[Senate Hearing 116-430]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 116-430
THREATS TO THE HOMELAND
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 5, 2019
__________
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
42-868 PDF WASHINGTON : 2021
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin, Chairman
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
RAND PAUL, Kentucky THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire
MITT ROMNEY, Utah KAMALA D. HARRIS, California
RICK SCOTT, Florida KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming JACKY ROSEN, Nevada
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
Gabrielle D'Adamo Singer, Staff Director
Nicholas Ramirez, U.S. Coast Guard Detailee
David M. Weinberg, Minority Staff Director
Alexa E. Noruk, Minority Director of Homeland Security
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Thomas J. Spino, Hearing Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Johnson.............................................. 1
Senator Peters............................................... 2
Senator Hassan............................................... 14
Senator Harris............................................... 17
Senator Scott................................................ 20
Senator Carper............................................... 23
Senator Portman.............................................. 26
Senator Lankford............................................. 28
Senator Romney............................................... 31
Senator Hawley............................................... 33
Senator Sinema............................................... 37
Prepared statements:
Senator Johnson.............................................. 47
Senator Peters............................................... 48
WITNESSES
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
Hon. David J. Glawe, Under Secretary, Office of Intelligence and
Analysis, U.S. Department of Homeland Security................. 4
Hon. Christopher A. Wray, Director, Federal Bureau of
Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice...................... 6
Russell Travers, Acting Director, National Counterterrorism
Center, Office of the Director of National Intelligence........ 8
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Glawe, Hon. David J.:
Testimony.................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 50
Travers, Russell:
Testimony.................................................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 70
Wray, Hon. Christopher A.:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 63
APPENDIX
Senator Scott's letter to FBI.................................... 79
Get Back respone to Senator Lankford............................. 81
Get Back respone to Senator Sinema............................... 82
Get Back respone to Senator Peters............................... 83
Get Back respone to Senator Hawley............................... 85
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record:
Mr. Glawe.................................................... 87
Mr. Wray..................................................... 123
Mr. Travers.................................................. 138
THREATS TO THE HOMELAND
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2019
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:33 p.m., in
room SH-216, Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Johnson,
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Johnson, Portman, Lankford, Romney,
Scott, Hawley, Peters, Carper, Hassan, Harris, Sinema, and
Rosen.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON
Chairman Johnson. Good afternoon. This hearing will come to
order.
I want to, first and foremost, thank our witnesses for your
service to our country. I want to thank you, obviously, for
taking the time and for your testimony and the answers to our
questions but, again, first and foremost, your service to our
country. This was not planned this way, but this does mark the
10-year--I hate to even call it an ``anniversary''--of the
shooting at Fort Hood. Thirteen people lost their lives; 30
people were injured. But it kind of underscores what we are
dealing with here in terms of a threat environment.
This is my ninth annual threat hearing that I have either
chaired or participated in. I oftentimes say I am not the most
uplifting character. I wish I could say that in those 9 years I
have seen tremendous progress being made and we have reduced
these threats and all is well.
Unfortunately, we face the same threats. If anything, the
threats are growing. I do not think 9 years ago we were talking
about the modern use of drones. We were not talking about
encrypted and the use of social media to the extent it is being
used right now. So, we face the same threats. They are
evolving. Terrorist groups are metastasizing; they are
spreading around the world. And if anything, what has happened
is just trying to deal with and counter those threats has grown
more complex and far more difficult.
You have tremendous responsibilities on your shoulders, and
I truly do appreciate the fact that you are willing to bear
those responsibilities.
I would ask that my written statement be entered into the
record.\1\
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Johnson appears in the
Appendix on page 47.
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Rather than just kind of repeat what you are going to be
talking about, rather than depress people further, I will turn
it over to my Ranking Member, and then we will get into witness
testimony.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETERS\2\
Senator Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And to each of our
witnesses, thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you for
being here today.
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\2\ The prepared statement of Senator Peters appear in the Appendix
on page 48.
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As we all know, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
was created to defend the United States from any and all
threats to the safety of our Nation. The Department and its
leaders are critical to our national security efforts, and we
rely on them to effectively coordinate with both the National
Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) to provide a unified effort to defend the
homeland.
When DHS was first created in the aftermath of September
11, 2001 (9/11), the agency's mission was very clear: combat
the scourge of international terrorism and ensure that we could
say with confidence, ``Never again.''
But over time, the narrow focus has expanded, and as the
threats to our homeland have grown, they have become more
dynamic as well.
New terrorist groups devoted to striking America and our
allies have emerged.
Foreign adversaries and cyber criminals seek to infiltrate
and disrupt the Nation's cyber networks, posing an asymmetric
threat that could cripple our economy with simply the click of
a button.
Foreign interference in our domestic affairs has presented
a complicated new challenge that we are still scrambling to
adequately address.
A rise in domestic terrorism, specifically acts of violence
carried out by white supremacist extremists, has targeted
racial and religious minority communities all across our
country.
Every year, we hold these hearings to examine these and
other threats facing our country and to hear from the heads of
the agencies responsible for keeping America safe.
The safety of Americans is built on partnership--
partnership between our security agencies here today,
partnership between agency leadership and their staff, and
partnership between Congress and the Administration.
As we convene this hearing without a Secretary of Homeland
Security, acting or otherwise, I am deeply concerned that these
partnerships are starting to unravel. The absence of steady
leadership at the Department of Homeland Security is a driving
force for the institutional breakdowns that risk making us less
safe.
The Department needs and the American people certainly
deserve qualified, consistent, and stable leadership that will
empower the brave men and women at DHS to protect the homeland,
respond to natural disasters, and allow our Nation to grow and
to prosper.
This Committee will continue to exercise thorough oversight
of the Department's efforts to ensure that communities are
protected from these threats, but that requires cooperation
from your agencies and your compliance with constitutionally
mandated requests.
I am extremely disappointed in your agencies' failures to
provide a sufficient or, in the case of the FBI, any response
to bipartisan requests from this Committee about the growing
threat of domestic terrorism and white supremacist violence.
No one should live in fear of being attacked in their
neighborhoods or in their houses of worship. This is a serious
and growing threat, one we must address in order to save lives
and to protect the very core of what makes us a free, a
diverse, and a vibrant people.
I am grateful that your departments have taken the
important step of presenting a framework for addressing this
threat, but we cannot stop with a simple acknowledgment or a
strategy put onto paper. This threat is not theoretical, and
neither should our response be.
I insist that you comply with our outstanding requests--
bipartisan requests, I may say--immediately as Congress works
to combat the very real threat of domestic terrorism.
This Committee and your agencies must work together to
review the policies and actions needed to keep Americans safe
and ensure that they are successful.
I am grateful to each of you for joining us here today. I
look forward to hearing from you about the threats that America
currently faces, what your departments are doing to address
these threats, and how this Committee and your agencies can
continue working together to protect our national security.
Again, thank you for being here. I look forward to your
testimony.
Chairman Johnson. It is the tradition of this Committee to
swear in witnesses, so if you will all stand and raise your
right hand. Do you swear that the testimony you will give
before this Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
Mr. Glawe. I do.
Mr. Wray. I do.
Mr. Travers. I do.
Chairman Johnson. Please be seated.
In light of Secretary Kevin McAleenan's announced
retirement, representing the Department of Homeland Security is
the Honorable David Glawe. Mr. Glawe is the Under Secretary for
Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) at the Department of Homeland
Security. Mr. Glawe was confirmed by the Senate on August 3,
2017. Prior to serving in this capacity, he served as Special
Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Homeland
Security. He has over 26 years of intelligence community (IC)
and law enforcement experience, including serving in senior
positions within the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence (ODNI) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Mr. Glawe.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE DAVID J. GLAWE,\1\ UNDER SECRETARY,
OFFICE OF INTELLIGENCE AND ANALYSIS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Glawe. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Peters, and
distinguished members of the Committee, it is my honor and
privilege to testify on behalf of the Department of Homeland
Security to address today's emerging worldwide threats.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Glawe appears in the Appendix on
page 50.
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First, let me briefly touch upon my role. I currently serve
as the Chief Intelligence Officer and Under Secretary at the
Department of Homeland Security. I am responsible for ensuring
the Secretary, our 22 DHS components, and our homeland security
partners have access to the intelligence they need to keep the
country safe. My focus is to ensure the unique tactical
intelligence from the DHS intelligence enterprise is shared
with operators and decisionmakers across all levels of
government so they can more effectively mitigate threats to the
homeland. My office generates intelligence that is unbiased and
based on sound analytic judgments that meet the U.S.
intelligence community standards.
I will speak today about the major shifts in the threat
landscape. Specifically, I would like to speak about the
threats we face from foreign terrorist organizations, domestic
terrorism, cyber, foreign influence, and transnational
organized crime (TOC).
Underpinning these threats is increasing adversarial
engagement from nation-states such as China, Russia, Iran, and
North Korea.
Domestic terrorism and targeted violence. I want to address
one of the most pervasive threats we face in the homeland,
which is the threat of targeted violence and mass attack,
regardless if it is considered domestic terrorism or a hate
crime. There is no moral ambiguity. These extremists are often
motivated by violent ideologies or perceived grievances, often
targeting race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual
orientation, gender, or gender identity. Lone attackers
generally perpetrate these attacks and subscribe to an ideology
that advocates hate and violence. They have adopted an
increasingly transnational outlook in recent years, largely
driven by technological advances through the use of social
media and encrypted communication to connect with like-minded
individuals online.
We are focused on identifying the behaviors and indicators
of an individual at risk of carrying out targeted violence
attacks so that we can appropriately identify and mitigate any
violent act before it is carried out.
As a former police officer in rural Colorado and part of
the 1999 Denver Metropolitan Police's areas response to the
horrific attack at Columbine High School in Littleton,
Colorado, I have firsthand experience, and it has shaped my
approach to dealing with this type of violence.
At the Federal level, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
and the Department of Justice (DOJ) lead the investigations and
prosecuting of these crimes, while DHS informs, equips, and
trains our homeland security partners to enhance their
prevention and protection capability.
Foreign terrorist organizations remain a core priority of
DHS' counterterrorism mission. We continue to make substantial
progress in our ability to detect and mitigate the threats that
these groups pose. However, foreign terrorist organizations
remain intent on striking the country through directed attacks
or by radicalizing the most vulnerable and disaffected
Americans. These groups seek to inspire violence, encouraging
individuals to strike at the heart of our Nation and attack the
unity of our vibrant and diverse society. The Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria (ISIS), al-Qaeda, and returning foreign fighters
represent significant, persistent, and long-term national
security threats.
Regarding cyber threats and emerging technologies, cyber
threats remain a significant strategic risk for the United
States, threatening our national security, economic prosperity,
and safety. Nation-states' cyber criminals are increasing the
frequency and sophistication of their attacks and malicious
activity. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are developing
and using advanced cyber capabilities and intend to target
critical infrastructure, steal our national security and trade
secrets, and threaten our democratic institutions.
The foreign intelligence threat has quickly evolved into
one of the most significant threats our country has seen in
decades. U.S. adversaries, including Russia, China, Iran, and
North Korea, and other strategic competitors will use online
influence operations to try to weaken democratic institutions,
undermine U.S. alliances, threaten our economic security, and
shape policy outcomes. We expect our adversaries and strategic
competitors to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as
they learn from their current experience, suggesting the threat
landscape could look very different in the future.
Transnational organized crime. Transnational criminal
organizations have a destabilizing effect on the Western
Hemisphere by corrupting governments and government officials,
eroding institutions, and perpetuating violence. They profit
from a range of illicit activity, including human smuggling and
trafficking, extortion and kidnapping, and narcotics
trafficking. Their activity has led to record levels of crime
and murder in Mexico, with a direct impact on the safety and
security of our citizens.
I want to address the horrific events in Mexico from the
last 24 hours. The reprehensible killings in northern Mexico of
American citizens, including women, children, and infants, is a
stark example of how these brutal organizations operate on a
daily basis. The violence and disregard for human life
displayed by these criminal organizations is as barbaric and
gruesome as any terrorist organization we see around the globe.
Transnational criminal organizations are motivated by money and
power. They continually adjust their operations and supply
chain to avoid detection and interdiction by law enforcement.
Like legitimate businesses, they are quick to take advantage of
improved technology, cheaper transportation, and better
distribution methods. In many ways, cartels operate with the
same sophistication of a foreign intelligence service.
In conclusion, I am very proud to oversee the Department's
intelligence efforts to ensure the safety and security of all
Americans. I want to thank you for the Committee's support of
the Department. It is a privilege to represent the men and
women of the Department of Homeland Security, and I look
forward to your questions this afternoon.
Thank you.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Our next witness is the Honorable Christopher Wray. Mr.
Wray is the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. On
August 2, 2017, Director Wray was sworn in as the eighth FBI
Director. He previously served as Assistant Attorney General
(AG) at the Department of Justice for Criminal Division.
Director Wray.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER A. WRAY,\1\ DIRECTOR,
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Mr. Wray. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Johnson,
Ranking Member Peters, Members of the Committee. I am honored
to be here today representing the roughly 37,000 men and women
of the FBI. It has been just over 2 years, as you noted, Mr.
Chairman, since I became FBI Director, and I have now had the
opportunity to visit all 56 of our field offices, many of them
more than once, all across the country and met with State and
local partners from every State represented by this Committee.
I have also had the opportunity to meet with every headquarters
division, scores of our foreign partners, business and
community leaders, and crime victims and their families, and I
think I have a much better sense now of what we are all up
against.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Wray appears in the Appendix on
page 63.
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Frankly, the threats that we face today are very different
from over a decade ago. They are evolving in scale, in
complexity, in impact, in agility, and the FBI is moving
forward to meet those threats head-on.
Preventing terrorist attacks remains the FBI's top
priority. Even as we recognize our country's important
achievements with the death of al-Baghdadi and our fight
against ISIS in the Middle East, we know that we have to stay
vigilant against that threat, both overseas and here at home,
and that includes people bent on joining terrorist
organizations where they flourish abroad, folks like the two
Milwaukee men sentenced earlier this year who were swearing
allegiance to Baghdadi and trying to travel overseas to Syria
to join the fight with ISIS.
We are also laser-focused on preventing terrorist attacks
by people who are already here in the United States inspired by
foreign terrorists, the people we refer to as the ``homegrown
violent extremists (HVE).'' Often lone actors, these folks are
inspired by foreign ideologies, but self-radicalize and operate
through websites and encrypted messaging platforms rather than
in some remote training camp or cave.
We are also keenly focused on threat of domestic terrorism,
attacks carried out by a wide variety of violent extremist
ideologies. That is everything from anarchist groups to
racially motivated violent extremists.
To confront these threats, we are working closely with our
Federal, State, and local law enforcement partners and reaching
out to all the communities we serve. And our efforts are paying
off. We are being proactive, like in the case of the man our
Miami Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) arrested in August for
threatening, among other things, to kill every Hispanic
American in Miami; or the Las Vegas man our JTTF arrested the
same month, who had been discussing a potential synagogue
attack and had already purchased bomb-making materials; or the
man we arrested just this past Friday who also planned to
attack a synagogue, this one in Colorado, using pipe bombs and
dynamite.
But these cases present unique challenges in part because
in this country we do not investigate a person just because of
his or her beliefs. And these people, like the homegrown
violent extremists I was describing earlier, tend to work
online and move quickly, at the speed of social media, leaving
dangerously little warning time from espousing radical views to
attack. I can tell you, after having personally walked through
the crime scene at the Tree of Life synagogue and having
personally visited with the teams at the scenes both in El Paso
and in Dayton, that this threat is never far from our minds and
is a focus all across the FBI.
Now, we do not have time to talk through, certainly in my
opening but probably even in this hearing, all the top threats
that we are dealing with, but I hope we can touch on more of
them as I respond to your questions this afternoon. In
particular, on the counterintelligence front, where the Chinese
Government is now targeting our innovation through a wider than
ever range of actors. Not just Chinese intelligence officers
conducting both traditional and cyber espionage, but people
they enlist to help them like contract hackers, certain
graduate students and researchers, insider threats within U.S.
businesses, and a whole variety of other actors working on
behalf of China.
We see the Chinese Government encouraging and even
assisting the abuse of incentive plans like the so-called
Thousand Talents Program, plans that offer cash and other
enticements to bring American information back to China,
information that is often actually trade secrets and other
innovations stolen from American companies and universities. We
are seeing Chinese companies then using that stolen technology
to compete against the very American companies it belongs to.
We are seeing intellectual property and data theft from
companies and academic institutions of just about every size in
just about every sector. This is a threat to our economic
security and in many respects a threat to our national
security. It is also a threat to American jobs, American
businesses, American consumers, and it is in small towns and
big cities alike.
Even as we speak, even as I sit here testifying before this
Committee, the FBI has around 1,000 investigations involving
attempted theft of U.S.-based technology that lead back to
China, and that is involving nearly all of the FBI's 56 field
offices. I can tell you that number is representing a
significant uptick from a few years ago, and it is growing.
The men and women of the FBI dedicate themselves every day
to keeping the American people safe. I want to thank this
Committee for your support for our FBI workforce. I can tell
you it makes all the difference in the world to our hardworking
agents, analysts, and professional staff all across this
country and, frankly, around the world.
So thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you
today.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Director Wray.
Our third witness is Russell Travers. Mr. Travers is the
Acting Director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Acting
Director Travers has been in this position since August 16,
2019, although he also served as the Acting Director from
December 2017 to December 2018. His previous service includes
Deputy Director of NCTC and Special Assistant to the President
and Senior Director for Transnational Threat Integration and
Information Sharing on the National Security Council (NSC). Mr.
Travers.
TESTIMONY OF RUSSELL TRAVERS,\1\ ACTING DIRECTOR, NATIONAL
COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER, OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL
INTELLIGENCE
Mr. Travers. Thank you and good afternoon. Chairman
Johnson, Ranking Member Peters, Members of the Committee, it is
a privilege to be here to represent the men and women of the
National Counterterrorism Center.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Travers appear in the Appendix on
page 70.
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In the years since 9/11, the U.S. counterterrorism
community and its many partners have achieved significant
successes against terrorist groups around the world. As we saw
just 2 weekends ago with the raid against Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,
the U.S. continues to remove terrorist leaders around the
globe. And over the past year, coalition operations against
ISIS in Iraq and Syria has deprived the group of its so-called
caliphate.
Moreover, ongoing CT efforts across Africa, the Middle
East, and South Asia continue to diminish the ranks of both al-
Qaeda and ISIS, removing experienced leaders and operatives on
a regular basis. And interagency efforts to enhance our
defenses at home have resulted in continued progress in
safeguarding the homeland from terrorist attacks.
There is indeed a lot of good news, but we need to be
cautious because challenges remain. I will highlight and
summarize just three.
First, military operations have indeed bought us time and
space as we address a global terrorist threat. But the diverse,
diffuse, and expanding nature of that threat remains a
significant concern.
After 9/11, we were primarily focused on an externally
directed attack capability emanating from a single piece of
real estate along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Eighteen
years later, as my colleagues have noted, we face a homegrown
violent extremist threat, almost 20 ISIS branches and networks
that range from tens to hundreds to thousands of people, al-
Qaeda and its branches and affiliates, foreign fighters that
flock to Iraq and Syria from well over 100 countries, Iran and
its proxies, and there is a growing terrorist threat from
racially and ethnically motivated extremists around the globe.
By any calculation, there are far more radicalized
individuals now than there were at 9/11, and this highlights
the importance of terrorism prevention.
While some aspects of the threat can only be dealt with
through kinetic operations, the resonance of the ideology will
not be dealt with by military or law enforcement operations
alone. The world has a lot of work to do in the nonkinetic
realm to deal with radicalization underlying causes.
The second challenge stems from terrorists' ability to
exploit technology and attributes of globalization. They are
good at it, and they are very innovative, as the Chairman
suggested. We have seen the use of encrypted communications for
operational planning; the use of social media to spread
propaganda and transfer knowledge between and amongst
individuals and networks; the use of drones and unmanned
aircraft systems (UASs) for swarm attacks, explosive delivery
means, and even assassination attempts.
High-qualify fraudulent travel documents will increasingly
undermine a names-based screening and vetting system and
threaten border security. We will see greater use of
cryptocurrencies to fund operations, and the potential
terrorist use of chemical and biological weapons has moved from
a low-probability eventuality to something that is considered
much more likely.
In many cases, terrorist exploitation of technology has
outpaced the associated legal and policy framework needed to
deal with the threat. Looking out 5 years, we are particularly
concerned with the growing adverse impact encryption will have
on our counterterrorism efforts.
The third challenge I would highlight relates to a concern
about potential complacency. Our whole-of-government approach
to counterterrorism over the past 18 years has kept the country
pretty safe. In our view, the near-term potential for large-
scale, externally directed attacks against the homeland has at
least temporarily declined as a result of U.S. and allied
actions around the globe. But as noted earlier, the threat
itself does continue to metastasize and will require very close
attention in the years ahead.
In a crowded national security environment, it is
completely understandable that terrorism may no longer be
viewed as the number one threat to the country, but that begs a
host of questions.
First, what does the national risk equation look like as
the country confronts a very complex national security
environment?
Second, how do we optimize CT resources in the best
interests of the country when departments and agencies may have
somewhat differing priorities?
Third, if we are going to reduce efforts against terrorism,
how do we do so in a manner that does not inadvertently reverse
the gains of the past 18 years?
These are all complicated questions that will require
significant conversation, sophisticated conversation going
forward, in both the Executive and Legislative branches.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to your questions.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Travers.
I was not expecting an infusion of optimism here, and I did
not get it. These are serious threats, and they are becoming
more and more complex.
One thing I noticed was lacking in all of your written
testimony as well as your oral testimony, except for Under
Secretary Glawe did reference the murder of the Mormon family,
we did not talk about the really incredible events surrounding
the capture of El Chapo's son and how the drug cartels
completely took over and overwhelmed the law enforcement there.
And we did not talk about--and this is the thing that was
really missing. We did not talk about MS-13 and some of those
gangs that are infusing our inner cities and are incredibly
brutal.
I guess I would just like to ask all three of you, either
the reality, the potential for spillover of the drug cartel
activities we saw with El Chapo's son, as we saw with the
Mormon tragedy, but also just the gangs that we already know
exist, and really the current situation. Is it growing? How
much of a handle do we have on these gangs? I will start with
you, Mr. Glawe.
Mr. Glawe. Chairman Johnson, thank you for the opportunity
to speak about this. I would say in regard to Mexico, there are
areas in Mexico which I would characterize as ``lawless''--
``lawless'' being that the drug cartels run the infrastructure,
the services, and their businesses, which is drug trafficking.
Chairman Johnson. I have heard--and I do not want to name
the figure, but I have heard a pretty high percentage of the
number of communities are completely controlled by the drug
cartels.
Mr. Glawe. We have done an evaluation with other U.S.
intelligence community partners, and I would be happy to come
back in a closed session. I believe that is classified, and we
can go through that. But we did do an evaluation similar to a
counterinsurgency model that we have looked at in the war
zones, and it is devastating right now. The drug interdiction
numbers on the Southwest Border have increased statistically
over the last 3 years, methamphetamine, fentanyl-based
narcotics, opium-based narcotics, and cocaine. Their networks
are sophisticated. They operate as a sophisticated business and
enterprise with a supply chain, with covert and overt
operatives. They are able to use extortion and assassinations
at will. It is all based on money and moving people and goods
to the Southwest Border and over the border into the United
States. Those supply lanes and drug-trafficking routes are
defined, and where they are not, there is war and fighting
going on.
Chairman Johnson. We held a hearing, and MS-13 was not
motivated by drugs. It was something else.
Director Wray, can you kind of speak to gangs in our inner
cities?
Mr. Wray. Certainly the FBI is spending a lot of our effort
on gangs in the inner cities, not just MS-13, 18th Street,
gangs like that that have a more national footprint, but also
neighborhood gangs. If you talk to police chiefs around this
country, you will find that in a lot of cities it is
neighborhood gangs that are really terrorizing the communities.
We view it as a threat that is unfortunately alive and well,
and we are tackling it through a variety of different kinds of
task forces, capacity building with State and locals.
Chairman Johnson. What has been the trend over the last 10
years?
Mr. Wray. I think part of it is this trend toward the
neighborhood gangs. MS-13 has continued to become a major
factor, but we also, like I said, are increasingly worried
about neighborhood gangs. We have found that when you in a
coordinated way are strategic and prioritized in going after
the threats, in a lot of communities what you will find is that
if you prioritize, you will find that there, in effect, a tail
wagging the dog, and it varies from city to city. But in one
city it will be a particular neighborhood. In another city it
might even be a six-block radius. In another place it might be
a particular corridor or on a highway. In another place it
might be a particular group, 20 or 30 people who are really
driving the threat. But almost always, with good intelligence
analysis, working together with our partners, you will find,
again, that tail wagging the dog. If you are disciplined in
going after it, you can have a dramatic impact, sometimes quite
quickly, that lasts.
Chairman Johnson. But are the number of gang members
growing? Are the actions becoming more brutal? I read about
things that are just horrific.
Mr. Wray. Certainly MS-13 takes brutality to a whole other
level. Violence there, as you know, Mr. Chairman, is
essentially part of the rite of passage to join and move up the
ranks. So there is a degree to which there is really almost
violence for violence's sake on the part of some of these
gangs.
Chairman Johnson. But, again, are the numbers growing or is
it flat? I am just trying to get a feel for the trend here.
Mr. Wray. I am not sure I can give you the numbers of gang
membership per se, but I would be happy to have someone follow
up with and give you a more detailed briefing on that. I know
the violent crime rate has gone down some in the last year or
two; even though not dramatically, it has gone in the right
direction.
Chairman Johnson. In your testimony, your oral testimony,
Director Wray, you were talking about the cyber theft, which
is, I have heard, hundreds of millions of dollars. Primarily
the big culprit there is China. I cannot personally envision a
trade deal reining that in. I think we are going to have to use
law enforcement, and I think we are going to have to use law
enforcement from the standpoint of having global partners, for
example, deny entry from management of these companies that we
know are stealing our intellectual property.
Can you just kind of speak to that reality?
Mr. Wray. I think you are exactly right, that there is no
one remedy that is going to deal with a threat that is this
broad, this deep, this diverse, this vexing. What I would say
is that there is a role for trade, there is a role for law
enforcement, there is a role for diplomacy, there is a role
for, in particular, as I think you and I have discussed in the
past, building resilience in this country by working with the
private sector and the academic sector.
A lot of times, the most effective defense against the
Chinese counterintelligence threat can be done by companies and
universities, and other institutions in this country being
smarter and more sophisticated about protecting themselves. So
we are putting a lot of effort into that, being a little more
forward-leaning than we might have been 5 or 6 years ago in
terms of providing detailed information to try to help them, as
I said, be part of the common defense that I think we all need.
Chairman Johnson. Canada arrested the Chief Financial
Officer (CFO) of Huawei on charges related to violation of
sanctions. Is there a concerted effort to try and, again, deny
entry, potentially arrest people from these companies that are
stealing our intellectual property? Is there an organized
effort globally with other Western democracies to do that?
Mr. Wray. We are doing things with other Western countries
and, frankly, non-Western countries because this is a threat
that is being confronted by a lot of our allies.
I will say that in some instances there are abuses of the
visa process that we are trying to help address. That is
obviously a State Department issue, but they are an important
part of this fight as well.
In other cases, there may be people who are engaged in
intellectual property theft in a way that violates the terms of
their contract, either an employment contract in a company or a
research contract with a university, and they can be
essentially kicked out on that basis. Sometimes that is a lot
better solution than traditional law enforcement.
Chairman Johnson. OK. Senator Peters.
Senator Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
There is no question the three of you have very difficult
jobs and big responsibilities. Mr. Glawe, I want to discuss one
of those very difficult jobs that the Department of Homeland
Security has, which is, of course, what all three of you do:
first and foremost, keep us safe. That is the fundamental
objective, is to make sure that Americans are safe. But you
have an added responsibility, and that is to move trade and
commerce as efficiently as possible across the borders, and
those two are often at odds with each other. Certainly in
Michigan, it is something that we look at a lot, given the fact
that we have two of the three busiest land crossings, border
crossings, in the country. And so the facilitation of secure
trade and travel is absolutely essential to my State, as well
as many others. In order to support that mission, it is crucial
that the DHS has a clear picture of the threats facing the
Northern Border and between the ports of entry (POE) as well.
So my question to you is: Could you briefly speak to I&A's
work to assess the threats on the Northern Border to support
the Department's Northern Border strategy as it exists today?
Mr. Glawe. Sure. Ranking Member Peters, thank you for the
question. I am a relatively unique witness for you; I was the
head of intelligence for U.S. Customs and Border Protection
(CBP) prior to assuming this role, and I occupied that position
for almost 3 years. In that role with U.S. Customs and Border
Protection, I led a team that did an assessment of the Northern
Border threat, which I will be happy to share with the
Committee. I have traveled to the Northern Border. I have been
to Detroit. I have been to those land border crossings, and I
have been to our intelligence center, which we stood up there.
There is a vulnerability in the marine environment and the
land environment. It is a porous border, and the terrain is
tough, as it is in the Southwest Border, but different. We are
looking at how we deploy our assets, which are primarily law
enforcement, with the air and sensor capability to see
individuals that may be crossing unlawfully. A lot of our
relationship revolves around a partnership with the Canadians,
the Canadian Border Service, and the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police and their intelligence services, which are outstanding.
We are very much relying on that partnership with each other,
backed up by the good intelligence collection by our partners
that goes on 24 hours a day.
I would like to highlight the National Vetting Center,
which is our global capability to identify at-risk individuals,
which is also being expanded to cargo, that pose a threat to
the United States, and that is in full operational capacity now
through our National Targeting Center at U.S. Customs and
Border Protection.
But we are constantly evaluating the threat to the Northern
Border by transnational criminal organizations (TCOs),
terrorist organizations, and foreign intelligence officers.
Senator Peters. Thank you.
Mr. Wray, I mentioned this briefly in my opening comments,
but your agency has not provided a single document in almost 6
months now to a letter that Chairman Johnson and I authored
dealing with domestic terrorism. This is a bipartisan letter. I
think we were very careful in terms of the scope of it, that it
is not overly broad but hopefully allowed us to have the kind
of information necessary for us to provide the kind of
oversight, particularly on something as serious as domestic
terrorism and white supremacist action in particular, which you
have highlighted as something that is growing.
To me--and I think I speak for my Chairman as well--that is
unacceptable when you have a joint letter from a Ranking Member
and the Chairman, bipartisan. My question to you is: Do you
require a subpoena to respond to routine document requests from
this Committee?
Mr. Wray. No. Second, I would tell you, Ranking Member
Peters, that we have tried very hard to be responsive to this
Committee. I will say that I know that the Department, of which
we are, of course, a part, provided a long written response. I
know that we sat down with your staff, Committee staff, and
provided a verbal briefing, which was very helpful on our end
in understanding better the purpose and the scope and the
intent of the request. I also know that we have been providing
monthly domestic terrorism reports to the Committee staff,
among others.
But having said that, the most important thing to me is to
make sure that we are being responsive, and I will direct my
staff to drill in and figure out how we can be more responsive
and more forthcoming in response to your requests.
Senator Peters. So you will be more responsive than not
responding at all?
Mr. Wray. As I said, Senator, I think we have been
responsive.
Senator Peters. You talked about the Committee response. We
actually talked about this last week. What we got from DHS were
basically publicly available documents. I will tell you our
staffs are pretty good at looking at publicly available
documents, so that is not real helpful in our oversight role.
These were very specific questions that we would expect a
response. We believe that we should probably have as a
Committee--and that is my question. Do you think the Committee
should have less access to documents than just a general FOIA
request? That is basically what we are seeing here.
Mr. Wray. Senator, I cannot speak for DHS' response----
Senator Peters. No. This is for the FBI.
Mr. Wray. But from the FBI, as I said, I do not think
providing verbal briefing, the written response from the
Department, and the monthly reports is no response at all.
The point, though, from my perspective, is that I want to
make sure we are addressing your concerns, so I do not want you
to take any of my responses suggesting that I am not going to
direct my staff to drill back down and make sure that we are
doing everything we can to be cooperative.
Senator Peters. I appreciate that. Could we get a
commitment by the end of the week that we would have that?
Mr. Wray. We will get some kind of response by the end of
the week. I need to get more information about what is missing
and what is still needed.
Senator Peters. I appreciate that, and I hope you will have
prompt attention to that.
According to the FBI, domestic terrorists killed 39 people
in fiscal year (FY) 2019, making it the most deadly year for
domestic terrorism since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. My
question to you, Mr. Wray, is: How would you characterize the
domestic terrorist threat posed by White supremacists?
Mr. Wray. So first I would say that domestic terrorism
generally, in particular, self-radicalized typically lone
actors here, represents a serious, persistent threat. I think
we had about 107 domestic terrorism arrests in fiscal year
2019, which is close to the same number that we had on the
international terrorism front.
Within the domestic terrorism group, we have about--at any
given time, the number fluctuates, but at any given time, we
have about 1,000--sometimes it is closer to 900, sometimes it
is above 1,000--domestic terrorism investigations. A huge chunk
of those domestic terrorism investigations involve racially--
motivated violent extremist-motivated terrorist attacks, and
the majority of those, of the racially--motivated violent
extremist attacks, are fueled by some kind of White supremacy.
I would say that the most lethal activity over the last few
years has been committed by those type of attackers.
Senator Peters. I am out of time, but I will follow this in
the second round. Thank you.
Chairman Johnson. Senator Hassan.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HASSAN
Senator Hassan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks
to you and Ranking Member Peters for convening this hearing on
threats to our homeland. Thank you to all three of our
witnesses not only for being here today but for your service to
our country, and I hope you will carry back with you to the men
and women you lead our sincere thanks from a grateful country
for all they do to keep us safe.
Director Travers, I wanted to start with a question to you.
Last month, I traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan and heard
firsthand the concerns of our military and embassy personnel
about the growing and very real threat of ISIS-K, the ISIS
affiliate in
Afghanistan. I heard clearly that ISIS-K threatens not only
U.S. forces in Afghanistan, but also has designs on striking
the U.S. homeland.
You said last week that there are more than 20 ISIS
branches globally, some of which are using sophisticated
technologies such as drones to conduct operations. Despite our
key victories against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, ISIS as a global
terrorist organization remains a deadly threat to the United
States.
Director Travers, we know that ISIS-K and other affiliates
of ISIS want to strike the U.S. homeland. Please tell us more
about their ability to do this and what we are doing to
mitigate this threat.
Mr. Travers. Thanks for the question, Senator. Yes, so of
all of the branches and networks of ISIS, ISIS-K is certainly
one of those of most concern, probably in the neighborhood of
4,000 individuals or so. We certainly share the concerns of
both the U.S. military and the embassy in theater. They have
attempted to certainly inspire attacks outside of Afghanistan.
They attempted last year to conduct a suicide attack in India.
It failed. They have actually tried, a couple years ago, I
think, to inspire an attack against New York that the FBI
interrupted. There was an attack in Stockholm in 2017, I
believe, that killed five people. So they certainly have a
desire and the propaganda would indicate that they want to
conduct attacks outside of Afghanistan, thus far relatively
limited.
I would say that we saw attack claims by ISIS-K ramping up
throughout 2016, 2017, and 2018, somewhat lower the beginning
of this year, although now I think we are looking at about an
attack a day or so. Interestingly, only about an hour and a
half ago, they were the latest ISIS branch to declare
allegiance to the new head of ISIS.
Senator Hassan. Thank you for that.
Director Wray, I have a question for you about ransomware,
but just before I do, I want to thank your team in New
Hampshire. We recently had a field hearing about the threats to
our houses of worship, in particular from domestic terrorism,
and supervisory senior resident agent Michael Gibley was very
helpful, and I think our faith leaders have been very
encouraged by his work with them. So thank you and him for
that.
As to ransomware, we are seeing the impact of it across the
country, including an attack in my home State of New Hampshire.
Threat actors target every aspect of our communities from
health care providers to our small businesses and even to State
and local governments themselves, as they did in New Hampshire.
Last week, I talked with Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Security Agency (CISA) Director Krebs about what the Department
of Homeland Security is doing to assist State and local
entities facing ransomware attacks. Director Wray, what is the
FBI doing to address the threat of ransomware attacks on our
communities? Is it tracking the number of ransomware attacks on
our country? How is the FBI coordinating with the Department of
Homeland Security in these efforts?
Mr. Wray. So, first off, Senator, I appreciate the feedback
on the meeting up in New Hampshire. On ransomware specifically,
I think what we are seeing is a shift to more and more targeted
ransomware attacks, more and more targeting, for example,
municipalities, and there are a variety of reasons why
municipalities are particularly vulnerable victims to
ransomware attacks.
We are also seeing more enterprise-level ransomware attacks
where it essentially affects every computer in the
organization.
Senator Hassan. Right.
Mr. Wray. One of the things that we are trying to do
whatever we can is figure out through our unique role as both a
law enforcement agency and an intelligence agency. There have
been times where, for example, we are able to reverse-engineer
a decryption key. So I can take, for example, we had a case in
the Northwest, for example, a small business, 600 people,
crippling ransomware attack, potentially all those people about
to lose their jobs, the company to go under. But because of our
investigative work, we were able to reverse-engineer a
decryption key. They did not have to pay the ransom. They got
their systems back online, and a lot of nice thank you notes
from those 600 employees.
Senator Hassan. I bet.
Mr. Wray. As far as working with DHS, the basic lanes in
the road, if you will, we work very closely together. The FBI
is the lead on the threat, and DHS is the lead on the asset.
And essentially we work together in that respect.
Senator Hassan. It is something that I think in a lot of
the work we have done as a Committee we are hearing more and
more concern from our local stakeholders about it and also
really want to help all of the various agencies coordinate and
share information as effectively as possible.
Director Travers, I wanted to go back to the issue of
domestic terrorism. In the aftermath of 9/11, the Federal
Government built a robust and capable counterterrorism
architecture, establishing new departments, centers, and
counterterrorism information-sharing mechanisms to support
State and local partners and address a foreign terrorist threat
unlike any we had seen before.
Today, 18 years later, we face a surge in domestic
terrorism--and you will hear it from everybody on this
Committee; you have heard it already in some of the questions--
including rising threats against houses of worship. If we are
to prevent domestic terrorist attacks, we have to start
treating these incidences as seriously as we did when al-Qaeda
and other foreign terrorist organizations have threatened or
attacked us after 9/11.
Director Travers, the National Counterterrorism Center was
created after 9/11 to respond to threats from al-Qaeda. The
center is responsible for ensuring that we effectively
integrate and share terrorist-related information in order to
prevent attacks. Can you share your thoughts on the current
State of domestic terrorism information sharing? What does the
U.S. Government need to do amid this rising threat to ensure
that intelligence is not missed and that it gets to the people
who need to know it?
Mr. Travers. I will start, but I think probably pass it to
Director Wray. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention
Act that created NCTC, written by this Committee, gave a number
of statutory responsibilities to NCTC in the realm of
international terrorism. There are references in the
legislation to domestic terrorism, but quite clearly, the
Bureau would have the lead, and I view NCTC as being in
support. So we have, I think, a lot of things we can do, and
our staffs are working on sort of laying out the parameters,
but things like addressing issues of radicalization and
mobilization, kind of left of boom kinds of questions, that
NCTC has done a lot of work with our partners on the
international terrorism side. I think it is pretty clear that
the processes look a lot alike in terms of using social media
and the Internet and so forth. We are broadening our aperture
there, and collectively writing at the unclassified and For
Official Use Only (FOUO) so we can get that kind of information
to our State and local partners.
Where I think NCTC has particular value-add is in some
senses ``domestic terrorism'' is a bit of a misnomer because of
the international connections, and so we work a great deal with
our partners around the globe because everyone is struggling
with this problem right now and trying to figure out how to
deal with it. And so we can bring a lot of analytic horsepower
and potentially collection to the international problem set and
then in regard help the Bureau.
Senator Hassan. Thank you. I see that I am over time. I do
not know if the Chair would like Director Wray to comment now
or take it up another time.
Chairman Johnson. Briefly.
Mr. Wray. I guess the short version would be that, in
addition to everything that Director Travers has said, we are
looking very hard at some trend of, for example, White
supremacists or neo-Nazis here connecting through social media
online with like-minded individuals overseas, and in some cases
actually traveling overseas to train. As Director Travers said,
we are engaging a lot with our five Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) partners and others like that as we are
comparing notes on this threat.
Senator Hassan. All right. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Johnson. Senator Harris.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HARRIS
Senator Harris. Thank you. Good afternoon. As you know, our
country is facing many threats, so I thank all of the witnesses
for being here today.
Director Wray, I want to start by asking you about Rudy
Giuliani, a close outside adviser and counsel to the President.
Have you communicated with Mr. Giuliani since you were
nominated as the FBI Director?
Mr. Wray. No.
Senator Harris. And do you know if Mr. Giuliani holds any
security clearance of any kind?
Mr. Wray. I do not know the answer to that.
Senator Harris. Has Mr. Giuliani made any formal
representations at least to the Justice Department or the FBI
regarding his foreign relationships, business dealings, or
conflicts of interest?
Mr. Wray. I am not sure there is anything I could say on
that here.
Senator Harris. Is that because this is a confidential
matter or because you do not know or because they do not exist?
Mr. Wray. That is in part because I do not know the answer
for the whole FBI.
Senator Harris. What is the other part?
Mr. Wray. If there were something that was shared with some
other part of the FBI that I am not aware of, it might well run
afoul of some of the other Issues that you mentioned.
Senator Harris. OK. Given the close relationship between
the President and Mr. Giuliani, has the FBI told the President
whether his counsel is a potential counterintelligence threat?
Mr. Wray. I do not think there is anything that I can say
on that subject.
Senator Harris. I recall that you have testified in the
past that you have taken an oath to defend the Constitution,
and I admire the way that you have said that, and I do believe
that to be true. Do you believe that your first oath is to the
Constitution or to the President?
Mr. Wray. My loyalty is to the Constitution and to the
people of this country.
Senator Harris. If an American acting on behalf of a
foreign person was seeking to influence or interfere with an
American election, would the FBI want to know about that?
Mr. Wray. Again, I do not want to be misunderstood as
wading in and commenting on specific recent events, but just as
a general matter, any information about potential interference
with our elections by a foreign government or by anybody else
is something the FBI would want to know about.
Senator Harris. In sworn testimony before the Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee in June, you said that you ``could
not think of an instance where the President has directly or
indirectly asked you to open an investigation of anyone.'' As
of today, can you confirm or deny whether the President has
ever asked you to open an investigation as to anyone?
Mr. Wray. Again, I cannot think of an instance in which
that has happened. We have certainly had discussions about, for
example, domestic terrorism threats, foreign intelligence
threats, nation-states, things like that, but those have tended
to be more about a threat in the aggregate as opposed to a
specific individual or anything like that.
Senator Harris. Has the President or anyone on his behalf
suggested that the FBI start, stop, or limit the scope of any
investigation?
Mr. Wray. Not that I can think of.
Senator Harris. In your view, would it be improper for the
FBI to launch, limit, or stop a criminal investigation at the
request of the President or anyone at the White House?
Mr. Wray. Again, I am not going to wade into specific
people's conversations, but what I will say is that the FBI's
obligation and my obligation and the obligation that I expect
of all 37,000 men and women of the FBI is that we are going to
conduct properly predicated investigations, continue properly
predicated investigations, and complete properly predicated
investigations.
Senator Harris. So without referring to any specific
investigation, in your view, would it be improper for the FBI
to launch, limit, or stop a criminal investigation at the
request of the President or at the request of anyone at the
White House?
Mr. Wray. I think we should conduct our investigations
based only on the facts and the law and the rules that govern
us and nothing else.
Senator Harris. OK. I am going to take ``nothing else'' as
meaning that you believe it would be improper to be asked by
the White House or the President to engage in such conduct. Is
that correct?
Mr. Wray. Again, I am not going to wade into hypotheticals,
but I think we are saying the same thing in the sense that I do
not think----
Senator Harris. We are talking about rules and ethics.
Mr. Wray. I do not think that the FBI should be concluding
or closing an investigation for any improper purpose.
Senator Harris. OK. I am going to ask you one more time,
and you will either answer it or you will not, clearly. But I
am asking you about what is ethically appropriate. Would it be
ethically appropriate to launch, limit, or stop a criminal
investigation at the request of the President or anyone at the
White House?
Mr. Wray. I think there should be no opening of an
investigation based on anything other than the facts and the
law. That is my answer.
Senator Harris. Thank you. To your knowledge, has the White
House or any member of the Administration ever directed or
suggested that Attorney General Barr or any other member of the
Justice Department start, stop, or limit the scope of a
criminal investigation?
Mr. Wray. I cannot speak to Attorney General Barr's
communications with others.
Senator Harris. During your time at the Justice Department
and given your extensive and noble career, have you ever
encountered suspects or defendants who tried to intimidate
witnesses?
Mr. Wray. Absolutely, and prosecuted some.
Senator Harris. Why is witness intimidation a threat to the
pursuit of justice?
Mr. Wray. Why isn't witness----
Senator Harris. Why is it?
Mr. Wray. Oh, why is it. I was going to say I happen to
believe that witness intimidation is a threat to--because
investigations and prosecutions should be about the truth and
pursuit of the truth, and if witnesses who have firsthand
information cannot and do not come forward, then that pursuit
of the truth is frustrated and impeded.
Senator Harris. In June 2019, it was reported that hundreds
of law enforcement officers around the country are in active
members-only extremist Facebook groups. These groups include
White Lives Matter, Ban the NAACP, Death to Islam Undercover.
Can you tell me what work your agency has done to investigate
any of these cases and to what degree of success?
Mr. Wray. I am not aware of the specific report that you
are referring to. As I think I mentioned in response to one of
the earlier questions, we do have about 900, say, give or take
at the moment, domestic terrorism type investigations. That is,
of course, not counting our hate crimes investigations. And a
huge chunk of those involve some degree of what one might call
``White supremacist ideology'' as the extremist ideology that
is motivating the crime that we are investigating.
Senator Harris. Thank you, Director.
Mr. Wray. Thank you.
Senator Harris. Thank you for your service.
Chairman Johnson. Senator Scott.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SCOTT
Senator Scott. I want to thank each of you for being here
today. I want to thank Chairman Johnson and Ranking Member
Peters for putting this together.
My focus today is on the FBI's ability to share domestic
terrorism information and other violent information with local
FBI offices and State and local law enforcement.
Let me start by saying that the men and women of the FBI
are dedicated public servants. They serve this country
selflessly with no desire for praise or public recognition. I
understand that the FBI gets very little credit for their
success, nor do they seek credit. I understand it is only the
few instances of failure that get public attention and
scrutiny.
The FBI deserves praise for the work that they do every day
to keep us safe, but I also have concerns with the failures
that occurred before a series of shootings in Florida and the
lack of after-action transparency on the part of the FBI.
In the days following the senseless attack at Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, I learned of
repeated failures by the FBI to properly investigate and act on
specific tips received about the shooter in the months leading
up to the attack. Weeks before the shooting, a detailed warning
about the shooter was received by the FBI National Call Center.
The warning was never passed on to the South Florida field
office for an investigation or to any State or local law
enforcement.
Months before that, the FBI was warned about the shooter
through a comment on a YouTube video in which someone with the
shooter's name stated, ``I am going to be a professional school
shooter.'' I understand the FBI gets a high volume of tips, but
it appears the FBI did nothing with this detailed information
of an imminent threat.
We are also aware of similar instances of pre-attack
notifications received by the FBI regarding other attacks in
Florida, including at the Fort Lauderdale airport, the Pulse
nightclub in Orlando, and a Tallahassee yoga studio.
Since that time, I have repeatedly sought information from
you, Director Wray, regarding the steps you have taken to hold
accountable those within your agency responsible for those
failures. I asked for two things: First, has anyone been held
accountable? Second, what changes have been made to prevent
this from happening again? So far, I have gotten very little
information. As Governor when this happened, I asked for an
explanation, and I was told nothing. I got no information back.
As a U.S. Senator, I put together a letter and asked for
information on accountability and what changes have been made.
Again, I got little information.
Mr. Chairman, I want to enter in the record the
correspondence I sent and received.\1\
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\1\ The letter submitted by Senator Scott appears in the Appendix
on page 79.
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Chairman Johnson. Without objection.
Senator Scott. The Parkland families have also told me that
they have not gotten answers. So I am asking today: Has anyone
from the FBI been held accountable for the failures that
followed the attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas? How have they
been held accountable? And what changes have been made?
The attack was 100 percent the fault of an evil person. It
is not the responsibility of the FBI, and people make mistakes.
But the failure to act on specific information given to the FBI
that could have stopped this evil person requires action to
correct the errors.
I recently introduced the TIPS Act, which will require the
FBI to be more proactive with sharing information with local
and State officials. I would also like your feedback on that
proposal, but, first, if you could talk about Parkland.
Mr. Wray. Thank you, Senator. First let me say that there
is no issue that tears up inside more than a threat to kids in
this country, whether it is the kind of example that you are
describing or any number of others. And that was a
heartbreaking day for everybody in the FBI, and I hope you know
that, and I mean that personally.
Second, we have made extensive changes. I immediately after
the Parkland shooting dispatched a large special inspection
team into CJIS, which is where our public call center is. As a
result of that, a number of changes have been made, and without
going into all the detail, let me just give you a few of the
key points.
First, we have increased staffing significantly, both at
the line level and the supervisor level.
Second, we have enhanced the training significantly.
Third, we have enhanced the technology significantly.
Fourth, we have added more oversight.
Fifth--and this goes to parts of your question--we put in
place an entirely new leadership team with a wealth of
experience, and we have made other personnel changes, some of
them disciplinary in nature. Partly because of pending
litigation against us and because of privacy implications,
there is a limit to how much detail I can really go into on the
personnel front, but there are significant changes that have
been made.
I actually have personally gone out there not once but
twice, first to see what it was like before, and second, now to
see how it has changed since then. I have actually sat in the
midst of the call operators, put on the headset, and listened
as they dealt with the calls and watched how it happens. I can
tell you that there is an incredible amount of really good work
going on down there.
You mentioned the volume issue. I think it is important for
people to understand that on any given day our call center up
there gets more than 3,000 tips. Of those 3,000 tips, about 60
a
day--that is 60 tips a day--are potential threats to life. So
that is a huge amount of wheat having to get separated from the
chaff there. Of the 60, probably about 80 percent of them have
no Federal nexus whatsoever, and so we are looking at ways--and
I know that that is the goal now coming around to your
legislation. That is a goal that I think we share, which is how
can we get the right information--that is the key word, the
``right'' actionable information, that wheat and not the chaff,
to our State and local partners as far as possible. And there
is something that we have in place that I would love to talk to
you more about called ``eGuardian,'' which is a system that has
been in place for a while that we have significantly enhanced,
and the key takeaway from that, Senator, is that it would dual-
route, so simultaneously go straight from the call center not
just to local field office but also the State Fusion Center or
the equivalent.
We have already had a number of instances--and I could go
through a number of them here--where some threat comes in, and
within hours, using that approach, within hours we have had an
arrest.
I think we are very encouraged by the direction it takes,
but make no mistake, this is one of the hardest things law
enforcement has to deal with today, and we are doing our best,
and we are going to keep working at it.
Senator Scott. So can you explain--so here is why I never
get a response, OK? First off, I do not think you have an easy
job. I know it is hard, and you get lots of tips. I get all
that. But I have never heard that--and I do not get why
somebody cannot say, ``A person was disciplined,'' ``They were
held accountable,'' something. I am a business guy. In
business, you have to hold people accountable if somebody made
a mistake.
If somebody said, the person's name, ``I am going to be a
professional school shooter,'' that is pretty actionable, you
would think, right? When somebody calls just a few weeks before
a school shooting and they give detailed information, I mean,
you have to believe somebody got held accountable. And to this
point, I mean, the Parkland families have never been told that
anybody was held accountable, and it is always this amorphous,
``Well, we cannot,'' it is privacy or something like that.
There has to be something, a better answer than that, because
it just seems, if you take their side, you would say nothing
happened to them. Nobody got held accountable.
Mr. Wray. Like I said, to me the privacy act issues and the
pending litigation are things that I do have to take seriously
in responding to your question, and I am trying to lean in in
answering your question. I can tell you that there were two
individuals principally involved with the call. We have had one
individual that has been reassigned as a result of that
inspection report and one who is, I guess the best way to put
it is, no longer with the FBI. I really cannot go into more
detail than that. But I would tell you that the more important
thing is it should not be anybody's impression, I can assure
you, that nothing has been done. We have made massive changes
out there, and I know we have invited you and your staff to
come out and see it, and I would welcome that. I think you
would be encouraged by what you have seen out there.
Senator Scott. All right. Thank you.
Chairman Johnson. Senator Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. Let me just say thank you all for your
testimony. I thought you gave excellent testimonies, and we
appreciate that. Thank you for being here today and for the
work that you do.
I passed Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. He was leaving as I
was coming in. He is not on the Committee, so he did not get to
ask questions, but he was going to ask if he could. He wanted
to ask you about responding to the questions for the record
(QFRs), Mr. Wray. I would just ask you to check with your team,
just make sure that you are being responsive there, OK? He
asked me to mention that, so I did on his behalf. I know you
probably get a lot of those.
I was privileged to be the Chairman of this Committee a few
years ago. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma was our Ranking Member, and
it was during the Obama Administration, and we had a hearing or
two with folks essentially from Homeland Security, Mr. Glawe,
and the issue was Swiss cheese. You might say, ``Why would it
have been Swiss cheese?'' Because the top leadership in
Homeland Security kind of looked like Swiss cheese. We had a
number of positions that were vacant, leadership positions. We
had many others that were filled by people in acting capacity
and had never been Senate-confirmed. We are happy that you are
here and others that are filling in, but if he were here, he
would probably say he had the same concern with all these
people in acting positions.
I asked my staff to give me a number, and they said----
[phone rings]. That is Coburn right now. He is everywhere.
I understand that when Acting Secretary McAleenan leaves--and I
think he has been terrific. I hate to see him go. But I
understand that 11 of the 18 positions requiring Senate
confirmation will be vacant.
I will say that again: 11 of the 18 positions requiring
Senate confirmation will be vacant. One of the reasons that Tom
Coburn and I worked hard, along with the people on our
Committee in those days, was because the Department of Homeland
Security had the worst morale--it is measured about every 2
years. It had the worst morale of all the departments, major
departments of government. One of the reasons why was because
of that. And the last 2 years, when they finished up and that
administration left, I remember talking to Jeh Johnson, and he
told me that the last measurement--we have this measurement
every 2 years where an independent entity measures the morale
of the major departments, and the Department that made the most
improvement in that 2-year period was Homeland Security. So it
really does make a difference in more ways than we might
expect.
But I would ask each of you--and I will just start with
you, David--could you speak to how the lack of Senate-confirmed
leadership at the highest levels of DHS affects the interagency
work that you all do to keep our homeland secure? This would be
just for you, Secretary Glawe. How can we in Congress push the
President to nominate qualified individuals in order to ensure
the Department is able to carry out its vital mission? Please.
Mr. Glawe. Senator, thank you for bringing that up. With 27
years in law enforcement and a career official, starting as a
Houston police officer, it is an honor and a privilege to serve
with the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security.
They do an incredible mission. The career service members have
carried on this mission with an incredible professionalism, and
I am happy to say our employee viewpoint survey continues the
upward trajectory. Even though some of these Senate-confirmed
positions are not filled, we continue our upward trajectory, as
well as in my office which has seen some of the biggest
increases in morale this year, and your staff will have access
to that.
I would say that we have two officials that are pending
confirmation: our Under Secretary of Policy and our Chief
Financial Officer. We would appreciate their speedy
confirmation.
As one of the longest-serving Senate-confirmed--and you
unanimously confirmed me--I appreciate that by the Senate and
this Committee as well.
Senator Carper. All right. Would either of the other
witnesses care to comment on this? Please.
Mr. Wray. Senator, I would just say, without speaking to
DHS' leadership vacancies, that we work very closely with the
men and women of DHS across all their different sub-agencies
every day on our task forces. They are fantastic public
servants and great partners, and we are proud to stand with
them.
Senator Carper. All right. Thank you.
Mr. Travers. The same would be true of NCTC. I have many
people embedded at DHS, and I have many I&A officers that work
for me, and it is a very strong partnership.
Senator Carper. All right. I was out of the room for a
little bit. I do not know if this has already been raised, but
I want to talk a bit about our withdrawal of U.S. troops from
northeastern Syria. Something that troubles me deeply. I gave a
speech on the floor, I think it was last Thursday, close of
business, and I mentioned it. It was something like 11,000
Kurdish lives had been lost in the battle against ISIS. I have
a friend, you ask him how he was doing. He says, ``Compared to
what?'' Eleven thousand of their lives and a relative handful
of ours. Every one of those is dear and precious, but I just
want to ask, and we will start--let us see. I guess I am going
to ask each of you this. We will start with you, Mr. Travers.
But can you just please speak about the effects that pulling
U.S. troops out from northeastern Syria will have on our
Kurdish allies, please?
Mr. Travers. I believe it is true that General Maxloum and
the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been very close allies.
They have been incredibly important in terms of providing
intelligence over the years. We were heartened by both the
President's and the Secretary of Defense's statement that the
U.S. forces that will remain in Syria will have a continuing
counterterrorism mission as well as the oil, and that there
will be continued engagement with the SDF.
This remains a very important counterterrorism objective to
us because they are guarding many different prisons with both
foreign fighter and Iraqi and Syrian ISIS fighters. And so that
relationship really needs to continue.
Senator Carper. All right. And just a simple yes or no.
Were you all consulted on this matter by the White House?
Mr. Travers. I was not, but it would not necessarily be the
case that I would be.
Senator Carper. All right. Thanks.
Same question, if you could, Mr. Wray. Could you just talk
a little bit about the effects that pulling out U.S. troops
from northeastern Syria will have on our Kurdish allies? I know
this is a little bit out of your wheelhouse, but take a shot.
Mr. Wray. Well, parts of it are in our wheelhouse. In
particular, we are obviously concerned about potential
resurgence of ISIS if certain fighters in particular were to
escape or be released. We will say that the biggest threat to
the homeland, that is, the biggest ISIS-related threat here, in
many ways in the online inspired threat, in effect the virtual
caliphate. So that threat is something that we have been all
over with or without the presence in Syria.
One of the things that we have done, we, FBI, along with
others, working with our partners, anticipating the day where
we might not be there, is biometric enrollment on the
battlefield in effect, in order to put us in a position where
fingerprints, DNA, et cetera, are available and can be shared
with our allies and others so that in the event that fighters
end up spreading out for one reason or another, we have a
better chance of intercepting them before they do harm.
Senator Carper. All right. Mr. Secretary, same two
questions, if I could, and then I will be done. The same two
questions, if you could, Mr. Secretary. Were you consulted on
this matter by the White House? Just a yes or no is fine.
Mr. Glawe. Sure, Senator, and no, I was not, and I would
not be in my current role. But what I would say is as a follow-
on to what Director Wray said, our partnership with obtaining
the biometrics from the ISIS fighters, al-Qaeda fighters, any
terrorist organization, is critical for our vetting program and
our relationships with the intelligence services, our law
enforcement services abroad, and our foreign partners. But the
disbursement of terrorism is global. Southeast Asia, northwest/
East Africa, Middle East are all threats from ISIS, al-Qaeda,
Al-Shabaab and others, and affiliates. It is how we get that
information and we vet them. So if the refugees or migration
flows out of Yemen or Syria are large, we have to have the
biometrics to collect to make sure they do not come here, to
run them against systems to make sure they are not terrorists,
criminals, or foreign intelligence officers.
So it is really critical, that information sharing and that
vetting process we have to make sure bad things or bad people
are not coming to the United States.
Senator Carper. Thanks so much, and thank you all for your
service, your leadership, and the people you lead.
Thank you.
Chairman Johnson. Senator Portman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN
Senator Portman. Thanks to the three of you for some great
testimony today and, most importantly, for what you and the men
and women who are in your organizations do every day to help
keep us safe.
I noticed in your opening statement, Director Wray, you
talked about the Thousand Talents Program, and as you may know,
the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) with Senator
Carper and others, we are in the process of looking into that
issue and have done a series of hearings on related items,
including on the Confucius Institutes. In fact, we did a
Confucius Institute report that indicates that there are
limitations that China places on the activities here, including
censorship, as an example, not allowing the academic community
here to discuss topics they believe are politically sensitive,
such as, the Tiananmen Square uprising or something like that.
But as you say, it goes well beyond Confucius Institutes.
You said that China is abusing the Thousand Talents program, I
wrote. You also said that the FBI has about 1,000 cases,
coincidentally, investigating technology transfer. And you said
that universities should be smarter about defending themselves.
I guess my question would be: What efforts has the FBI
taken to inform the higher education community about this
threat? And what has your response been?
Mr. Wray. I think you have put your finger on an important
issue. The role of academia in our country, especially given
the amount of taxpayer-funded research there is in particular,
is a key component to this counterintelligence threat. So in
addition to investigations--and I cannot give you the number
out of the 1,000 that involve universities and, in particular,
graduate students and researchers, but certainly it is a
significant number. But in addition to the investigations, we
are much more actively engaged with major universities in
encouraging them and informing them so that they can take
appropriate action voluntarily but robustly to guard against
the threat.
As far as the reaction we have gotten, it varies. But I
have been actually quite encouraged by quite a number of
universities, which a few years ago would not have wanted to
meet with the FBI under any circumstances, much less in the
kind of partnership way that is occurring now, including very
good responsiveness from Ohio State. I have met with them. We
had an academic summit in FBI headquarters just about a month
ago where we brought in chancellors and others from
universities all across the country, a whole bunch of our SACs,
and kind of briefed them on some of the threats and had
engagement about how we can work more constructively together
to help them defend themselves.
Senator Portman. Our information is that Ohio State
certainly, and some other schools, have expressed their
interest in working even more with you and appreciate what has
been done. They also, I think, are not providing us the
transparency we need to know whether there is a problem. Would
you agree with that?
Mr. Wray. I would probably let Ohio State speak for itself
in terms of its own transparency, but----
Senator Portman. I am not talking about Ohio State. I am
talking about just in general. We found out, as you may know,
in our investigation as an example that about 70 percent of the
schools were not properly reporting the foreign government
payments that they were receiving with regard to the Confucius
Institutes. So the transparency, although some of it is in law
already and not being followed, is not adequate in our view. Is
that your view?
Mr. Wray. I think it is fair to say there is a lot of room
for improvement, but we are seeing improvement.
Senator Portman. Let me talk about another issue that is a
national security threat for our entire country, but Ohio is
particularly hard-hit, and that is the drug crisis and the
epidemic of overdoses and deaths. We know that the Southern
Border has lots of challenges. One is certainly the drug issue.
We know that crystal meth, which is the new drug that is
causing havoc in our communities in Ohio, but also heroin and
cocaine, comes almost exclusively across that Southern Border.
And my question to you is really about what is happening. You
see a significant reduction in terms of crossings. I am looking
at some data here that compares last month to the month of May
as an example, almost a one-third reduction in crossings, or at
least in apprehensions, which would indicate crossings.
So the number of people coming over has slowed
considerably, still a significant issue but not like it was.
And yet from all indications we have, the drug flow has not
been reduced, even though many have linked some of the same
traffickers who bring people across as bringing drugs across.
Can you speak to that and talk about how these drugs are
coming over? Secretary Glawe, if you would like to speak to
that, that would be helpful to this issue. But what more can we
do, of course, on the border? But, also, what is the
relationship between people crossing and drugs crossing?
Mr. Glawe. Senator, thank you for the question. Just to
give you the numbers from 2017 to 2019 so you know what we are
dealing with on the narcotic flows, we have seen a 40-percent
increase in cocaine from seizures at the Southwest Border. We
have seen a 20-percent increase in fentanyl. We have seen a 30-
percent increase in heroin. And to your point, we have seen a
200-percent increase in methamphetamine, and that is in
addition to the emergency on the border we have with the
migrant flows and Border Patrol and Office of Air and Marine
and our Office of Field Operations being taken offline for just
detention.
So we have a crisis at the Southwest Border, and it is all
based on moving people and goods illicitly across the border.
Cartels are about moving goods and people across the Southwest
Border.
Senator Portman. So with almost a third fewer people, have
you seen any reduction in the drug flow? Because we certainly
have not experienced that on the other end.
Mr. Glawe. No. We have seen an increase. We have seen an
increase, and that is what we are apprehending. So those
numbers are probably low. That is what we are catching. That is
what else is going in. So we have seen those increases in the
last 2 years. The cartels are a sophisticated business about
moving supplies to the United States. They are as good as any
major business. There are profits in it. It ranges largely, but
they are a Fortune 500 company, and it is all about moving
illicit goods across the border. And it is a sophisticated
network--and I am sure you have heard the names--of plaza
bosses which run and control what moves across the Southwest
Border. And they are trafficking supply chains and their
relationships with China, which is now--the fentanyl production
that is moving into Mexico. It is very sophisticated, very
robust, and constantly changing in dynamic.
Senator Portman. I would love to follow up with you on that
and maybe a QFR here on the fentanyl issue. My sense is there
is not a lot of production of fentanyl in Mexico, but there is
processing. They are getting it, just as we were getting it,
through the mail system--and still do, by the way. But they are
getting it to Mexico, often converting it into a pill form, and
then sending it over. Again, a huge increase compared to even a
few years ago, so a new threat on the border.
But, look, I think the demand side is key here. We have
done a lot of work on that. We will continue to, on prevention,
recovery programs, and treatment. But we have to do something
to deal with the flow, too, because this crystal meth, I will
tell you, on the streets of Columbus, Ohio, I am told it is
less expensive than marijuana, and deadly. So we would
appreciate any input you have as to how we can do a better job
to reduce that supply, at a minimum not just reducing the
poison coming into our communities, but reducing the impact
because it will increase the cost.
Mr. Glawe. Senator, I would just follow up. As far as
actioning this, it is a sophisticated approach that goes beyond
just law enforcement. It is a partnership with our U.S.
intelligence community partners, our Mexican intelligence
community partners, the Mexican military as well as our
military. That partnership is robust, and we have a very good
relationship with our Mexican partners. But it is really upping
the game and a strategy to impact these groups. That is going
to have to go city by city, State by State. As I mentioned to
Chairman Johnson earlier, there are some areas that are
primarily controlled by the cartels and that supply chain, it
is very sophisticated and will require a real strategic
approach to how we are doing business.
Chairman Johnson. Senator Lankford.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD
Senator Lankford. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Let me first say to all of you thank you for the work that
you are doing. You do not hear that enough. There are a lot of
threats, and you face a lot of things, and you go through a lot
of information each and every day for the sake of our Nation
and for the people in my State in Oklahoma. And we appreciate
that very much.
Yesterday we had an event in Oklahoma city that we just
called ``Day One.'' It was an event that is 168 days away from
the 25th anniversary of the Murrah Building bombing in 1995.
Twenty-five years ago, we lost 168 Oklahomans, many of them
Federal employees, and their families, many of them children.
We remember distinctly well what domestic terrorism looks like
in Oklahoma City, and we have not forgotten about that.
So from all of us and for the families and the people that
I live around, we want to say thank you that you are staying
vigilant in this, because we do not take domestic terrorism
lightly.
So, with that, let me ask you an unfair question. As you
look at your time that you have to spend and the threats that
you face right now, give me a percentage of threats that you
face based on domestic terrorism and acts and international
terrorism that are coming. Is that 60/40? Is it 50/50? Is it
70/30? Again, it is an unfair question, but give me your best
guess of what you are tracking right now.
Mr. Wray. Are you asking specifically about within the
terrorism threats or about all threats, writ large?
Senator Lankford. Within terrorism threats.
Mr. Wray. I would think we are probably roughly half and
half, international/domestic, on the terrorism front right now.
Certainly the number of arrests that we had in fiscal year 2019
was, I think, 107 domestic terrorism arrests, 121 international
terrorism arrests. The investigations of domestic terrorism,
probably about 900 right now, say; about 1,000 HVEs.
Now, we do have other foreign terrorist organization
investigations, so it is probably more investigations on the
international terrorism side, but that gives you a little bit
of a sense.
Senator Lankford. Right, that helps. When you identify the
different types of international terrorism threats that are
coming into the United States or that have a threat that you
can identify coming toward the United States, is there a
certain ideology that seems to be more typical for
international foreign threats coming at the United States?
Mr. Wray. Of course, we are looking at both Sunni and Shia
threats, but I think in terms of the most immediate lethality,
it is the Sunni threats that are the ones that are more
concerning. I am sure Director Travers may have a few things to
add to that, but, in particular, the ISIS-inspired attackers
here, these are people who are not necessarily--did not get up
in the morning true believers, but kind of spent time online,
radicalize, and essentially have latched onto an ideology as an
excuse to commit crude but very lethal attacks against often
soft targets using easily accessible weapons. That is probably
the biggest threat to the homeland.
Senator Lankford. Right. Senator Rosen and I have worked on
an anti-Semitism task force and continue to be able to bring up
some of the issues of domestic terrorism and threats, as has
been already named, the threat that was just confronted this
past weekend in Colorado toward one of the synagogues there.
There is a growing sense of ideology in multiple different
areas, and we are grateful that you are continuing to be able
to engage foreign as well as domestic.
Let me shift topics just slightly on that because I wanted
to get a feel for where we were on that. Let me shift to
election security. This has been an ongoing issue that Congress
continues to be able to address. We have talked about multiple
times with the Department of Homeland Security and their
responsibility to be able to address election security.
This Congress allocated $380 million in election security
funding in 2018 to States, but the last time that I tracked
those numbers, not even half of that money has been spent by
the States yet. Do you have a good estimate at this point what
the States have spent from the $380 million that Congress
allocated to deal with election security? How do you evaluate
the status of preparation for election security right now?
Mr. Glawe. Senator, as the head of intelligence, I will
have to get back to you\1\ on the States' allocation of those
resources that we sent them. I will take that question for the
record to come back with you.
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\1\ The get back response from Mr. Glawe appears in the Appendix on
page 81.
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Regarding the execution of what we are doing within the
Department, you are very aware that the Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency that is run by Director Chris
Krebs has had an aggressive partnership with all 50 State
election officials and territories. In the lead-up to the 2018
election, we conducted over 1,400 field interviews and
engagements directly with State officials.
Just to give you an idea of our production as far as
intelligence sharing directly with the States, classified and
unclassified, in the lead-up to the 2016 election, we did 24
intelligence reports. In the lead-up to the 2018 election,
through my office we had 313, and we are going to do quite a
bit more in the lead-up to 2020. We are looking at attacks on
the critical infrastructure of the election systems, but then
also, as Director Wray has mentioned as well, we are really
looking at that foreign influence campaign, that covert
influence, the use of social media, the amplifying effect to
try to affect elections, but any range of things that could be
used by threat actors at the State and local level, not just
the Federal level.
Senator Lankford. Do you have what you need at this point
to be able to help secure the elections?
Mr. Glawe. Senator, I welcome a discussion and going back
with my colleagues in the Department to have an answer for
that, but at the Department we are aggressively posturing our
resources in partnership with the FBI, in partner with all the
other U.S. intelligence community assets as well, and specific
collection requirements they have regarding what our
vulnerabilities are. And then I would just like to highlight
that we are in over 80 Fusion Centers, as we mentioned earlier,
as an information touch point--and I created the information-
sharing enterprise, the backbone of the technical
infrastructure, which is the Homeland Security Information
Network, which I have to thank--and I know you are not
Appropriations, but you guys have funded and authorized us to
use that, and that has been a fantastic information tool.
Senator Lankford. Thank you.
Director Wray, I need to ask you a question that I do not
need a specific answer for, but we can get it in a classified
setting and go through in greater depth on this. When American
individuals travel to Russia or China, there seems to be ample
number of individuals to be able to track them and to be able
to follow them and to be able to make sure that they are aware
of all of their movements. I have yet to be able to talk to an
American yet that has traveled to China or Russia and said,
``Yes, they ran out of people to be able to trail me.''
Do you have the resources that you need for individuals
that you have suspicion on that are Chinese nationals or
Russian nationals currently in the United States to be able to
make sure that we have coverage of the level that is needed for
individuals that there is highest suspicion?
Mr. Wray. I can tell you that our counterintelligence
program is an area where we are in need of growth and
resources, not just agents and analysts but linguists, and we
need more data analytics. All of these issues, including on the
one that you are mentioning, in today's world involve terabytes
and terabytes of data. In order to be able to be agile to
exploit that quickly and effectively, we need to have the right
tools to be able to get through that information.
And so I know the President's budget request has requests
in that category, but I can assure you that that is the kind of
thing that would be put to great use quickly.
Senator Lankford. That is great. Thank you.
Chairman Johnson. Senator Romney.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROMNEY
Senator Romney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One thing I have
noted in each of the questions that have been answered so far
is the questioners have begun by expressing appreciation to
your respective agents for the work that they do. I think I
certainly speak for myself and I believe I speak for all the
members of the Senate that I have spoken with, and it probably
includes almost all, which is there is a very profound
appreciation for the sacrifice and the extraordinary
professionalism of the men and women who serve in your
respective agencies, and I hope that that is expressed to your
members time and time again.
Mr. Glawe, you spoke about foreign nations in particular
that try and interfere with our sense of unity in the country,
our political process, our elections--Russia, China, North
Korea, and Iran. Can any one of you give me, if you will, kind
of a rough sense of is this an ad hoc process that goes on
within the country, or is it organized by their governments and
staffed by a certain number of people with a budget associated
with it? If it is organized, do we have a sense of the scale of
the enterprise that is undertaken by each of these countries to
interfere with our election process to sow disunity through
social media and the like?
Mr. Wray. I think there might be more that we could say, in
a classified setting on that, but what I would say is that all
of those countries have designs in engaging in malign foreign
influence in this country. Of them, the Russians are the ones
who have most advanced this idea of sowing divisiveness and
discord, the pervasive messaging campaigns, false personas,
things like that. But certainly Iran we know is taking very
careful note of what the Russians have done and has its own
malign foreign influence efforts, some of which have a cyber
dimension to them, and that is something we are tracking very
carefully.
Of course, the Chinese, that is a whole other kettle of
fish, as it were, and they have a very robust foreign influence
effort here, but it is a different--they all have their own
shapes and sizes to the problem.
Senator Romney. But it is highly organized by each of their
respective governments; it is not just something that is done
on an ad hoc basis?
Mr. Wray. I think that is a fair statement.
Senator Romney. Yes, as you spoke, Director Wray, about the
incursions on an hourly basis of Chinese in particular, but as
well as other countries, into our corporate databases, our
government databases and so forth, I thought about how
impossible the task must be to try and protect all the places
people can attack. I was reminded of the mutual assured
destruction orientation that was part of our national security
with regards to nuclear weapons.
Should we have a mutually assured disruption effort of some
kind, which is to say is the only way to prevent the number of
attacks and the severity of attacks that we are seeing an
indication that we can do the same thing to them, only we can
do it harder and bigger and more destructively such that they
say, OK, we better stop or we are going to suffer as well?
Mr. Wray. I do not know if I would say that is the only
way. I think offensive cyber operations are an important part
of any nation's cyber strategy and it is ours. We are working
much more closely with the private sector than ever before in
terms of trying to help them defend themselves and our
relationships with businesses; ranging from small startups all
the way to Fortune 100 companies are much more robust than when
I was in this world when I was at DOJ many years ago. In many
ways, today's cyber threat is less about and cybersecurity is
less about preventing the intrusion in the first place,
although that is obviously the goal, and more about detection
as quickly as possible and mitigation as quickly as possible
once you find it.
Think of the example it is great to put locks all around
the outside of your house and cameras and lights and everything
else. But if the guy has already managed to pay off somebody to
get inside your basement and he is just hanging out there, all
the stuff on the outside is not going to do a whole lot.
So a lot of the efforts today, working together with DHS
and others, are trying to get organizations to be able to
quickly find the threat, quickly tie it off, and prevent the
damage from getting worse.
Senator Romney. Just one question, and perhaps for any one
of you or all three of you, and that relates to cryptocurrency.
I am not on the Banking Committee. I do not begin to understand
how cryptocurrency works. I would think it is more difficult to
carry out your work when we cannot follow the money because the
money is hidden from us and wonder whether there should not be
some kind of effort taken in our Nation to deal with
cryptocurrency and the challenges that that presents for law
enforcement and for deterrence of terrorist activity. Am I
wrong in thinking this is an area we ought to take a look at?
Or is cryptocurrency just not a big deal as it relates to your
respective responsibilities?
Mr. Wray. Certainly for us, cryptocurrency is already a
significant issue, and we can project out pretty easily that it
is going to become a bigger and bigger one. Whether or not that
is the appropriate subject of some kind of regulation as the
response is harder for me to speak to. We are looking at it
from an investigative perspective, including tools that we have
to try to follow the money even in this new world that we are
living in. But it is part of a broader trend, and Director
Travers alluded to it in terms of the terrorist threat, in
terms of our adversaries of all shapes and sizes becoming more
facile with technology and, in particular, various types of
technology that anonymize their efforts. Whether it is
cryptocurrency, whether it is default encryption on devices and
messaging platforms, we are moving as a country and as a world
in a direction where, if we do not get our act together, money,
people, communications, evidence, facts--all the bread and
butter for all of us to do our work--we will be essentially
walled off from the men and women we represent.
Senator Romney. Thank you. I would just close, Mr.
Chairman, and just acknowledging that the President today spoke
of the tragedy which occurred in Mexico where apparently three
women and six children were brutally murdered and has offered
our national support to help the Mexicans get to the bottom of
this. I appreciate the fact that you are willing to participate
in that at the direction of the President, and hopefully we
will find a way to bring people to justice who deserve to be
brought to justice, and also prevent events like this from
happening in the future.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Senator Romney.
Senator Hawley.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HAWLEY
Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Director Wray, a question on the cybersecurity topic, if I
could, and as it relates to China in particular. Are you
concerned about the growing practice of American technology
companies, or any American companies, for that matter, storing
large amounts of data, consumer data, business data, in China
and sometimes storing the encryption keys to that data in
China? What sort of a cybersecurity risk does this pose? Is
this something you are tracking, that you are concerned about?
Mr. Wray. It is something that we are concerned about, in
part because Chinese laws require a level of access that is
unparalleled certainly in this country in terms of law
enforcement and security services. Chinese law essentially
compels Chinese companies and typically compels U.S. companies
that are operating in China to have relationships with
different kinds of Chinese companies, to provide whatever
information the government wants whenever it wants essentially
just for asking. And so that creates all kinds of risks across
the various threats that we have to contend with.
Senator Hawley. And your point there about the Chinese laws
and the access to data that Beijing requires sort of works in
two ways, doesn't it? It is a problem for American companies
who choose to store large amounts of data in China because to
do so, they have to partner under Chinese laws with some sort
of Chinese counterpart that often has ties to the government,
right? That is number one.
Number two, it is also a security risk from the point of
view of Chinese-based companies who have access to our market,
who do business here, gather large amounts of information on
American consumers, like TikTok, for instance, but actually are
owned or based in China and, therefore, are subject to those
same Chinese laws on data and data sharing. Is that fair to
say?
Mr. Wray. That is absolutely something that we are
concerned about. You start with the proposition that an
astonishing percentage of Chinese companies are, in fact,
State-owned enterprises, but even the ones that are not
technically State-owned enterprises, the ones that are
ostensibly private are subject both to the Chinese laws that I
referred to a minute ago as well as--and I think a lot of
people just kind of gloss right over this. Any Chinese company
of any appreciable size has by Chinese law embedded in them
Chinese Communist Party cells, or ``committees,'' as they are
called, whose sole function is to ensure that that company
stays in lockstep with the Chinese Communist Party's policies.
Can you imagine something like that happening with American
companies and American policy? I mean, it is something that
people need to take very seriously.
Senator Hawley. Yes, absolutely, and thank you for your
work on this. I think as you point out, I think American
consumers do not realize the threat to their own data security
and privacy when American companies choose to store that data
in China and thereby open up potentially that data to use by
the Chinese Government, or they do not realize that Chinese-
based companies who are doing business in this country are
subject to those same laws. And so it works both ways.
Switching gears, Secretary Glawe, let me ask you about the
border. Senator Portman was talking about the influx of meth
and the serious effects it has in Ohio. I can tell you in the
State of Missouri we are absolutely overwhelmed with meth
coming across the border. There is not a community in my
State--urban, rural, north, south, east, west--that is not just
awash in meth.
You pointed out that between, I think it was, 2017 and 2019
the Southern Border apprehensions are up over 200 percent for
meth. I just wanted to drill down on a few additional details
here and to get your input.
Did I hear you to say to Senator Portman that the meth
apprehensions and other drug apprehensions have continued to
increase even as border apprehensions of illegal individuals
have decreased? Is that right?
Mr. Glawe. That is correct, and, again, this is a 2-year
snapshot. So it was cocaine, 40 percent; fentanyl, 20 percent;
heroin, 30 percent; and methamphetamine, 200 percent. That is
at the border where we are seizing that. That is in addition to
the migration challenges we have had just by officers taken
offline with the detention processing. We are still seeing the
numbers up.
Senator Hawley. Do you have any sense in the last few
months--I know that we have seen a decline in the last few
months of border apprehensions of individuals, but do you have
a sense or do you know what the numbers for contraband look
like?
Mr. Glawe. Senator, we could get back as a QFR on that,\1\
but what I would say--and I said this earlier--is the business
model for the cartels is to move illicit goods and people
across the border, to get them there and to move them. And that
grows through a very sophisticated network inside the country
of Mexico and south of Mexico, as well as a management
structure called ``plaza bosses'' that occupy the entire
Southwest Border. They control what goes across and what does
not go across, and it is all based on money and moving people
and goods.
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\1\ The get back response from Mr. Glawe appears in the Appendix on
page 85.
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Senator Hawley. Let me ask you this: You talked about
fentanyl production moving at least to some degree to Mexico,
from China to Mexico, although it sounds like it may be in
partnership with Chinese outlets. Can you say something more
about that?
Mr. Glawe. What I would say is--we may want to take this
into a classified setting, but we have seen that the fentanyl
production and trafficking, as we would anticipate, the cartels
own the supply chain in the United States and the trafficking
routes getting in here, that fentanyl production and
trafficking would begin to move into Mexico, and we are seeing
that.
Senator Hawley. Finally, let me ask you this: You said that
in order to address this crisis, the drug crisis, and the flow
of drugs over the border, it would require a change in our
whole strategic approach. Can you say more about what you have
in mind and what you think needs to change, maybe what this
Committee and this body would do to give you the tools that you
need?
Mr. Glawe. I would say I would welcome a conversation that
would probably expand upon my partners here at this table, but
in my prior capacity as a unique witness, I was the Deputy
National Intelligence Manager for Transnational Organized Crime
when I was at the ODNI. When I say that it is a strategic
approach, what I mean is bringing law enforcement, U.S.
intelligence community, Mexican intelligence community, and
military assets to bear in Mexico in some of these lawless
areas where the cartels are essentially running the area. But
that also has to be hand-in-glove with our demand. The United
States has a high demand for narcotics, so it is a joint
process. It is in that realm of having that partnership with
our Mexican counterparts in that space to identify the bad and
fill it with the good.
Senator Hawley. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Senator Hawley.
Before I turn it over to Senator Peters, just a quickly
follow up, because I think we need to underscore this. Although
our border is rather unsecure on our side, would you agree with
the statement that on the Mexican side of the border it is
pretty secure? There is not much that passes through the
Mexican side of the border without Mexico--the cartels and
human traffickers--knowing about it, correct?
Mr. Glawe. The plaza bosses and the cartels run the south
side of the border on the Mexico side. Does the Mexican
military and law enforcement have the capability? They do. But
it is going to require a strategic approach of how those
resources that are deployed in partnership with us, but the
cartels are incredibly powerful. We also have to bear in mind
that there is a corruption angle that plays into this as well.
Chairman Johnson. So where there is a will to secure a
border, there is a way, and Mexican cartels prove it on the
southern side.
Mr. Glawe. Chairman Johnson, I think your assessment there
is correct, but there are models out there where we have been
successful. Colombia is a model of success we had in
partnership with that government years ago.
Chairman Johnson. Senator Peters.
Senator Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just want to follow up on what I hope is the priority for
all three of you, and that is to combat foreign influence in
our elections. Director Wray, my question to you--and I think
it is accurate that is a priority for you. Yes or no?
Mr. Wray. Absolutely.
Senator Peters. What direction, if any, have you received
from the White House about the priority of foreign influence in
our elections?
Mr. Wray. I think it has been made crystal clear to us that
it is a priority for us to combat malign foreign influence from
any nation-state, including Russia, including China, including
Iran, and others.
Senator Peters. How has that been communicated to you by
the White House?
Mr. Wray. We have had numerous meetings over at the White
House with the NSC and with others on election security issues,
and so it has been sort of a recurring theme in those meetings.
Senator Peters. Is the White House doing anything to
coordinate with other security agencies? Are they pulling folks
together in a coordination fashion, in your estimation? If you
could explain how that is happening?
Mr. Wray. Certainly we have had NSC meetings and NSC-driven
coordination over the time that I have been Director. But, in
particular, the way it works right now is that with the NSC's
direction and the White House's direction, ODNI brings together
a smaller group as opposed to the more sprawling NSC apparatus.
In particular, it is us--FBI, ODNI, DHS, and National Security
Agency (NSA) are sort of the key players and then others from
time to time as need arises. There is all kinds of engagement
between, for example, our Foreign Influence Task Force, which I
stood up after becoming Director; the Russia small group at NSA
that General Nakasone stood up; and there is, a similar type of
body at DHS and so on, and ODNI. There is a woman at ODNI, very
experienced, very seasoned, who then-Director Coats put and she
has remained in charge of kind of coordinating the efforts kind
of on a more day-to-day basis.
Senator Peters. I continue to hear from my constituents in
Michigan about very lengthy and intrusive screenings every time
they travel, Secretary Glawe. They describe it as a ``back-door
travel ban'' that discourages them from traveling, and it hurts
their business and their families, and certainly maintaining
safe and secure air travel while protecting civil rights of
law-abiding travelers is a balance we may have to achieve, as
we talked about earlier. You have a lot of balances that you
have to do in your agency.
But my question to you is: The Department has indicated to
my staff that they will now lead a comprehensive review of
secondary screenings in fiscal year 2020 with input from other
relevant Federal partners. Could you describe how you would
envision that process and how you would expect those
recommendations to come out?
Mr. Glawe. Ranking Member Peters, I would have to take that
question for the record\1\ to go back to U.S. Customs and
Border Protection, who it sounds like would be leading that,
because they are the ones that do the secondary inspections.
But what I can say, coming from that organization, is we are
always cognizant of the civil rights and civil liberties of
U.S. citizens, foreign citizens who travel in the United
States, and the protocols and the oversight with that has been
very rigorous. But I will take that for the record and come
back for an answer with you.
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\1\ The get back response from Mr. Glawe appears in the Appendix on
page 83.
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Senator Peters. If you could do that in a quick manner, I
would appreciate it.
The vast majority of constituents that I also hear from are
very deeply dissatisfied with the DHS Traveler Redress Inquiry
Program (TRIP), which is, as you know, the redress process for
travelers who experience screening difficulties. Are there ways
to expand and strengthen TRIP so that applicants do not feel
ignored? Do you have some specific recommendations how we can
make this process more efficient?
Mr. Glawe. Again, similar to my prior answer. Being the
head of intelligence, I will have to take that back for the
record and have an answer for you on that.
Senator Peters. I would hope we could get that answer
quickly. I would appreciate it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Johnson. Senator Sinema.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SINEMA
Senator Sinema. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate our
witnesses being here today.
As a Senator from a border State, I know it is critical
that we work together to tackle threats against the homeland
and along our Nation's borders. I remain committed to working
every day to secure Arizona's border, keep Arizonans safe, and
ensure that migrants are treated fairly and humanely.
I would like to start with the tragedy that occurred on
Monday in Sonora, Mexico. My deepest sympathies and condolences
go to the victims and their families. Details are still coming
in, but we know that at least nine people, including mothers
and young children, were murdered, apparently by transnational
criminal organizations involved in the illicit drug trade.
These victims have relatives from Arizona, and my State is
hurting right now.
So my first question is for you, Mr. Wray. In this
situation, will the FBI play a role in bringing these
perpetrators to justice, ensuring that the families receive
some redress?
Mr. Wray. So thank you, Senator. We, too, are deeply
troubled and heartbroken about the loss. We have through our
legat office in Mexico reached out to our Mexican partners, to
offer assistance and are engaged with them also with the
embassy and the State Department.
In addition, we are in the process of having what we call
our ``Victim Services Division'' get in touch with the
relatives who are here in the United States to see if they can
be of assistance. It is a Division that I think I am very proud
of just given the way in which they bring a level of compassion
and sometimes attention to some of the most basic concerns and
needs of victims and their families.
Senator Sinema. Thank you.
For all of our witnesses who are here today, I would like
to get a commitment from each of you that my office is briefed
on the investigation, and I would like to hear about your
agencies' efforts to combat transnational criminal
organizations. As we see every day, the impact on Arizona and
Arizonan families is unabated.
Mr. Glawe. The FBI is the lead, obviously, with the United
States persons being targeted by that violence overseas. What I
would say is we are absolutely committed to meeting with you,
Senator, and I would say as far as the benchmark of
intelligence and operations, one of our top facilities is
actually in your State, in Tucson, and I would be delighted if
I could escort you there for a visit to see it. But it is
really about that partnership with the State and local law
enforcement, our Mexican partners, and sharing of that real-
time, tactical-level information so we can identify those
threats at the border, but really any way south of the border
in Mexico and sharing that information with our partners in the
Mexican Government.
Senator Sinema. Thank you.
Mr. Wray. Senator, we would be happy to try to keep you
informed as best we can and as is appropriate. I will
underscore that, of course, what role the FBI will be able to
play in Mexico depends a lot on the willingness of our Mexican
partners to embrace and bring us in, and that is still
something that is being worked out. It is a very fluid
situation right now.
So I do not, as we sit here right now, yet know exactly
what our footprint, if you will, will look like, but we would
be happy to follow back up with you as things progress.
Senator Sinema. Thank you.
Mr. Travers. The National Counterterrorism Center does not
actually work that particular issue.
Senator Sinema. Thank you.
I would like to ask you a question, Mr. Glawe. I spoke a
few times with Secretary McAleenan about the need to improve
information sharing between DHS and HHS regarding allegations
of abuse that were reported by migrants who had been held at
the Yuma Border Patrol station, I am sure you recall. Can you
share the status of DHS efforts to ensure these types of
incidents are reported more quickly and that swift action is
taken when there are reports that require more protection of
migrants and children?
Mr. Glawe. Senator, as my role is the head of intelligence,
I do not have a status update on that, but I will take that for
the record and have an answer for you back.\1\ But I will say
as a career law enforcement official as well as a Federal law
enforcement official, the men and women of the Department of
Homeland Security operate at the highest standards, and when
there is an incident that has to be reported to the Inspector
General or to the FBI, that is handled quickly and mitigated as
fast as possible within the Department.
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\1\ The get back response from Mr. Glawe appears in the Appendix on
page 82.
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Senator Sinema. Thank you.
Back in September, this Committee held a hearing with
outside experts on domestic terrorism. At that hearing I spoke
about the importance of information sharing and ensuring that
our State and local law enforcement entities can access the
information they need. Such information sharing is always
easier for larger police departments, such as those in Phoenix
or Tucson, but is more challenging for our rural sheriffs.
With regard to information sharing between Federal, State,
and local law enforcement entities, what steps have your
agencies taken in the past year to ensure that small or rural
law enforcement entities are able to get better access to
information about threats and trends? What do these agencies
still need to improve on?
Mr. Wray. So I will start, and then turn it over to Under
Secretary Glawe. On our end our principal engagement from a
day-to-day basis with our State and local partners, which
includes some very small departments, is through our Joint
Terrorism Task Forces, and we have 200 of them all over the
country. We have task force officers, which are essentially
State and local officers from, in many cases, including some of
those small departments who work full or in some cases part
time on our task forces, which gives them access to all the
same information that all the FBI folks and Federal partners on
the task forces have. That is probably the most significant
means.
In addition, we jointly with DHS on a number of instances
will put out bulletins of different sorts--they are pretty
frequent--that provide information in a fairly granular way
about what we are seeing in terms of threats and so forth. So
those are some of the big ones that I would highlight. I will
maybe let David chime in.
Mr. Glawe. Yes, just to follow on that, a couple of the big
infrastructure--and I will talk about very specifics with
Arizona and the Southwest border. So my office hosts the
Homeland Security Information Network-Intel. So we host the
products for the FBI, for the Department of Homeland Security,
our State and local partners, and the private sector. There are
currently 42,000 products on it. In fiscal year 2017, we had
about 17,000 or so views. I am happy to report that in 2019,
after a very aggressive rollout we had over 90,000 views. We
hosted over 11,500 products. This is an unclassified network
that is available in all Fusion Centers as well as satellite
locations at a log-in capability.
Regarding the Southwest border, because, you are right, we
have a limited capacity, and they need intelligence officers to
give them tactical-level information, unclassified information
and classified. I did a pilot program starting in, I believe it
was, June and May. I put 19 DHS intelligence officers on the
Southwest border to include Arizona. That resulted in 45 drug
seizures--45 drug-related arrests, 35 seizures of weapons and
drugs, and 115 intelligence reports. I am going to permanently
deploy I think right around ten intelligence officers
permanently to the Southwest border in the very small sheriffs'
and municipal law enforcement departments to enable them to do
an enterprise approach and scale capabilities to share
information.
Senator Sinema. Thank you.
A follow up question for both of you. Last year, Congress
passed and the President signed into law the Preventing
Emerging Threats Act which grants authorities to DHS and the
DOJ to counter threats from unmanned aircraft systems. During
my visits to the border, I have seen evidence of the threats
these drones can pose. I have actually watched drones come over
the border in broad daylight.
So could you tell us about what DHS and DOJ are doing to
mitigate the dangers to our Nation from these unaccompanied
aircraft system threats?
Mr. Glawe. Senator, thank you for the question, and I was
Chairman Johnson's--one of his lead witnesses in the lead-up to
passing that legislation that he championed, so I can speak
specifically, and I was also on the Southwest border and did a
report from there for one of the news networks. So this is a
threat that continues to be a threat. We track that at the
Department of Homeland Security, not just on the Southwest
border but on drone incursions over critical infrastructure,
and we are seeing a percentage increase that just keeps
increasing. In engagement with our State and local and private
sector partners, I was just out with the Los Angeles Police
Department chief and the New York Police Department
commissioner, on drones. While the drone legislation was an
outstanding first step, they are saying now that they need more
capabilities and more within their own authorities to mitigate
these threats.
But the Southwest border is just one of the many drone
threats that threatens our critical infrastructure, our mass
gatherings, and ways to move illicit goods over the border as
well as use it as a countersurveillance platform to suck up
information from our military or our law enforcement or our
private institutions in the country.
Mr. Wray. I would just add that while we are extremely
grateful to the Chairman and others for that legislation, this
is a threat that is overtaking us in many ways. We are
currently investigating a number of incidents in the United
States of attempts to weaponize drones in one way or another.
Certainly we have been seeing them, as you mentioned, down on
the border. We have also seen drones used to deliver contraband
into prisons, and, of course, as the rest of the Committee
knows as well, there have been efforts to use drones quite
frequently on the battlefield against our forces and our allies
overseas.
Our focus from the FBI end has been principally on the mass
gathering situations, so we are very focused on things like the
Super Bowl, etc., not because the others are not incredibly
important, but just in the realm of being able to prioritize
the use of these new authorities. That is at the moment where
we are. There is going to be a need for more technological
solutions. Disrupting drones over large, crowded civilian areas
is a different kind of exercise than doing it in the
battlefield. We are working very closely with our partners,
DHS, Department of Transportation (DOT), Department of Defense
(DOD), and obviously DOJ on that.
Senator Sinema. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I have exceeded my time. Thank you for your
indulgence.
Chairman Johnson. Yes, you have.
Senator Sinema. Sorry. I apologize. [Laughter.]
Chairman Johnson. Thanks, Senator Sinema. But you used it
well because you actually asked a question I was going to ask
about drones.
Senator Sinema. Oh, see? Then it is not actually my time.
It is fine. It does not count.
Chairman Johnson. So let me quickly follow up on that,
though. We always felt that piece of legislation was just a
first step, begin those authorities so you could begin doing
the research and develop the strategies for doing something
very difficult to do.
So the question I have: How far have we come in terms of
doing that research, developing those strategies? Do you
already need more authority? Do you need another piece of
legislation? Have you come far enough where we need to go to
the second step?
Mr. Wray. I do not think I am quite ready in this kind of
setting to propose some kind of additional legislation, but
what I would say is that I think there is--if memory serves,
there is a report that we are scheduled to be providing to you
all on exactly the question you are raising to address the need
for identifying other gaps that might exist. And I do know,
from traveling around the country and meeting with State and
local law enforcement, that while they are very excited that
Federal authorities now have this civilian use capability, they
want to know when they can get it.
Chairman Johnson. They are still acting.
Mr. Wray. Right.
Chairman Johnson. So you are not ready to say--I will ask
Under Secretary Glawe the same thing. You may not be ready
right now to propose a piece of legislation, but you are
basically saying sometime in the future you will need some more
authority, if not the Federal Government, also local officials.
Mr. Glawe. Yes, just to follow on what Director Wray said,
our science and technology branch is partnering with the FBI
down at Quantico on the countermeasures and how we are
supporting national security special events and identifying and
mitigating those threats. But the threat is bigger than those
national security special events.
What I would say is we monitor it from the analyst side of
the emerging technologies. We have radio-controlled drones. We
are now moving into 4G, which will have 5G capabilities. What
is that going to look like? Is the legislation keeping up with
that capability of the emerging technologies? I think that is a
question to come back and have that discussion on.
But as this technology advances so rapidly for commerce
purposes, the nefarious aspects of it or just from a safety
aspect, I think there is a conversation to be had on how we
have to really stay on top of the legislation on this.
Chairman Johnson. Again, we will have to cooperate. That
report will be important.
By the way, part of the main reason we were able to pass
that piece of legislation is because we have the video of--I
believe it was ISIS using this in Iraq, and you can see the
drone go over the target, lower, drop a bomb, boom, pinpoint
accuracy. And that got everybody's attention. It still took us
a little while. We were not able to put it in the National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). We finally got it in the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill, but
that cooperation is going to be important.
Director Travers, you addressed a little bit the situation
of ISIS prisoners. I want to drill down a little bit deeper.
First of all, have our European partners started stepping up to
the plate and gotten a little more serious about--and, again, I
realize, because I talk to them all the time, it is very
difficult. They do not necessarily have laws to handle this.
But are they considering the return of foreign fighters and
prosecuting them under their own laws so that they are just not
looking to somebody else to detain these people forever?
Mr. Travers. You are quite right that the issue of
repatriation has been a problem for years because of the
inability to either prosecute--because of lack of evidence or
short sentences, they have not been willing to bring prisoners
back. They have been somewhat more willing to bring women and
children back, but even that has been a bit of an issue.
Ever since over 2 or 3 weeks ago when the incursions
started, there has been a flurry of activity I think within
European capitals about trying to bring their women and
children home, in particular, out of some of the internally
displaced person (IDP) camps, out of humanitarian interests. We
have not seen any increased level of willingness to bring their
foreign fighters back. In fact, there has been some getting rid
of citizenship just so that they can kind of wipe their hands
of it.
Chairman Johnson. In terms of responsibility duty sharing,
I have heard the proposal that maybe the Arab States could go
into the camps with women and children, go through a sorting
process to a certain extent, which of those detained
individuals can potentially be rehabilitated, brought back into
society versus those that need to be considered for longer-term
detention. Are you hearing efforts or any kind of initiatives
occurring along those lines?
Mr. Travers. I think frankly, right now, because there is
so much turmoil and uncertainty geopolitically about who is
going to control these things, the likelihood of that is
probably going down. There has certainly been some willingness
on the part of the Iraqis in particular to bring back IDPs out
of Al Hol and so forth. There are 30,000 or 40,000 people
there. But, in general, it is a pretty difficult proposition to
even know where these people are as they get moved around.
Chairman Johnson. So give me your general assessment of all
the players, and we have Turkey and we have the SDF and we have
Assad and we have Russia, we have Iran. Obviously, we have our
desire to make sure that ISIS cannot reconstitute. Is there
pretty much a universal desire not to allow ISIS to
reconstitute? Or is there a little bit less commitment on the
part of some of those players?
Mr. Travers. There is no one that wants ISIS to
reconstitute. I think it is fair to say that the Turks, for
instance, are more concerned about PKK than they are against
ISIS. I do not think anyone has as much concern as perhaps we
do in the area about ISIS. But, in general, for instance, my
guess is there is going to be an effort to keep those prisoners
in prison whomever gets control of the prisons if the Turks
move any further south.
Chairman Johnson. OK. My final question is for honestly all
of you who want to contribute to this, but the Blue Ribbon
Study Panel that we had testimony from a couple of years ago,
their primary conclusion was we need somebody in charge. I
think their recommendation was put it in the Vice President's
office, and back then Vice President Biden, pretty close to the
end of their term, said, every administration will be somewhat
different. But we had the same issue when we were discussing 5G
in our hearing just last week. I think we found out that it is
the National Economic Council and Larry Kudlow is kind of in
charge of the 5G aspect of cyber.
But if you go all the way down the list, whether it is,
catastrophic electromagnetic pulse (EMP) or geomagnetic
disturbance (GMD) attack, a cyber attack shutting down our
electrical grid or financial system, some kind of weapons of
mass destruction (WMD) chemical or biological attack--natural
disaster, I think we pretty well assume Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) is going to take charge of that,
starting with local, then State, and then FEMA comes in when it
overwhelms the State and local governments.
In the other instances, is there a sense within your
agencies that you know exactly who is going to be stepping up
to the plate in terms of recovery and response to one of these
potential catastrophic threats? I will start with you, Under
Secretary Glawe.
Mr. Glawe. From the Department it is very well defined. I
mean, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is there as well
as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
Director Chris Krebs in that position. So within the Department
it is clear, and the lines from the intelligence, from the
vulnerability side, are clearly mine, and the collection
requirements going to the U.S. intelligence community and
foreign partners flows through me. So I would say within the
Department I am very comfortable to say the lines of effort
are----
Chairman Johnson. But, again, that is within the
Department. Are there going to be turf battles? Is everybody
going to be looking at and pointing fingers at somebody else in
terms of who has the overall responsibility, who is in charge?
Mr. Glawe. I mean, from FEMA's standpoint, I think that is
very clear, their response capability. And within the
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, I think that
is very clear.
From the intelligence apparatus, as Director Wray had
mentioned, we have a National Intelligence Manager for Cyber
that aligns our intelligence capability at the ODNI.
Chairman Johnson. Director Wray, obviously, the FBI
frequently is first on the spot in some of these mass
shootings. What about a catastrophic type of attack on
infrastructure? Do you have a sense or do you know exactly what
the line of authority is, obviously starting with the
President, but I mean at an operational level within these
departments and agencies?
Mr. Wray. I will take the two categories in turn. There is
the terrorist category, if you will, and then there is the
cyber category. I think you are asking about both? Or----
Chairman Johnson. Yes, I am just talking about no matter
what might shut down an electrical grid or shut down our
financial, whatever could really represent almost an
existential threat to this Nation or be so catastrophic in
terms of power outage.
Mr. Wray. I think what I would say on the terrorist attack
category, for example, I have actually--as somebody who was in
the FBI headquarters building on 9/11 and intimately involved
in these issues during the years after 9/11, and then having
now come back to this world with some time in the private
sector in between, I can tell you that the machine that exists
now across the U.S. Government with our partners at the State
and local level, through the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, etc.,
is so much more mature and robust and kind of a well-oiled
machine in terms of everybody working together that it was one
of the most pleasant surprises I found in coming back. So I
think the lanes in the road and the way in which everybody
works together is pretty well defined in the terrorist space.
In the cyber arena, likewise, although it is slightly
different lanes. As I said in response to one of your
colleagues' earlier questions, in a major cyber incident, the
FBI is in charge of investigating the threat, but DHS has to be
joined at the hip in terms of making sure that appropriate
steps are taken to protect the asset, and there are well-
defined lanes there.
I think there is a temptation sometimes to assume that one
person needs to be responsible for all those things. I think
really the premium is on coordination, and at some level, given
the unique nature of the authorities that are involved in
whether it is a terrorist incident or a cyber incident, you
start talking about law enforcement authorities that a
constitutionally entrusted to the Attorney General. You have
military responsibility, offensive cyber, for example, that are
in the lane of DOD. I think that while it might sound nice to
try to create some new person who would be in charge of all
that, I think, in fact, it would be more complicated and
actually would not accomplish what was designed.
So the key is to make sure everybody has their lanes and
their responsibilities well defined and the partnership, and
that is what I think I am seeing day to day.
Chairman Johnson. So not to put you at odds with the Blue
Ribbon Study Panel, you are a little less concerned about that.
What you are seeing now, you are seeing a fair amount of
coordination, and you do not lose a whole lot--you may lose
sleep over the threat, but you do not lose sleep over the fact
that it would just be chaos, that nobody would know who is in
charge or we would not know how to coordinate or cooperate
within the agencies?
Mr. Wray. There is always room for improvement, and that is
important. I do not want to be understood as thinking
everything is just hunky-dory. But we are, I think in a so much
better place as a country and as a government, and I would say
that across governments, Federal, State, and local, than we
were even just 5 or 6 years ago.
Chairman Johnson. Again, I think we learned a lot from
Hurricane Katrina, and from what I can assess, we have made
great strides since that point in time.
Director Travers, do you have anything to add to that?
Mr. Travers. ``Whole of Government'' rolls off the tongue
pretty easily. I would completely agree with Chris. I have been
doing terrorism pretty much since 9/11, and I do think that the
counterterrorism community, writ large, is the best integrated
effort across the entirety because we have been doing it
forever.
Because we have not been attacked in the country now
really--you have to go back 10 years to Umar Farouk, something
really potentially big, there is a muscle memory issue, it
seems to me, and I am big into interagency exercises to just
kind of compare notes and who is doing what, because new people
come around. While we are much better coordinated than we were,
I think it is always useful to get people together and put them
through their paces.
Chairman Johnson. OK. I did not think it possible, but
actually the answer to that last question gave me just a little
bit more optimism.
Again, let me thank you all for your service, and like so
many of my colleagues on the Committee here, please convey to
the men and women that serve with you our sincere appreciation
for their service and sacrifice. I think that came across loud
and clear, and we sincerely mean it. That also gives me a fair
amount of optimism. When I see the quality of the Federal
workforce, it does make you rest a little bit easier, even
though we are facing some pretty complex, pretty difficult
threats. So, again, thank you for your service.
The hearing record will remain open for 15 days until
November 20th at 5 p.m. for the submission of statements and
questions for the record.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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