few different 
dimensions.
    One, and this was not made clear before so this is 
something that we did, my leadership team and I, that differs 
from the past, we made it explicit that other than in the 
rarest of circumstances all investigations should be conducted 
in the field.
    You might think that should be obvious. That wasn't 
articulated clearly. We articulate it clearly.
    Second, we built in place the check and balance concept 
that I described in response to some of the earlier questions.
    I get your point about subordinate/superior. I think what 
we were trying to do was ensure that in that case, the Deputy 
Director would have the input of the field office leadership.
    What I did not want to do, since this would be a policy 
that would govern us, going forward in every possible situation 
is prevent ever under any circumstances whatsoever 
investigations being conducted out of headquarters.
    I don't think something that absolute is wise for me to tie 
the FBI director's hands in that regard. I will give you an 
example.
    One of the Black eyes of the FBI in the past was, of 
course, the Hanssen matter. Now, that kind of investigation was 
conducted out of headquarters. It was an unusual situation, 
incredibly important, incredibly delicate for reasons that I am 
sure you can imagine.
    That was appropriate that it be conducted out of 
headquarters. In many ways the pipe bomb investigation--the 9/
11-related investigation--that was, in many ways, run out of 
headquarters, and I had a front row seat to that as I was in 
the department's leadership under President Bush and Attorney 
General Ashcroft at the time.
    So, there are rare, rare circumstances where it does make 
sense to have an investigation run out of headquarters. What 
needed to be clear was everybody needs to understand that had 
to be kind of the Black swan, the unusual situation.
    The steps that we put in place and the corrective action 
that you are referring to be our effort to try to make sure 
that people understood it couldn't just become a practice--that 
you had to jump through those hoops, and hopefully we will 
accomplish that.
    Mr. Biggs. Director, I would hope that you would--
    Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Biggs. I would hope that you would go on with regard to 
the reform--the superior/subordinate issue that we talked 
about.
    Thanks, Director.
    Ms. Scanlon. Okay. The time has expired.
    The gentleman from Maryland is recognized.
    Mr. Raskin. Welcome, Director Wray. Thank you for your hard 
work.
    Does the FBI publish the Uniform Crime Report?
    Mr. Wray. Yes.
    Mr. Raskin. So, the 2018 report found that there were 24 
hate-related murders in our country that year. That didn't 
include 11 people who were murdered by a neo-Nazi White 
supremacist at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.
    Why were they not included?
    Mr. Wray. I don't--sitting here right now, I haven't 
drilled into the methodology behind the report. I will tell you 
that when it comes to the Tree of Life Synagogue that I not 
only have been personally monitoring it, but I actually went to 
the Tree of Life crime scene, walked through it with the team, 
et cetera.
    Mr. Raskin. So, you saw it. You knew that--
    Mr. Wray. So, I am deeply invested and got a full play-by-
play as to the horror that occurred there.
    Mr. Raskin. You knew--
    Mr. Wray. I will say that one of the things that a lot of 
people don't realize is that, but for a few fluke 
coincidences--really completely fluke coincidences--there would 
have been a whole bunch of kids going to, in effect, class at 
the top floor of that synagogue and the death toll from that 
attack could have been exponentially worse, as horrifying and 
tragic as what actually happened was.
    Mr. Raskin. Yeah. So, it was the most violent antisemitic 
attack in the history of the United States, but it wasn't 
recorded in the 2018 hate crimes compilation that the FBI 
publishes, just as Heather Heyer's murder by a crazed White 
supremacist in Charlottesville was not recorded in the 2017 
Uniform Crime Report.
    Are you aware of this problem in the methodology that the 
FBI is using?
    Mr. Wray. I am not aware of the specific methodological 
problem.
    Mr. Raskin. Do you know why this is happening?
    Mr. Wray. I do not. I am happy to take a closer look at it.
    Mr. Raskin. Well, as I understand it, because I looked into 
this, the FBI relies on State and local governments to turn in 
statistics related to hate crimes. So, if they fail to do it, 
if they are overwhelmed, negligent, or whatever, it doesn't 
happen.
    So, you were there at the Tree of Life scene of the 
massacre. You knew about it. It never appeared in the FBI's 
statistics.
    The FBI reports an average of 7,500 hate crimes a year, if 
you look at 2013-2017. The Bureau of Justice Statistics 
National Crime Victimization Survey estimated an average of 
200,000 hate crimes a year, right.
    So, that is a pretty dramatic difference between what your 
larger department is saying exist in hate crimes and what the 
FBI is saying.
    Do you think this is a problem in terms of us just getting 
a hold on what the problem of violent White supremacy is 
presenting to America today?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I don't think it is unique to White 
supremacy. I do think, and I think I may have said this in 
response to one of your colleagues, we do know that hate crimes 
are historically underreported.
    Of course, the challenge of underreporting is you never 
know for sure just how badly underreported they are. We also 
know that reporting has increased significantly over the last 
couple of years.
    That may be because the violence is on the rise, or it 
could be because more departments are doing what you are 
rightly suggesting we need them to do. We are trying to do a 
lot on our end to encourage State and local law enforcement to 
provide better reporting.
    Mr. Raskin. What are you doing?
    Mr. Wray. So, we do presentations on it. We do outreach 
about it. In speeches when I am meeting with law enforcement, I 
will talk about it. Things like that.
    Mr. Raskin. Let me shift to a related subject. Between 2009 
and 2018, domestic extremists killed in our country 427 people, 
which equates to about three-quarters of all the extremist 
murders. Most of them were conducted by White supremacists and 
other far right extremists.
    Yet, we have had testimony--we have heard testimony that 
most of the Department of Justice's and FBI's resources are 
still channeled at Islamic or Islamist fundamentalist terror.
    What have you done to try to reallocate resources towards 
what has been the major threat in terms of domestic terror 
since 2001?
    Certainly, over the last decade it has been White extremist 
groups that have presented the biggest threat. So, what have 
you done to channel the resources in the right direction?
    Mr. Wray. Well, we have directed all our joint terrorism 
task forces to have domestic terrorism squarely within their 
sites.
    We have created the Domestic Terrorism-Hate Crimes Fusion 
Cell to ensure that we are bringing not just the 
counterterrorism resources but on the criminal investigative 
division side our civil rights enforcement folks lashed up with 
the domestic terrorism folks.
    I have elevated racially-motivated violent extremism to a 
national threat priority at the same band with homegrown 
violent extremism and ISIS.
    We had about the same number of arrests in the last fiscal 
year on both fronts. In either case, I would say that for us, 
we assess that the greatest threat to the homeland as certain 
things that cross between both the jihadist-inspired and the 
racially-motivated violent extremist side, which is you have 
lone actors, typically, who are, largely, radicalized online 
and choose, sometimes very quickly go from despicable rhetoric 
to violence, choose easily accessible weapons--a car, knife, 
gun, and maybe an IED they can build crudely off of the 
Internet--and they choose soft targets. That threat, that is 
what we assess is the biggest threat to the homeland right now.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you. I yield back.
    Ms. Scanlon. Okay.
    Before I recognize the gentleman from California, after 
your questions we will take a 10-15-minute break.
    The gentleman from California is recognized.
    Mr. McClintock. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Mr. Wray, I am still not clear of your response to 
questions asked by both Mr. Nadler and Mr. Ratcliffe.
    Is it your testimony that there was no political bias in 
the decisions and actions that affected the so-called Crossfire 
Hurricane investigation?
    Mr. Wray. My testimony is that the Inspector General made a 
number of very specific findings on the question of political 
bias both about what he found and what he didn't find, and we 
accept that in full.
    Mr. McClintock. I am not asking what the Inspector General 
found. I am asking after 2\1/2\ years heading the FBI what is 
your judgment? Was there political bias involved with this 
investigation?
    Mr. Wray. My judgment is the same as the Inspector 
General's.
    Mr. McClintock. Same answer to the mid-term exam 
investigation?
    Mr. Wray. Oh, about the prior investigation?
    Mr. McClintock. Yeah.
    Mr. Wray. I haven't gone back and rereviewed that one. So, 
but again, we accepted all the findings of the Inspector 
General, so yeah.
    Mr. McClintock. Let me ask you this question, Mr. Wray.
    Gregg Jarrett, the journalist, wrote a book--actually, a 
series of books--on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation--and 
in his latest book he describes it as, ``The story of ambitious 
and unscrupulous people in high positions of government who 
abused their authority.
    They sought to subvert the Rule of law and undermine the 
democratic process. They weaponized their powers to influence 
the Presidential election, undo the result they did not like, 
and extrude the elected President from office.
    Our intelligence community and the FBI were at the heart of 
this illicit and unprecedented scheme.''
    As director of the FBI, what is your response to that 
observation?
    Mr. Wray. My response is that the conduct described in the 
Inspector General's report is unacceptable.
    Mr. McClintock. You say unacceptable--
    Mr. Wray. That it is unrepresentative of the FBI that I see 
every day working there, as Director.
    Mr. McClintock. Then let me ask you, who has been fired as 
a result of the Inspector General's report?
    Mr. Wray. Well, most of the people involved in the 
investigation that is featured in the Inspector General 
report--
    Mr. McClintock. Who has been fired?
    Mr. Wray. Well, there are a few people who are no longer 
with the FBI. Some of them have been terminated. Some of them 
left on their own. Some of them have sued me.
    Mr. McClintock. Let me ask you this. Who has been 
disciplined? Who has been disciplined?
    Mr. Wray. Like I said, there have been a number of people 
who have been terminated from the FBI. Some of them have sued 
me.
    Mr. McClintock. Terminated or allowed to resign?
    Mr. Wray. Well, in some cases, terminated.
    Mr. McClintock. You know, you use the word unacceptable. I 
would think you would find a stronger word for that over what 
has happened by the actions of people who sullied the 
reputations of every decent person at the FBI and disgraced the 
agency that you now head.
    The FBI is entrusted with the most terrifying powers that 
we can give our government--the power to ruin people's lives, 
to invade their privacy, to launch pre-dawn raids on their 
homes, to bankrupt them with legal costs, to deprive them of 
their liberty.
    We entrust you and your agency with these powers to protect 
our liberty and to protect our safety, and when those powers 
are abused in the manner that we saw in this whole Russian 
collusion hoax, that is a direct threat to our freedom and to 
the credibility of your agency.
    I am terribly disappointed that you cannot summon the 
outrage to put it in stronger words than just this is 
unacceptable and doesn't represent the FBI.
    Unfortunately, at the moment, it does represent the FBI or 
at least the leadership of the FBI that committed these abuses.
    You were appointed to clean things up and I am just--after 
reading the IG's report and the Strzok and Page emails and the 
actions of Bruce and Nellie Orr, McCabe, and Comey, frankly, 
Mr. Director, I don't trust your agency anymore.
    That is a profound thing for me to say because I was raised 
to revere the FBI. I sat glued to the television every week 
when Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., came on and exemplified everything 
that was great and holy about our government.
    I think that you have lost the trust of an awful lot of 
Americans and that is a dangerous, dangerous thing for an 
agency that (a) is entrusted with these powers, (b) is 
entrusted with these powers to specifically protect our lives 
and liberty.
    I don't see how you can restore public trust without a 
thorough and complete and public housecleaning and without at 
least a clear and unambiguous expression of moral outrage, 
unacceptable actions against those in our agency, or I should 
say, unmistakable actions against those in the agency that 
abuse these powers.
    Let me just ask you one final question. Looking at the 
treatment of Michael Flynn by your agency, why would anyone in 
his right mind want to talk to an FBI agent knowing that there 
could be a hidden agenda to catch them up on a factual detail 
and then prosecute them for lying?
    Mr. Wray. Well, Mr. Flynn's case is the subject of ongoing 
litigation. So, I am not going to talk about his particular 
case.
    I will tell you that I am sorry to hear the views that you 
express. I will also tell you that having been to--I have been 
to--
    Mr. McClintock. Those views have--include me.
    Mr. Wray. I am sorry. May I answer?
    Mr. McClintock. Yeah.
    Mr. Wray. May I answer?
    Having been to every field office of the FBI, having talked 
to law enforcement in every State in the country, having 
engaged with every headquarters division, having engaged with 
partners, private sector, public sector, foreign, State, local, 
and intelligence community, I can tell you that the FBI that I 
see every day is the kind of FBI that you describe having 
reverence for and I hope that we can restore your confidence in 
that FBI.
    I would say to you also that I am not somebody, as is quite 
clear by now to lots of people, who expresses himself with 
hyperbole and loud rhetoric.
    I am somebody who reflects his views through action, and we 
have taken--I implemented the day the Inspector General's 
report came out over 40 deep corrective actions that deal with 
that series of failures and problems.
    I have communicated over and over and over again my 
expectation of what the FBI employees should do and that, 
frankly, is what I do see from the FBI employees day in and day 
out, all over the country and, frankly, all over the world.
    Now, where there are people who need to be held 
accountable, we have a disciplinary process for that, for the 
current employees.
    The vast majority of the people involved in the conduct 
that you are describing are no longer with the FBI, so they are 
not subject to our disciplinary process in the first place.
    There is, of course, as you know, the ongoing John Durham 
investigation, which we have been cooperating with fully, as 
the Attorney General himself has said.
    So, I look forward to, hopefully, having another hearing 
with you at some point where we can have a very different kind 
of exchange about the FBI.
    Mr. McClintock. I would very much look forward to that.
    Ms. Scanlon. The gentleman's time has expired.
    The Committee will stand in recess until 12:45. We would 
ask that people stay seated until the director is able to make 
his way out of the room.
    [Recess.]
    Chair Nadler. The Committee will come to order.
    Mr. Cicilline?
    Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you, Director.
    I have to say for me it is sad to see in an ongoing and 
desperate attempt to please the impeached President that some 
are continuing to malign the extraordinary men and women of the 
FBI who serve the American people with honor. So, I want to 
begin my comments by saying thank you for your extraordinary 
service to our country and to the brave men and women of the 
FBI.
    On that score, the survival of our democracy is directly 
dependent on our ability to protect the integrity of our 
elections, particularly from foreign interference, and so that 
it's clear that the American people get to decide who will lead 
this country, not some foreign power. So, I hear from my 
constituents regularly about what is being done to secure the 
2020 election.
    You said, Director, back in December that Russia represents 
the most significant threat to the election cycle itself. My 
first question, is that still your assessment?
    Mr. Wray. Yes, it is.
    Mr. Cicilline. Would you just describe what steps the 
Bureau has taken to investigate, deter, and counter Russian and 
other foreign governments' attempts to interfere in our 
elections, and particularly what lessons we might have learned 
or the FBI might have learned from the 2016 and 2018 elections 
that hopefully give you confidence that we're in a better 
position to combat the Russian threat?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I appreciate the question. Needless to say, 
this is something that it's at the top of our list as a 
priority because it goes right to the heart of who we are as a 
country. One of the things that I did shortly after taking over 
as Director was to create the Foreign Influence Task Force in 
the FBI that brings together not just our counterintelligence 
resources, but our Cyber Division resources, our criminal 
investigative resources, and even our counterterrorism 
resources, which might sound a little counterintuitive at 
first.
    One of the things that we know the Russians have attempted 
to do, in addition to some of the more publicized things, is to 
try to spin up some of the domestic terrorism-type activity 
that occurs in this country. So, there was value of bringing 
that discipline to it as well.
    We have a three-prong strategy to deal with this effort--
investigations, intelligence sharing, and engagement. The 
investigation side is pretty much what you would imagine. It's 
everything from public corruption investigations, voter 
suppression investigations, counterintelligence investigations, 
and cyber investigations.
    There, of course, have been indictments, many of which 
you're familiar with--the IRA's Chief Accountant, the Russian 
intelligence officers coming out of the special counsel 
investigation, Maria Butina, et cetera.
    On the intelligence sharing side, one of the things we've 
tried to do is really leverage the resources of State and local 
law enforcement because some of these efforts may get detected 
in the first instance by them. So, we've pushed out 
intelligence products pretty broadly for people to know what to 
be on the look-out for, which will help us get in front of it 
earlier.
    Then the last, but really in some ways the most important 
part of it is the engagement piece. One of the lessons--you 
asked about lessons learned. One of the key lessons learned 
from 2016, which we put into action with the midterms and we're 
continuing to put into action every day, is the need to engage 
not just the State and local election officials, but with the 
social media companies because so much of the Russians' effort 
is driven through social media. Fake news, propaganda, all that 
stuff, that's not new. What's new is the social media vehicle 
to do it because it's scalable. It's cheap. It's a bullhorn.
    So, one of the things we're doing a lot better--not just 
the FBI, but the whole Government--is working with Silicon 
Valley to try to leverage what they can bring to the fight as 
well, and we're going to continue to do more and more of that.
    Mr. Cicilline. Thank you.
    Director, do you believe now that the Bureau has the tools 
in place and the resources necessary to effectively fight these 
types of foreign influence operations in our elections?
    Mr. Wray. We're well postured for the fight, but I will 
also tell you, you've probably never met an FBI Director who 
couldn't use more resources. Any resources that Congress would 
see fit to send our way, I can assure you they will be put to 
good use.
    Mr. Cicilline. Well, I'd ask you, Director, in writing if 
you could identify where you would best use additional 
resources, I promise you I will advocate for them.
    My final question is, as you are aware, when someone goes 
in for a criminal background check to buy a gun, if the 
background check is not completed within 3 days, the gun seller 
is authorized to sell the gun. Then if the background check 
comes back 2 weeks later and the person is a disqualified 
purchaser, the ATF goes and tries to retrieve the gun, et 
cetera.
    This has happened a significant number of times, and I have 
a piece of legislation that would require that if it comes back 
that the person is a disqualified purchaser, that the local law 
enforcement community as well as the field office of the FBI be 
notified. Because that means someone bought a gun who is not 
legally allowed to buy one.
    Would that be useful for the FBI to know that?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I'd have to look at the specific 
legislation to be able to have a view on that. I will tell you 
that in the kinds of fact patterns that you're describing, 
certainly I see that happen anecdotally, but not infrequently. 
Certainly, it's important to us.
    Mr. Cicilline. So, I'll provide a copy of H.R. 3552 to your 
staff, and I would certainly like your support for it because I 
think it would make a real difference.
    With that, I yield back.
    Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
    Mr. Armstrong?
    Mr. Armstrong. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you for being here, Director.
    I have had the opportunity over the years to work with lots 
of your agents doing Federal public defense on a lot of 
historical methamphetamine conspiracies. I think one thing that 
most people don't always recognize is when you do those types 
of cases, they oftentimes have no actual physical drugs 
involved.
    What they end up having is co-conspirator testimony, other 
investigators doing years' long of investigations through 
interrogations, statements, affidavits, and sworn testimony. 
They are dealing with people who aren't necessarily predisposed 
to tell law enforcement the truth. They use various different 
things, such as knocking years off their sentence and 
obstruction of justice charges, perjury charges, and all of the 
tools that are available to them.
    What I think comes down to and as somebody who has worked 
on these cases, there are two different ways you can lie to an 
agent. Neither one of them usually works out for the criminal 
defendant, and that is either by an affirmative lie or an 
omission lie. There are real serious consequences to that, 
whether it is an obstruction charge or perjury charge, or 
oftentimes, it is as simple as adding another 6 or 7 years on 
to your sentence. The FBI is very, very good at those things.
    I have heard you talk today. I mean, we have read the 
Inspector General's report, and I think it is important to take 
both of those reports that were given, both the midterm report 
and the final report, and some of those things are concerning 
enough, like the gross negligence, incompetence, and the things 
that have been said. I am appreciative of the 40 corrective 
measures, and we have talked about improving the process, 
rigor, accountability, tone at the top.
    You have said the conduct was unacceptable. How we do what 
we do matters. Process matters. Process and policy changes. I 
have a little--one of the things that I have a little concern 
with--actually, a significant concern with, is when you take 
all those institutional mistakes, or however you want to frame 
them in those two reports. Typically, when you have that kind 
of systemic breakdown or those types of issues, mistakes fall 
randomly across a process, and that didn't happen here.
    You will be hard-pressed for you to point out a mistake 
that was made that wasn't either against President Trump or in 
some cases that benefits Candidate Clinton. Throughout the 
entire report, there is not a real randomization of those 
mistakes. That is what I am concerned about.
    What I am concerned about is this wasn't just a failure of 
process. This was a failure of people. I am not going to ask 
you to go back because I would like to, but I know what my 
answers are going to be. So, when we are talking about these 40 
corrective actions and the things that we are doing, moving 
forward, in any case as we continue to go forward, how are the 
penalties being imposed?
    Because you can have 250 institutional safeguards, but if 
there isn't real consequences to those safeguards, then we 
don't have a real solution to the problem. I don't want to talk 
about political bias. I would prefer to have a hearing for 3 
days on it. For the purposes of this question, I don't care 
what the motivations were. I just know that people, either by 
omission or by intention, lied to a court on a sworn document, 
that if that would happen to any other citizen, they would be 
charged with a crime.
    While there are plenty of reasons to allow people to resign 
quietly, there are reasons to have people have internal 
disciplinary actions in their files. When you are dealing with 
a secret court and secret warrants in probably the most 
politically charged case that court has ever happened, it is 
important that those institutional safeguards exist. Important 
for a guy like me to think because if they didn't exist there, 
I don't know what is happening in the other cases as well.
    So, I am glad you are putting these resources in place. I 
am glad you are putting all these procedural safeguards in 
place. I would like to have a conversation about what are the 
consequences for those not happening.
    Mr. Wray. So, we have a fairly robust disciplinary arm, our 
Office of Professional Responsibility, which I think in general 
is viewed within the Government, the broader U.S. Government, 
as one of the premier independent disciplinary arms in any 
Executive Agency. That is the arm through which we apply 
discipline in response to misconduct or, in some cases, for 
just poor job performance even.
    The penalties range across--
    Mr. Armstrong. I want to stop there.
    Mr. Wray. Yes.
    Mr. Armstrong. Poor job performance, I am not getting into 
that. Quite frankly, I can't imagine managing 37,000 people. 
When I am talking about misconduct is that I just hope we are 
holding ourselves accountable to the same thing we are holding 
other people accountable for.
    Mr. Wray. Well, I can assure you, without getting into 
specific examples, that I can think of just during my time as 
Director, where I have seen conduct that our people have been 
disciplined for that no one else in the Government would have 
been disciplined for. So, I think we hold ourselves to an even 
higher standard, and there's no one who deplores falling short 
of that standard more than I do.
    Mr. Armstrong. I will just end with this quickly, and I 
hope that is the case. Because it sure seems like when we get 
into these situations, somebody looking at it from the other 
side, that we allow people to resign quietly or move into 
different areas, and then we come to hearings, and we say we 
can't talk about internal disciplinary proceedings.
    I think you are going to ask us a lot of things coming up. 
We have the FISA reauthor coming. We are going to continue to 
have conversations about facial recognition. We are talking 
about encryption as it goes. One of the things we have to do is 
not only know that we have the procedural safeguards, but that 
the people who are doing this will be held accountable, whether 
that is internally, externally, or even in a court of law.
    Chair Nadler. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Ms. Jayapal?
    Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you, Director Wray, for being here, for your service, 
and for your work. For being one of the few agency Directors 
that actually understands that Congress has at least a 
coequal--is at least a coequal branch of Government, and we do 
have accountability and oversight.
    I wanted to talk about something that was actually just 
mentioned, and that is face recognition technology. This is an 
area that is actually bipartisan in terms of the concerns that 
some of us have and the way in which face recognition 
technology brings unprecedented power to the FBI that, in my 
opinion, runs a severe risk of infringing on civil liberties of 
Americans and employing technology that has been shown over and 
over again to be flawed, specifically in terms of identifying 
people of color.
    The FBI now has the power to use this face recognition 
technology, often without the consent of Americans across this 
country, to match or request matches with 640 million photos of 
Americans, sometimes taken at the DMV as we are getting our 
driver's license, but with no idea that it is going to be used 
in other ways.
    A December 2019 National Institute of Standards and 
Technology report found that false positives are up to 100 
times more likely for Asian and Black faces, with Native 
Americans having the highest rates of being falsely identified. 
Is the FBI re-evaluating its use of face recognition technology 
in light of this report?
    Mr. Wray. So, I can't speak specifically to the report. 
What I can tell you is that--and I hope this is comforting to 
you, and a lot of people I find don't realize this. We, at the 
FBI, don't use facial recognition for anything other than lead 
value, right? So, in other words, there is no one under FBI 
policy who is arrested, much less convicted, based on facial 
recognition technology.
    We use it to advance an investigation to then be used with 
other information, figure if we're going in the right place. 
So, let me start with that.
    Second thing, we scrupulously train all the examiners under 
various constitutional protections, and then as to the DMV 
searches that you're talking about, again, we the FBI don't do 
those searches. The only way those searches can happen is under 
strict MOUs that have all kinds of constitutional backing. Even 
when we get the results, it then has to be reviewed carefully 
by a trained examiner.
    The last point I would make to you or which, again, may be 
helpful to you is that you mentioned NIST.
    Ms. Jayapal. Yes.
    Mr. Wray. We have changed our algorithms so that under NIST 
testing and NIST standards, we now have over 99 percent--that's 
not my judgment, that's NIST's standards--over 99 percent 
accuracy with what we do. Again, even there, even with over 99 
percent accuracy, we don't use it for anything other than lead 
value.
    Ms. Jayapal. So, that is really important to hear, and I 
appreciate the clarification. So, just to be clear, under 
current FBI policy, can face recognition technology be used 
without a warrant or probable cause in any circumstance?
    Mr. Wray. Yes.
    Ms. Jayapal. Okay. So that, I mean that is a concern for 
me, continues to be a concern for me. The ACLU reports that 
between October 2017 and April 2019, the FBI ran over 152,000 
facial recognition searches with its law enforcement database. 
However, the Syracuse TRAC database finds that there were 
10,541 new convictions in fiscal year 2019. Can you explain the 
large gap between the number of face recognition searches and 
the number of convictions? Is it not a sign of overuse without 
evidence of the technology's effectiveness?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I try to be very careful only to opine or 
comment when I have the access to the underlying information. 
So, I'd have to look at the underlying reports to really have a 
view on that.
    I will tell you that when you asked before about warrants 
and so forth, I'm quite confident that the way we use facial 
recognition technology is fully compliant with the Bill of 
Rights and the Constitution.
    Ms. Jayapal. Okay. I would love to talk some more about 
that. I wanted to know if you know about in June of 2019, Axon, 
the largest domestic provider of police body cameras, announced 
that it would not be using face recognition technology on body 
cameras--this is the former taser folks--or on any technology 
and encouraged the Government to do the same.
    It came after the company established an independent ethics 
review board to advise the company on ethical issues. Is that 
something that the FBI would consider doing, to establish some 
sort of an independent ethnic's review board on some of these 
technologies before they come out of the box, before they do 
damage, to kind of look at how these technologies affect the 
civil liberties and privacy of millions of Americans across the 
country?
    Mr. Wray. Well, again, we only use facial recognition for 
lead value. I'm not familiar with the specific report that you 
described. So, I would have to take a closer look at it to be 
able to answer that question, to have a view.
    I think we take very seriously our need to have appropriate 
safeguards internally, and I'm pretty satisfied that the way 
we're doing it has those. Where there have been adjustments 
that were appropriate, we've made those adjustments. Which is 
why, for example, when I mentioned the algorithm, the algorithm 
that the FBI had before that was a significantly lower 
percentage accuracy than the one we now have. That was done in 
close consultation with the NIST standards and NIST testing.
    Ms. Jayapal. Well, I appreciate that, Director, and I will 
send over some of these things I have mentioned and would love 
to continue the conversation.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
    Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
    Ms. Lesko?
    Ms. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Director, 
for being here.
    First, I am going to say a short statement, and then I am 
going to ask a question about leaks. I guess the statement is I 
remember watching the media and they were talking about the 
Deep State and everything. I thought, well, certainly they are 
exaggerating. People back in my district would talk about the 
Deep State. Again, I listened, but I thought, well, it must be 
a bit of an exaggeration.
    Then I remember President Trump talking about how he 
thought he was being spied on, and a lot of the media was like, 
he is just full of it, basically, paraphrasing. Then we get 
this Inspector General report, and boy, I am starting to think 
some of these people are on to something. There was abuses, as 
you have said. It was inappropriate. You don't want that to 
happen.
    I just want you to know that the people in my district, a 
lot of people just have totally lost confidence, unfortunately, 
in the process. They are afraid that they are going to be 
targeted or political people. When you combine that with the 
IRS going after Tea Party groups, people are really questioning 
this whole thing.
    So, I hope that as you investigate what exactly happened or 
you discipline people if they had FISA court abuse cases, that 
maybe you make it public so people really believe that you are 
doing something about this.
    Next, my question is about leaks. This place seems like a 
sieve. I mean leaks all the time. So, I wanted to know what 
role the FBI has in people leaking classified information and 
what you are doing about it?
    Mr. Wray. So, first, let me say I despise leaks, and I have 
a long list, which will use up all your time and mine to go 
through about why they're so harmful. What I will say is that 
some of the things that I've done since becoming Director are 
the following.
    One, I put in place a new media policy for all our 
employees, and then everybody was required to be trained on it, 
which makes for anything that might come out of the FBI at 
least, to make it excruciatingly clear what people's 
obligations are and what the prohibitions are about engaging 
with the news media.
    The reason that having that kind of strict, clear policy is 
so important is because then if somebody slips up or worse, 
there's no ambiguity about what the rules were. That's why we 
trained them on them.
    Second, I created a dedicated leak investigation unit 
within the Counterintelligence Division because a lot of the 
leak investigations that are conducted Government-wide we do on 
behalf of the Government. So, if somebody leaks, and we've had 
a number of significant investigations that led to indictments 
of people in other agencies, where they specifically leaks of 
classified information. There are other violations that could 
occur. Grand jury information, title III information, things 
like that. When it comes to leaking classified information, for 
example, we really have to be aggressive with it, and we've 
tried to be.
    Then, last but not least, where there have been provable 
leak violations by any of our own people, we've imposed 
discipline. There have been some people who have been 
terminated for violating the media policy.
    Ms. Lesko. Thank you, and I yield back my time.
    Oh, yes, I will yield to Mr. Jordan the balance of my time.
    Mr. Jordan. I thank the gentlelady.
    Director, was the dossier Russian disinformation?
    Mr. Wray. I don't know that I would try to characterize the 
dossier sitting here right now. I would refer back to the 
Inspector General's report and the Special Counsel's report.
    Mr. Jordan. When Dr. Fiona Hill testified as part of the 
impeachment proceedings, she indicated that she thought 
Christopher Steele was played by the Russians.
    Mr. Wray. I haven't looked closely at the testimony you're 
describing.
    Mr. Jordan. It sort of raises an important issue. If that 
took place, which Dr. Hill at the NSC seemed to think did, then 
the FBI used Russian disinformation as a basis to get a warrant 
to then spy on American citizens. That is a big concern.
    Mr. Wray. Russian disinformation is a major concern for us
24/7.
    Mr. Jordan. That is why I brought it up. You brought that 
up earlier in the hearing.
    Mr. Wray. We investigated it aggressively.
    Mr. Jordan. Yes, but we talk about election interference, 
Russian disinformation. It may have been used in that way. That 
is the one thing that seems like a lot of people don't want to 
talk about it. Certainly, folks on the other side don't want to 
talk about it.
    That may have been the biggest Russian disinformation used 
in the 2016 election was when Christopher Steele got played by 
the Russians, and the document he produced was taken to the 
court to get the warrant to spy on a person associated with the 
Presidential campaign.
    Mr. Wray. I understand your concerns. I'm just not going to 
add anything beyond what's in the Inspector General's report 
and the special counsel's report on the question of the 
dossier.
    Chair Nadler. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Ms. Demings?
    Ms. Demings. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
    Director Wray, thank you so much for being with us today.
    We have heard a lot of discussion suggesting that there is 
something wrong with the culture at the FBI. Well, I can tell 
you, I am not hearing that in my community and in my district 
and the many, many people that I speak with. Having served 27 
years in law enforcement, I did not see that.
    I want you to know that I really appreciate your leadership 
and the dedicated men and women who serve and go places that 
others would not dare to go. I also thank you for taking the 
steps. We have individuals that make mistakes, and I appreciate 
you taking the steps to address those mistakes as it pertains 
to the FISA warrant or application process.
    I am also very glad to hear my colleagues on the other side 
express concern about civil liberties and civil rights. I have 
heard that more today, and I am glad to hear it because it lets 
me know that perhaps we can work together on some of those 
issues.
    I prefer to talk to you, Director Wray, I heard your 
comments when you were asked questions specifically about 
legislation that might address gun violence. I would like to 
know, what do you believe the FBI could do to help, or to be 
more proactive in helping to address gun violence throughout 
the Nation, even as it may pertain to--I know you get thousands 
or maybe millions of phone calls that maybe should not go to 
the FBI. Maybe they should go to law enforcement, and you have 
to redirect those calls to the proper--I can imagine how 
burdensome that may be. Could you speak a little bit to that 
for me?
    Mr. Wray. Thank you, Congresswoman.
    I think you've actually put your finger on it, in some ways 
I hesitate to list any challenge as the biggest challenge we 
have because, boy, we've got a lot of challenges. The question 
of tips and threats to life, in particular, about potential 
active shooter events, it's hard to overstate what a big 
phenomenon that it is in law enforcement.
    We get thousands of tips a day at our national call 
operating center, which is up in West Virginia. Of those 
thousands of tips, something like 50 or 60 of those a day are 
threats to life. About 80 percent of those 50 or 60 a day don't 
have any Federal nexus whatsoever, but they're coming into the 
FBI. So, it's a challenge for us, when time could really be of 
the essence, to get that information to State and local law 
enforcement quickly enough for them to be able to act.
    Happily, we've built on something called eGuardian, which 
we've had in place for a while, but we've taken it to a whole 
new level. We did a pilot program over the last year, which now 
dual tracks--and there's systems, IT systems dimensions to 
this. The dual tracks, when we get the tip, the lead not just 
to the local field office, say, in your home district, but also 
to the State fusion center at the same time. That enables 
quicker action by, say, local law enforcement.
    We've had a number of success stories, including in your 
home State, where there have been tips that came into the call 
center and that were fed out and with very little information. 
You don't know who the person is. You don't know where they 
are. You just maybe know what State it is. You don't know 
whether it's just rhetoric, and yet there have been arrests 
where it turned out the person actually had guns and ammunition 
in their apartment and arrests that were made within hours of 
that tip coming in.
    Now, I wish we were that successful all the time, but it 
tells me that I think we're on the right track. The volume is 
just overwhelming. We want people if they see something to say 
something, and boy, are they saying something. So, it's coming 
in like in droves.
    I've been out there, just like I was saying before, with 
the NICS examiners who listen on their headset. I've actually 
gone to the Call Center. Twice now I've been out there and put 
on the headset with the operators and kind of listened to how 
it goes and seen how they handle the calls. These are very, 
very hard-working, dedicated people who have just a hellishly 
difficult job to do with everything on the line.
    For every tip that turns out to be real where there is a 
life saved as a result, there are thousands of tips that turn 
out to be nonsense, but we have to sift through them. So, we're 
doing everything we can, but I just want to make sure that the 
American people understand just how challenging this is.
    Ms. Demings. Thank you. I know one of the other challenges, 
if I could, Mr. Chair? Thank you. Are the violent homegrown 
extremists, and I know that is another major challenge for the 
FBI. What can you tell me about what you are doing to better 
address that challenge?
    Mr. Wray. So, we use the term ``homegrown violent 
extremist'' to refer to people already here in the United 
States, largely radicalized online by different parts of the 
global jihadist movement. So, these are people who are largely 
lone actors who will go from radicalization to mobilization and 
attack sometimes in weeks or days, and they'll choose as a 
method of attack something that's crude and readily available--
a knife, gun, or car.
    They'll choose to attack so-called ``soft targets,'' which 
is just intelligence community speak for everyday people living 
their everyday lives, as opposed to like a Government facility. 
So, that's a restaurant, mall, or school.
    Ms. Demings. A nightclub in Orlando.
    Mr. Wray. A nightclub. Right, exactly. Which means 
everything is a target. So, the challenge for law enforcement--
Federal, State, and local--is how are we going to act? The 
time, as the professionals say, between flash to bang is 
compressed, and the amount of information for a lone actor with 
that kind of attack is very, very, very limited.
    So, it's a real challenge. It's different from the sort of 
sleeper cells of the immediate post-9/11 era. We have about 
1,000, probably over 1,000 homegrown violent extremist 
investigations as I sit here today testifying before this 
Committee, and it's in all 50 States and in all 56 of our field 
offices. So, this threat is real, it's now, and it affects 
communities big and small.
    Ms. Demings. Thank you so much. Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
    Ms. Scanlon?
    Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony here 
today. It has been really, really interesting and helpful.
    As a representative from Pennsylvania, a State that was 
targeted by Russian efforts to subvert the 2016 election, I 
wanted to follow up some questions from my colleagues about the 
FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force and the threat by foreign 
governments to our elections. There has been extensive 
reporting by the Department of Justice that attempts to sow 
discord in the 2016 elections in Pennsylvania that included 
social media efforts, organizing rallies to support one 
candidate who happens to be President Trump, and weaponizing 
social media with what has been termed a sweeping and 
systematic attempt to undermine the election.
    Before I get into that, Mr. Chair, I would ask unanimous 
consent that this article, ``The Plot to Subvert an Election,'' 
which reports on efforts by Russia to undermine our election, 
be placed in the record.
    Chair Nadler. Without objection.
    [The information follows:]
    

                       MS. SCANLON FOR THE RECORD

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    Ms. Scanlon. You said before that the FBI is seeing efforts 
to make these kinds of efforts again with respect to social 
media and divisive messaging campaigns. Can you tell us a 
little more about that? What is going on now?
    Mr. Wray. So, we see very active use of sort of fictitious 
accounts, false personas, if you will, that then are used in 
combination with amplification of existing stories. So, it's 
both fake news, if I can use that term, as well as 
disinformation of a different sort, where it's pushing kind of 
propaganda. The two things work in concert, have always been 
part of our national security threats from overseas.
    What's changed, certainly with 2016 and continues to this 
day, is the use of social media. All the things we love about 
social media, if you apply it to this context, it's like 
injecting steroids into disinformation efforts that have 
existed for many, many, many years. That has now taken the form 
of sowing divisiveness and discord.
    So, we see the Russians, for example, taking opposite sides 
of the same issue. They identify an issue that they know that 
the American people feel passionately about on both sides, and 
then they take both sides and spin them up. So, they pit us 
against each other.
    Then they combine that with an effort to weaken our 
confidence in our elections and in our democratic institutions, 
which is a pernicious and asymmetric way of engaging, in 
effect, information warfare.
    Ms. Scanlon. Right. I think many of us are disturbed about 
both the efforts to undermine our elections, undermining law 
enforcement, the courts, free press, et cetera, and the impact 
that has on our country. Other than asking people to be 
hyperaware of this and asking that they really use common sense 
when they see outrageous stories, what can the FBI do? What can 
we do?
    Mr. Wray. So, I think it's multiple layers of defense, 
right? You just put your finger on probably the first line of 
defense, which is the American people themselves, the voters. 
People need to be thoughtful consumers of information, get 
their news from multiple sources, think carefully about what 
sources they're relying on.
    Do they really know where this information came from? What 
else have they seen independently that corroborates it? That 
kind of thing. Media literacy builds a level of resilience in 
an informed electorate.
    Then you move up a notch from that, and you've got the 
social media companies. They can play a role. We're working 
much more closely with them because they have all kinds of 
tools at their disposal that law enforcement certainly couldn't 
use. They have terms of use, terms of service, and they have--
these are very profitable companies. So, they have a lot of 
resources that they can bring to identify accounts, especially 
when we work in collaboration with them.
    They've gotten a lot better and a lot more sophisticated 
about that, which you think about the nature of disinformation. 
It only works if people believe you're somebody you're not. To 
do that in a sophisticated way, you have to build up the 
reservoir of credibility. Well, if we can keep knocking them 
back and knocking them off through these social media companies 
doing that, it makes it harder for them to build that reservoir 
of credibility and mislead the American public.
    Ms. Scanlon. Just turning to one other thing, I have had 
constituents express concerns about Election Day interference, 
whether it is hacking voter rolls, or machines is not such a 
big deal in Pennsylvania because we have so many different 
machines. What kind of steps is the FBI taking with respect to 
that, and how rapid a response can folks expect?
    Mr. Wray. Well, both we and the Department of Homeland 
Security have plans--and we did this in the midterms--to stand 
up in effect command centers on the Election Day itself. The 
FBI also has, together with all the U.S. Attorney's Offices, 
designated individuals who are kind of on standby in every 
State and every district, every Federal district to be 
available for whether it's voter suppression or voter fraud 
because we have to worry about both.
    So, those are some of the things that happen.
    Ms. Scanlon. Okay, thank you. I yield back.
    Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
    Ms. Garcia?
    Ms. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Director Wray, thank you.
    [Discussion off the record.]
    Ms. Garcia. Are you sure? I will start again. Thank you for 
being here, and I, too, want to express my thanks to you and 
all the Members of your team and your department.
    I can tell you that I am a proud graduate of the Citizens 
FBI Academy in the Houston region, and I not only have seen 
some of the nuts and bolts of the organization, but I have also 
toured the FBI data center in West Virginia. I have a deep 
appreciation for the work that you are doing. So, please give 
my regards to everyone from the top to the bottom and tell them 
that they are doing a good job for us.
    I want to start with an article that appeared in the New 
York Times in December of 2018, in which they reported that the 
FBI had opened an investigation into Southwest Key, one of the 
largest recipients of HHS contracts for housing unaccompanied 
migrant children. According to the report, in 2017, at least 
eight of Southwest Key's executives earned more than the 
Federal salary cap of $187,000. In fact, the founder made $1.5 
million a year. His wife earned $500,000 a year as Vice 
President. His Chief Financial Officer earned $1 million a 
year.
    Additionally, both the owner and the CFO for years 
collected Government money in rent as landlords for some of the 
facilities that the children were being housed. Which, of 
course, raises the question of using Government dollars for 
private financial gain, potential conflict of interest, and 
potential self-dealing.
    Can you tell me if that investigation has ended up its 
inquiry?
    Mr. Wray. I'm not familiar, at least off the top of my 
head, with the article and, therefore, the investigation you're 
describing. So, I'd have to take a closer look to know whether 
there's information we could share on that. Certainly, as 
somebody who has both as a line Prosecutor and then as 
Assistant Attorney General and now as the FBI Director, and 
then as a Defense Attorney in between, on the issues of White 
collar crime and procurement fraud, those are subjects that are 
very important to me and that I think we pursue very 
aggressively.
    Ms. Garcia. Are you aware of any investigation on any of 
these? This was a nonprofit shelter. Are you aware of any 
investigations, either the nonprofit shelter arena or any of 
the privatized facilities where they were holding either 
unaccompanied minors or older immigrants?
    Mr. Wray. There's nothing that I can think off the top of 
my head that I could comment on in the Hearing certainly.
    Ms. Garcia. All right. Well, we will move to another topic.
    Mr. Chair, I would like to submit for the record the New 
York Times article dated December 20, 2018.
    Chair Nadler. Without objection.
    [The information follows:]

    
                       MS. GARCIA FOR THE RECORD

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[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Ms. Garcia. Thank you.
    Now, one of the things that fascinated me at the data 
center when we did that tour was just all the different tools, 
if you will, in the toolbox that you have in collecting data 
and helping find good leads, as you said, or try to identify 
any potential bad actors.
    Can you tell me which of the crimes, or do you have a list 
of crimes where the FBI uses facial recognition to investigate, 
including requests from State and local police?
    Mr. Wray. I don't know that I have a list of crimes that we 
use it for. Certainly, from an FBI perspective, our focus is on 
using it, as I said in response to one of your colleagues, for 
lead value. I think, for what we do, we would do it with every 
program that we have, I would assume, but--
    Ms. Garcia. If my colleague Val Demings was still the 
sheriff in Orlando and she called you for some help on a 
robbery, would you do that? Or do you prioritize the crimes to 
make sure that you are looking at the more heinous crimes?
    Mr. Wray. Well, as with every technology and tool that we 
have, for example, in our lab in Quantico, we prioritize based 
on a variety of circumstances, and some of it goes to the 
nature of the crime can make something a higher priority. 
Sitting here right now, I can't tell you that I know exactly 
what the protocol is for prioritization within our facial 
recognition.
    Ms. Garcia. So, you do prioritize them?
    Mr. Wray. Absolutely. Some of that is prioritized based on 
speed with which an answer is needed. Some of that's based on 
the nature of the offense. Some of that's based on the quality 
of the information that's given to us.
    Ms. Garcia. So, can you tell me which crimes you prioritize 
the most, if you don't have a list or--
    Mr. Wray. I don't have an answer for you in terms of what I 
can prioritize in terms of particular offenses.
    Ms. Garcia. So, who decides that then?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I'm more familiar with it in the context of 
our lab, because obviously they're getting all kinds of 
information that requires testing. Usually, the people fairly 
far up the supervisory chain in the lab can make decisions. 
There's some kind of protocol when information comes in.
    Sometimes things can be moved up in the queue if there is 
some real exigency. So, for example, in the Cesar Sayoc package 
bombing investigation that was such a phenomenon for a while we 
obviously moved that to a higher priority within the variety of 
parts of our lab in terms of their testing. While I'm not 
sitting here right now familiar with exactly how they handled 
it on the facial recognition side in terms of the queue, my 
assumption is it would be a similar kind of approach.
    Ms. Garcia. What about fingerprints? How long do you keep 
them, and are they date stamped?
    Mr. Wray. I'm sorry. Fingerprints?
    Ms. Garcia. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Wray. How long do we keep them?
    Ms. Garcia. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Wray. I don't know off the top of my head. We can try 
to see if there is information we could get to you as a follow-
up on that.
    Ms. Garcia. Are they date stamped when they are received or 
when they are actually fingerprinted, so that if I were to say, 
``can you find my fingerprint from when I became a U.S. Customs 
Inspector working my way through law school?'' you could find 
my fingerprints?
    Mr. Wray. That's a detail question that I'm pretty 
confident we have dates on all our fingerprint cards. I can't 
tell you exactly the specifics of that.
    Ms. Garcia. It is likely you still have my fingerprints 
somewhere?
    Mr. Wray. I don't know the answer to that.
    Ms. Garcia. Thank you. If you could follow up with me. 
Thank you.
    Chair Nadler. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    Mr. Steube?
    Mr. Steube. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you, Director, for being here today.
    The Chair started out the hearing by talking about Russian 
influence in the 2016 election. When we had Bob Mueller before 
this Committee, I asked him specifically when he was sitting in 
that chair before this Committee, did they have any evidence 
that a single person actually changed their vote due to Russian 
interference in the 2016 election? He testified under oath that 
wasn't under his purview and that somebody else, another group 
or other investigators were investigating that.
    Can you confirm that this is being investigated or that is 
not being investigated within the FBI? Whether somebody 
actually changed their vote due to Russian interference in the 
2016 election.
    Mr. Mueller had stated that this wasn't within his purview, 
but somebody else was investigating that.
    Mr. Wray. Right. Well, I think to the extent that we have 
ongoing investigations into Russian malign foreign influence 
efforts, it is conceivable that this kind of investigation 
would detect if somebody had changed their vote. I don't know 
that I would describe us as conducting an investigation into 
individual voters' decisions.
    Mr. Steube. So, there is no evidence then before this 
Committee or the American people that a single American voter 
changed their vote due to ads that Russia was putting on 
Facebook or Russian interference in the 2016 election?
    Mr. Wray. I'm not aware of any intelligence community 
assessment or investigation specifically into--beyond what's 
already been done and reported on about the 2016 presidential 
election.
    Mr. Steube. Okay. Let us move to the Horowitz report. The 
FBI's decision to defensively brief then-Candidate Hillary 
Clinton, but failure to brief then-Candidate Donald Trump is a 
blatant example of the FBI's disparate treatment of the two 
campaigns and clear bias. There is a reason the IG stated the 
FBI ``fell far short of the scrupulous accuracy that is 
required.''
    On that note, there were clear issue with the Carter Page 
FISA application. Fifty-one factual assertions related to the 
application and renewals either did not have supporting 
documentation, or the supporting document didn't State the 
fact, or the supporting document showed the factual assertion 
is inaccurate.
    There were 17 separate inaccuracies or wrongful omissions 
in the 4 FISA applications, including 7 repeated in all and 10 
that did not occur in the original application, but occurred in 
3 renewal applications. The FBI omitted evidence cutting 
against probable cause. For example, Carter Page stating that 
he had nothing to do with Paul Manafort, and George 
Papadopoulos' denial that the Trump campaign was collaborating 
with Russia or WikiLeaks or otherwise involved in the DNC 
server hack.
    Additionally, the FBI failed to disclose Bruce Ohr's 
information that Steele's reporting was going directly to the 
Clinton campaign. The FBI overstated Christopher Steele's 
previous work with the FBI. The FBI was less than fully candid 
about Christopher Steele sharing information leading to Yahoo's 
September 2016 article. The FBI did not disclose the lack of 
reliability of Steele's subsource.
    FBI personnel apparently avoided using the Woods file 
reveri-
fication system for FISA applications. The FBI knew Carter Page 
was a U.S. intelligence asset who had assisted in cases 
involving Russian intelligence but hid that fact from DOJ 
during development of the FISA application.
    So, my question to you is--and I think a lot of the 
American people would like to know the answer to this 
question--are all the individuals, agents, and supervisors that 
were involved in all these abuses that I just annotated that 
were in this Horowitz report, are all of them no longer working 
at the FBI? Have they resigned, fired, or been removed from 
their position?
    Mr. Wray. At the more senior levels of the FBI, the people 
involved, I think in every respect that I can think of, are 
gone from the FBI. Of course, there is an ongoing investigation 
by Mr. Durham, with which we're actively cooperating and fully 
cooperating, I might add.
    As to the current employees, there are more, what I would 
call more line-level employees who were involved in some of the 
events in the report. All those employees, anybody who still 
remains at the FBI--again, they tend to be more line-level 
people, were referred to our Office of Professional 
Responsibility, which is our disciplinary arm, which is the 
standard process.
    After there's been fact finding by the Inspector General, 
the facts go to our disciplinary arm. By longstanding process, 
that's how we handle discipline about those people. We have 
erred on the side of inclusion when we did that.
    So, what I mean by that is there are some people in the 
report who were literally named like once or twice, and it's 
not really clear they're even named in a way that's 
problematic. We've gone ahead and just figured better safe than 
sorry, and we've sent all those names to the Office of 
Professional Responsibility.
    We will follow that process, and I have made very clear 
that if that process results in recommendations of discipline, 
then we're going to impose discipline. We're going to hold 
people accountable.
    Mr. Steube. Just a quick follow-up, if I could, Mr. Chair? 
What is the timeframe on that?
    Mr. Wray. I can't give you a projected timeframe exactly. 
It may depend. It's probably not all going to happen at one 
time. Some people will take longer than others.
    Mr. Steube. Thank you.
    Chair Nadler. The time of the gentleman has expired.
    Mr. Neguse?
    Mr. Neguse. Thank you, Director Wray, for your service. 
Thank you for being here today. Also, thank you to the 37,000 
public servants that work in your agency, for the work that 
they do every day.
    I represent the great State of Colorado, and, in 
particular, I am appreciative of the work that you have done to 
thwart a number of attacks, including the synagogue in Pueblo, 
Colorado, that you mentioned.
    I want to give you an opportunity to clarify earlier part 
of your testimony. The Chair had asked a question, and I think 
there was some confusion around your answer. So, with respect 
to a recent article that alleges that the Administration may be 
attempting to initiate political investigations or politically 
motivated investigations, rather, into their political 
opponents, has the President, the Attorney General, or any 
Member of the Administration asked you to initiate an 
investigation into John Bolton?
    I am not asking whether or not that request would be 
improper or proper or whether or not if such a request was 
made, if you have initiated such an investigation. I am simply 
asking if they have asked you to do so.
    Mr. Wray. I understand why you're asking the question, and 
I would just tell you my commitment to doing things by the book 
includes not talking about whether any particular investigation 
does or does not exist. You shouldn't read anything into that. 
That's not a hint that anything is happening. It's just I don't 
think that's a question that I can responsibly answer if I'm 
going to be faithful to my commitment to doing things by the 
book.
    Mr. Neguse. Well, we appreciate--
    Mr. Wray. I will tell you, as I said to the Chair--I will 
tell you, as I said to the Chair, that no one has asked me to 
open any investigation on anything that's not consistent with 
the facts, the law, and proper predication.
    Mr. Neguse. I would just say, Director Wray, with all 
respect, as you could probably imagine, these questions, both 
the question the Chair posed and the question that I posed, are 
not academic or esoteric for us. Seven months ago, Special 
Counsel Mueller sat in the same chair that you are in, and we 
all know now, that the very next day, the President had his 
infamous call with the President of Ukraine, in which he sought 
foreign interference in our elections. Of course, as you know, 
in just a few hours, the Senate will render judgment in the 
impeachment trial of the President.
    So, one can ask reasonable questions as we read these 
reports that we just over the course of the last few days as to 
potentially what other actions this Administration might take. 
So, again, I appreciate your earlier answer, and I want to move 
on to a different topic, which is election interference.
    There was an article just a few weeks ago in the New York 
Times, and I would ask for unanimous consent to enter it into 
the record. `` `Chaos Is the Point': Russian Hackers and Trolls 
Grow Stealthier in 2020,'' by Matthew Rosenberg, Nicole 
Perlroth, and David Sanger of the New York Times.
    [The information follows:]

    
                       MR. NEGUSE FOR THE RECORD

=======================================================================
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Mr. Neguse. In the article, there are a couple of 
references to new developments in terms of the way in which 
Russian actors, the intelligence apparatus is engaging in 
disinformation in attempted interference in our elections. I 
wonder if you could comment about two in particular? I will 
just quote.

        ``One of the two Russian intelligence units that hacked 
        into Democrats in 2016, `Fancy Bear,' has shifted some 
        of its work to servers based in the United States in an 
        apparent attempt to thwart the NSA, which is limited to 
        operating abroad. Also, the trolls at the Internet 
        Research Agency are trying to exploit a hole in 
        Facebook's ban on foreigners buying political ads, 
        paying American users to hand over personal pages and 
        setting up offshore bank accounts to cover their 
        financial tracks.''

    I wonder if you could expand in greater detail on both of 
those two issues and how the FBI, I guess, is addressing both 
of those developments.
    Mr. Wray. So, certainly, I appreciate the interest. I think 
I'd have to be pretty careful about how much detail I could 
provide in an open hearing. I would say that we believe--we 
assessed that the Russians continue to engage in malign foreign 
influence efforts of the sort that I was describing before--
fake personas, trolls, bots, state-sponsored media, the whole 
gamut in the bag of tricks.
    We also assessed that just like any sophisticated actor, 
that they continue to refine their approach. We saw that from 
2016-2018. We've seen it from 2018 moving forward. Happily, 
we're refining our approach, too, and we're trying to stay 
ahead of it.
    Mr. Neguse. Thank you, Director Wray.
    I would just say, I think the Committee would very much 
benefit, to the extent you are willing to indulge us in a 
classified setting, a Hearing on the developments. I appreciate 
the fact that the FBI is very focused on this issue.
    If the Chair would indulge me, I would just make two final 
points. First, we will make sure that you are aware of a letter 
that we sent to the Inspector General a few months ago with 
regard to an issue on the NICS program. As you probably are 
familiar, there was a woman named Sol Pais, who purchased a 
weapon in Colorado unlawfully many months ago and, as a result, 
raised some serious questions about the POC and NICS program 
and whether there is sufficient auditing happening. So, I would 
look forward engaging with you and your team on that issue.
    Finally, I would just say I appreciate the fact that you 
are here. I have only been on the Judiciary Committee for about 
a year, but my understanding is that this Committee has 
oversight over the Department of Justice, and that means having 
folks like yourself come in and engage in a healthy exchange 
with Members of the Committee.
    It is unfortunate that the Attorney General has declined to 
do what you are doing today. In the last 30 years, 6 Attorney 
Generals: Jeff Sessions, Eric Holder, Michael Mukasey, Alberto 
Gonzales, John Ashcroft, and Janet Reno have come in front of 
this Committee to appear and exchange views with Members of the 
House Judiciary Committee, and I think it is shameful that the 
Attorney General has not done that.
    I am grateful that you have chosen to do so. Again, I 
appreciate your service.
    Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
    Mr. Cline?
    Mr. Cline. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you for being here today.
    The IG report uncovered that the FBI fell far short of the 
scrupulous accuracy that is required for FISA applications 
while surveilling Carter Page. Ironically, FISA's original 
purpose was in large part intended to respond to unchecked 
surveillance abuses by the Federal Government.
    As the FBI moves forward with implementing the corrective 
actions that you have laid out in light of the IG report's 
findings, it is imperative that the Bureau continues to work 
towards regaining the full faith and trust of the American 
public. Now, three FISA amendments are scheduled to sunset in 
March, and as this Committee, which is the Committee with 
jurisdiction over these--over FISA, considers reauthorization, 
it is paramount that we ensure that American Civil Liberties 
and due process are in no way inhibited.
    So, I would ask you, it has been reported that the so-
called lone wolf provision of FISA has never been used. Can you 
explain why it has never been used and why there is still a 
need for it, if it has never been used?
    Mr. Wray. So, I appreciate the question. We think of the 
lone wolf provision as something that we could have used in any 
number of instances. Because we had in those--under the 
particular facts of those circumstances other tools we were 
able to use, we went with those instead.
    I will tell you that the lone wolf provision, we assess--
and this goes directly to some of the answers I've given to a 
variety of your colleagues about where the terrorist threat is 
moving. More and more, we are seeing al-Qaeda, for example, use 
so-called ``clean operatives'' here in the U.S. You've heard me 
talk about the homegrown violent extremists, these folks who 
are here in the U.S. inspired by ISIS, al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, 
you name it. In those instances, we fully expect that the lone 
wolf provision will end up being our ``go to'' tool. So, we 
really need it.
    Mr. Cline. Okay. Would returning to the pre-PATRIOT Act 
standard for section 215 orders requiring specific and 
articulable facts that the person to whom the records pertain 
is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power threaten the 
FBI's intelligence gathering capability?
    Mr. Wray. My own view is that if we were to return to the 
pre-PATRIOT Act era, as somebody who saw the terrorist threat 
before 9/11, the day of 9/11, and the years after, including 
the enactment of the PATRIOT Act, that would be a sad day for 
America, and there would be a lot of people whose safety would 
be jeopardized.
    Mr. Cline. Now, what would be the effect if there were a 
legal requirement for an Amicus Attorney to be present for 
every single consideration of a traditional FISA application in 
front of the FISC?
    Mr. Wray. My own view is that that would grind the FISA 
process to a halt. As the vast majority of FISAs don't raise 
even remotely sensitive issues in the sense that the Committee 
or some Members of the Committee might be concerned, that would 
be a real tragedy.
    I will also say that part of the reason why FISA is so 
important is because it allows us to use classified information 
and present it to a court in a way that we would never 
otherwise be able to do in a traditional process. It also 
allows us to use foreign partner information, which those 
partners are very, very skittish, as you can imagine, about 
sharing with us and having it put into a court process.
    If we started adding an Amicus into every FISA application, 
let us set aside the practicality of it--
    Mr. Cline. Well, about what percent have Amicus Attorneys 
present at this point?
    Mr. Wray. I don't have that percentage. I know that the 
statute that provides for Amicus involvement speaks--and I 
think this is appropriate--speaks in terms of the court having 
the discretion to appoint an Amicus for novel issues of law. I 
think that's in those rare and unusual circumstances are the 
places where it makes sense to appoint an Amicus. That's really 
the court's decision, not ours.
    Mr. Cline. Do you think that some of the shortcomings found 
in the IG report would have been, could have been avoided or 
prevented if an Amicus Attorney may have been present?
    Mr. Wray. I actually don't think so. I think the problems 
that are found in the IG's report are best addressed through 
the 40-plus corrective actions that I've articulated. We're 
also considering additional ones in coordination with both the 
court and the Department. Bringing a level of rigor to the 
process and discipline to the process is at the heart of those 
40-plus corrective actions, and I don't think adding an Amicus 
by itself really would meaningfully change that.
    Mr. Cline. I would argue that some of your proposals, like 
giving subordinates in field offices the ability to agree as to 
whether a warrant is or a case is handled at the central 
office, does little to make the necessary reforms to actually 
address the problems in the IG report.
    Mr. Wray. Yes, that's not a--I'm sorry. I take your point. 
That's not geared towards FISA at all, that particular 
corrective action. The 40-plus corrective actions we have 
include things like that, but that goes more to some of the 
other deficiencies that were identified in the IG's report. A 
lot of the ones we have are much more geared toward the FISA 
process itself.
    Mr. Cline. Last question. Some agencies have Ombudsman 
Offices meant to address disputes. What if we had a sitting 
Ombudsman Office to review all FISA applications, rather than 
Amicus Attorneys who may be personally predisposed to political 
views or conflicted due to prior public statement?
    Mr. Wray. Well, again, I think the problems that are 
identified in the Inspector General's report, we spent a lot of 
time, my leadership team and I, looking very hard at the facts 
and trying to think about what the right ways to address those 
problems are. We took a really comprehensive approach to it, 
and that the approach that we've taken is the one best designed 
to address the issue.
    Mr. Cline. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
    Mr. Stanton?
    Mr. Stanton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
    Director Wray, thank you for being here. Please pass on 
appreciation to the women and men of the FBI. We appreciate 
their work. They are too often under attack, and we appreciate 
their professionalism.
    Today, I would like to bring attention to a crisis in 
desperate need of a solution. That is the pattern of violence 
that disproportionately affects American Indian and Alaska 
Native women. The U.S. Department of Justice has found that 
Native American women face murder rates more than 10 times the 
national average, and 4 out of 5 Native women are affected by 
violence today.
    The missing and murdered indigenous women epidemic is a 
tragic reality, and it is one we need to tackle with real 
solutions. The challenge we face today is that no one truly 
knows, not even the FBI, who has jurisdiction on Tribal lands, 
how many indigenous women go missing or are murdered every 
year.
    There is no dedicated Federal database designed to collect 
information on missing and murdered indigenous women. The 
numbers we do have come directly from State and Tribal law 
enforcement agencies, and often, neither are equipped with the 
training or tools necessary to support thorough investigations. 
As a result, understanding the true scope of this crisis is 
nearly impossible.
    Unfortunately, in my home State of Arizona, we are all too 
familiar with this tragic issue. The Murder Accountability 
Project, a nonprofit that examines available data on murders, 
found that Arizona has the third-highest number of missing and 
murdered indigenous women. One third of those murders go 
unreported to the FBI, and the National Institute of Justice 
system that tracks missing people shows that since the first of 
the year, there are 45 missing Native Americans in Arizona. Of 
course, those are the only ones that have been reported.
    These figures are gut-wrenching. That is 45 families, 45 
communities of friends and neighbors with no real information 
about their missing loved ones, and not enough law enforcement 
support to find answers, hoping to be an exception from the 
statistics. That is happening in Tribal communities across the 
United States of America.
    Last year, Arizona passed an important State law, led by 
State representative Jennifer Jermaine, to examine the issue of 
murdered and missing indigenous women and girls, making Arizona 
one of only seven States to establish its own task force to 
find answers. In November of 2019, the Trump Administration 
launched a task force to tackle this issue at the Federal 
level. You remember that task force.
    While this task force is an important step, we must do more 
to truly address this epidemic. It shouldn't take more women 
and girls dying to bring enough attention to the crisis to end 
it. So, I have several questions about this, and please keep 
your answers as brief as possible.
    We know that sound policy recommendations are created when 
directly impacted people are at the table sharing their 
experiences and giving their input. Director Wray, are Tribal 
leaders, indigenous survivors, and data collecting 
organizations going to be part of the task force where these 
protocols are being drafted and considered?
    Mr. Wray. Well, the details about the task force are ones 
that are better referred to the Department. I will tell you 
that I believe strongly, which I think is at the heart of your 
question, about the importance of hearing directly from Tribal 
leaders. In fact, as FBI Director, I went with our Phoenix 
special agent-in-charge to meet with the leaders of the Navajo 
Nation and to drive around on Indian country and hear firsthand 
about what the challenges are.
    I believe, from what the leaders of the Navajo Nation told 
me, including the President of the Navajo Nation, I think I'm 
the first FBI Director to ever go there and visit them myself. 
So, we are trying to engage directly and hear from them. It's, 
as you said, gut-wrenching to hear the fact patterns of these 
cases, and my heart goes out to the victims.
    Mr. Stanton. Public reporting indicates that the task force 
has only been allocated at this point $1.5 million. Is that 
enough resources to do the job for the very broad jurisdiction 
of the Federal task force?
    Mr. Wray. Well, again, the nitty-gritty of the task force, 
I would refer you to the Department. I would tell you that 
we're going to make the best use of the resources we do have. 
As I said in a different context to one of your colleagues, if 
Congress gives us more resources, I can assure you we'll put 
them to good use.
    Mr. Stanton. It is clear that we are dealing with a crisis 
of missing and murdered indigenous people that are consistently 
undercounted and underrepresented. Thankfully, Director, you 
emphasized earlier in this very Hearing that very point by 
saying, ``The challenge of under reporting is you never know 
for sure just how badly under reported they are.'' That is a 
direct quote from yourself.
    I strongly believe that Congress plays a critical role in 
addressing this epidemic of violence. Legislation such as 
Representative Torres' Savanna's Act and Representative 
Haaland's Not Invisible Act should be considered by this 
Committee and signed into law if we truly want a comprehensive 
solution to this crisis.
    More immediately, we need the Senate to swiftly pass the 
Violence Against Women Act, which contains additional 
protections for Native American women. It has been stalled in 
the Senate for over 10 months.
    Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
    Ms. Dean?
    Ms. Dean. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Welcome, Director Wray. I am glad you are here, and we 
thank you for your time, testimony, and service.
    In the beginning of your testimony, you set out the mission 
of your 37,000 folks, and I just want to repeat it. To protect 
the American people and to uphold the Constitution of the 
United States. Such core values, I thank you and the Members of 
the FBI for your service.
    I have had a cousin in the FBI serve very nobly, a neighbor 
and friend just recently retire. I want to affirmatively 
distance myself from some of the disparaging comments that I 
heard right here today that I really do not understand. They 
are extraordinarily misplaced, and they are shameful.
    So, I would like to start with the issue of gun violence, 
go back to that issue, and I thank you for focusing on it. This 
past November, we saw yet another community devastated by a 
school shooting, the tragedy at Saugus High School in Los 
Angeles. It differed in one alarming way from the predecessors 
of gun violence, something I care about. The firearm used there 
was a ghost gun.
    So, I would love to get an update from you and the FBI on 
what your thoughts are on ghost guns. They are firearms that 
are assembled often from kits or by 3-D printers. They are 
often undetectable by metal detectors. Because the way they are 
assembled, they will end up without serial numbers and making 
them untraceable.
    My own State of Pennsylvania--I serve suburban 
Philadelphia--recently moved to recognize 80 percent of 
partially assembled guns to fall within the standard of the 
State's definition of a firearm while enforcing State laws on 
illegal firearm possession. Has the FBI seen an increase in the 
use of ghost guns, undetectable firearms in investigations you 
have participated in?
    Mr. Wray. I don't know that I can speak to whether 
statistically we've seen an increase, but I can certainly tell 
you anecdotally that this is a topic that's coming up more and 
more frequently. We're having people do sort of intelligence-
type assessments of the use of it, and it illustrates, frankly, 
a problem that cuts across not just ghost guns, but other 
technologies as well, if I can use the word ``technology'' as 
kind of a crude shorthand there.
    You know, 3-D printing is something that my first reaction 
to is, wow, can you think of all the great things we can do 
with that at the FBI? Then my second reaction is, oh, no. Do 
you realize what other people can do with that technology? 
That's true of so many of the technological issues that we 
confront today.
    Ms. Dean. We feel that same paradoxical set of feelings. I 
introduced a bill this Congress. I want you to know of it. I 
know you are not here to advocate for any legislation. The 
Undetectable Firearms Modernization Act, which would prohibit 
the possession of any firearm that is undetectable by airport-
level screening.
    Do you think this kind of legislation, not my bill 
specifically, but that kind of legislation is going to be an 
important partnership with making sure that we are secure at 
our airports?
    Mr. Wray. Well, again, as you anticipated, without 
commenting on specific legislation, I would say that it 
behooves us as a country to be constantly thinking about where 
is the threat moving, and what are the technologies that 
different kinds of bad actors can use to circumvent the very 
careful security infrastructure that we have in this country? 
That's something that we struggle with all the time, and I 
worry at sometimes that government--and I don't mean Congress, 
the Executive Branch. I just mean government, writ large, 
doesn't move nearly as quickly as the bad guys do.
    Ms. Dean. Yes.
    Mr. Wray. By the time we come up with the recognition that 
some kind of technology is the subject of enhanced protection 
things are way downfield. So, I think trying to stay ahead of 
it is something that is always to be encouraged.
    Ms. Dean. I share that concern, and I hope that we will be 
able to move on that legislation, and I hope that the Senate 
would take it up.
    Following up on Representative Deutch's concern, I want to 
echo his urging of you to look at the two bills we passed 
nearly a year ago, H.R. 8, universal background checks, and 
H.R. 1112, closing of the Charleston loophole. I saw and read 
in your testimony on page 7 about the good work that the NICS 
system is doing, but there are holes within that system, and I 
believe FBI must be aware of them.
    The good news is that, as you report, in 2019 over 2 
million background checks were performed. By your own 
reporting, the FBI previously acknowledged that about 3,000 
people pass the NICS background check system each year despite 
there being this system in place. More reason why wouldn't 
want--why we should have universal background checks in place.
    The 3-day default to yes, which is the Charleston loophole 
bill, do you agree--does the FBI agree that we need to close or 
change the NICS system, so we no longer have the 3-day if you 
don't get clarity on the background check, you default to the 
licensed firearm dealer may sell the gun? Do you agree that we 
need to change that portion of the NICS system?
    Mr. Wray. Well, again, as to any kind of legislative change 
to the existing gun laws, I would not be in a position where I 
could give you a position on that.
    Ms. Dean. I want to push back on a legislative change. This 
is a systematic change. It may take a legislative fix. It maybe 
would be something that FBI could recommend. It could be maybe 
an Executive Order. There are many ways to go about this.
    If you know there is a gaping hole, if you know that in the 
example of the Charleston shooting, they did not get clarity 
within 3 days. The man bought the gun, went in, and did the 
grievous harm that he did in the church, and 5 days out, it was 
determined he was a prohibited purchaser.
    Knowing that gaping hole is there, do you not want the NICS 
system to close that hole?
    Mr. Wray. We always want to make the NICS system more 
comprehensive, more complete, and more reliable. So, any holes 
that are in the NICS system are ones that we're interested in 
addressing.
    Ms. Dean. I hope you will urge this legislature and the 
President and the Senate to make sure that we close these 
holes, and we begin to save lives from gun violence.
    Thank you very much. I yield back.
    Chair Nadler. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    Ms. Mucarsel-Powell?
    Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you so much, Director Wray, for coming before us and 
sitting and listening to so many issues today.
    Last night, we all watched the President Address to Nation. 
While he was so proud of his work on protecting the Second 
Amendment, which we all agree--nobody here wants to change 
that--what he did not mention is that this week is National Gun 
Survivors Week. He didn't mention the thousands of lives that 
we have already lost to gun violence just this year alone.
    So, we are now approaching the 2-year anniversary of the 
Parkland shooting, and following the shooting of Marjory 
Stoneman Douglas, many families of the children that were 
killed that day noted that the FBI did not appropriately Act on 
the tips that the Parkland shooter was dangerous. You had 
received several tips. I am glad to hear that you are working 
on improving the system, but if you can give just one specific 
example on how you are changing that internal policy so that 
these types of mistakes don't happen again.
    Mr. Wray. So, certainly Parkland was an awful, awful 
tragedy, and my heart goes out, and all the FBI men and women's 
hearts go out to the victims and the families. We've made 
extensive changes there.
    I've personally, as you've heard a couple times, been out 
to visit. I saw it before Parkland, and I saw it after, after 
the changes that I directed were put in place. I sent 
immediately after Parkland a dedicated Inspection Division team 
to take a hard look at the way things were there. Since then, 
we have increased staffing, including at the supervisor level. 
We've enhanced training. We've enhanced the technology in any 
number of ways.
    We've added more oversight. We've put in place a whole new 
leadership team out there with people who have deep, deep, deep 
experience. In some instances, there are two particular 
individuals coming out of the inspection that we did out there. 
One individual was reassigned. Another is I'll just say no 
longer with the FBI.
    Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you, Dr. Wray. If you could 
provide my office with just a summary of some of those changes, 
I would greatly appreciate it.
    I want to turn now to election security. It is interesting 
how my colleagues, we have all been focusing on election 
security. I haven't really heard from the other side of the 
aisle our concern that what we heard in 2016 is that we got 
confirmation that Russia interfered in our elections. You 
actually stated just in an interview in December of 2019 that 
Russia represents the most significant threat to the election 
cycle itself.
    The Mueller report and our entire intelligence community 
also agree that Russia targeted to help then-Candidate 
President Trump now, and they also hacked into some election 
systems in Florida. They were successful in infiltrating some 
of the Florida counties. They alleged that no data was 
manipulated. They got into the garage. They didn't necessarily 
get into the house.
    So, we know now that they are trying to do it again in 
2020. The Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee mentioned 
recently that the State's election system is under daily 
attack. The American people now need their assurances, as you 
can understand, that when our vote is cast, it is protected.
    So, I wanted to just point out a couple of examples of what 
we saw here in 2016. The post on the left was highlighted by 
the House Intelligence Committee. It is an ad paid by the 
Russians promoting then-Candidate Trump in Florida. The post to 
the right was outlined in the Mueller report. It shows then-
Candidate Trump posting about rallies in Florida that were 
actually organized by Russian operatives.
    This is the type of propaganda that was spread in 2016 and 
that we are actually still seeing today. I am just very 
concerned that if we are not careful in managing the 
disinformation of campaigns on social media, it will once again 
be a powerful tool for Russia or any other actors in our 
elections.
    So, I wanted to ask you if you could give me just a couple 
of specific examples that the FBI is taking to prevent the 
exploitation of misinformation on social media to influence our 
2020 elections?
    Mr. Wray. Well, in some cases, we have investigations that 
result in charges, right? So, we have, for example, we charged 
the IRA's Chief Accountant--the Internet Research Agency's 
Chief Accountant, we charged a number of Russian military 
officers for their involvement. So, that's kind of on the 
enforcement side.
    I think one of the more important steps that has to be 
taken and that we have been taking quite robustly in the wake 
of 2016 is engaging with the social media companies because the 
scale of what we're talking about is far beyond something that 
law enforcement, even if everybody in the FBI did this, could 
investigate our way through the threat. It needs more than 
that.
    So, working with the social media companies, they have 
under their terms of use, terms of service, the ability to shut 
down accounts that are being manipulated by false personas, et 
cetera. So, we've been doing that a lot more actively, or I 
should say they have been doing that a lot more actively based 
on information we give them. In many instances, that then leads 
them to identify new accounts, and in the right circumstances 
with the right process, we get information back from them, 
which allows us to investigate more aggressively, which then 
allows us to give more back to them.
    So, you get a little bit of a virtuous cycle going, and 
that allows the Government to do what it's most effective at, 
but also allows the private sector to do what it really needs 
to do. So, that's probably the biggest thing, I would say.
    Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you. I ran out of time.
    Chair Nadler. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    Mr. Reschenthaler?
    Mr. Reschenthaler. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Chair, I would defer to my friend and colleague from 
Ohio, Mr. Jordan.
    Mr. Jordan. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
    Director, I want to go back to where my colleague from 
Florida, Democratic colleague, was just at, talking about 
Russian election interference. We had a brief exchange on this 
a few minutes ago. Again, Dr. Hill talked about the dossier. 
She said that it was a rabbit hole. During her testimony in the 
open hearing in front of the Intel Committee, she said it was a 
rabbit hole and that she thought Christopher Steele got played.
    Yet, that very document that Mr. Steele put together by 
talking to Russians was taken to the court to get a warrant to 
spy on a presidential campaign, specifically the Trump 
campaign. So, that means one of two things had to have 
happened. Either the FBI got played, or the people in charge of 
that investigation at the headquarters knew about the dossier 
and yet used it anyway, their bias was that strong.
    It seems to me in light of all that, the real question is--
and you have referenced this in I think your opening statement, 
Director. The real question is what are we going to do now? We 
have got 5 weeks until a major reauthorization takes place. So, 
what are the specific things we can do now to address what took 
place?
    The FBI got a document that was from Russians that was not 
true and yet used that to go spy on a presidential campaign. 
So, what recommendation--let me run through, maybe run through 
a list, and you can tell me if you like some of these ideas.
    Should there be--would you recommend to the FISA court that 
there be a Citizen Advocate at the court when an American 
citizen's rights are going to be infringed on?
    Mr. Wray. I think that's a change that we would have to 
think very, very carefully about, lest it have all kinds of 
unintended consequences.
    Mr. Jordan. Would you be in favor of a transcript of every 
FISA hearing being kept by the court, and secondarily, that 
transcript then being sent to the House Intelligence Committee 
and the Senate Intelligence Committee for their review and only 
that Committee's review?
    Mr. Wray. That starts to involve the manner in which the 
court conducts its proceedings. So, I'd have to think about 
that a little bit more.
    Mr. Jordan. How about some type of appeal process? Any type 
of appeal process that you would favor?
    Mr. Wray. Well, there is under the current FISA system from 
the FISC, the FISA court, at the lower level, there is the so-
called FISCR, or FISC Court of Review. So, there is an 
Appellate Court, and there have been in extraordinary 
circumstances appeals to the FISA Court of Review.
    Mr. Jordan. How about a hearing--whenever there is a 
renewal of a FISA warrant, that there actually be a hearing? 
You can't just look at the paper and say, okay, we are going to 
continue the FISA warrant. Of course, the example is Mr. Page, 
Carter Page. They got the initial warrant, and then it was 
renewed three times.
    So, how about during those renewal process or those 
renewals, that it is an actual hearing every single time?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I think the court has the discretion to 
have hearings whenever it thinks it's appropriate. The thing I 
would say whenever we talk about anything with FISA, when you 
use phrases like ``every single time,'' is that it's important 
for the American people to understand, for this Committee to 
understand that the vast majority of the FISAs that we do, both 
the initial applications and the renewals, are the kinds of 
applications that I am quite confident--we don't know each 
other, but I'm quite confident you wouldn't lose any sleep 
over. We really wouldn't want to grind things to a halt on that 
front.
    Mr. Jordan. I am not disputing that, Director. We have a 
400-page report, and we know what took place in the context of 
2016--2017 relative to Carter Page, who was part of the 
Presidential campaign. Some of the things that were spelled out 
in this report, my guess is probably have never happened in 
American history.
    So, that is our concern, and we hear so much about Russian 
interference in our election, which is true. It happened. We 
all know it did, and we want it to stop. Seems to me a big part 
of that Russian election interference was the idea that a 
document that Russians put information came from Russians that 
Christopher Steele put together, was used in this way I think 
is scary.
    Mr. Wray. Just on that point, because I think just to make 
sure we're not talking past each other unintentionally. When it 
comes to the origins of the investigation, the Crossfire 
Hurricane investigation, I think the Attorney General has said 
publicly--so I think that's why I'm on solid ground to say it 
here--that one of the things that Mr. Durham is looking very 
specifically at is the origination for the investigation.
    Mr. Jordan. Sure. We appreciate that.
    Mr. Wray. We have cooperating fully with that 
investigation, as the Attorney General himself has commented 
publicly on a number of occasions. So, there's that.
    The other thing I would say to you, which might go a little 
bit to the issue you're raising, is that as the Attorney 
General recently mentioned in a press conference, he and I are 
putting in place mechanisms where investigations of the sort 
that was at issue in the Crossfire Hurricane context would have 
to get approved both by the Director and by the Attorney 
General.
    Mr. Jordan. Important point.
    Ms. Bass. Time. Time.
    Chair Nadler. The time of the gentleman has expired.
    Ms. McBath?
    Mr. Jordan. Mr. Chair, can I ask one quick question?
    Chair Nadler. Ms. McBath?
    Ms. McBath. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you, Director Wray, for being here today.
    This is National Gun Violence Survivors Week, and I am a 
survivor of gun violence. I just want to thank you and all the 
FBI agents that work so diligently on behalf of the United 
States of America, trying to keep us safe from unnecessary gun 
violence and keep our communities safe. I really appreciate 
that.
    I know that some of my colleagues before me have asked you 
today, they have asked you about hate crimes. I just want to 
kind of go back and start by returning to that serious issue. 
In November, the FBI released its hate crimes report, which 
found that there were more than 8,000 hate crimes offenses, and 
57.5 percent were motivated by race, ethnicity, or ancestry 
bias.
    Another 20 percent were motivated by religious bias. Of the 
incidents motivated by religious bias, about nearly 60 percent 
of them were antisemitic. So, taken together, antisemitism was 
the motivation behind about 11 percent, or 11.7 percent of all 
the hate crimes that were reported in the report.
    Now, I know that you have addressed this a little bit 
before, but I would like to ask you to kind of elaborate a 
little bit more on the steps that the Bureau is taking to train 
our local law enforcement to respond to antisemitic incidents 
and reports, including reporting, information sharing, and 
violence prevention.
    Mr. Wray. So, I appreciate the question. A number of things 
that we're doing. One, I created a domestic terrorism hate 
crimes fusion cell last year that's designed to ensure that 
we're maximizing our effectiveness, both bringing the domestic 
terrorism dimension of the kind of threat you're talking about, 
as well as the hate crimes dimension. There's a lot of overlap, 
and I wanted to make sure that we are leveraging every possible 
resource.
    Second, we elevated to the top-level priority racially 
motivated violent extremism, so it's on the same footing in 
terms of our national threat banding as ISIS and homegrown 
violent extremism. We have directed all our joint terrorism 
task forces, and there are 200-plus of those all over the 
country. We're talking about 4,500 something investigators--
Federal, State, and local together--to make sure that domestic 
terrorism is squarely within their sights.
    We talked a little bit earlier about the threats to life, 
and a lot of those are in this category and making sure those 
get farmed out as a priority to our State and local partners. I 
have personally been engaged on this. I went to the Tree of 
Life synagogue myself and walked the crime scene with the team. 
We're doing a lot of outreach efforts.
    I've met with leaders of a number of the national Jewish 
organizations. We do presentations all over the country to help 
them help houses of worship better secure them. So, those are 
some of the things that I would mention.
    Ms. McBath. Thank you. Thank you for that.
    The statistics in the hate crimes report are made more 
chilling when we consider that many of those who harbor hate 
actually have access to weapons. Having lost a son to one of 
those weapons, I am proud to be a co-sponsor of my colleague 
Representative Cicilline's bill--he is not here--the Disarm 
Hate Act, which would actually prevent individuals from 
possessing a gun if they are convicted of a hate crime.
    My bill, the Federal Extremist Protection Order Act, could 
also be used by law enforcement to keep guns out of the hands 
of people that appear to be in crisis, emotional or behavioral 
crisis, and a danger to themselves and to others. Extremist 
laws like my bill can actually help prevent gun violence by 
actually responding to signs of danger before the tragedies 
actually occur.
    We know that the signs--we know what the signs are. An FBI 
study found that the average active shooter displayed 4-5 
observable and concerning behaviors over time, often related to 
the shooter's interpersonal interactions, verbal threats, 
apparent distress, physical aggression, and other signs of 
violent intentions.
    For every active shooter in the study, at least one person 
noticed that behavior or that concerning behavior. So, what 
recommendation does the FBI have for reducing the risk of 
active shooters?
    Mr. Wray. So, first, let me just say that I'm deeply sorry 
for your loss, and I can only imagine--I know there's no words 
that I can say that would help ease your pain, but I just want 
to make sure that you understand how much I feel for you.
    Second, when it comes to the phenomenon that you're 
describing, I think you put your finger on an important point. 
We know in situation after situation, whether it's the 
homegrown violent extremist or the racially motivated violent 
extremist or even just the sort of more classic school shooter, 
that in almost every instance when you go back and look, there 
was someone--a family member, neighbor, co-worker, or 
classmate, it could be anyone who saw or who knew the person 
well enough and saw a change in the behavior.
    We say all the time, you hear that expression, ``If you see 
something, say something.'' Well, most of us when we hear that, 
we picture the unattended backpack in the bus terminal or 
something, right? Of course, we want people to say something 
then, too. We're really trying to push out the message that if 
you see something about someone that doesn't seem right, we 
want you to say something.
    I think that, most of the studies show that if we could get 
more of the American public to do that, in some cases it 
requires a leap of faith in law enforcement because you may be 
talking about somebody that's very close to them. That's the 
way we can ensure that some of these people get the help they 
need, but also, more importantly, protect them from hurting 
other people.
    Ms. McBath. So, and last question. Do you believe that 
these red flag laws are advantageous in really curbing the tide 
of gun violence?
    Mr. Wray. Any sort of position on actual gun legislation is 
something that we would have to coordinate with the Department. 
Certainly, I know a number of States have passed laws like 
that, and we work with them when they have those laws and use 
whatever tools are in the toolbox.
    Ms. McBath. Thank you.
    Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
    Ms. Roby?
    Ms. Roby. Thank you, Director Wray, for being here and 
staying for this long for us to ask our questions.
    Being from Alabama, I first want to highlight the FBI's 
investment in their new facilities in Huntsville, projected to 
add over 4,000 jobs. So, we in Alabama are very pleased that 
the FBI is investing in our State.
    When you testified last year in front of the Appropriations 
Committee, I focused on human trafficking and child welfare, 
and I was pleased to see that you focused on human trafficking 
and child exploitation for two pages in your written testimony. 
On January 31st, of course, the President signed an Executive 
Order combatting human trafficking and online child 
exploitation in the United States. So, I want you to talk about 
that in a minute, about that Executive Order, how you plan to 
enforce that and work to combat child exploitation, continue to 
combat child exploitation and trafficking.
    Also, I serve here on Judiciary as the Ranking Member on 
the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the 
Internet. One area that I, as a mom, am deeply concerned about 
is child safety on the Internet. I hope that my colleagues in 
the majority will hear this, as I have been very much trying to 
create some space here on this Committee for us to dive into 
that in a hearing specific to that.
    The Internet is being used to exploit and entrap children, 
and I think a big piece of this is education of parents, quite 
frankly, which is one of the reasons I want to have a hearing 
here to help draw attention. With the Executive Order and my 
concerns, I will give you an opportunity to talk about not just 
what the FBI is doing now, but any plans you have for the 
future, and quite frankly, how can we here in the Congress be 
more helpful?
    This is a very serious issue that needs a lot of attention.
    Mr. Wray. Well, I appreciate both questions. This is a 
subject I remember well, your commitment and focus on this 
issue. It's a subject that's near and dear to my heart, not 
just now as FBI Director, but earlier in my law enforcement 
career when I was Assistant Attorney General. Frankly, even in 
private practice, one of the pro bono efforts that I was 
involved in was to try to push our firm to do pro bono work for 
victims of human trafficking. So, I have a long history of 
being interested in this topic.
    On the FBI's end, certainly I was there for the signing of 
the Executive Order that you mentioned that the President 
signed, and I appreciate his focus and his daughter's focus on 
this issue. It's a multi-agency effort that is extremely 
important.
    On the FBI's end, we recently had, for example, Operation 
Independence Day over the summer, where I think we ended up 
rescuing over 80 kids. That's just in about a month. You think 
about that. That's not counting the kids who we caught the 
predators, but the kid didn't happen to still be ongoingly 
victimized. Who knows what would have happened if we hadn't 
arrested all the perpetrators that were involved in that.
    We try very hard to have a victim-centric approach, so it 
doesn't end with just the prosecution of the offender, but to 
try to engage through our Victims Services Division with the 
victims and stay connected with them even beyond that as they 
engage in recovery.
    On the last point, on the child exploitation online point, 
that is a subject I'm deeply concerned about, and it goes--when 
you asked like what Congress can do? I would come back to the 
lawful access issue. That is the law enforcement's ability to 
maintain--this is not about gaining new authority. This is 
about not losing lawful access to the content, which is what 
allows us to rescue all those kids.
    Last year, there were about 18 million, 18 million tips 
provided to NCMEC, child exploitation tips. Something like 80 
percent of those tips came from Facebook. To Facebook's great 
credit, by the way. If Facebook goes forward with the plans 
that they have right now to go to end-to-end encryption across 
all their platforms, what that will mean is that those 18 
million tips will just disappear.
    No longer, it doesn't matter what laws Congress pass, 
doesn't matter what lawful access we've been given, we will not 
be able to see that content. So, the perpetrators will still be 
out there. The victims will still be out there. The only thing 
that will be gone is the evidence we need to stop them and 
rescue those kids.
    Ms. Roby. Right. I know my time has expired, but I really, 
really, really would like to take this opportunity to say to 
the majority please, please help us create some space, either 
on the Subcommittee or the Full Committee so that we can have--
    Ms. Bass. [Presiding] Ms. Roby, I just pulled someone aside 
and asked that they follow up with you, your staff 
specifically.
    Ms. Roby. Thank you. Really, honestly, it is more about 
having a public hearing where we can dive into the various--
    Ms. Bass. That is what I asked--I do understand that.
    Ms. Roby. Yes.
    Ms. Bass. We talked about it.
    Ms. Roby. Yes. Yes, you and I did.
    Ms. Bass. I did just raise it a minute ago.
    Ms. Roby. Okay, perfect. Thank you.
    Thank you, Director Wray. Appreciate it.
    Ms. Bass. Mr. Correa?
    Mr. Correa. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Director Wray, I want to thank you very much for being here 
today. I want to thank your staff, the FBI, for the good work 
you do protecting our country, as well as our families.
    I want to turn a little bit and talk about facial 
recognition technology. Its use, its capabilities are 
exploding. That genie is out of the bottle, so to speak. I know 
other countries are using it extensively.
    So, my question to you is, in general, is the FBI using 
this technology, and to what extent?
    Mr. Wray. So, I appreciate the question. You're right that 
certainly other countries may use facial recognition 
differently than we do. We do use facial recognition, but--and 
this is the really important point--we use it for lead value. 
So, in other words, we don't use facial recognition as the 
basis to arrest or convict someone. We use it to figure out if 
we're going in the right direction and then put together with 
other information.
    Second, we only allow people who are subjected to very 
significant and rigorous training on the Constitution and on 
the appropriate scientific steps to use that technology. I 
would say that we recently upgraded and the last point I'll 
make on this is we recently changed our algorithms to fit the 
NIST testing standards, and we now have tested out at over 99 
percent accuracy under the NIST standards.
    Again, the key takeaway is we use it for lead value. So, an 
agent can submit information. They can run the facial 
recognition through the database, and they don't get a one-to-
one match. They give them back a couple different options, and 
then they pursue it again for lead value, not as evidence to 
arrest or convict somebody.
    Mr. Correa. I sit on Homeland Security, and this has been a 
subject matter that we have delved into extensively. Airports 
and other areas where this technology is useful, very useful. 
Same time, there is a lot of false positives. So, what you are 
telling is that constitutionally, you are putting in some 
guardrails there to make sure this technology is not abused. Is 
that what I am hearing?
    Mr. Wray. Yes. We take rigorous obedience to the 
Constitution as one of our core values, and we're applying it 
very much to the way we use facial recognition.
    Mr. Correa. When you say you use it for leads, other 
countries, they put a camera at every corner, and all that 
technology, all that facial recognition information is stored 
somewhere for God knows what reasons. Here, you are saying it 
is only for leads.
    So, if you have got a camera somewhere in public and see a 
bank robbery, you see somebody running away from that area, 
that would be an instance where you would use it to try to 
identify a possible suspect in that situation?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I guess you could have a situation, right, 
where let's say we got a tip about a potential terrorist 
incident, and there's a video of somebody who's unidentified. 
The quality of the picture is such under the appropriate 
scientific standards we could take that picture and run it 
against the database and see if that matches with somebody in 
the database. Then we might know that we're going in the right 
direction.
    Mr. Correa. In that situation, if I may interrupt, do you 
have a database of suspected terrorists, terrorist watch list 
that you would be comparing that to? Is that what I am hearing 
you say?
    Mr. Wray. Well, I don't know how I would describe the FBI's 
own database.
    Mr. Correa. You have a database?
    Mr. Wray. We have a database of our own. We also have the 
ability with a number of States around the country where they 
have photos that under MOUs, very strict MOUs that are designed 
to ensure compliance with the Constitution, we can send them a 
picture and say can you run this and see if this hits with 
anybody you have in your system?
    There's a whole process for that. It can only be done by 
people who are trained appropriately. Again, even if we get 
back a positive match, it's then just for lead value. It's for 
investigative value, not--
    Mr. Correa. Director Wray if I may interrupt you? I am 
running out of time. Again, as I mentioned, this is a very 
powerful tool, very useful tool, but also one that could be 
subject to errors and abuse.
    I would ask your department to continue to periodically 
update us on your progress in terms of how you are using it and 
also on those guardrails you are putting in in terms of to 
assure that there isn't any misuse or abuse and that you are 
constitutionally doing the right thing. Again, want to make 
sure we work with you so there are no misunderstandings moving 
forward.
    Thank you for being here, sir.
    Ms. Bass. Thank you, Director Wray. Thank you for being 
with us today, and I know you have been here for a very long 
time.
    We have spoken many times about Black Identity Extremists, 
and I definitely want to ask you about that today. I understand 
that the Bureau no longer uses BIE and instead categorizes 
these cases under the broader label of racially motivated 
violent extremism. One, I wanted to know if you guys have 
really repudiated the whole BIE category? Because I know when 
we have talked about it in the past, it really didn't seem to 
be that there was much evidence that there were Black Identity 
Extremists.
    The title was a little longer than that, something about 
Black Identity Extremists that threaten police or attack 
police? So, tell me what is different.
    Mr. Wray. So, I found our conversations before to be very 
constructive and very valuable, and we also engaged not just 
with you and your colleagues, but also with NOBLE with whom we 
have a great relationship and are working more closely than 
ever.
    Ms. Bass. Great. Yes, that is great. Good.
    Mr. Wray. We have, as you mentioned, changed our 
terminology as part of a broader reorganization of the way in 
which we categorize our domestic terrorism efforts. So, we took 
a whole bunch of categories, not just the one that you 
mentioned, but a number of others and consolidated down to 
really four buckets. The reason for that is--
    Ms. Bass. What are the four buckets?
    Mr. Wray. What's that?
    Ms. Bass. What are the four buckets?
    Mr. Wray. There's racially motivated violent extremism, 
which is any kind of violent extremism that's driven with a 
kind of racial intent of one sort or another, no matter which 
direction.
    There is anarchism/government extremism. I may not have the 
label right. That covers kind of variety of everything sort 
of--certain kinds of militia stuff all the way over to kind of 
more the anarchist, maybe sort of Antifa-like kind of 
methodology.
    There is abortion violent extremism, people on either side 
of that issue who commit violence on behalf of different views 
on that topic.
    Ms. Bass. People on either side of that issue don't commit 
violence.
    Mr. Wray. Well, we've actually had a variety of kinds of 
violence under that, you believe it or not.
    Ms. Bass. Really? That go into the buildings and hurt the 
doctors--
    Mr. Wray. At the end of the day, and then the last one has 
to do with animal rights and environmental.
    Ms. Bass. Those are the four?
    Mr. Wray. What's that?
    Ms. Bass. Those are the four?
    Mr. Wray. Those are the four. The point is we wanted to 
underscore what I told you earlier, but we wanted to make it 
even more clear that at the end of the day, for us, it's not 
about the ideology. It's about the violence. That's where we 
weigh in.
    Ms. Bass. Right.
    Mr. Wray. It's not that the ideology isn't important--
    Ms. Bass. Right.
    Mr. Wray. --for us as Americans, but we only investigate 
violence and the crimes that go with the violence. So, we 
wanted to make clear that.
    Ms. Bass. So, under the racially motivated violent 
extremism, how many African-American or Black groups are 
considered under there?
    Mr. Wray. Well, again, I want to be clear. We don't 
investigate groups, per se. We have properly predicated 
investigations into individuals, and in some cases, they may 
have co-conspirators. In each of those instances, it's where we 
have three things:

    (1) Credible evidence of a Federal crime;
    (2) credible evidence of violence or threat or use of 
violence; and
    (3) on behalf of some ideology.

    If we have those things and only if we have those things 
will we open an investigation.
    Ms. Bass. Right. So, are White supremacist groups under 
racially motivated violent extremism? Or do White supremacists 
have a whole separate category?
    Mr. Wray. Well, again, I want to stay away from the use of 
the word ``groups.'' We certainly investigate White supremacist 
motivated violent extremism in the same category that we're 
talking about.
    So, for example, we just last month arrested eight Members, 
I think, of a group known as the Base, and there were arrests 
that were made not just in my home State of Georgia, but also 
in Maryland.
    Ms. Bass. Oh, yes. That was getting ready to go to 
Virginia. Correct?
    Mr. Wray. What's that?
    Ms. Bass. That was the group that was on their way to 
Virginia?
    Mr. Wray. I think that's right. I can't remember that 
detail specifically.
    Ms. Bass. So, there are organizations, and I understand 
that when you say you just investigate individuals. You just 
gave an example of a group. So, I know that there are a lot of 
White supremacist groups, and so my question to you is about 
Black groups. So, I don't know, maybe they are Black 
individuals.
    Under the category of Black identity extremism formerly, 
there were organizations such as the one in Texas and the 
individual in Texas that was arrested. He was incarcerated for 
a while, and then after being incarcerated and going on trial, 
he was released. He had activity on a website, and he also had 
literature when he was arrested. Are you familiar with the case 
that I am talking about? We have talked about it before.
    Mr. Wray. I think so, yes.
    Ms. Bass. So, my question is, are there African Americans 
or Black groups or individuals that are currently a part of the 
racially motivated violent extremism category?
    Mr. Wray. Well, again, I don't know that I would speak in 
terms of investigating groups. We investigate individuals and, 
in some instances, individuals with co-conspirators. I would 
say certainly there are individuals who we categorize and track 
under the racially motivated violent extremism part of our 
program management who are African Americans targeting others.
    So, for example, you probably saw some of the reporting 
about the killing of the individuals in Jersey City.
    Ms. Bass. I did.
    Mr. Wray. Including the killing of the people in the kosher 
supermarket.
    Ms. Bass. I did.
    Mr. Wray. Those individuals associated themselves with 
something called the Black Hebrew Israelite.
    Ms. Bass. Oh, I am very familiar with them.
    Mr. Wray. So, we are--
    Ms. Bass. So, let us use that--
    Mr. Wray. That would be in that category.
    Ms. Bass. So, let us use that as an example, because I am 
very familiar with that group. That group is in several--what 
did you say?
    Mr. Collins. Your time has expired.
    Ms. Bass. Yes, well, excuse me, but I am taking the 
prerogative of the Chair.
    Mr. Collins. It has happened all day.
    Ms. Bass. Using that group as an example, is that a group? 
Because they open--I mean you see them on street corners and 
different groups. They are not a secret group at all. Is that 
group part of the racially motivated extremism, the group? I 
understand the Act that took place, and I understand the 
individuals, and it is not clear their level of association.
    Mr. Wray. What I would say to you on that is we have some 
investigations into individuals who associate themselves with 
that movement.
    Ms. Bass. Beyond those two people?
    Mr. Wray. Yes.
    Ms. Bass. Okay. Director Wray, documents published in 2019 
in August suggest that the FBI still uses the designation. The 
documents show that the FBI's official consolidated strategy 
guide, which lists the Bureau's counterterrorism priorities, 
continues its focus on BIE. So, the same document, are you 
familiar with the document that I just mentioned?
    Mr. Wray. Not from your description of it. So, perhaps what 
I can do is if you want to have my staff take a look at that 
document--
    Ms. Bass. What about the ``iron fist?''
    Mr. Wray. The what, now?
    Ms. Bass. The iron fist? The documents identify an FBI 
threat mitigation strategy called the iron fist. Are you 
familiar with that?
    Mr. Wray. Not sitting here right now, but if you want to 
send me the document, you're looking at offline, I can have my 
staff follow up with you, and we can try to get back to you on 
it.
    Ms. Bass. Okay. All right. Thank you.
    The hearing is adjourned. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Wray. Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 2:40 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

                               APPENDIX

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                 QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES FOR THE RECORD

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                     U.S. Congressman Mike Johnson

                 U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary

                        Questions for the Record

                           February 12, 2020

     Hearing--``Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation''

    Director Wray, as you are aware Former Special Counsel 
Mueller brought on members of the FBI onto the Special 
Counsel's team when Crossfire Hurricane was transferred from 
the FBI to the Special Counsel. In Mr. Mueller's subsequent 
appearance before this Committee he refused to answer any 
questions related to the Steele Dossier. With that in mind, I 
would like to ask you a few questions regarding this phase of 
the investigation:

    1. LTo your knowledge did Former Special Counsel Mueller 
ever question any of the Steele Dossier origins after or during 
the transition of Crossfire Hurricane from the FBI to the 
Special Counsel's team?
    2. LAre you aware of any FBI personnel that were not part 
of the Mueller team being asked by Former Director Mueller to 
carry out tasks during his tenure as Special Counsel?
    3. LIn addition to addressing the relevant deficiencies 
found in the IG report, are you internally examining FBI 
protocols surrounding the transfer of investigations to a 
Special Counsel, particularly in instances where FBI staff are 
used by the Special Counsel?
    4. LHave you considered updating any sections of relevant 
Policy Implementation Guides or the Domestic Investigations 
Operations Guide (DIOG) regarding FBI interactions, or the 
transfer of investigations, to a Special Counsel?

                                 [all]