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

     SECURING AMERICA'S ELECTIONS PART II: OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

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

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                         U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                                OCTOBER 22, 2019

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 116-60

                                   __________

             Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                   Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov

                                ______

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
     45-400               WASHINGTON : 2021

                           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

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                           Tuesday, October 22, 2019

                                                                       Page

                               OPENING STATEMENTS

    The Honorable Mary Gay Scanlon, Vice-Chair, Committee on the
      Judiciary......................................................     1
    The Honorable Doug Collins, Ranking Member, Committee on the
      Judiciary
      Written Testimony..............................................     6
    The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chairman, Committee on the
      Judiciary
      Written Testimony..............................................    48

                                   WITNESSES

    Matt Masterson, Senior Cybersecurity Advisor, Department of
      Homeland Security
      Oral Testimony.................................................    12
      Written Testimony..............................................    14
    Nhikki Floris, Deputy Assistant Director, Counterterrorism,
      Federal Bureau of Investigation
      Oral Testimony.................................................    22
      Written Testimony..............................................    24
    Adam Hickey, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, National Security
      Division, Department of Justice
      Oral Testimony.................................................    29
      Written Testimony..............................................    31
    Ben Hovland, Vice Chair, U.S. Election Assistance Commission
      Oral Testimony.................................................    42
      Written Testimony..............................................    44

              LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

    An article for the record from The Hill, submitted by the
      Honorable Matt Gaetz...........................................    72
    An article for the record from The New York Times, submitted by
      the Honorable Matt Gaetz.......................................    78
    An article for the record from The Kyiv Post, submitted by the
      Honorable Matt Gaetz...........................................    86
    A report for the record from Graphica, submitted by Joe Neguse...   104

                                    APPENDIX

    Questions for the record, Matt Masterson, Senior Cybersecurity
      Advisor, Department of Homeland Security.......................   146
    Responses for the record, Adam S. Hickey, Deputy Assistant
      Attorney General...............................................   153
    Questions for the record, Ben Hovland, Vice-Chair Election
      Assistance Commission..........................................   168
    Questions for the record, Nikki Floris, Deputy Assistant
      Director, Counterintelligence Division.........................   173
    Responses for the record, Masterson, senior cybersecurity
      advisor, the Department of Homeland Security...................   178

     SECURING AMERICA'S ELECTIONS PART II: OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

                                  ----------

                           Tuesday, October 22, 2019

                            House of Representatives

                           Committee on the Judiciary

                                 Washington, DC

        The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:10 a.m., in Room
    2141, Rayburn Office Building, Hon. Mary Gay Scanlon,
    presiding.
        Present: Representatives Nadler, Lofgren, Jackson Lee,
    Cohen, Johnson of Georgia, Deutch, Cicilline, Jayapal, Correa,
    Scanlon, Garcia, Neguse, McBath, Stanton, Dean, Murcarsel-
    Powell, Escobar, Chabot, Gohmert, Gaetz, Biggs, Lesko,
    Reschenthaler, Cline, and Steube.
        Staff present: Arya Hariharan, Deputy Chief Oversight
    Counsel; David Greengrass, Senior Counsel; Madeline Strasser,
    Chief Clerk; Moh Sharma, Member Services and Outreach Advisor;
    Sarah Istel, Oversight Counsel; Priyanka Mara, Professional
    Staff Member/Legislative Aide; Kerry Tirrell, Oversight
    Counsel, Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law
    Subcommittee; Matt Robison, Counsel, Courts and Intellectual
    Property Subcommittee; Brendan Belair, Minority Staff Director;
    Bobby Parmiter, Minority Deputy Staff Director/Chief Counsel;
    Jon Ferro, Minority Parliamentarian/General Counsel; Ryan
    Breitenbach, Minority Chief Counsel, National Security; and
    Erica Barker, Minority Chief Legislative Clerk.
        Ms. Scanlon. 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 Securing
    America's Elections Part II: Oversight of Government Agencies.
    I will now recognize myself for an opening statement.
        Last month, this Committee held part one of a series of
    hearings on securing America's elections. In that hearing, 3
    witnesses, who had been jointly selected by the committee,
    testified unequivocally that our Nation's elections are under
    attack. Debora Plunkett, former director on the National
    Security Council under both President Clinton and President
    George W. Bush, warned, ``We must bold, decisive, and must take
    expeditious steps to address cyber threats. We must treat
    election security as imperative for safeguarding our
    democracy.'' Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar from the
    Commonwealth of Pennsylvania elaborated: ``Election security is
    a race without a finish line, and our adversaries are not
    slowing down.''
        This testimony has been confirmed by the leaders of our
    intelligence community. Last month, the director of national
    intelligence testified that, ``Foreign actors will view the
    2020 elections as an opportunity to advance their interests. We
    expect them to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as
    they learn from each other's experiences and efforts in
    previous elections.'' In short, there is no question that our
    elections, the cornerstone of our free and democratic society,
    are exposed. Protecting our Nation's democratic processes from
    foreign attack must be among our top priorities, and we are
    committed to doing that work.
        Today we have representatives from the four Federal
    agencies leading the charge on election security: The
    Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of
    Investigation, the Department of Justice, and Election
    Assistance Commission. At their core, elections are run at the
    State and local level, but our Federal Government must provide
    critical support to help States to defend themselves from
    hostile foreign actors. Protecting our elections requires a
    whole of society approach that relies on coordinated actions by
    government agencies at all levels, including the agencies
    represented here today.
        Federal agencies responsible for protecting our elections
    have made significant progress since 2016. These efforts are
    important and commendable, but significant vulnerabilities in
    our system remain. To start, our efforts must be integrated and
    coordinated. A simple Google search of ``report election
    security issues'' turns up results for over 20 different groups
    across these agencies and others. There must be clear lines of
    authority to ensure that States know which of the multiple
    programs across these agencies is in charge.
        Equally important, we must do more to ensure better Federal
    and State collaboration. That requires earning the trust of
    States. At a public speech on October 3rd, 2018, DHS Director
    Krebs explained that in 2016 when the Federal Government called
    State officials to alert them of threats, there was, as he
    said, no trust and there was no certainty or confidence in the
    ability of the Federal Government. One way to strengthen trust
    is through enhanced transparency.
        In 2016, the specific intent of the Russians was not
    initially made public. Today we can do better. We can educate
    State and local officials and the public about influence
    operations. By bringing our adversaries' tactics to light, we
    can prevent them from succeeding. In addition, we must ensure
    that the development and maintenance of our systems matches the
    evolving nature of cyber threats. For example, current EAC
    Federal guidelines for our certification processes were created
    in 2005 and are woefully out of date. As our witness, Mr. Byrd
    of Microsoft, testified last month, ``This process is more than
    a decade old, and it is too slow and too burdensome to enable
    voting officials to respond as quickly as needed to our agile
    adversaries.''
        Finally, and most importantly, we must ensure that State
    and local officials, the frontline defenders of democracy, have
    the resources and support they need to protect our systems. DHS
    has made it clear that it requires additional resources to
    fulfill this task. It has requested, for example, 20 additional
    advisors to help States in anticipation of the 2020 election
    cycle. On May 15th, 2019, the EAC likewise testified before the
    Senate that the U.S. currently lacks sufficient funding in
    critical areas to protect our 2020 elections.
        Unfortunately, however, President Trump and his
    Administration, rather than listening to the warnings of
    Federal agencies about the seriousness of the threat picture
    and request for more resources to secure our elections, has
    done the opposite. The Trump Administration has cut senior
    cyber positions, downsized by half DHS' election security
    teams, and proposed significant budget cuts to DHS' major
    election security program. All these actions leave us more
    vulnerable to the ongoing threat to our democracy. We will not
    let this happen. Elections cannot be a partisan issue. They
    must be an American issue.
        This Committee is committed to working together to protect
    our democracy from all threats to our elections in all forms,
    whether to our physical election infrastructure or the ongoing
    disinforma-tion campaigns coming from adversaries like Russia.
    I thank each of our witnesses for being here today. My
    colleagues and I are looking forward to hearing your testimony
    about your ongoing efforts to secure our elections and what
    important work remains to be done.
        Without objection, the Ranking Member's statement, Doug
    Collins, will be placed in the record, and all other opening
    statements will be included in the record.
        [The information follows:]

                      MR. COLLINS FOR THE OFFICIAL RECORD

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

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        Ms. Scanlon. I will now introduce today's witnesses. Matt
    Masterson is the senior cybersecurity advisor at the Department
    of Homeland Security, where he manages election security under
    the National Protection and Programs Directorate. From 2014 to
    2018, he served as a U.S. Election Assistance Commissioner.
    Prior to his appointment, Mr. Masterson served as interim chief
    of staff for the Ohio secretary of state, deputy chief
    information officer, and deputy director of elections. Mr.
    Masterson received his B.S. and B.A. from Miami University in
    Oxford, Ohio, and his J.D. from the University of Dayton School
    of Law.
        Nikki Floris is the deputy assistant director of the
    Counterintelligence Division of the FBI, where she oversees the
    intelligence branch, which includes the Foreign Influence Task
    Force System. Ms. Floris entered the Bureau in 2005 as an
    intelligence analyst and served in many other positions,
    including deputy assistant director of Operations Branch III in
    the Counterterrorism Division, where she oversaw terrorism
    financing operations, strategic operations, and
    counterterrorism analysis. Ms. Floris has a bachelor's degree
    in psychology from the University of Rhode Island and a
    master's degree in criminology from George Washington
    University.
        Adam Hickey is a deputy assistant attorney general of the
    National Security Division at the Department of Justice. In
    that role, he manages the Division's effort to combat national
    security threats, including threats to our election systems.
    Before joining the Department of Justice, Mr. Hickey clerked
    for Judge Jed Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the
    Southern District of New York, and Judge Robert Katzmann of the
    U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Mr. Hickey
    received his bachelor's degree from Harvard College and his
    J.D. from Yale Law School.
        Ben Hovland is the vice chair of the Election Assistance
    Commission, where he is the designated Federal offer for the
    Technical Guidelines Development Committee, which develops the
    voluntary voting system guidelines. Before being appointed vice
    chair, Commissioner Hovland served as the acting chief counsel
    for the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration.
    Commissioner Hovland received his B.A. from the University of
    Central Arkansas and his J.D. from the University of Oregon.
        Please note that each of your written statements 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.
        We want to thank you all for participating in today's
    hearing. If you would 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?
        [A chorus of ayes.]
        Ms. Scanlon. You may be seated. Let the record show that
    the witnesses have answered in the affirmative.
        All right, Mr. Masterson, you may begin, and you have to
    push to button to turn your microphone on before you start.
    Thank you.

                     TESTIMONY OF MATTHEW MASTERSON

        Mr. Masterson. Well, thank you, and good morning, Members
    of the committee. Thank you for this opportunity to testify
    regarding the cybersecurity and infrastructure security
    agencies' efforts to help secure our election infrastructure
    across this country. My name is Matt Masterson. I'm the
    election lead for CISA and the former chair of the U.S.
    Election Assistance Commission, as well as an election official
    in the State of Ohio.
        CISA has a strong relationship with our federal partners
    seated here at the table and with State and local election
    officials across the country. Our election-related mission is
    clear: To support election officials and their private sector
    partners to identify and manage risk to their systems.
    Elections are run at the State and local level by dedicated
    professionals across America's more than 8,800 election
    jurisdictions, and we work to ensure those officials don't have
    to defend themselves from sophisticated and persistent threats
    on their own.
        Over the last 3 years, we've worked tirelessly to
    strengthen our partnership with the election community. We
    already provide free and voluntary resources and services to
    all 50 States, over 2,100 local and territorial election
    jurisdictions, 6 election associations, 12 election technology
    providers, and political organizations, including presidential
    campaigns. Our approach has been and continues to be threefold:
    one, making sure the election community has the information
    they need to defend their systems: Two, making sure they have
    the technical support and tools to identify and mitigate risks
    to their election infrastructure; and three, building enduring
    partnerships to advance security efforts together.
        CISA is laser focused on building scalable, repeatable
    mechanisms to dramatically grow our information-sharing
    capabilities. We share contextualized threat intelligence and
    actionable information through our close partnerships with the
    intelligence community, law enforcement, and the private
    sector. More importantly, State and local election officials
    are sharing what they see on their networks with us. We deploy
    intrusion detection capabilities, or Albert sensors, to provide
    real-time detection capabilities of malicious activity on
    election infrastructure in all 50 States.
        Second, we provide technical support and services to
    election officials and vendors. As we refine our understanding
    of election officials' needs, we are shifting to capabilities
    that are quicker, lesser intrusive, and can scale to more
    jurisdictions. For instance, in 2018 and 2019, we deployed a
    remote penetration testing capability, thanks in part to the
    funding provided by Congress. This remote penetration testing
    capability allows us to identify risks and vulnerabilities to
    network-connected election systems without having to deploy
    teams into local election offices, and without interrupting
    both their time and people.
        CISA has also been working closely with election technology
    providers to ensure that election systems and other
    technologies undergo testing to discover and fix
    vulnerabilities in their software. This scalability is critical
    because while our initial efforts in 2016 were primarily
    targeted at State election officials, we recognize the need to
    increase our support to counties and municipalities who operate
    elections. For example, the Last Mile Initiative provides no-
    cost information sharing tailored to those jurisdictions to
    identify cyber risks to their infrastructure and a checklist of
    action items to mitigate those risks.
        The final area of focus has been building on enduring
    partnerships towards our collective defense. It may seem
    mundane, but governance, communication, coordination, training,
    and planning are the critical foundation elements of our
    efforts to secure our Nation's elections. For this election
    cycle, CISA has built off the lessons learned for the 2018
    election and is expanding our work to prioritize the following
    lines of effort: One, expanded engagement to local election
    officials. We continue to work with election officials to
    improve both their and our understanding of risk to their
    systems. For instance, in June of this year, we did our second
    annual tabletop devote exercise where 47 States, thousands of
    local election officials, the private sector, and Federal
    Government, worked together through scenarios to share
    information and understand how we would all collectively
    respond to threats to our election infrastructure. With a
    better understanding of risk, we can identify and provide the
    resources they need to secure their election systems.
        CISA has expanded our level of engagement and sharing of
    best cybersecurity practices with political organizations as
    well, including the DNC and RNC. CISA has joined FBI and ODNI
    in offering briefings to the Presidential campaigns who
    register with the FEC and has engaged directly with campaigns
    to offer our services. CISA, in coordination with our
    interagency partners, is committed to helping Americans
    recognize and avoid foreign disinformation operations impacting
    our elections through innovative efforts, like our War on
    Pineapple Campaign, where we educated Americans on the tactics
    of foreign influence campaign using a topic everyone can relate
    to, the divisive issue of pineapple on pizza. We will continue
    to put out educational material to build resilience in the
    American public on foreign influence operations.
        Finally, we're working closely with our intelligence
    community and the private sector to increase the quantity,
    quality, and timeliness of intelligence analysis and production
    at the unclassified levels to help election officials and the
    public identify and expose foreign influence operations. We at
    CISA are committed to working with Congress to ensure our
    efforts cultivate a safer, more secure, and resilient homeland.
        Once again, thank you for this opportunity to appear before
    the committee, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you.
        [The statement of Mr. Masterson follows:]

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        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you very much. Ms. Floris?

                       TESTIMONY OF NIKKI FLORIS

        Ms. Floris. Thank you. Good morning, Members of the
    committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
    today to discuss the FBI's effort to secure America's
    elections. As you've just heard, I'm Nikki Floris, deputy
    assistant director for the FBI's Counterintelligence Division.
        The FBI is the Federal lead for identifying and combatting
    malign foreign influence operations which target U.S.
    democratic institutions and values. This also includes the
    investigation of election-related cyber intrusions and crimes.
    To achieve their strategic geopolitical objectives, foreign
    adversaries use malign influence operations to shift U.S.
    policy, distort U.S. political sentiment and discourse,
    undermine confidence in U.S. democratic institutions and
    values, or interfere with U.S. electoral processes.
        Most widely reported these days have been the attempts by
    foreign adversaries to discredit U.S. individuals and
    institutions using false personas and fabricated stories on
    social media platforms. These operations have aimed to spread
    disinformation, sow civil discord, and ultimately undermine the
    confidence in our democratic institutions and values. Foreign
    influence operations involve a wide spectrum of activities.
    However, it is the subversive, undeclared criminal and coercive
    aspects of these activities that forms the basis of FBI
    investigative interests. It is why we talk about malign foreign
    influence. This is by no means a new problem. However, global
    interconnectedness and online anonymity have changed the
    character of the overall foreign influence threat and how the
    FBI and its partners must address it.
        In my role at the FBI, I oversee the Foreign Influence Task
    Force, or what we call the FITF. In the fall of 2017, Director
    Wray established the FITF to combat foreign influence
    operations targeting the United States. The FITF is led by the
    Counterintelligence Division and is comprised of agents,
    analysts, and professional staff from the Counterintelligence,
    Counterterrorism, Cyber, and Criminal Investigative Divisions.
    Following the 2018 midterm elections, the FBI expanded the
    scope of the FITF. Previously our efforts were focused solely
    on the threat posed by Russia. However, we now have units
    working to confront malign foreign influence operations, not
    just from Russia, but also from China, Iran, and other global
    adversaries. We have refined and focused our strategy.
        Through the FITF, the FBI takes a three-pronged approach to
    the serious threat. The first prong focuses on our
    investigations and operations. The FITF works with the FBI's 56
    field offices to open investigations with a foreign influence
    nexus. You might think of the FITF as a hub with FBI field
    offices and its personnel as the spokes. Our investigative
    approach seeks to impose costs on our adversaries, specifically
    key influencers, and enablers. Investigations with a cyber
    nexus are worked collaboratively with the FBI Cyber Division
    and Cyber Task Forces. This way, the FBI can quickly respond to
    threats to election infrastructure. Moreover, the FBI Cyber
    Division works closely with the U.S. intelligence community to
    work to determine attribution.
        The second prong centers on information and intelligence
    sharing. The FBI works closely with our fellow intelligence
    community agencies as well as with State and local law
    enforcement partners and election officials to share
    intelligence to help, disrupt, and deter our adversaries. In
    2018, that effort led to the creation of Protected Voices, a
    joint initiative between the FBI, Department of Justice,
    Department of Homeland Security, United States Secret Service,
    and the ODNI. Through Protected Voices, we developed a series
    of videos to help political campaigns better understand this
    threat and made them available through the FBI's public
    website.
        In the past months, we have expanded Protected Voices,
    providing webinars and in-person briefings to the Presidential
    campaigns on cyber and malign influence threats. Currently, we
    are expanding the audience to include congressional campaigns
    and the general public. We collaborate extensively with our
    U.S. government partners to provide information to State and
    local governments, election officials, private election
    vendors, and social media companies so that they can harden
    their systems against cyberattacks. Collaboration builds a
    common understanding of the threat landscape.
        The last prong of our approach is private sector
    partnerships. Technology companies have a frontline
    responsibility to secure their own networks, products, and
    platforms. We're doing our part by providing actionable
    intelligence to better enable them to address abuse of their
    platform by foreign actors. The FBI has established
    relationships with these technology and social media companies
    and maintains an ongoing dialogue to enable a rapid exchange of
    threat information.
        Across all these prongs, the FBI is constantly reviewing
    the effectiveness of its coordination and its outreach. To our
    knowledge, no foreign government has attempted to tamper with
    U.S. vote counts. However, even doubts about whether it has
    occurred can be damaging. We do know our adversaries are
    actively trying to influence electoral processes and outcomes
    in advance of the 2020 election. While our focus today is on
    election security, I want to note these adversaries seek to
    influence our national policies and public opinions in
    important ways beyond just elections.
        We look forward to continuing this important work and
    appreciate the support of this committee. Thank you again for
    the opportunity to appear before you today. I'm happy to answer
    any questions you may have.
        [The statement of Ms. Floris follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

     Ms. Scanlon. Thank you very much. Mr. Hickey?

                        TESTIMONY OF ADAM HICKEY

        Mr. Hickey. Good morning, distinguished Members of the
    committee, and thank you for the opportunity to testify on
    behalf of the Justice Department concerning our efforts to
    ensure the safety and security of our Nation's election
    infrastructure and to combat malign foreign influence.
        By ``malign foreign influence,'' I'm referring to covert
    actions by foreign governments intended to affect U.S.
    political sentiment and public discourse, sow divisions in our
    society, or undermine confidence in our democratic
    institutions. And these can range from computer hacking that
    targets election infrastructure or political parties to state-
    sponsored media campaigns. This issue, protecting our Nation's
    democratic processes, has been and remains a top priority of
    the Department. Our principle role here is the investigation
    and prosecution of Federal crimes, but malign foreign influence
    efforts extend beyond efforts to interfere with elections, and
    they require more than law enforcement responses alone.
        Recognizing that, we approach this national security threat
    the same as any other, by using our own legal tools as well as
    supporting the tools and authorities of others. To the best of
    our ability, we try to prevent crimes from occurring or disrupt
    them in progress, in part by sharing information with people
    and institutions to allow them to better protect themselves.
        Reflecting the priority of these issues, last year the
    Attorney General's Cyber Digital Task Force analyzed the types
    of foreign influence operations and laid out a framework to
    guide our responses. Since the 2016 election, we have taken a
    number of steps to combat malign foreign influence and support
    secure elections. First, as an intelligence-driven organization
    and member of the intelligence community, the FBI pursues tips
    and leads, including from classified information, to identify,
    investigate, and disrupt illegal foreign influence activities.
    To that end, and as DAD Floris already explained, the FBI
    established the Foreign Influence Task Force to lead its
    response to ensure information flow, resource allocation, and
    coordination, both within the Department and among the
    Department, our Federal partners, and the private sector.
        Second, together with other agencies through a series of
    outreach and education efforts, we've been helping public
    officials, candidates, and social media companies to harden
    their own networks and platforms against malign foreign
    influence operations. Third, we have improved enforcement of
    the Foreign Agents Registration Act, one of the statutory tools
    that helps ensure transparency in the activities of foreign
    entities and individuals. Effective FARA enforcement makes it
    more difficult for those entities and individuals to hide their
    role in activities occurring with the United States.
        Fourth, our investigations have led to a number of criminal
    charges and other enforcement actions that have exposed malign
    influence efforts by foreign states and their proxies. While we
    work with other nations to obtain custody of foreign defendants
    wherever possible, just the charges themselves help educate the
    American public about the threats that we face. Fifth, our
    investigations have supported the actions of other U.S.
    government agencies, such as financial sanctions imposed by the
    Secretary of the Treasury. Finally, even outside the context of
    criminal charges, we have used the information from our
    investigations both to warn and to reassure potential victims
    and the general public alike about malign foreign influence
    activities.
        Now, victim notifications, defensive counterintelligence
    briefings, and public safety announcements are traditional
    Department activities, but they must conduct with particular
    sensitivity in the context of foreign influence and elections.
    In some circumstances, exposure can be counterproductive or
    otherwise imprudent. Given countervailing considerations, the
    Department has adopted a public policy for evaluating whether
    and how to disclose malign foreign influence activities, and
    among its first principles, partisan political considerations
    must play no role in our decisions.
        Our adversaries will undoubtedly change their tactics, and
    we will need to be nimble in our response, but the framework we
    have developed to respond will have staying power. As you can
    see, the Department plays an important role in combatting
    foreign efforts to interfere in our elections. There are limits
    to our role and that of the Federal Government as a whole.
    Combatting malign foreign influence requires a whole of society
    approach that relies on coordinated actions by government
    agencies at various levels, support from the private sector,
    and the active engagement of an informed public.
        Thank you again, and I look forward to your questions.
        [The statement of Mr. Hickey follows:]

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        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you very much. Mr. Hovland?

                        TESTIMONY OF BEN HOVLAND

        Mr. Hovland. Good morning, Members of the committee. I
    thank you for the opportunity to testify before you this
    morning to detail the work of the U.S. Election Assistance
    Commission, better known as the EAC, to fulfill its mission
    under the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA. I also appreciate
    this opportunity to highlight the great work of State and local
    election officials around the country.
        As you know, our Nation's elections are run at the State
    and local levels, with each of the 50 States and U.S.
    territories running elections in different ways. Election
    officials in over 8,000 local jurisdictions are ultimately
    responsible for conducting our elections, and their work truly
    protects and ensures the most fundamental pillar of our
    democracy, the vote.
        Since 2016, there has been enormous increase and focus on
    the security of our elections, which is just one of the many
    responsibilities' election officials must address. I'm pleased
    to report from my vantage point the elections community has
    responded in an impressive fashion considering the challenges
    we face. Nearly every conference I attend while traveling
    around the country has a substantial focus on security and
    protecting the integrity of elections is a constant topic in
    meetings with election administrators, our Federal partners,
    and external stakeholders.
        Even so, we need to ask ourselves a key question: Will that
    be enough if election officials do not have the sustained
    resources they need to defend our democracy against potential
    threats? The good news is that following the Department of
    Homeland Security's designation of election infrastructure as
    critical infrastructure, there has been a sea change in
    information sharing between the Federal Government and State
    and local officials. This includes the creation of a Government
    Coordinating Council, which brings together State and local
    officials with Federal partners, as well as a Sector
    Coordinating Council, which has helped organize private sector
    vendors and nonprofit entities that support local election
    officials.
        We've also seen the creation of the Election Infrastructure
    Information and Sharing Analysis Center, or EIISAC, which now
    has over 2,100 Members, including every State chief election
    official's office. The deployment of Albert monitors, hardening
    of systems, increased trainings, and promotion of tabletop
    exercises around cyber events have all exponentially increased
    since 2016. The Fiscal Year 2018 appropriations of $380 million
    of HAVA funding, which the EAC distributed within months of its
    allocation, has largely contributed to these improvements. It
    doesn't cover everything election officials need, but States
    have had the ability to essentially choose from a menu of
    reforms, improvements, and priorities that could address their
    most pressing needs and vulnerabilities.
        As Chairwoman McCormick testified earlier this year, the
    EAC projects that 85 percent of the Fiscal Year 2018 money will
    be spent in advance of 2020. We've seen some States use the
    funding to replace aging or paperless equipment. Other States
    have replaced their statewide voter registration database or
    added additional security measures, like multi-factor
    authentication. Some have hosted essential training and
    tabletop exercises ahead of 2020 to give election officials a
    hands-on experience that can help them prepare for various
    threats.
        One of my personal favorite uses of the Fiscal Year 2018
    funding is the implementation of cyber navigator programs.
    Essentially, the State recognizes that many local jurisdictions
    do not have the capacity or need for a full-time election
    cybersecurity expert, so the State employs individuals with
    regional responsibilities, and they provide technical
    assistance to several counties or municipalities. This is the
    kind of innovative program that will help bolster our
    cybersecurity defenses and improve how States conduct
    elections. It's also a model that the EAC would like to help
    amplify nationwide should our funding support such an effort.
        Unfortunately, not all the news is good. As you know, the
    threat of foreign adversaries remains real, and ultimately our
    State and local election officials do not have the resources to
    thwart a truly determined and sophisticated nation-state actor.
    That is why we must take action to build resilience here at
    home and implement policies that deter adversaries abroad, such
    as a real sanctions regime. Additional funding is crucial to
    allow States to continue to make necessary improvements that
    increase the strength and resiliency of our election systems.
        When we talk about election Administration, we are talking
    about the infrastructure of our democracy. To make meaningful
    and lasting change requires a consistent investment over time.
    It cannot just be about 2020 or any one election, but about all
    our elections going forward. During a Senate Rules Committee
    hearing in May, I shared a recent discovery that the EAC's
    operating budget of $7.95 million is less than the amount
    Kansas City spends on potholes. It's startling to think that
    one city with a population of around 500,000 people invests
    more to protect its residents' car titles and alignment than
    our country invests in the only Federal agency dedicated
    completely to improving election Administration and helping
    more than 200 million registered voters cast their ballot.
        I thank you for your time, and I'm happy to answer any
    questions you may have.
        [The statement of Mr. Hovland follows:]

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        Chairman Nadler. [Presiding.] I thank the witnesses. I ask
    unanimous consent that my opening statement be entered into the
    record.
        Without objection.
        [The information follows:]

                       MR. NADLER FOR THE OFFICIAL RECORD

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

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        Chairman Nadler. We will now proceed under the 5-minute
    Rule with questions. I will begin by recognizing myself for 5
    minutes. Let me thank, before I start that, thank Vice Chair of
    the committee, Mary Gay Scanlon, for presiding while I was
    testifying in another committee.
        In 2016, our elections were attacked. Three years later,
    our intelligence community has universally confirmed that
    foreign actors have redoubled their efforts and are preparing
    as we speak to attack our 2020 elections. Yet the President has
    blocked security efforts and cut programs designed to safeguard
    our elections. His chief of staff, for example, apparently
    issued instructions not to mention election security ``in front
    of the President.'' The President also has disbanded the
    Commission on Election Integrity, eliminated the cybersecurity
    coordinator position on the National Security Council, and
    dramatically downsized the two teams fighting foreign election
    interference. The President's 2020 budget proposed cutting
    funding for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security
    Agency, our main election security agency, even further.
        The President is handicapping our agencies from securing
    our elections. Most disturbing, the latest threat to our
    elections comes from the President himself. The President asked
    a foreign leader, President Zelensky of Ukraine, to interfere
    in our elections. This isn't the first time. In 2016, President
    Trump, then a candidate, publicly encouraged Russia to
    illegally hack his adversary's emails. This past June,
    President Trump said on national television that if offered
    information on his adversary in 2020 from a foreign government,
    he would take it. Just this month, President Trump publicly
    suggested ``China should start an investigation into the
    Bidens.''
        I want to be clear. I believe it is unacceptable to ask
    foreign adversaries to interfere in any way in America's
    elections. If we ask other governments to interfere our
    elections, if we undermine the public's confidence in the
    integrity of our voting processes, we are doing our
    adversaries' work for them. We cannot continue to undermine our
    own democratic values on the world stage. The President's own
    officials agree. Ambassador Sondland testified, ``Let me State
    clearly, inviting a foreign government to undertake
    investigations for the purpose of influencing an upcoming U.S.
    election would be wrong.''
        Each of you sitting here today are responsible for
    protecting the integrity of, and public confidence in, our
    elections. So, I would like to hear from each of you in turn,
    yes or no, do you think it is appropriate for the President of
    the United States to ask a foreign government to investigate
    its political opponent in the 2020 elections. Mr. Masterson,
    yes or no.
        Mr. Masterson. No.
        Chairman Nadler. Ms. Floris?
        Ms. Floris. No, sir.
        Chairman Nadler. Mr. Hickey?
        Mr. Hickey. I am not going to comment on the President's
    activities, but we are committed to confronting violations of
    the law wherever we found them.
        Chairman Nadler. Do you think it is appropriate for a
    president, never mind this President, to ask for a foreign
    government to investigate opponents in an election?
        Mr. Hickey. I am focused on enforcing the criminal law.
        Chairman Nadler. You won't answer. Mr. Hovland?
        Mr. Hovland. No.
        Chairman Nadler. Thank you. The Mueller report concluded
    that, ``On approximately June 2016, the GRU, a Russian
    intelligence organization, compromised the computer network of
    the Illinois State Board of Elections,'' and ``gained access to
    a database containing information on millions of registered
    Illinois voters.'' The report confirms that the Russian hackers
    successfully breached the databases but failed to alter or
    delete voting records. Last month, I asked our expert witnesses
    about the possible impact on our elections if the Russians had
    been able to alter the database. Ms. Plunkett, former director
    of the National Security Council under Presidents Bush and
    Clinton, testified that altering those databases would have
    been ``devastating,'' including because tens of thousands of
    voters could have been turned away at the polls.
        Our intelligence communities have confirmed that the threat
    of this happening again is very real. The President, however,
    had made it harder for Federal agencies to do their job and
    keep our democratic processes safe. Indeed, the White House has
    intentionally cut your budget and cut your staff going into an
    election our intelligence community has confirmed is under the
    biggest threat that our Nation has seen. The inspector general
    reported that DHS' staff shortages are making it difficult for
    DHS to do its job.
        So, Mr. Masterson, let's say that in 2020 on Election Day,
    a county reports that its voter registration poll books seem
    incorrect, resulting in long lines and many voters being turned
    away, like what we saw in Durham. What is the specific plan for
    how DHS will ensure that it is immediately informed about any
    such issues on Election Day? What is the plan to remedy any
    such breach that occurs, and do you have sufficient staff to
    protect against these types of threats?
        Mr. Masterson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the question.
    That preparation begins long before Election Day with the work
    we are doing now with State and local election officials across
    the country. At its core, our work is to work with the election
    officials to build resilience. That is that ability to detect
    if there is an issue with the voter rolls, and then identify
    what the issues are and recover.
        So that is the purpose of items like our tabletop devote
    exercise, to work with those State and local election officials
    about when or if they identify that information, how they will
    communicate it both with the local election officials, State
    election officials in their jurisdiction, with the Federal
    Government, and what processes they and we have in place to
    respond. For instance, DHS has incident response capabilities
    both remotely and teams that can come and support election
    officials in anticipation of possible or in reporting of
    incidents.
        In addition, we are working with State and local election
    officials on preparations. For instance, having in place
    provisional ballot materials such that if there is an issue
    with the voter rolls on Election Day, they are prepared to
    administer provisional ballots broadly and ensure that every
    voter, while it may be messy, has the ability to cast their
    vote and know that their vote was counted as cast.
        Chairman Nadler. So, are you confident now that you have
    the funding and the ability so that should a county, a large
    county, let's say, in a key State is successfully hacked and
    the voter rolls are messed up, that you will be able to step in
    instantly and give whatever assistance is necessary, so we
    won't have a long post-election dispute over a couple hundred
    thousand votes not being properly cast?
        Mr. Masterson. I am confident that the level of funding,
    starting with the $33 million we got last year and the proposed
    funding now, allows us to maintain that level of support to
    ensure that election officials have what they need as they head
    into Election Day, yes.
        Chairman Nadler. Thank you very much. My time has expired.
    The gentleman from Ohio.
        Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have wasted so much
    time this year on a bogus Russian collusion allegation and on
    various messaging bills which are ultimately not going to go
    anywhere, that it is nice that we actually have the Departments
    of Justice, Homeland Security, the FBI, and the U.S. Election
    Assistance Commission before us to talk about a real issue, and
    that is protecting America's elections from foreign influence.
        There are various pieces of legislation that would, I
    believe, help better protect our elections in the future. For
    example, I am an original co-sponsor of H.R. 3442, which would
    deny entry into the United States any individual who interferes
    with our election. Let's hope that maybe this Committee could
    work together in a bipartisan fashion to make sure our
    elections are once again the gold standard, what the rest of
    the world looks to as how you do it, how you get it right. We
    generally have been that gold standard over the years, so we
    need to get back to that.
        Ms. Floris, let me begin with you, if I could. I will start
    by asking you a question that relates to H.R. 3442, the
    legislation that I just mentioned. What is the standard for
    determining what kind of content posted by a foreign agent or
    agents that rises to the level of being a foreign influence
    operation? Is there a certain type of verbiage or rhetoric that
    the FBI looks for, and do you think engaging in such behavior
    online should bar an individual from entering the United
    States?
        Mr. Hickey. Thank you, sir, for your question. So, I will
    start by saying that the FBI does not content or police
    information on the internet. That is certainly not our job and
    not something that we plan to get into. What we look at is
    actually known nefarious actors, so if we have identified a
    foreign actor who is participating in influence operations, and
    as part of those operations seeks to propagate this information
    or post derogatory content, that is of investigative interest
    to us. We absolutely do not start with content and work our way
    back.
        Mr. Chabot. Thank you. Mr. Hickey, would you agree with
    that, and is there anything you would like to elaborate on?
        Mr. Hickey. No, I think the DAD got it exactly right. We
    focus on known actors and tip the providers in a way that helps
    them make determinations under their terms of service.
        Mr. Chabot. Is there anything that the Department of
    Justice is doing to work with social media companies in advance
    of the 2020 elections?
        Mr. Hickey. Principally through the FITF, but we also
    support the FITF's efforts and sometimes accompany them in
    working with the providers.
        Mr. Chabot. Okay. Are there any other countries other than
    Russia that you have seen or that you believe is showing some
    interest in disrupting our elections in 2020 or in the future
    in general?
        Mr. Hickey. We have spoken and the IC has spoken about
    foreign influence activities, malign foreign influence
    activities from China, and we are certainly concerned about
    others. Of course, in our FARA enforcement, obviously we have
    seen actions by agents of other nations, like Turkey and
    Ukraine.
        Mr. Chabot. This is to any of the witnesses. What was your
    agency's role in securing the 2018 congressional midterm
    elections, and what specific efforts were made in that effort?
    Mr. Masterson?
        Mr. Masterson. Yeah, thank you, sir. Our role, as it is now
    in helping to secure the 2018 midterm elections, was to provide
    information sharing, support, and services to State and local
    officials to help them manage risk to their systems. So, we
    started by building those trusted relationships with those
    State election officials that are, I think, appropriately
    skeptical of a Federal role in elections and by providing
    value, right? That the information we provide, the services,
    help them identify and manage the risk to their systems.
        So, we are doubling down on those efforts for 2020 to reach
    those local election officials across the State, like Cheryl in
    Jackson County, Ohio. How do we get to her and get her the
    information sharing she needs to manage risk to her systems?
        Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much, and I am getting close to
    being out of time. Mr. Floris, let me ask you this. Would you
    agree that the FBI's reputation was significantly damaged by
    political bias against the President, President Trump
    specifically, that was exhibited by a number of top-level
    officials in your organization?
        Ms. Floris. Sir, I am not going to comment on any damage or
    lack of damage to our reputation. Thank you.
        Mr. Chabot. Okay. Well, it really was. People like Peter
    Strzok and others, I think, very much damaged it. It is unfair
    to the rest of the organization because the FBI is truly a
    great organization, one of the best in this Nation. Thank you
    very much. I yield back.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentleman yields back. Let me just say
    for the record that I think Peter Strzok acted in the highest
    traditions of government workers. The gentlelady from
    California.
        Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all
    the witnesses for not only your testimony, but your service to
    our country. It is recognized and appreciated. Just a note to
    the gentleman from Ohio. The bill that he has co-sponsored, and
    there are some variations on that theme about denying visas to
    those who are interfering in our elections, will be made part
    of the SHIELD Act through a manager's amendment. I just wanted
    him to know that, that we are taking that good idea and moving
    it forward.
        You know, the Mueller report describes evidence that the
    then Trump Campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, shared with a
    Russian operative, Kilimnik, the campaigns, and this is a quote
    from the report, ``strategy for winning Democratic votes in
    Midwestern States,'' and ``internal polling data of the
    campaign,'' which is I have always thought, what was going on
    there. Why the internal polling data to this Russian agent? Ms.
    Floris, I wouldn't ask you to comment on that particular item
    because that is a fact. Generically, why would a campaign's
    internal polling data and strategy for battleground States be
    helpful to someone who was seeking to impact our elections?
    Specifically, what could a hostile actor do to such information
    with any campaign if they got internal polling data?
        Ms. Floris. Thank you, ma'am, for that question. I will
    answer from a strategic perspective. When you look at countries
    like China, like Russia, they essentially take a whole of
    government approach when it comes to their foreign influence
    operations. They are not only looking at our Federal elected
    officials, but they are also looking at State and local elected
    officials as well because any one of those individuals can
    potentially influence policy moving forward.
        So, because they take this whole of government approach,
    any bit of information could help inform their decisions and
    how they move forward with their operations. So though on the
    surface it might not seem as a great benefit to them, rest
    assured that particularly China and Russia will use every tool
    in their toolbox to get information that they deem potentially
    as valuable.
        Ms. Lofgren. Now, you all are the FBI and government
    investigators. Each one of us, on both sides of the aisle, have
    been candidates, and one of the things we know is that you
    could do ads. If you were interested in polling data, you
    couldn't do a poll without being caught. So, the only way you
    would get his information was from a campaign that had actually
    legitimately done a poll.
        A report this month was released by the Senate Intelligence
    Committee on Russia interference in our elections, and it said
    that the Russian government used Facebook's geographic
    targeting features to channel advertisements to intended
    audiences in specific locations. And about 25 percent of the
    ads purchased by IRA were targeted down to the State, city, or,
    in some instances, university level. For example, in Michigan
    and Wisconsin, they were targeted with advertisements
    overwhelmingly focused on the subject of police brutality to
    move populations in one direction or another.
        Mr. Hickey, if a campaign made its internal information,
    such as polling data, readily available to a foreign government
    that then used it to target voters via social media, would that
    be something the Department of Justice would investigate, or is
    there no law on that that would allow or stimulate an
    investigation?
        Mr. Hickey. So, there are two basic categories of laws. One
    I know. One I am less an expert in. I don't know whether
    campaign finance, public corruption, fraud, or other statutes
    would apply. With respect to the national security statutes I
    am familiar with, they tend to focus on whether an American is
    acting as an agent of a foreign government, meaning under the
    direction or control of the foreign government. So, in the
    example you have posited, you would have to analyze whether the
    American is the reverse of that, whether they are directing and
    controlling or procuring something from the foreign government,
    in which they wouldn't be an agent of the foreign government.
        Ms. Lofgren. Well, I would just note that we will have an
    opportunity to, in the near future, to make this much clearer
    by approving the SHIELD Act, which would prohibit the sharing
    of internal data, campaign data, by an American campaign with
    agents of a foreign power so that you would have a very clear
    basis to proceed on that. I hope that we can get strong
    bipartisan support for that measure. With that, Mr. Chairman,
    my time has expired, and I yield back.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman
    from Arizona.
        Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would love to spend
    this time talking about election security. I think that is
    really critical. I think that I have prepared to ask those
    questions, but we come to these hearings, and it is impeachment
    all the time. That is what this is. We were told by Chairman
    about the impeachment inquiry, but here we sit. Well, if you
    want to ask the questions or want to mischaracterize the
    telephone conversations, you probably ought to go try to get
    down into the closed hearing downstairs. Well, you know what?
    You can't get in because I have tried to get in.
        So, when I hear Chairman open up with his opening statement
    about the Ukrainian phone call and suggest that the President
    asked President Zelensky to interfere in the 2020 election, I
    have read the transcript. It is out there. It for everybody to
    read. You can characterize it any way you want to, but I would
    suggest that that isn't the proper characterization. The
    telephone call itself mentioned CrowdStrike, Ukrainian
    interference in the 2016 election, and that was what President
    Trump was asking that President Zelensky look into. Now, when
    he mentions Biden, here is my question. We have got FBI here.
    We got DOJ there. So here is my question for you. Do you think
    that a person who has admitted criminal conduct should have
    immunity from investigation because that individual is a
    potential political opponent in an upcoming election? What do
    you think?
        Mr. Hickey. So, I think nations should follow facts and law
    where they lead in the course of criminal investigations
    honestly--
        Mr. Biggs. Regardless of whether they are a potential
    political candidate or not.
        Mr. Hickey. Regardless of status or without fear or favor.
        Mr. Biggs. Right. The other thing that we are subjected to
    in this Committee a lot is if I ask questions and Chairman
    doesn't like the responses or the statement I make, when I am
    done, he will offer his comment on it. That is why he said
    Peter Strzok represented the highest ideals or highest
    standards of the Agency. That is really unusual because
    normally if he wants to make that comment, he is going to ask
    somebody else to yield some time to him so he can rebut the
    comment that he disagreed with. That happens perpetually here
    because it is convenient. Got a mike. I am Chairman. I can do
    whatever I want. I would suggest to you that is merely an
    opinion with regard to Mr. Strzok because I think Mr. Strzok
    does exactly the opposite. His misconduct actually reflected
    poorly and has caused much division and heartache in this
    country. That is just the way it is.
        So, we have focused a lot on Russian interference in the
    2016 election, the malign foreign influence of the Russians.
    Are there other nation-states that engaged in 2016 and might
    engage in 2020 elections?
        Ms. Floris. So, sir, I will hit on the one big country that
    we are focused on as we roll into 2020 outside of Russia, and
    that is certainly China. Make no mistake, China is aggressively
    pursuing foreign influence operations. They do a bit of a
    different tactic than the Russians. They certainly prefer a
    face-to-face interaction. They use economic levers. Their end
    goal is really to cede us as a global economy superpower. So,
    as we roll into 2020, though Russia was certainly a threat in
    2016, 2018, and will continue to be so in 2020, we are also
    aggressively looking at China as well.
        Mr. Biggs. Did you see other states in 2016 besides China
    and Russia involved?
        Ms. Floris. I would refer back to the ICA, sir, that was
    released after 2016, I believe in 2017.
        Mr. Biggs. In fact, in the 2018 midterm elections, DOJ and
    DHS found that there was no evidence to date that any
    identified activities of a foreign government or foreign agent
    had a material impact on the integrity or security of election
    infrastructure or political campaign infrastructure used in the
    2018 midterm elections. That goes to what you said, Ms. Floris,
    when you said there was no hard evidence that any number of
    votes were actually changed through the system. Mr. Hovland, I
    have seen your biography. You previously worked on voter
    registration list maintenance in Missouri. Can you tell me a
    little bit about the importance of States maintaining lists
    that are up to date?
        Mr. Hovland. Absolutely. Thank you for the question, sir.
    So, the National Voter Registration Act, or NVRA, sets out a
    process for voter list maintenance, and that ensures that
    individuals are able to get registered, but when someone is no
    longer in a jurisdiction, it gives them the proper way to clean
    those rolls. Frankly, having clean rolls allows jurisdictions
    to save money and ensures that the right people are where they
    need to be.
        Mr. Biggs. My time has expired.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentleman yields back. The gentlelady
    from Texas is recognized.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank Chairman and Ranking Member for
    this hearing, and I thank all the witnesses for your service to
    the Nation. Let me ask the question for each of you, please.
    How confident are you that we will have an impeccable, safe,
    and secure election in 2020 from the work that you have now
    done on the Federal level? Mr. Masterson? Without intrusion
    from foreign operatives. Mr. Masterson?
        Mr. Masterson. Thank you for the question, ma'am. Anyone
    that has run an election could tell you there is no such thing
    as an impeccable election, right? The goal is absolutely to
    build resilience, and I am confident that the 2018 election was
    more secure and resilient than 2016, and 2020 will certainly be
    more secure and resilient thanks to the hard work of the State
    and local election officials, the private sector that is
    working with them, and our work with them.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The rest of you, yes or no, and one
    sentence. Ms. Floris? Thank you.
        Ms. Floris. I am confident that we are throwing every tool
    we have against the threat to our election security.
        Mr. Hickey. Agree.
        Mr. Hovland. I would echo Mr. Masterson's sentiment and say
    that traveling around the country, it is amazing to see the
    hard work that State and local election officials are doing to
    address this issue.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. None of you have said, even though I
    appreciate Mr. Masterson's comment about we cannot have an
    impeccable election. I think the American people are owed an
    impeccable election, to be very honest with you. So, I will
    follow up my line of questioning about how secure are we and
    proceed to raise the question with Mr. Hickey. In light of the
    fact that there seems to be some loophole in how secure it is
    going to be, what is the approach of the DOJ in prosecuting and
    being proactive for what intrusions may occur in the 2020
    election?
        Mr. Hickey. We will be very proactive, ma'am. I think one
    of the most important lessons coming out of 2016 and to the
    present is how we handle information that a State or a campaign
    may be targeted and getting what we will call victim
    notifications to the right people and following up. I think we
    are in a better position now than we were in 2016, both as a
    matter of policy and our sensitivity to the importance of that.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Do you have a sufficient number of
    lawyers, DOJ prosecutors, and resources to be ready for the
    massiveness of the 2020 presidential election and other Federal
    elections?
        Mr. Hickey. I think we are well positioned. I also think
    the budget for 2020 includes additional resources for the
    sections I supervise that will improve our standing in that
    regard.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I want to congratulate Congresswoman
    Lofgren for the work of her Committee on the question of
    shielding us from this kind of intrusion and congratulate her
    for including my legislation that Mr. Johnson and I introduced
    in April this year, H.R. 2353. The language in particular says
    if a candidate or any individual affiliated with a campaign of
    a candidate knowingly receives an offer for assistance with the
    campaign from a source the candidate or individual knows is a
    foreign power or an agent of a foreign power, the candidate or
    individual shall refuse the offer for such assistance and
    notify the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the offer not
    later than 72 hours after receiving the offer. Ms. Floris, if
    this legislation passed, but really its intent, should be acted
    upon by the FBI. What infrastructure do you have to ensure a
    response to any reporting of this kind of activity?
        Ms. Floris. Thank you, ma'am, for the question. The FBI
    becomes interested in foreign influence activity, again, when
    it hits those four categories I spoke about in the beginning:
    The subversive nature of it, the undeclared nature of it, the
    coercive and criminal nature of it. The FBI will respond as we
    do in any investigation with the full might of not only the
    Foreign Influence Task Force, but the, you know, hundreds of
    agents and analysts out in all our 56 field offices who are
    working the foreign influence threat day in and day out. We
    will use all the tools we have in our toolbox as we do--
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Do you have on enough staff? Have you
    ramped up your staff for the 2020 election? Do you have enough
    funding for staff to deal with the potential of this reporting?
        Ms. Floris. Ma'am, we can always use more resources, but
    rest assured we are putting everything we can against this
    threat and facing it with absolute determination.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Masterson, I sit on the Homeland
    Security Committee, so we appreciate the deep dive that you all
    have taken. So, give me an understanding of how you have as a
    priority efficiently sharing actionable intelligence in
    identifying threats. How have you ramped up that very important
    part of your work?
        Mr. Masterson. Yeah, absolutely. I would highlight two
    areas, ma'am. The first is the buildout of the election
    Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center. This is
    the hub of information sharing that we use to reach State and
    local officials. We have all 50 States and the territories as
    Members of the IISAC as well as over 2,100 local election
    officials. So, this ensures that actionable, timely information
    is reaching the field so that they can take the steps they need
    to manage risk to their systems.
        The second is our continued push with the intelligence
    community to provide clearances and classified briefings,
    whether through secure video teleconferences or in person, as
    well as working with private sector threat intelligence
    authorities. So, we have worked with private sector companies
    to provide briefings to State and local election officials
    about what they are seeing out internationally to help them
    manage risk to the system. So, we are exploring all avenues
    trying to find efficient ways to get this information to the
    election officials.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. I yield back.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentlelady yields back. The gentlelady
    from Arizona.
        Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My first question is
    for Ms. Floris. Does anyone at the Foreign Influence Task Force
    draft FISA affidavits or applications?
        Ms. Floris. No, ma'am.
        Mrs. Lesko. Looking back at the FBI's activities
    investigating the 2016 election, it has been reported that FBI
    never obtained the original servers from the Democratic
    National Committee that had allegedly been hacked by Russia,
    instead relying on imaged copies. First, is that correct?
        Ms. Floris. Ma'am, I can't speak to that. I am sorry.
        Mrs. Lesko. Can someone else on the panel speak to that?
        Mr. Hickey. Yes, ma'am. We got the information that we
    required for our investigation, and it is pretty common for us
    to work with a security vendor in connection with an
    investigation of a computer intrusion.
        Mrs. Lesko. So, can either one of you answer, does the
    DNC's cybersecurity consultant, CrowdStrike, still have
    possession of the Clinton servers?
        Mr. Hickey. I don't know what they have possession of now.
        Mrs. Lesko. Does anyone on the panel know?
        [No response.]
        Mrs. Lesko. All right. My next question is for Mr. Hickey,
    and I know that Mr. Chabot asked you what other countries have
    shown an interest in disrupting the 2020 election, but what
    other countries had shown an interest or tried to interfere in
    the 2016 election?
        Mr. Hickey. Based on what I have read, both from what the
    IC has put out and also investigations by Congress, what I have
    seen only refers to Russia that I am aware of.
        Mrs. Lesko. Then earlier, there was a question by Chairman
    Nadler, and I want to clarify what you think, if you think it
    is appropriate for a President of the United States to ask a
    foreign government to investigate previous election
    interference, and I guess I would like all of you to answer
    that question.
        Mr. Masterson. Can you repeat the question, ma'am? I am
    sorry.
        Mrs. Lesko. Do you think it is appropriate for the
    President to ask a foreign government to investigate previous
    election interference if there was election interference going
    on? To ask if there is anything he thinks was unlawful going on
    in other countries, to ask the other country to help to
    determine if there was something unlawful happening?
        Mr. Masterson. I think it is appropriate to understand any
    attempts at interference in our elections so that we can
    continue to work to build resilience in the process.
        Ms. Floris. The FBI is interested in any criminal violation
    as relates to foreign influence, so long as there is that
    foreign angle to the foreign influence operations.
        Mrs. Lesko. Thank you.
        Mr. Hickey. I will give the same answer I gave before,
    which is I don't opine on appropriateness, per se, but I am
    focused on enforcing the criminal law.
        Mr. Hovland. I think it is important to understand what
    occurred with our election so that election officials have the
    information they need to prepare for future elections.
        Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, and I yield back my time.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman
    from Tenessee?
        Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        This is a question to anybody on the panel that has an
    answer. In 2016, I understand there were reports that I think
    were sound that Russia tried to interfere with a lot of State
    election rolls, maybe all of them. Anybody here aware of those
    reports?
        Mr. Masterson, you seem to be first to go to bat, sir.
        Mr. Masterson. Probably foolishly, sir. Thank you.
        Yes. The DHS, in coordination with the FBI, released an
    information product out to State and local election officials
    that stated that based on the information we have as far as the
    activity in 2016, that the pattern of behavior is likely that
    the Russian government--or Russian actors conducted at least
    research on election entities across all 50 States. That
    doesn't necessarily mean that they attempted to access the
    systems. It could be as simple as a Google search to understand
    who runs elections in that State.
        Based on the information that we and the intelligence
    community have, that it is assumed that they were at least
    researching all 50 States' election systems.
        Mr. Cohen. Why would they have done that?
        Mr. Masterson. Presumably--I don't want to speculate, but
    presumably, just to understand how elections are run across the
    United States.
        Mr. Cohen. Spring training?
        Mr. Masterson. To gather information.
        Mr. Cohen. Kind of spring training?
        Mr. Masterson. Yes.
        Mr. Cohen. Yes, something like that. Anybody else have
    knowledge of that, have any other thoughts about it? No?
        [No response.]
        Mr. Cohen. How about Florida? Was there not reports that
    two different jurisdictions' voting systems were contacted by
    the Russians? Mr. Hickey?
        Mr. Hickey. So, I think we have briefed Florida officials
    on activity targeting systems and leading successful intrusions
    in two counties. I think it is important to be clear we have
    also reached the conclusion that there was no material impact
    on registration or vote counting, based on the evidence that we
    have seen. So, I think it is clear--important to be clear about
    that.
        Mr. Cohen. Based on what happened in 2016 and based on what
    Mr. Mueller told us that the Russians at the time he testified
    were looking into effect being involved in our 2020 elections,
    are you confident that giving our funds directly to States,
    that they will use them to work against Russian cyber
    interference and protect those State systems?
        Mr. Hovland. I am happy to talk about that. So, at the EAC,
    we distributed the $380 million from fiscal year 2018, and as I
    mentioned in my opening statement, it appears that the vast
    majority of that will be spent. We have seen over 90 percent of
    that going toward improving security, again whether that is
    replacing outdated equipment, hardening systems, implementing
    audits. The States have done a number of things, but because of
    the variations in how elections are administered State to
    State, there have been different priorities.
        Mr. Cohen. Mr. Masterson?
        Mr. Masterson. Sir, just briefly on that, we worked with
    our Government Coordinating Council, which has 24 State and
    local election officials as a member, to identify priorities
    for that funding. What we have seen is States have taken that
    information, which is databased on our work with the States on
    where risks lie and used it to apply. I will give you a very
    specific example.
        Prior to the 2018 election, the State of Wisconsin deployed
    two-factor authentication out to all its local election
    officials for the statewide voter registration database, which
    may seem unremark-able until you realize they have 1,800 local
    election jurisdictions in the State of Wisconsin and almost
    3,200 users of the statewide voter registration database. So
    that is a very focused, targeted step, base level, that they
    have taken and used the money.
        Mr. Cohen. Let me ask you this, Mr. Masterson. Director
    Krebs has emphasized the importance of protecting the campaigns
    based on what happened in 2016 with interference with the DNC,
    the Clinton campaign stolen emails, et cetera. He said shame on
    us if we are not ready this time around.
        Have you consulted with the President, or anyone involved
    in his re-election campaign?
        Mr. Masterson. Sir, we have contacted not just the Trump
    campaign, but campaigns across the Presidential election--
    presidential campaigns to make sure that they are aware of our
    services and information-sharing responsibility.
        Mr. Cohen. So, Mr. Mulvaney did not contact you, as he did
    your superior, and say this is a very sensitive subject for the
    President, don't mention it, or dance around it, or whatever?
        Mr. Masterson. No, sir.
        Mr. Cohen. Okay. Ollie, Ollie, in free. That is great.
        I want to thank the FBI and the Justice Department as well.
    You all are stalwarts in the American system of government and
    the Rule of law, and I would have to disagree with some
    previous statements made that some individuals within your
    organizations were responsible for hurting your organizations.
    I think that an individual who is the President of the United
    States was the one that caused it by questioning those people's
    actions and making statements that were adverse to both the FBI
    and the Justice Department, which we should uphold.
        I yield back the balance of my time.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman
    from Florida?
        Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I wish this were truly were a sincere hearing on election
    security. If it were, we might be marking up some of the
    bipartisan legislation that Members of the Committee have
    worked on, including House Resolution 3529 by Congresswoman
    Murphy, Mr. Deutch, Ms. Mucarsel-Powell, myself, to have
    greater connectivity prior to any intrusion, or we might be
    marking up the legislation by Mr. Ratcliffe, Mr. Himes, joined
    by Mr. Collins and Mr. Khanna, 3238, that would create greater
    consequence for those who engage in election interference. That
    is not what this is about.
        This is about smearing the President of the United States
    and validating the corrupt people who have been involved in
    delegitimizing his historic election. We know that because just
    moments ago, Chairman said that Peter Strzok was acting in the
    highest traditions of Government service.
        Now, Ms. Floris, I believe you currently hold the job that
    Mr. Strzok once held. Is engaging in an extramarital affair in
    the FBI with a coworker acting in the highest traditions of
    Government service?
        Ms. Floris. I am not going to comment on that, sir.
        Mr. Gaetz. Well, are there any regulations in the FBI
    against it that you are aware of?
        Ms. Floris. I am not going to comment on that, sir.
        Mr. Gaetz. Well, you hold Mr. Strzok's job. Are you saying
    that you don't know whether or not it is against FBI policy to
    have an extramarital affair with a coworker?
        Ms. Floris. Sir, I hold a slightly different job than Mr.
    Strzok held. I am the DAD over the Intelligence Branch. He was
    over our Operational Branch, not that we are held to a
    different standard. I am just not going to comment on whether
    or not Peter Strzok's behavior was out of conduct.
        Mr. Gaetz. Well, is it in the highest traditions of
    Government service at the FBI to engage in affairs with
    coworkers? You should know that if you work there.
        Ms. Floris. Sir, I am not going to comment on that.
        Mr. Gaetz. Wow. Well, maybe I will ask you another one. The
    Inspector General said in his report, ``We do not have
    confidence that Strzok's decision to prioritize the Russian
    investigation over following up on the midyear-related
    investigation.'' So, if the Inspector General didn't have
    confidence in the way that someone prioritized something, would
    that be acting in the highest traditions of Government service?
        Ms. Floris. Sir, I am not going to comment on that.
        Mr. Gaetz. The Inspector General further said, ``The OIG
    found it is not only indicative of a biased State of mind but,
    even more suspiciously, implies a willingness to take action to
    impact a presidential candidate's electoral process. This is
    antithetical to the core values of the FBI and the Department
    of Justice.''
        If someone, anyone, is engaging in behavior that is
    antithetical to the core values of the FBI and Department of
    Justice, is that person acting in the highest traditions of
    Government service?
        Ms. Floris. Sir, we have an entire Inspection Division. We
    have the OIG. There are several measures in place that take
    into account those questions. I am not going to answer those
    questions from the position I am in.
        Mr. Gaetz. It is just really striking that someone in the
    senior leadership at the FBI, like an unwillingness to be
    critical of conduct that was so detrimental to our country. And
    as people all over America are looking at the corruption that
    negatively impacted our President and the institution of the
    presidency, it doesn't really inspire confidence that current
    officials from the FBI say, hey, you know what? It is a bad
    idea to be having affairs with your colleagues and to be
    undermining the trust that people have and to be prioritizing
    investigations over politics. Nonetheless, here we sit.
        In fact, here we do sit. It was more than a month ago, Mr.
    Chairman, that you announced an impeachment inquiry in this
    committee. I believed you that our Committee would be engaged
    in that process. As we sit here today, three other committees
    are in the basement of the Capitol conducting secret
    interviews, engaging in selective leaks.
        We have got Chairman Schiff then coming out and having his
    theatrical reperformances of transcripts that didn't really
    occur, and you have got lies about contacts with
    whistleblowers.
        Now regardless of how people feel about the President or
    this impeachment, one would at least think that if Chairman of
    the Judiciary Committee announces the launch of an impeachment
    investigation, that Members of the Judiciary Committee might be
    willing to--or able to participate in that investigation. When
    I have gone to participate, Mr. Biggs has gone to participate,
    and others have gone, we have been locked out.
        So, it is my sincere hope, and I asked this the last time
    we gathered, that you would take up the cause not just of
    someone's partisan ambition to impeach the President, but that
    you would take up the cause of our Committee and advocate for
    our ability to participate. Because one can only suspect that
    the reason that the House Judiciary Committee has been dealt
    out of the hand on impeachment is because Speaker Pelosi didn't
    like the outcomes that were going on in this Committee when the
    current chairman was running it.
        I mean, it wasn't a surprise to the country when you
    brought in Mr. Lewandowski. House Democrats looked like a dog
    that caught a car and didn't know what to do with it. When
    House Democrats brought in Robert Mueller, there were promises
    that this was going to sway the public, this was going to
    create a flood of support for impeachment. That was obviously
    something that didn't hold to bear.
        So please stand up for our Committee and let us stop with
    this busywork. If we want to markup bills, let us markup real
    bills.
        I yield back.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentleman yields back. The gentlelady
    from Washington?
        Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I thank our witnesses for being here today. I would hardly
    call this ``busywork'' to protect our elections. So, I wish our
    colleagues on the other side would be as concerned with
    election security.
        Back in July, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
    released its bipartisan report on Russian interference in our
    2016 elections. Senate Intel found that ``Russian government-
    affiliated cyber actors conducted an unprecedented level of
    activity against State election infrastructure in the run-up to
    the 2016 U.S. elections.''
        They called for sweeping action to protect our 2020
    elections. With Election Day just 378 days away, it is crucial
    that we move quickly.
        So, my questions. All of you are responsible for various
    aspects of protecting our elections, and you are no doubt aware
    that a significant concern of securing our elections is that
    foreign actors will attack election reporting or the results of
    elections. Take the following hypothetical.
        Florida reports that candidate X won after counting the
    votes. The next morning, Florida election officials report that
    the results were tampered with, and, in fact, candidate Y won.
        What is being done at the Federal level to, first, prevent
    attacks on our election results, and second, if such an attack
    occurs, to ensure public confidence in the reporting of our
    elections?
        Mr. Masterson, let us start with you and then move to
    Floris, Hickey, and Hovland, please.
        Mr. Masterson. Yes, thank you, ma'am.
        Certainly, election night reporting systems, which are the
    ones you are referencing, are an area that we have worked with
    State and local election officials to secure, to understand
    risk to. The first and most important thing to understand that
    all the folks on the Committee here understand is that election
    night results are, in fact, unofficial results, that there is a
    canvas process that goes on after Election Day. So, ensuring
    that voters have that information, understand the unofficial
    nature of results, and that there is an entire reconciliation
    process that election officials undergo following election
    night to ensure the correctness.
        The second is a top priority for us, and that is working
    with election officials to have auditability of the results and
    to ensure efficient and effective auditing of those results.
    That is absolutely critical to ensure not just the loser that
    they won or lost, but also to reassure the public that their
    vote was counted as cast.
        So that is two areas of high priority for us working with
    State and local election officials to empower them to talk to
    their voters about the steps they are taking both to protect
    those systems, but to really offer reassurance and transparency
    on the back end. I know election officials take that very
    seriously.
        Ms. Jayapal. Does anybody want to add anything?
        Mr. Hickey. I would just add that in the circumstance where
    we know or have indications that a State is being targeted, it
    is really important that we get to State officials at the right
    level and with a sense of urgency so they can do whatever they
    can to mitigate on their systems.
        Ms. Jayapal. Mr. Hovland?
        Mr. Hovland. I would echo what Mr. Masterson said and add
    that at the Election Assistance Commission, part of the work
    that we have done is host IT trainings for election officials,
    which is relevant to this topic, work with them on improving
    audit processes, and certainly think that the issue you raise
    is one of real concern.
        There are a number of responsibilities that election
    officials have, and I believe that the Election Assistance
    Commission should be more empowered to work on those, but the
    reality, as I mentioned in my opening statement, is that we are
    a $7.95 million agency. We have one lawyer. We have one
    financial person.
        Since its inception, the Election Assistance Commission has
    been kicked around like a political football, and we have never
    been empowered or funded in a way to actually help election
    officials in the way we can. I think that right now in this
    time, we see the need for the Federal clearinghouse that the
    EAC was created to be, and I would just ask you all to help
    make that possible.
        Thank you.
        Ms. Jayapal. Thank you.
        Mr. Masterson, as a senior cybersecurity adviser, how have
    you engaged with local, State, and national media outlets to
    ensure that unofficial vote reporting is protected from
    malicious interference? What media networks specifically have
    you met with, and have any refused to meet with you? What new
    measures are you taking in 2020 that weren't applied in 2016
    and 2018?
        Mr. Masterson. Yes, thank you, ma'am, for the question.
        The first is that the Associated Press, the team that
    handles the election night results for the AP on election
    night, is a member of our Sector Coordinating Council, which is
    the private sector council that we work with on providing
    support and services, information sharing. So, AP has been an
    active participant in that coordinating council to understand
    threat and risk, steps that they could take to secure their
    results reporting, and I know is taking that very seriously.
        Secondly is we held a tabletop exercise with Members in the
    national media prior to the 2018 election to talk about what
    are scenarios that could play out, how is information being
    exchanged not just with State and local officials, but social
    media companies, the political parties, and others to ensure
    that media have access to the information they need before they
    report on results or other items.
        Heading into 2020, we anticipate engaging media outlets
    individually and then having the tabletop exercise again
    heading into the 2020 election to work through those scenarios
    and ensure they have the information they need.
        Ms. Jayapal. Thank you very much. Yield back.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman
    from Virginia?
        Mr. Cline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I want to thank the witnesses for being here. I, too, am
    concerned about foreign interference in our elections and have
    cosponsored the Ranking Member's bill, H.R. 3442, which would
    amend the Immigration Act to provide the aliens who have
    engaged in improper interference in a U.S. elections are
    inadmissible to and deportable from the U.S., and I also
    cosponsored 3238, Mr. Ratcliffe's bill, which would prohibit
    interference with voting systems in the Computer Fraud and
    Abuse Act.
        I want to go ahead and ask Ms. Floris, in your testimony,
    you say that we do know that our adversaries are actively
    trying to influence public opinion and electoral processes in
    advance of the 2020 election. You have mentioned in your
    testimony influencing public opinion through various social
    media activity. What electoral processes, what efforts to
    interfere with electoral processes are you aware of at this
    time?
        Ms. Floris. So, sir, thank you for the question.
        As we roll into 2020, the one thing I want to highlight is
    that countries like Russia and China, they pose a pervasive and
    persistent threat. It is not just based on the electoral cycle.
    Their foreign influence operations are essentially always
    present.
        When it comes to the electoral process, you could look at
    something as voter suppression. The whole concept of pushing
    out false information, of highlighting places to vote that are
    actually not true, this whole concept of disinformation that we
    have really seen the Russians focus on, that, in and of itself,
    can interfere with the electoral process.
        Mr. Cline. Okay. Nothing to the extent of actively trying
    to hack into or interfere with the electoral system?
        Ms. Floris. To date, sir, we have not seen anything
    specific regarding hacking into the electoral systems of the
    2020 election.
        Mr. Cline. All right. Thank you. I am going to yield the
    remainder of my time to Mr. Gaetz.
        Mr. Gaetz. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
        Mr. Chairman, I have a series of unanimous consent requests
    that set up my question. The first is a request that it be
    entered into the record an email from Nellie Ohr to Bruce Ohr
    on the 30th of May, entitled ``Reported Trove of Documents on
    Ukrainian Party of Regions' Black Cash Box.''
        Chairman Nadler. Without objection.
        [The information follows:]

                       MR. GAETZ FOR THE OFFICIAL RECORD

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

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Gaetz. I also seek unanimous consent to enter into the
    record a New York Times article, December 12, 2018, ``Ukrainian
    Court Rules Manafort Disclosure Caused `Meddling' in U.S.
    Election.''
        Chairman Nadler. Without objection.
        [The information follows:]

                       MR. GAETZ FOR THE OFFICIAL RECORD

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

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Gaetz. Finally, also from December 12, 2018, from the
    Kiev Post, ``Update: Publication of Manafort Payments Violated
    Law, Interfered in U.S. Election, Kiev Court Rules.''
        Chairman Nadler. Without objection.
        [The information follows:]

                       MR. GAETZ FOR THE OFFICIAL RECORD

    =======================================================================\

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        So, what is happening is that DNC pays a law firm to hire
    Fusian GPS, which hires Nellie Ohr. Nellie Ohr then sends an
    email to her husband about issues with Manafort and the
    Ukraine. That then works its way into the U.S. election
    dynamic, and a court in Kiev ruled that the activities to
    disclose the Manafort activities in the United States proximate
    to the 2016 election constituted election interference and was
    illegal under Ukrainian law.
        Is there anyone on the panel who has a reason to disagree
    with the conclusion of the Ukrainian court that that
    constituted election meddling?
        [No response.]
        Mr. Gaetz. Okay. So, no one has reacted, any basis to
    disagree with the Ukrainian court, and the record can reflect
    that.
        So, my question to Ms. Floris is what are we doing as a
    government to prevent future election meddling like that which
    Ukraine engaged in, where information was disclosed in the
    United States unlawfully in the foreign jurisdiction and then
    entered into the bloodstream of our politics?
        Ms. Floris. Thank you, sir, for the question.
        So, I will harken back to what I said previously. So, the
    FBI certainly is not in a position to police content on the
    Internet. That being said, if the FBI can identify a foreign
    actor, regardless of country, who is trying to push out
    disinformation with the end goal of sowing discord, disrupting
    our electoral process, and it is done in some sort of a
    subversive or undeclared or criminal manner, that is where it
    becomes an investigative interest to the FBI.
        The trick, sir, is identifying that known foreign actor.
    Again, we can't work back from content. We cannot police
    content on the Internet. So, if we find that foreign actor
    behaving in foreign influence operations and part of that
    operation entails disinformation, the FBI will work with the
    social media providers to provide as much actual intelligence
    as we possibly can.
        Mr. Gaetz. So, in this case, it looks like we must know the
    actor because a court ruled that the disclosure of the
    information was illegal. So, is there anything that the FBI is
    doing now to follow up on the decision by a Ukrainian court
    that there was illegal election meddling in the United States
    that emanated from the Ukraine?
        Ms. Floris. Sir, I can't address anything related to the
    possibility or existence or non-existence of an FBI
    investigation.
        Mr. Gaetz. It would seem, I think that my colleague from
    Washington, Ms. Jayapal, said with so few days between now and
    the upcoming election, it is just--I know you can't comment
    maybe on this setting, but I hope sincerely that this Ukrainian
    election meddling is being identified and being pursued by our
    government.
        I yield back.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman
    from Florida, Mr. Deutch?
        Mr. Deutch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for holding
    today's hearing. Thanks to the witnesses for being here.
        We know that Russians interfered in our 2016 election. We
    know that national security experts have warned that they will
    do it again in 2020. The 2020 primaries are fast approaching.
    So, we are running short on time to ensure that every State is
    taking the necessary action to harden our election defenses,
    guard against disinformation, and improve election
    Administration generally.
        Florida was one of fewer than 20 States that still had
    elections with electronic machines without a paper trail to
    verify the ballots in 2016. Thankfully, our State is moving in
    the right direction. Between 2016 and 2018, the number of
    counties who had paperless elections dropped from 24 to 4, with
    efforts to move completely to paper-verified systems underway.
        Now after learning that some of our systems were hacked in
    2016, Floridians expect a strong response to bolster election
    security, and we expect that whatever is done will improve
    coordination with State and counties targeted by foreign
    governments and other bad actors.
        According to the Mueller report, the Russian military
    intelligence agency was able to gain access to the network of
    at least one Florida county government. Subsequently, Members
    of our congressional delegation requested a briefing from law
    enforcement agencies and were informed that the networks of at
    least two Florida counties have been compromised.
        Most recently, a report by the Republican-led Senate
    Intelligence Committee suggests that as many as four Florida
    counties may have been successfully attacked. Apparently, no
    tabulation systems were accessed, only registration rolls.
    Whatever the number of counties impacted, we have got to learn
    the lessons of 2016 and guard against these vulnerabilities
    before next year's elections. Florida clearly has work that it
    needs to do, from hardening election systems to improving
    auditing procedures, but we can't do it alone.
        Mr. Masterson, certain breaches in 2016 were not
    immediately detected. What signs should election officials look
    for? What should they be trained to look for on Election Day to
    ensure that there are no undetected attacks, and how are you
    working with State officials to train them to detect such
    signs?
        Mr. Masterson. Yes, thank you for the question, sir.
        It starts long before Election Day so that you may be
    looking for those signs on Election Day, and I will talk about
    our activity there, but there are indicators that election
    officials are aware of and can be attuned to. For instance, in
    the States that offer early voting, you may begin to see signs
    of provisional ballots or registration roll activity that is
    anomalous. The ability to detect that and investigate the
    registration rolls to see if there is any kind of anomalies
    there is important.
        So, there are early indicators that can be gained through
    something like early voting. In addition, and your home State
    of Florida is a perfect example, the deployment of our Albert
    intrusion detection sensors across all 50 States' election
    infrastructure allows for real-time alerting to not just the
    election official, but to our Elections Information Sharing and
    Analysis Center regarding possible malicious activity targeting
    election infrastructure.
        I would note in the State of Florida, Florida was the first
    State to deploy those Albert sensors across all county
    governments, and so Florida is uniquely positioned for that
    kind of intrusion detection and alerting.
        In addition, having that auditability in place that you
    mentioned, those auditable records. I think in Florida, there
    was less than 100 ballots cast in 2018 on auditable systems,
    and a drive towards complete auditability by 2020 is really
    critically important so that we can detect and recover from
    this.
        Mr. Deutch. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Masterson.
        In our hearing on election security last month, the
    witnesses stressed the importance of treating elections as
    ``interconnected systems.'' We heard that any digital device
    that touches election processes must be safeguarded. Device
    security management should be centralized and streamlined.
        So, I would like to hear from each of the witnesses what
    your organization is doing to help centralize and streamline
    the election security process. Mr. Hovland, we will start with
    you.
        Mr. Hovland. Yes. So, essentially, at the Election
    Assistance Commission, we are participating in the Government
    Coordinating Council. We consistently work to put out best
    practices. Again, our capacity beyond our statutory
    requirements is very limited.
        As we have the World Series coming to Washington, I would
    note that if we were a Major League Baseball player, we would
    be the 173rd highest-played player. We would be a middle
    reliever. We have no lack of ambition to take on these
    challenges and help, but we need the resources to do it.
        Mr. Deutch. Appreciate the World Series reference. Mr.
    Hickey?
        Mr. Hickey. Sir, I am going to answer a bit by analogy. We
    have a number of department components that touch election
    security. We have got FBI agents in the field and at
    headquarters. We have got prosecutors in the field. We have got
    public corruption prosecutors. We have got national security
    prosecutors. We have got computer crime prosecutors.
        All of them potentially touch this issue, and so it is on
    us to train them, so they are aware of each other and
    coordinated, and that is what we are doing this week. At the
    end of the week--rather, on the end of the month, the FBI is
    pulling together an all hands meeting with agents from around
    the country to train them, including on how to react and relate
    to State officials when it comes to victim notification.
        Mr. Deutch. Ms. Floris?
        Ms. Floris. Sir, thank you for your question.
        I would just stress again the creation of the Foreign
    Influence Task Force, whose purpose was to do just what you
    asked, sir, to coordinate the efforts across the enterprise as
    it relates to election security. We have got elections crimes
    coordinators across all 56 of our field offices whose primary
    goal is to interact with State and local election officials,
    leading up to the day of the election.
        We have got our cyber task forces across all 56 of our
    field offices, and we are working to increase our CI task
    forces as well. Again, the Foreign Influence Task Force really
    is that hub that brings all that effort together, again leading
    up to, during, and after the election.
        Mr. Deutch. Thanks. Mr. Chairman, can Mr. Masterson just
    quickly answer that question?
        Chairman Nadler. The gentleman may answer the question.
        Mr. Masterson. Yes, thank you for the question, sir.
        Across CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security
    Agency, over a third of our employees in 2018 engaged in
    election security work across the United States. We have field
    representatives, protective security advisers, cybersecurity
    advisers engaging directly with State and local election
    officials. Then my team, the Election Security Initiative, is
    the hub of that information.
        So, as we get reporting, as we get requests for services,
    we are able to quickly and efficiently serve the needs of the
    community in order to make sure they have the information or
    services to help to manage risk to their systems.
        Mr. Deutch. Okay. Thanks for what you all do. Mr. Hovland,
    I hope we have a chance to talk about what additional resources
    would mean in this effort.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman
    from Texas?
        Mr. Gohmert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and appreciate the
    witnesses being here today.
        Ms. Floris, so did you replace Peter Strzok as Deputy
    Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Division?
        Ms. Floris. Sir, there are three Deputy Assistant Directors
    in the Counterintelligence Division. My particular role is over
    the Intelligence Branch. Mr. Strzok was not over the
    Intelligence Branch. He was over one of our two operational
    branches within the division.
        Mr. Gohmert. He was the one that was briefed by the intel
    community IG about Hillary Clinton's private server potentially
    being hacked. Do you know why you were not included in that
    briefing?
        Ms. Floris. Yes, sir. I did not enter this position until
    the fall of 2018. During the 2016 timeframe, I was in the
    Counterterrorism Division.
        Mr. Gohmert. Okay. So, you came into your current position
    after Peter Strzok left?
        Ms. Floris. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Gohmert. Well, since the Foreign Influence Task Force
    is a headquarters component, I am concerned that Peter Strzok
    ran two of the biggest cases in FBI history as headquarters
    special cases rather than the traditional way of running cases
    through field offices. Is the Foreign Influence Task Force
    running election cases from headquarters now?
        Ms. Floris. No, sir.
        Mr. Gohmert. Then can you tell us the reason they were
    doing so when Peter Strzok was there?
        Ms. Floris. Sir, I cannot speak to why things were done or
    not done during Peter Strzok's time. I can just speak to
    currently what we are doing in the Foreign Influence Task
    Force, which is essentially program managing the cases across
    our 56 field offices.
        Mr. Gohmert. Well, I would think that since there is such a
    big deal about influence peddling in 2016, even though you came
    in after that, that you would be a little bit concerned about
    the influence peddling when Peter Strzok was there. Are you
    not? Have you not looked into that at all in your current
    position?
        Ms. Floris. Sir, my focus is on the 2020 elections and
    moving forward. The creation of the Foreign Influence Task
    Force happened in the fall of 2017. We are laser focused on the
    elections moving forward.
        Mr. Gohmert. So, you don't think there is anything to be
    learned from looking at what occurred in the 2016 election to
    help you prepare for what is going on and could go on in the
    2020 election? Really, you don't think there is anything to
    learn from history?
        Ms. Floris. Sir, there are always lessons to be learned
    from history. What we have learned in 2016--and I can speak
    strategically, not just what was happening in the FBI--was
    really a lack of coordination on the foreign influence threat
    across the entire U.S. intelligence community. We are now
    better engaged. We collaborate far more on a daily basis. We
    are working with our social media companies. All of this,
    lessons learned from 2016, lessons learned from 2018, and we
    are going to continue to put best practices forward as we move
    into 2020.
        Mr. Gohmert. Well, since you are concerned about 2020, have
    you--were you aware of President Petro Poroshenko dispatching
    Olga Bielkova or any other Ukrainian officials to the U.S. to
    influence our election in 2016?
        Ms. Floris. Sir, I am not familiar with that.
        Mr. Gohmert. Are you aware--do you know who Olga Bielkova
    is?
        Ms. Floris. Sir, again, I am not going to confirm or deny
    the existence or non-existence of FBI investigations or persons
    of interest to the FBI in this setting.
        Mr. Gohmert. That was not my question. I didn't ask you
    that. I asked you, do you know who that is?
        Ms. Floris. Sir, I am not going to answer that question in
    this setting. I am happy to come back in a closed setting and
    go into detail about current investigations that we have
    related to foreign influence.
        Mr. Gohmert. So, you can't even say if you know a person?
        Ms. Floris. No, sir.
        Mr. Gohmert. Do you realize you are supposed to be telling
    us about 2020, and you can't even tell us about whether you
    know anything about people involved in 2016? It really hurts
    the credibility when you can't do that.
        Let me ask you, will the FITF run informants against
    political campaigns?
        Ms. Floris. Sir, much in the same vein that the FITF does
    not run cases, we do not run sources either. We program manage
    the sources that our 56 field offices run as it relates to
    foreign influence.
        Mr. Gohmert. Well, I have a real concern about the
    credibility of what is happening for 2020 if you can't even
    tell us that you even know people from the Ukraine. So, I am
    very disturbed and concerned.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman
    from California, Mr. Correa?
        Mr. Correa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        First, I want to say to our panelists today thanks for
    being here today and thank you for service to our country.
        As you know, trust in our election system is the foundation
    of our democracy, and when it comes to cyberattacks, time is of
    the essence. When financial institutions are attacked or our
    military, the response is within seconds. It is usually
    coordinated throughout the industry--not institutions, not
    individually, but the industry, if not worldwide.
        So given the importance of America's democracy, I presume
    that we are now and, Ms. Floris, you were talking about lack of
    coordination, I believe you said, in 2016 among Government
    agencies as being one of the lessons learned. I presume we have
    a system in place now to coordinate that kind of information
    when there is a cyberattack throughout Federal Government? Yes/
    no question to all of you.
        Ms. Floris. Sir, thank you for the question, and you are
    absolutely correct. As it relates to cyber incidents, we do
    have an extremely strategic plan in how we notify our victims.
    So, simply put, and I will certainly yield to my colleague from
    DHS to add on here, the FBI and DHS respond to incidents
    jointly. You can almost look at it as the FBI lead in
    essentially the threat response. If a crime has been committed,
    the FBI will open an investigation.
        DHS is the lead for protecting and mitigating whatever
    vulnerability existed that led to the cyber intrusion in and of
    itself.
        Mr. Correa. So let me interrupt you. So, you open up an
    investigation, but a cyberattack happens within seconds. So how
    quickly--who is the lead or if you don't have a lead, how do
    you get that information out to all of your investigative
    agencies, your defense task force, instantaneously? Do you have
    that system in place?
        Mr. Masterson?
        Mr. Masterson. Yes, sure. Thank you for the question.
        Following 2016-2017, one of our top priorities was to work
    with State and local election officials to establish
    communications protocols for exactly this reason. As you may be
    aware, in 2016, DHS, being new to the election space, didn't
    even know who to call in the States if need be. We now have
    points of contact in all the States. We have information
    sharing going to all 50 States.
        Mr. Correa. So, you do have points of contacts with each
    and every State?
        Mr. Masterson. Yes. More importantly, they know how to
    share information with us because the most likely people to
    report a cyber incident are the owners and operators--
        Mr. Correa. So, you do have a specific individual at each
    State that you talk to?
        Mr. Masterson. Yes.
        Mr. Correa. Is the information--are we talking silos here,
    or is the information a two-way street, so to speak? Do you
    have folks at the State level who you trust, who you can work
    with to make sure you are all sharing the information on a
    real-time basis?
        Mr. Masterson. Absolutely, sir. Thank you for that
    question.
        We have points of contact and trusted relationships across
    all 50 States so that they feel comfortable sharing that
    information. Then we are able to take and not just respond to
    that individual incident, but take the technical information in
    that response and distribute it broadly across the entire
    election community so they can take defensive actions or look
    for possible compromises across the entire election
    infrastructure.
        That is the biggest area of improvement since 2016 is the
    amount of information we are receiving from the State and local
    election officials on a regular basis, whether it is reporting
    or those Albert intrusion detection sensors.
        Mr. Correa. So, if Secretary of State Alex Padilla from the
    State of California calls one of you, and it is the wrong
    telephone, do you return his call immediately, or how that
    phone call get channeled into the system to get a quick
    response?
        Mr. Masterson. Yes--
        Mr. Correa. Or is it even a phone call? Do you have a
    digital system where somebody puts in a--types in an alert
    saying something is going on over here, a certain virus is
    being detected, so the rest of the country can essentially get
    on their toes?
        Mr. Masterson. Yes. So, first, Secretary Padilla has my
    number and calls me regularly and is an incredibly active,
    engaged partner with us. You have described it exactly
    correctly. A report to one is a report to across the Federal
    Government. Within CISA's operation center, we have Members of
    the FBI, we have Members of the intelligence community, we have
    Members of our Elections Information Sharing and Analysis
    Center sitting on our operations floor such that as reporting
    comes in, we are able to take that information, analyze it,
    support the victim, but then begin the process of sharing
    information broadly across the sector.
        Mr. Correa. Let me shift very quickly. It was mentioned
    earlier the elections are not just about Election Day, but that
    election period. In California, that is about 3 weeks, as well
    as other States.
        How do you assure that whatever you begin to detect 3 weeks
    out is something that you follow up on and is coordinated?
        Mr. Masterson. Yes, again, working through our Information
    Sharing and Analysis Center, as we get reporting, if there are
    additional facts, additional jurisdictions, we are able to
    coordinate that across the whole of Government and look for
    those trends, look for that information that would connect
    incidents.
        Mr. Correa. Final question for you. I am out of time, but I
    have been through a number of elections. I detected
    irregularities. I try to call my local D.A. So, in 2020, I am
    out there, walking door-to-door. I see something weird
    happening. Who do I call? Or do I Google your telephone number?
        Mr. Masterson. So, depending on the activity--
        Mr. Correa. We talked about coordination of private and
    public sector individuals out there.
        Mr. Masterson. Yes. So, from our perspective at CISA, one
    is you should report any anomalous activity to the local
    election official, the local election administrator, who can
    understand the activity you are seeing and remediate it. In
    addition, we worked with voter protection groups in 2018 and
    will again in 2020 to have points of contact on Election Day so
    that if there is reporting that indicates trends, we are able
    to respond, reach out to the election officials in coordination
    and understand what is going on.
        Mr. Correa. Mr. Chair, I yield.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize
    the distinguished vice chair of the Committee and thank her
    once again for beginning the hearing in my absence, the
    gentlelady from Pennsylvania.
        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you, Chairman.
        Ms. Floris, on October 3rd, the FBI, along with DHS, issued
    an advisory to State election officials that the Russian
    government would be using voter suppression tactics to
    interfere in the 2020 elections, and obviously, we are
    extremely concerned about that.
        Can you give us any idea about when the FBI learned about
    these Russian tactics and any gap in time between when the
    threat was identified and when the States were notified?
        Ms. Floris. Thank you for the question, ma'am.
        I cannot speak in specifics about the reporting. I am happy
    to take that back for an after action. I will say as we roll
    into 2020, as we did as we were rolling into 2018, it is our
    goal--and not just the FBI's goal, but across the U.S.
    intelligence community--to report threat information as quickly
    as possible to the audience who needs to hear it, taking into
    account certainly the sensitivity of the sources and methods of
    how that intelligence was collected.
        Ms. Scanlon. Okay. You have talked a little bit about the
    Foreign Influence Task Force that was formed in 2017, and I
    think you described how it was expanded after the 2018
    election, and you described a growing list of foreign
    adversaries that you are looking at. Can you tell us what
    resources--can you describe the number of people who make up
    that task force and whether that has grown from 2017 to the
    present and if you need additional people or resources to do
    that job?
        Ms. Floris. Thank you, ma'am, for the question.
        I am not going to get into specifics about the actual
    number of individuals on the task force. What I will say is we
    certainly surged resources as we rolled into 2018. Our
    intention is that we again are going to surge resources as we
    roll into 2020.
        One thing I will note that individuals on the FITF are not
    the only individuals in the FBI who are working the foreign
    influence threat. Just given the nebulous nature of it, it is
    wedded in so much of what we do in the investigative side of
    the house, from criminal to cyber to counterterrorism as well.
    So, there are agents and analysts and professional staff across
    all 56 of our field offices who work foreign influence and
    investigations tied to foreign influence.
        Regarding your question about resources, as I stated
    earlier, we are always happy to have more resources and can use
    more resources. But the FBI is using everything we can right
    now to mitigate this very serious threat.
        Ms. Scanlon. Okay. Is the reason you can't give us numbers,
    relative numbers between 2017 and the present, because you
    don't have them, or is there some security reason?
        Ms. Floris. There is no security reason. It is just it is
    hard to compare since in 2017, we were focused only on Russia.
    With the expansion to include all global actors who are
    participating in foreign influence operations, it is not
    necessarily a good one-to-one comparison of where we have come.
        Ms. Scanlon. Okay. Mr. Hickey, you mentioned that one
    aspect of the DOJ's efforts to disrupt malign foreign influence
    operatives is stepped-up enforcement of FARA, the Foreign
    Agents Registration Act, which requires people who Act as
    agents of foreign principals to register with our government.
        So, I guess we know some of those enforcement acts that
    would include the guilty plea by Michael Flynn, who was Trump's
    first National Security Adviser; the convictions of the Trump
    campaign manager, Paul Manafort and Richard Gates; the possible
    involvement of Mr. Giuliani and his associates who were
    arrested last week for possible FARA violations. Are those all
    the kind of things you are talking about?
        Mr. Hickey. With respect to that last case, at the moment,
    those are campaign finance violations. I think the charges
    allege a connection to a foreign--foreign location, so the kind
    of activity we want to be alert to.
        Ms. Scanlon. Is included there?
        Mr. Hickey. So, at the moment, the charges are campaign
    finance allegations. I don't think FARA is pled there. Stepping
    back from that specific case, if there are indications of a
    foreign principal covertly trying to influence our politics,
    whether through campaign finance or political activities under
    FARA, that is something that we would be involved in.
        Ms. Scanlon. Okay. The one I am really concerned about,
    which is listed on DOJ's FARA enforcement actions, is the one
    involving the 13 Russian nationals who worked on behalf of the
    Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election by
    manipulating social media to advocate for the Trump campaign
    and against the Clinton campaign because that included
    organizing political rallies in States like Pennsylvania, which
    I represent. They literally took pictures of Pennsylvania coal
    miners and slapped them on these rally things and tried to stir
    up sentiment in a particular direction.
        Does DOJ have the resources it needs to identify and
    prosecute malign actors such as those I mentioned as we
    approach the 2020 election?
        Mr. Hickey. Well, indeed, we do because we have used those
    resources to bring that case. Fortunately, I think the 2020
    budget includes additional funding for the sections I
    supervise, including the Counterintelligence Section, which is
    devoted to foreign influence, countering malign foreign
    influence, in addition to cyberthreats and other
    counterintelligence activities.
        Ms. Scanlon. How about moving proactively before the 2020
    election because, unfortunately, those convictions came 2 years
    after the influence in 2018?
        Mr. Hickey. Yes. As I said in my opening statement, my
    testimony, preventing a crime or disrupting it is more
    rewarding and more important than convicting someone after the
    fact, and we have put a lot of thought into how we will disrupt
    that and whether we will provide notifications to Congress, to
    the public, based on various factors, including wanting to make
    sure that the public is as educated as we can make them.
        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you to all the witnesses. I see my time
    has expired.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentlelady yields back. The gentlelady
    from Texas?
        Ms. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        As my colleague Ms. Jayapal noted earlier, the Senate
    Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in 2016
    election states that many--disinformation campaigns and
    cyberthreats do not just manipulate just one platform. The
    information moves across various platforms where a cyberattack
    threatens multiple companies' network security and data
    integrity. There must be greater cooperation with the tech
    sector and between the tech sector and the Government to
    address these issues.
        In fact, we saw today that Facebook removed a network of
    Russian-backed accounts that posted as locals commenting on
    political issues in swing States praising President Trump and
    attacking former Vice President Joe Biden. This is a familiar
    threat that we saw in 2016 and appears to be repeating as we
    approach 2020.
        The report we referenced represents formalized mechanisms
    for collaborations that facilitate content sharing among social
    media platforms to defend against foreign disinformation. This
    occurred with violent extremist content.
        My question is to Mr. Masterson and Ms. Floris, and this is
    simply a yes or no. Have your organizations created a task
    force to coordinate cooperation between Government and the tech
    sector as they did with violent extremist content?
        Mr. Masterson. So, I will defer to my colleague at the FBI
    as well, but yes, we are working within my team at the Election
    Security Initiative. We have a team working on countering
    foreign influence that works regularly with the social media
    and tech sector on these issues.
        Ms. Garcia. Will be ready for 2020?
        Mr. Masterson. Absolutely, yes.
        Ms. Garcia. Okay. Ms. Floris?
        Ms. Floris. Thank you, ma'am, for the question.
        So, within the Foreign Influence Task Force is a
    significant effort to increase engagement with both the tech
    sector and the social media companies. Folks from the FITF meet
    almost monthly with those companies. What we have tried to do
    is create a bidirectional relationship wherein we share with
    them actionable intelligence and threat indicators. They, in
    turn, share with us information related to individuals who have
    violated their terms of service. So, it is certainly one of our
    primary strategies as we roll into 2020.
        Ms. Garcia. Do you have a specific task force that helps
    coordinate all of that, or are you just leaving it up to each
    group to cooperate with each other?
        Ms. Floris. It is actually within the Foreign Influence
    Task Force. That is one of our goals is to coordinate that
    engagement with social media companies as it relates to foreign
    influence.
        Ms. Garcia. All right. So, DHS' May 2019 report detailed
    the disinformation model, including false information
    operations, deep fake technology, and digital message creation
    attacks. Can you please describe the impact of these type of
    threats to our elections and what DHS is doing to combat them,
    particularly regarding misinformation about voter registration?
    Mr. Masterson?
        Mr. Masterson. Yes, thank you, ma'am.
        My team within the Election Security Initiative, starting
    in 2018, began working with State and local election officials
    to talk to them about ways to engage voters about
    disinformation around the election process. Election officials
    see this regularly, whether through social media or other
    activity. It is not new to election Administration.
        So, we wanted to work with them on a variety of products to
    help them engage the electorate on what to look for, but more
    importantly, how to empower themselves as voters. To check
    their voter registration status to make sure it is up to date,
    to make sure they understand when and where to vote, what is on
    their ballot, how the election process works, and most
    importantly, to understand who the trusted voices in their
    communities are. Those local election officials and State
    election officials that have the information they need, so that
    they can head to the polls with confidence.
        Building on that effort, heading into 2020, our team is
    focused on expanding that engagement, working with trusted
    voices across communities--whether that is mayors, governors,
    or others--to engage the American people about how to identify
    disinformation and how to build resilience so they are not
    responsive--
        Ms. Garcia. I heard your testimony on that, but I note your
    written testimony, you also said that you wanted to raise
    public awareness. With 8,800 jurisdictions--one of you all
    testified to that. I forget which one of you. I mean, how are
    you really getting the work out with 8,800 jurisdictions that
    have to be on the lookout for this. I mean, you are talking
    across the country.
        When I saw, again in all testimony, I think you were
    focused on like a handful of States that you have done some of
    these tabletop exercises. So, what are you really doing to make
    sure that all 8,800 election jurisdictions know how to detect,
    report, and work with you on these issues?
        Mr. Masterson. Yes, absolutely. Thank you for the question.
        So, it is twofold. One is by building those relationships
    with the State election officials, they reach the counties,
    too. So, I mentioned in my testimony the Last Mile Initiative.
    That is an initiative geared towards county election officials
    specific to their jurisdictions about how to manage risk and
    threat, including how to talk to voters about the process and
    manage voters' expectations.
        The second is, and you mentioned the tabletops, it is not
    just the individual tabletops with States. We conduct national-
    level tabletop exercises where thousands of local election
    officials, in coordination with their State election
    officials--so their chief State election official--participated
    over 3 days this year.
        Then next year, we anticipate a high level of participation
    to talk through exactly what you said. How does information get
    shared? How do we push it down to the locals? Then how do they
    get it back up to us so that we have full awareness and can
    push broadly to the elections community to understand what is
    the threat of risk, and how do they protect the systems?
        Ms. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman
    from Colorado?
        Mr. Neguse. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for holding this
    incredibly important and timely hearing.
        I also want to thank each of the witnesses for their
    testimony and also for your service to our country. I must
    confess I am disappointed by some, not all, but some of my
    colleagues on the other side of the aisle who chose to use
    their time impugning the integrity of former Government
    officials instead of talking today with these distinguished
    witnesses about the subject matter at hand, which is protecting
    our republic and ensuring the integrity of our elections. I
    realize that each of you, in your respective departments, work
    with a wide range of colleagues on precisely that, and I thank
    you for it.
        I reviewed the written testimony of each of the witnesses.
    Ms. Floris, in your testimony, you noted on page 3--and I
    believe you alluded to this in your verbal testimony--that in
    the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, social media
    companies deactivated more than 1,000 inauthentic social media
    accounts linked to malign foreign influence actors. The
    companies made these decisions informed by dialogue and
    information exchanges with the FBI and other Government
    agencies.
        So, I take from that that you have a robust relationship
    with the social media companies, both the FBI, the task force,
    and obviously other apparatuses of DOJ. I take that to be true.
    Is that a fair estimate?
        Ms. Floris. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Neguse. Okay. I very much appreciate the work that the
    task force and that the FBI and the other entities within our
    law enforcement community are taking, the steps that they are
    taking to protect the integrity of our elections. Part of what
    is the most disturbing for me and gives me the most pause, and
    I suspect some of my colleagues, is what you mentioned earlier,
    Ms. Floris, which is that it is happening in real time.
        Foreign actors, by virtue of the disinformation and
    misinformation campaigns that they are engaged in, utilizing
    the ubiquitous social media engines that we all now use in our
    daily lives, they are changing the way Americans think and
    Americans interact with each other, the way in which we view
    public policy issues.
        I am sure you are familiar--there was a report recently--it
    was covered by CNN--from Graphika, the IRACopyPasta campaign
    issued on October 21, 2019. Russian accounts posing as
    Americans on Instagram targeted both sides of polarizing issues
    ahead of the 2020 election. Are you familiar with this report?
        Ms. Floris. In title only, sir.
        Mr. Neguse. In title only? Okay.
        Ms. Floris. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Neguse. Mr. Hickey, are you familiar with the report?
        Mr. Hickey. Same answer.
        Mr. Neguse. All right. So just for the benefit, with
    unanimous consent, would ask that this report be submitted to
    the record, Mr. Chair.
        Chairman Nadler. Without objection.
        [The information follows:]

                       MR. NEGUSE FOR THE OFFICIAL RECORD

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

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Neguse. So, I would just quote from this, and then we
    will get to my question. On October 21, 2019, Facebook
    announced the takedown of 50 Instagram accounts posting about
    U.S. social and political issues in the 2020 election. Facebook
    concluded that the operation originated from Russia and showed
    ``some links'' to the Internet Research Agency, IRA, and the
    Russian troll farm that previously targeted U.S. audiences in
    the United States presidential election in 2016.
        These accounts are attacking Kamala Harris, Elizabeth
    Warren. Almost half of the accounts claim to be based in swing
    States, especially Florida. What they are doing is not all that
    dissimilar from what they did before, focusing on divisive
    content.
        Much of the content ``posted by these accounts was divisive
    and served to reinforce each target group's hostility toward
    other groups or individuals.'' Often the sets of accounts
    posted on both sides of divisive issues. For instance, police
    violence was a topic addressed by accounts in the set, some of
    them posing with hashtags such as ``police brutality'' and
    ``black lives matter'' and other with, quote--or
    #bluelivesmatter and #backtheblue.
        I know you are familiar with these accounts--I suspect,
    these kind of postings from before. Correct? Ms. Floris?
        Ms. Floris. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Neguse. All right. Mr. Hickey?
        Mr. Hickey. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Neguse. So, the question I have. Clearly, our law
    enforcement agencies are working very hard to try to combat
    this disinformation, but it strikes me that the root cause, or
    at least one of the root causes, of the disinformation is the
    reality of anonymous accounts in these social media engines.
    There has been a lot of discussion as to whether or not
    universal verification, as opposed to having to constantly be
    reactive working with these social media companies like
    Facebook is the prime example, that instead, we could get at
    the root cause. It would eliminate so much of this
    disinformation and misinformation that is being perpetrated at
    the American public.
        So, I would like to kind of get your sense, Ms. Floris and
    Mr. Hickey, as to whether or not that is something that your
    agencies, respectfully, have discussed internally and whether
    or not it is something you might recommend we take up as a
    matter of discussion on a policy basis.
        Mr. Hickey. So, sir, I will agree with you that the
    anonymity of the Internet generally poses a broad cybersecurity
    challenge. I don't know I would say it is the number-one reason
    why we have so many challenges of security on the Internet with
    respect to foreign influence and others, but it is a leading
    one. How you address that, I think, is very tricky. How you
    have verification or authenticity in a way that you know who is
    emailing--is sending you a message is actually the person they
    claim to be.
        At the moment, we are--I am not in a position to comment on
    legislation or propose it. What we are trying to do is where we
    see indications that someone isn't who they claim to be, along
    the lines of what DAD Floris said, we will try to--and they tie
    to individuals that we are investigating, we will try to tip
    the providers to it so they can pierce behind that
    anonymization.
        We are also currently prosecuting entities that we allege
    are tying to the Internet Research Agency in district court
    right now, which limits my ability to comment on it. But
    certainly, we are hoping to impose consequences for activity
    related to 2016.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentleman's time has expired. The
    gentlelady from Georgia?
        Mrs. McBath. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you so much for
    convening this hearing today.
        Thank you, each and every one of you, for being here.
    Voting, I think all of us would agree, is just basically the
    foundation of our democracy, and protecting our ability to be
    able to vote and protecting our voting infrastructure from
    foreign interference is paramount.
        In Georgia, where I represent, we have learned that before
    the 2016 election, a Russian agent visited the websites of Cobb
    and Fulton counties, counties that I represent, looking for
    vulnerabilities. While it appears that the agent didn't gain
    access to our election system in 2016, we continue to face
    attacks to this very day. Just last month, it was reported that
    two computers were stolen from both--stolen from Fulton County,
    there again, in my district. These computers contained very
    sensitive information that relates to every single voter in
    Georgia.
        So, as we take on these threats I want to make sure that we
    are working to build a collaboration and transparency across
    the Federal Government, States, and for the American people.
        I want to ask each of you about how we can increase this
    transparency while also improving election security. Mr.
    Hickey, I will start with you. I am curious about your thoughts
    on whether States should be treated differently than other
    victims that DOJ prosecutes, in terms of sharing victims'
    identities. For example, it was reported that the election
    systems in two Florida counties were breached, but the
    government has not identified which Florida counties were
    breached. On one hand, we want to encourage states to represent
    and to talk about these vulnerabilities, to report them, and
    sharing State-specific information publicly could discourage
    such reporting. On the other hand, we want the public to have
    confidence in our election system, and we want them to have
    confidence in the transparency of our election process.
        So, indeed, you testified--and I am sorry that I was not
    here this morning, but I have your testimony--you testified,
    and I quote, ``Exposure of foreign influence operations
    ultimately may be one of the best ways to counter them,'' end
    quote. So, can you speak how you think the Federal Government
    should navigate disclosing such victim information in the
    election security context?
        Mr. Hickey. Thank you, ma'am. I appreciate your nuanced
    treatment of that issue, because it does implicate a number of
    competing values. We do, as the vice chair of the Committee
    said, when she gave her opening statement, we want to encourage
    and guard the trust of the States so that they are willing to
    call the FBI and not worry that we are going to release their
    identities or the problem publicly.
        Two, I think, core principles. One, we think it is a matter
    for State officials to decide when they disclose to their
    publics what the threats to their particular infrastructure
    have been. So, we will leave it to Florida officials to
    communicate with the voters in that State, or any other State,
    hey, we worked with the FBI, we have remediated, we have done
    X, Y, and Z. We are going to leave it to that sovereign State.
        The second key principle, I think, is that it is ultimately
    State-level officials who are politically accountable for
    certifying the results of an election. So, we are currently--
    the FBI is currently reviewing guidance on how to handle victim
    notification in the context of elections. It is not out yet, it
    is not finalized yet, but I anticipate that we will continue to
    notify system owners and operators, which may be local
    officials, but also providing a heads-up to the politically
    accountable chief State election official or board, so that
    they are aware of what the FBI is doing at a more local level.
        Mrs. McBath. Thank you. Mr. Masterson and Ms. Floris, I
    would like to hear from each of you very briefly on your
    agency's transparency policies and whether more transparency is
    actually needed.
        Mr. Masterson. So, I will speak to that very briefly. So,
    as I mentioned prior in the hearing, we have established
    communications protocols with the State and local election
    officials on how information will be reported, to empower them
    to speak to either activity targeting their systems or possible
    incidents. Then, most importantly, being transparent in sharing
    technical indicators broadly in an unclassified environment to
    the entire elections community about what threats are targeting
    election systems, so that they can not only take defensive
    measures but talk to their voters about the threat being real
    and the steps that they are taking to secure the process so
    that voters know that they are taking it seriously and
    responding.
        I think this is where running elections at the State and
    local level really is critical. Voters have the ability to
    engage directly with those who run elections and have their
    questions answered. They can be poll workers. They can watch
    pre-election testing of the system. In many States they can
    watch post-election auditing. So, how can we empower those
    election officials with that information, whether about threat
    or activity, to talk directly to the voters and respond.
        Ms. Floris. Thank you, ma'am, for your question. Just one
    thing I can add in addition to my colleagues on the panel. As I
    mentioned in the opening statement, when it comes to being
    transparent, one of the prongs of our strategy within FITF is
    to share intelligence and information as quickly as possible
    and to whoever needs to receive that information. Certainly,
    that is not a decision the FBI can make unilaterally. It
    involves all Members who are dabbling in the election security
    space, including individuals outside just the four Members on
    this panel. Rest assured, it is certainly one of our strategies
    to be as forward-leaning as we can in sharing actionable
    intelligence to the people who need to receive it.
        Mrs. McBath. Thank you.
        Chairman Nadler. The time of the gentlelady has expired.
    The gentlelady from Pennsylvania?
        Ms. Dean. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to sincerely
    thank all of you for being here and representing to us the
    important work you are doing to protect our elections. We take
    this very, very seriously, and I can see that you do too. So,
    for the viewing public, we have the Department of Homeland
    Security. We have the FBI. We have the Department of Justice.
    We have U.S. Election Assistance Commission. You are so
    important on the front line, and we are here to partner with
    you.
        I will start this question kind of quickly to Ms. Floris.
    On October 8th, just this month, 2019, the Senate Intelligence
    Committee published its second volume of its investigation on
    Russia's interference in the 2016 elections and the U.S.
    Government's response to that attack. The report concluded that
    in October of 2017, a counterintelligence division at FBI
    tasked an outside contractor to identify Russian influence
    activity on Twitter. As the report explains, that suggests,
    quote, ``FBI either lacked resources or viewed the work in this
    vein as not warranting more institutionalized consideration.''
        Ms. Floris, the Senate committee's report is concerning. Do
    you believe you have enough resources at FBI to investigate and
    protect our elections?
        Ms. Floris. Thank you, ma'am, for that question. As I have
    said, we can always use more resources, but that being said, we
    are throwing everything we have against the foreign influence
    threat. We have shifted resources to the Counterintelligence
    Division for that very purpose. We continue to engage with all
    56 of our field offices to ensure that they are tracking the
    threat as closely as we are within the FITF.
        Ms. Dean. So, are you using--how often are you using
    outside contractors, or are you moving away from that,
    particularly in the issue of election security?
        Ms. Floris. Ma'am, I can't speak specifically on the use of
    outside contractors within our workforce. We do have
    contractors throughout many parts of the FBI. I can't
    specifically as to how many are working on the foreign
    influence threat. I can certainly take that back.
        Ms. Dean. Yeah, we would love that information if you could
    share it with us. Can you tell us whether we have ever, or
    would ever use an outside contractor from, say, Russia, Iran,
    China, North Korea? Do you know?
        Ms. Floris. Ma'am, I would defer that question to our Human
    Resources Division and our Security Division.
        Ms. Dean. Okay. We will follow up.
        I would like to ask each of you the same thing. Do you have
    adequate resources at each of your departments and do you use
    outside contractors? I will start with Mr. Masterson.
        Mr. Masterson. Thank you, ma'am. We have the resources we
    need to build on the success that we had in 2018 and continue
    to support State and local election officials. Certainly, with
    more resources comes greater capacity and responsiveness, the
    ability to increase support from the EI-ISAC or build on
    something like remote penetration testing. But we certainly
    have what we need to build on the success, and I defer you also
    to Human Resources and Security.
        Ms. Dean. Mr. Hovland?
        Mr. Hovland. I would say that the Election Assistance
    Commission absolutely does not have the resources that we need.
    I would also echo that the fiscal year 2018 $380 million that
    went to the States, while that was a great first step it did
    not provide the States with the funding levels to solve all the
    challenges that they face. As I mentioned earlier, we have seen
    people prioritizing from a menu of options, but there are a
    number of things that State and local election officials could
    do, and additional funding is crucial to help them do that.
        Ms. Dean. We would love that information. Thank you for
    sharing that with us.
        Mr. Hickey?
        Mr. Hickey. Ma'am, briefly, the 2020 budget would increase
    funding for the Counterintelligence Section, which I supervise,
    which would help our efforts to confront maligned foreign
    influence and national state-sponsored hacking.
        I don't think we employ contractors specifically for this
    area of work, though, of course, we do have contractors working
    in the Justice Department, and they are vetted, and I will
    defer to others to explain how they are vetted.
        I will say choosing contractors sometimes reflects our
    judgment. There are folks with particular technical expertise
    that we can bring on and use them in our, you know, foreign
    investment security reviews. We have contractors on board and
    use them because they have particular experience that we, as
    lawyers, do not have.
        Ms. Dean. Do you use any foreign contractors from, say,
    Russia, China, Iran?
        Mr. Hickey. What I do know is that we vet contractors, and
    they have to be screened for a security clearance. So, I can't
    speak to their nationalities but I know they would be vetted.
        Ms. Dean. Okay. What is concerning to us, or to me, is that
    the President's fiscal year 2020 budget proposal would cut
    funding to CISA, especially troubling since 2020 is the
    Presidential election year. Each of you, Robert Mueller, and
    many others have said the threat is persistent, pervasive,
    sweeping, systematic.
        Maybe I will end on this question, real quickly. I wanted
    to follow up, Ms. Floris, that you talked about the
    disinformation. Could you be specific as to the disinformation
    that you were able--give us a concrete example of what it
    looked like? How were we disinformed? How were voters
    disinformed? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Ms. Floris. Ma'am, are you talking about leading into the
    2016 election--
        Ms. Dean. Yes.
        Ms. Floris. --or 2018 election? I can't speak in specifics
    about that right now, but I can certainly take that question
    back.
        Ms. Dean. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentlelady yields back. The gentlelady
    from Texas.
        Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and many thanks to
    our witnesses. I really appreciate your presence here today and
    your work.
        I am still very concerned, and I think the American public
    should still be very concerned about our elections approaching
    in 2020. We know that three years ago Russia was wildly
    successful in attacking our democracy by attacking our
    elections, and despite the information that we have and despite
    the unified voice from our intelligence community, we have a
    President who is cutting resources to our election security. It
    is stunning to me that the President of the United States would
    be willing to erode our election security instead of fighting
    to keep it safe.
        Our voting machines are still outdated. Many of the
    vulnerabilities remain today. So, we should all be very
    concerned, and I hope that you all will continue your work to
    confront the obstacles ahead of you and to inform the American
    public.
        With that said, we know that Special Counsel Mueller's
    indictment against several Russian entities noted that one of
    the ways that they interfered with our 2016 election was by
    encouraging minority voters not to participate in elections. In
    fact, the Pew Research Center found that in 2016, African
    American turnout dropped by 20 percent, despite the fact that
    we had record turnout in the country. The report detailed the
    complex strategies Russia used to target the African American
    community and to discourage African Americans from voting.
        Starting with Mr. Masterson, for each one of you, please,
    what steps specifically are you taking to combat interference
    efforts to discourage minority groups from voting, and are
    those steps sufficient?
        Mr. Masterson. Thank you for your question, ma'am. Our
    focus, in coordination with the FBI's Foreign Influence Task
    Force, is really on building resilience in the American people,
    talking to them about how they are being targeted with
    disinformation, where the source of information, the trusted
    source of information regarding the election process or
    otherwise would be.
        So, we have created a variety of products and then are
    working with various communities and groups, so reaching out to
    groups like the NAACP, AARP, or others, to provide those
    resources to them, recognizing they are the trusted voice in
    that community that can talk to their Members about how they
    may be targeted with disinformation and how to respond.
        Ms. Floris. Thank you, ma'am, for your question. I will
    just piggyback on that response, with this whole concept of
    media literacy with the American public. We cannot stress
    enough to every American city to understand when, how, where to
    vote. Your vote matters and it is up to you to have that media
    literacy to understand essentially truth in where you are
    obtaining your information.
        On the more practice side of the house, again, I will hit
    on our engagement with social media companies and our
    willingness to engage with them to share threat indicators as
    it relates to disinformation, when we know that a foreign actor
    is trying to propagate disinformation using their platforms and
    continuing that dialogue and engagement with the social media
    companies as we roll into 2020.
        Mr. Hickey. DAD Floris referred to nefarious actors. Part
    of what the Justice Department does is help the FBI investigate
    those actors. So, we are often there to obtain legal process of
    various forms, to investigate what foreign actors are doing,
    and that information can be part of the information that
    ultimately is shared with the providers, to confront the
    disinformation you are suggesting.
        Mr. Hovland. When the disinformation crosses over to talk
    about the election process or election Administration issues,
    like when you vote or how to register or how to participate,
    that would certainly be where it would fall into our interest
    area. In doing that we are really working with State and locals
    to encourage their voters or their citizens to participate, to
    be able to identify trusted sources of information, be able to
    check their voter registration to make sure it is updated and
    accurate, and those are--that is where our focus has been.
        Ms. Escobar. Ms. Floris, I have two follow-up questions for
    you.
        Number one, you mentioned working with social media outlets
    on preventing the spread of disinformation. We sometimes have
    American candidates repeating disinformation provided by
    Russia, for example. Do you alert social media about that kind
    of disinformation that is coming from American candidates? That
    is number one.
        Number two, what specific steps did you take, if any, to
    identify whether there were foreign efforts, similar to those
    used in 2016, to discourage minority voters, whether they were
    used again in 2018?
        Ms. Floris. Thank you, ma'am, for your question. I will
    address your first question. The FBI cannot be the truth
    police. It is not our job to police content as to whether true
    or false information is being propagated. Again, we start with
    the foreign actors, that foreign aspect of what we do that is
    of investigative interest to the FBI. That is the information
    that we then provide to the social media providers, and it is
    really up to those providers to determine whether or not that
    content violates their own terms of service.
        Regarding what steps we saw in 2018, if we saw the same
    activity that we saw in 2016, certainly not at the same level,
    and I really tout that to the success of the interagency
    collaboration, and again, our work with the social media
    companies.
        Ms. Escobar. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman
    from Georgia?
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
    you all for being here today.
        In February of 2019, DOJ and DHS issued a joint statement
    concluding that there was, quote, ``no evidence to date that
    any identified activities of a foreign government or agency had
    a material impact,'' end quote, on the 2018 election. Now, Mr.
    Hickey and Mr. Masterson, your agencies reached this conclusion
    because the intelligence community didn't detect a threat.
    Correct?
        Mr. Hickey. I think that is more or less right. The EO,
    which is what the report was issued under, sets forth a two-
    step process--the IC, including the FBI, gather reports, and
    then we evaluate the materiality of any impact.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. I understand, but the intelligence
    community did not detect a threat, and that is why you issued
    your proclamation that no evidence to date was that any
    identified activities of a foreign government had a material
    impact on the election.
        State and local officials also did not detect a threat.
    Isn't that correct?
        Mr. Hickey. Well, so I think the IC did gather a report of
    actions that had the intent and purpose of interfering. So,
    when you say threat, threat means, to us, intent and purpose.
    State election officials--
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. They didn't detect a successful
    threat.
        Mr. Hickey. That is my understanding.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Okay. All right. Thank you.
        Now you concluded also that Albert sensors did not detect a
    threat. Correct?
        Mr. Masterson. So, Albert sensors regularly, across the
    country, regularly detect possible malicious activity against
    election infrastructure.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. None was detected for 2018.
        Mr. Masterson. I am not aware of any foreign adversary
    interfering or gaining access to election infrastructure in
    2018.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Now isn't it possible that an
    attacker could have accessed and changed voter databases
    without being detected in 2018? Isn't it possible? Yes or no.
        Mr. Masterson. So, we have no information to suggest that
    occurred.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. All right. Fair enough. Now Mr.
    Hovland, your testimony was that 8,000 local jurisdictions
    conduct elections. Many of those local jurisdictions used
    direct recording electronic voting machines, also known as
    touch-screen electronic voting machines, in the 2016
    presidential elections and in the 2018 presidential elections.
    In investigating election interference after the 2016
    presidential election, how many of the tens of thousands of
    direct recording electronic voting machines used in that
    election were subjected to a forensic audit by any Federal
    agency?
        Mr. Hovland. I am not aware of forensic audits that were
    performed.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. What about any other type of
    testing or analysis on any direct recording electronic voting
    machines used in the 2018 elections?
        Mr. Hovland. I would say that as far as the Election
    Assistance Commission goes, that--
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Are you aware of any Federal
    agencies that have conducted any analysis of direct recording
    electronic voting machines used in the 2018 or 2016 elections?
        Mr. Hickey. So, we haven't been asked, and I don't think it
    is our role to audit election systems. The States certify the
    accuracy of the votes.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. I understand. My question is just
    simply having the Federal Government use its resources to look
    at or conduct a forensic audit of any voting machines, any
    direct recording voting machines, either in 2016 or 2018. It
    appears that the answer is no. Would anybody disagree with
    that?
        Mr. Hickey. To the best of my knowledge that is correct. We
    have not been asked to second-guess the State certification of
    accuracy.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Okay. I am concerned about the 2020
    election, especially considering the insecurity of our voting
    machines that has come to light in the past three years, and I
    would like to hear from the representative agencies the
    response plan should our elections be successfully hacked in
    2020. What would be the Federal response to a successful
    hacking in 2020?
        Chairman Nadler. The gentleman's time has expired. The
    witnesses may answer the question.
        Mr. Masterson. Thank you, sir. I will keep it short. DHS
    stands prepared to offer a number of incident response
    services, including deployment of teams to the locality or
    State, depending on the impacted infrastructure, in order to
    conduct analysis and work to mitigate the impacts of a possible
    cyber intrusion on election infrastructure. In addition, we
    have numerous analysis capabilities remotely that we can
    provide to help determine if there is, in fact, an intrusion,
    and the best way to mitigate it.
        Ms. Floris. Sir, the FBI would work certainly in concert
    with CISA if there were an intrusion detected. We would use all
    our investigative might to ensure that we can determine
    attribution and potentially bring about criminal charges, if
    need be.
        Mr. Hickey. Obviously we try to prevent it. If we got
    indications that a State were being targeted, we would try to
    help them batten down the hatches before an intrusion was
    successful.
        Mr. Hovland. I would say, on a positive note, that both
    with the fiscal year 2018 $380 million and other resources that
    the number of paperless machines that are left out there has
    decreased substantially, and over 90 percent of Americans will
    be voting with some type of paper audit trail.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentleman's time has expired. The
    gentlelady from Florida.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
    coming here this morning to such an important hearing.
        It has been confirmed, and we have talked about this
    several times today, that all the main intelligence agencies
    confirmed that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections in a
    sweeping and systematic fashion, and it wasn't just a single
    attempt. We have heard from several witnesses in prior hearings
    that they are actually engaging in interference currently, as
    we speak.
        So, I want to ask this, and I think Chairman may have asked
    this previously, but I want to get an answer from each and
    every one of you. Do you think it is appropriate for a sitting
    President, or any elected official, for that matter, to ask a
    foreign government to interfere in our elections?
        Mr. Hovland. No.
        Mr. Hickey. I don't like the word ``appropriate,'' ma'am,
    but I will say that we would urge anyone who has indications of
    such interference to come to the FBI and work with us so we can
    investigate criminal violations.
        Ms. Floris. I would echo what my DOJ colleague said. We are
    certainly interested in any criminal activity as it relates to
    foreign influence.
        Mr. Masterson. No.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you. During the 2016 hacking,
    Florida, my home state, was hacked and singled out by the
    Russian government. They targeted voter registration systems
    and they were able to successfully hack into at least the
    systems of two different counties. We actually got a security
    briefing from the FBI and others on that issue.
        So, one of the things that I asked during that briefing is
    if they could say with certainty that hackers didn't manipulate
    the data, and I was told that they actually could not, that you
    could not say with certainty that these hackers did not
    manipulate the data. Can you confirm that again with me today,
    please?
        Mr. Hickey. I wasn't at the closed briefing, and I don't
    know what touches on classified or unclassified information.
    What I do know is we have said we have no indication to believe
    that there was any material impact on the ability to vote or
    the counting or tabulation of votes. I believe to be correct.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. I asked specifically about the data.
    That is why I think that they answered that. Ms. Floris?
        Ms. Floris. I would just echo what my DOJ colleague said,
    ma'am. I certainly was not at the closed hearing, but I have no
    reason to doubt what was briefed to you during that time.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you. I know that there is a
    group now in DHS working with Federal, State, and local
    officials to secure our elections. It is called the Election
    Infrastructure Subsector Government Coordinating Council. The
    council is working to improve security protocols and works with
    local and State election officials so they can respond to
    threats quickly.
        So, Mr. Masterson and Mr. Hovland, is Florida part of that
    council?
        Mr. Masterson. Yes. Florida actually has two local
    representative that are on the Government Coordinating Council,
    and work with us.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Can you just very briefly describe the
    progress of that group?
        Mr. Masterson. Absolutely. The growth and engagement of the
    Government Coordinating Council since its establishment in 2018
    has been great. We have 24 State and local Members that
    represent a vast array of the community. So, they represent
    secretaries of state, State election directors, local election
    officials from across the country. The purpose of that group is
    to inform CISA's approach to helping them secure elections. So,
    what is their view of risk, what services support and
    information sharing would be help them manage that risk, and
    how do we grow that trusted relationship so that they feel
    comfortable sharing back with us.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you. I am going to move on now
    to a different topic here. Mr. Masterson, on May 1st, 2019,
    Director Krebs testified that the President still had not
    received a briefing on Russia interference in the 2020
    elections. Yes or no? Are you aware of DHS briefing the
    President on Russian interference in the 2020 elections?
        Mr. Masterson. I am not aware but that doesn't mean it
    didn't happen. I am operational so that is above my level. I
    will say we engage regularly in coordination with the NSC
    across the whole of government on this election security work.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Do you know if your agency has tried
    to meet with the President on election security?
        Mr. Masterson. I don't know but that doesn't mean it hasn't
    happened.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Do you think it would be important for
    the President to understand the threat picture facing the 2020
    elections before he allocates resources to agencies on election
    security?
        Mr. Masterson. I think the work we have done across the NSC
    has provided the information and work that we have done to
    coordinate that, and so I assume that is part of the NSC's
    coordination with us.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Okay. Thank you. The same question,
    Ms. Floris and Mr. Hickey. How many times has your agency met
    with the President to discuss election security?
        Ms. Floris. Thank you for the question, ma'am. I can't
    answer that specifically. Again, that doesn't mean that it has
    not happened. I just don't know personally.
        Mr. Hickey. Same answer, ma'am.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Okay. Do you think it would be
    important, though, for your agencies to discuss election
    security with the President?
        Mr. Hickey. I think it is important for the President to
    understand the national security threats facing the country,
    yes.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Ms. Floris?
        Ms. Floris. I think it is important for everyone to
    understand the national security threats facing the country,
    especially as it relates to election security.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you so much.
        Chairman Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
        This concludes today's hearing. We thank all our witnesses
    for participating. Without objection, all Members will have
    five legislative days to submit additional written questions
    for the witnesses or additional materials for the record.
        Again, we thank everyone. Without objection, the hearing is
    adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:39 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

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