[Senate Hearing 119-8]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 119-8
OPEN HEARING:
NOMINATION OF JOHN L. RATCLIFFE
TO BE DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
OF THE
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JANUARY 15, 2025
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Printed for the use of the Select Committee on Intelligence
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
58-615 WASHINGTON : 2025
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SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
(Established by S. Res. 400, 94th Cong. 2d Sess.)
TOM COTTON, Arkansas, Chairman
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia, Vice Chairman
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho RON WYDEN, Oregon
SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
JOHN CORNYN, Texas ANGUS S. KING, Jr., Maine
JERRY MORAN, Kansas MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota JON OSSOFF, Georgia
TODD YOUNG, Indiana MARK KELLY, Arizona
MARCO RUBIO, Florida
JOHN THUNE, South Dakota, Ex Officio
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York, Ex Officio
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi, Ex Officio
JACK REED, Rhode Island, Ex Officio
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Ryan Tully, Staff Director
William Wu, Minority Staff Director
Kelsey S. Bailey, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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JANUARY 15, 2025
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Tom Cotton, U.S. Senator from Arkansas........................... 1
Mark R. Warner, U.S. Senator from Virginia....................... 4
WITNESS
The Honorable John Ashcroft, Former United States Attorney
General........................................................ 6
The Honorable John L. Ratcliffe, Nominee to be Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency.................................... 9
Prepared Statement........................................... 13
SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
Questionnaire for Completion by Presidential Nominees............ 42
Additional Pre-Hearing Questions................................. 66
Post-Hearing Questions........................................... 121
OPEN HEARING: ON THE NOMINATION OF JOHN L. RATCLIFFE, TO BE DIRECTOR,
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2025
U.S. Senate,
Select Committee on Intelligence,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in Room
SD-G50, in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Tom Cotton,
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Cotton (presiding), Warner, Collins,
Cornyn, Moran, Lankford, Rounds, Young, Rubio, Heinrich, King,
Bennet, Gillibrand, Ossoff, Kelly.
PROCEEDINGS
Chairman Cotton. This hearing will come to order.
We are holding this hearing before President-Elect Trump's
Inauguration, therefore, we have not yet received Mr.
Ratcliffe's nomination to be Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency.
Procedurally, the Senate must receive a nomination before
we can vote on and report it out of committee; and therefore we
are having this hearing in expectation that the nomination will
follow on Monday.
When formally nominated by the President after his
inauguration, the Committee will convene a business meeting to
vote on the nomination and report it to the full Senate.
As an initial matter, Committee rule 5.4 states that no
confirmation hearing shall be held sooner than seven calendar
days after receipt of the nominee's background questionnaire,
financial disclosure statement, and responses to additional
prehearing questions unless the time limit is waived by a
majority vote of the Committee.
While the Committee received Mr. Ratcliffe's background
questionnaire and responses to additional prehearing questions
more than seven days in advance, the committee received a
financial disclosure statement on January 14th. I therefore ask
Members for unanimous consent to proceed with the hearing.
Hearing no objection, we have consent to proceed.
I want to remind all those in attendance that while they
are welcome to observe today's hearing, I will not allow
disruptions by the audience.
Audience members may not verbally or physically distract
from the hearing, including by shouting, standing, raising
signs, or making gestures that block the view of other members
of the audience. Those who do so will be immediately removed
from the room.
Our goal in conducting this hearing is to enable the
Committee to begin consideration of Mr. Ratcliffe's
qualifications and to allow for our Members' thoughtful
deliberation. To date, Mr. Ratcliffe has provided substantive
written responses to more than 170 questions presented by the
committee. Today, of course, Members will be able to ask
additional questions and hear from Mr. Ratcliffe in both this
open session and in closed sessions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TOM COTTON, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
ARKANSAS
Chairman Cotton. I want to welcome everyone to this hearing
on President Trump's nomination of Mr. Ratcliffe to be our next
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Mr. Ratcliffe, welcome back to the Intelligence Committee.
I also want to welcome your wife Michele and thank her and your
daughters for the sacrifices they have made across a lifetime
of public service.
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft is also back before
the Senate. Mr. Attorney General, I am sure your being here
makes you nostalgic for your own confirmation process a few
years back. (Laughter.)
John, welcome. We look forward to your remarks.
I want to acknowledge also my predecessor, Vice Chairman
Warner. Senator Warner and I have worked together collegially
over the years even when we have disagreed strongly. I expect
this spirit of comity to continue and not just between the Vice
Chairman and me, but across our committee.
I also want to thank Senator Rubio for his service on the
Committee. He remains a member of the Committee, but he is
otherwise detained this morning at his own confirmation
hearing. He has been a trusted colleague and respected leader
on the Committee for years. We will miss him, but we also look
forward to his distinguished service as our next Secretary of
State.
I want to extend my special thanks to our Committee senior
staff on both sides as well. They put in yeoman's work over the
holidays to be sure we could promptly move forward Mr.
Ratcliffe's nomination.
I want to begin with a few observations from my decade of
service on the Intelligence Committee. The men and women of the
intelligence community (IC) perform vital work to protect our
Nation. They often serve in dangerous and squalid conditions.
Their successes are seldom celebrated and even known. Unlike
our troops, no one buys them beers in the airport. Sometimes
their families don't even know what they do. So let me say to
them today, on behalf of this Committee and a grateful nation:
We respect you, we appreciate you, and we thank you.
But we also need more from you. In these dangerous times,
our intelligence agencies haven't anticipated major events or
detected impending attacks. In just the last few weeks, the
members of this Committee and, I presume, the President, had no
forewarning of the New Orleans terrorist attack or the collapse
of the Assad tyranny in Syria. The same goes for Hamas's
October 7th atrocity against Israel in 2023.
I could give other examples, but suffice it to say, we are
too often in the dark. While this goes for the entire
intelligence community, the problem is especially acute at the
CIA which remains after all the ``central'' intelligence
agency. The CIA needs to get back to its roots, but must
overcome several challenges to do so.
First, the CIA has neglected its core mission--collecting
clandestine foreign intelligence. Put more simply, stealing
secrets. Intelligence collection is the main effort. Every
other job is a supporting effort. If you don't collect
intelligence by, say, handling spies or hacking computers, you
should ask yourself how you support those who do or how you
harness and use what they produce.
I have seen way too many reports over the years with
phrases like ``according to,'' ``based on,'' ``judging by,''
followed only by diplomatic accounts and press reports. In
other words, not intelligence. And it has gotten worse over the
last four years. Those sources are not unimportant, but without
clandestine intelligence, we might as well get briefed by the
State Department or a think tank or just read the newspaper.
Second, the CIA has become too bureaucratic. Now I realize
that Allen Dulles probably had the same complaint just five
years after the CIA was created. But this has also gotten worse
in recent years, in no small part thanks to former Director
Brennan's so-called ``modernization.'' Lines of authority have
grown blurry. Talkers have replaced doers and managers with no
field experience have taken over operational roles, and more.
Much like our military, the tooth-to-tail ratio at the CIA is
badly out of balance.
Third, the CIA's analysis and priorities have been
politicized. Intelligence analysis all too often has aligned,
curiously, with the Biden administration's policy preferences:
The Afghan army is strong and cohesive. Ukraine's army will
collapse within days of Russia's invasion. Israel can't
possibly destroy Hamas or Hezbollah. Iran's air defenses are
mighty and fearsome. Time and again, the CIA has produced
inaccurate analysis that conveniently justifies President
Biden's actions or as often his inaction.
Likewise, the CIA's misplaced priorities have yielded too
many reports on matters like the prospects for gay rights
legislation in Africa or climate change. These topics may have
their place in government, but it is not at the CIA.
And I certainly hope to never again see another video
statement or social media post from the CIA about diversity or
equity or inclusion. If you wonder why our intelligence
Agencies struggle to collect intelligence, consider this fact:
The CIA offered to pay diversity consultants three times as
much as a new case officer. I am sorry, but if you feel like
you need a diversity consultant or an affinity group or your
pronouns in an email, maybe the CIA isn't for you. This job
isn't about your identity or your feelings. It is about our
Nation's security.
Fourth, the CIA dabbles too much in questions of political
judgment, even as it neglects its core mission of intelligence
collection. Some of the blame, to be fair, lies with us. I hear
questions from this Committee about some nation's will to fight
or if we do this, that, or the other thing, what will Vladimir
Putin or Xi Jinping do in response. These aren't really
intelligence questions but rather matters of statesmanship and
political judgment or prudence--the statesman's supreme virtue.
I would observe that Lincoln and Churchill didn't have our
vast, modern intelligence apparatus, but they were pretty good
wartime leaders because they were great statesmen.
It is the CIA's responsibility to provide us and the
President with timely, relevant secrets; for example, that
Russia has mobilized multiple divisions on Ukraine's border at
Christmastime and sent perishable fresh blood supplies to the
front. It is our job to use that information to discern the
inherent logic of events, not to defer passively to the
intelligence community's judgment that it is a convenient
conclusion that Putin hadn't yet decided to invade just days
before the obviously impending invasion.
Fifth, the CIA needs to become bolder and more innovative
in covert action. I have seen successful covert action
programs. I have seen debacles. The latter are usually caused
by ill-advised constraints by political leaders or when a
President used covert action as a substitute for policy and not
a supplement for policy. I will have to save more for our
closed session, of course, but let's for now say the timid
indecision that has characterized the Biden administration's
overt actions extends to its covert actions.
Mr. Ratcliffe, you have a big job ahead of you. The Nation
needs a strong, capable, and aggressive CIA. I believe the men
and women you will lead want to serve in just that kind of
Agency. They joined the CIA after all, not a church choir or a
therapy session on a college campus. They and the Nation are
counting on you to deliver badly needed reforms and on this
Committee to ensure you do.
I will now recognize the vice chairman for his opening
remarks.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARK R. WARNER, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
VIRGINIA
Vice Chairman Warner. Mr. Chairman, first of all,
congratulations on becoming Chair of what I think is the most
important Committee in the Senate. And I look forward to
working with you in the kind of traditions that we have
maintained in the now close to 15 years that I have been on the
Committee. So congratulations, Tom.
Mr. Ratcliffe, it is good to see you again. Congratulations
on being nominated to be Director of the CIA. It was a pleasure
to meet your wife. And I think you brought a great introducer
in the former Attorney General Ashcroft. Pleasure to see you,
sir.
Mr. Ratcliffe, I appreciated the opportunity to meet with
you last month and hear your views. You previously served on
the House Intelligence Committee and obviously as Director of
National Intelligence (DNI), so you obviously have an
appreciation for the work done by our intelligence community
generally and more specifically, the CIA. If confirmed, I
believe you will be the first person who actually has served as
both as DNI and head of the CIA.
Echoing a little bit of what Chairman Cotton said, the
Agency you have been nominated to is facing an unprecedented
number of challenges which I believe as well requires a great
deal of leadership. These challenges ranging from the conflicts
in Ukraine and Gaza, competition with China especially with
respect to artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced
technologies, the persistent threat of international terrorist
organizations, and a constant theme of cyber threats from
nation-states and their actors attacking our critical
infrastructure to, candidly, just run-of-the-mill criminal
ransomware actors.
Adding to all this has been a focus of mine and I know so
many of us on the committee, that the revolutions in technology
from AI to synthetic bio to advances in energy require, I
believe, fundamental changes in how we operate.
In effect, it is the very fabric of warfare in many ways
that is changing. I believe very strongly that national
security is no longer determined by simply who has the most
powerful ships and tanks, but who also will lead in this
technology competition from semiconductors to drones to
synthetic bio.
I believe--and we have made some progress on this, but I
still think we have a long way to go--that the IC must continue
to adapt to these challenges. In particular, it must be better
organized to collect on the development and use of advanced
technology by our adversaries, because they pose a dramatic
threat to United States leadership. The truth is, if we are not
staying ahead of that, their ability for these foreign nation-
states to use technology to get us in a stranglehold could be a
huge, huge challenge.
During such times it is also vital that we are able to
recruit and retain the best possible talent for the IC. That
starts with ensuring the workforce feels respected and valued.
I am very concerned that the President-elect has continued to
engage in undeserved attacks on the professional women and men
of our intelligence agencies. These comments I do think affect
the morale of these men and women who, as Senator Cotton said,
they don't get the recognition or get their beer bought for
them. They have to toil in anonymity. But they have, I believe
consistently, regardless of which party is in power been
willing to defend our Nation.
Unsurprisingly, particularly public comments from our
leaders have a negative effect on the recruitment and retention
of the talent of these critical men and women of the IC.
Mr. Ratcliffe, today is your opportunity to reassure the
men and women of the CIA that they not fear reprisal for being
willing to speak truth to power. The most critical role of the
IC is speaking truth to power. I need your commitment that you
will not fire or force out CIA employees because of their
perceived political views and that you will not ask these
employees to place loyalty to a political figure above loyalty
to country. And I need to hear your plan on how you will
reassure the CIA workforce on these issues.
Also on the personnel front, I am concerned that we
continue to hear from CIA officers who have been victims of
sexual assault at work as well as those suffering from the
lasting effects of anomalous health incidents (AHI). I would
like to hear your plan for ensuring that those who come forward
about being hurt in the line of duty are taken seriously and
provided the care and the attention they deserve.
Mr. Ratcliffe, if confirmed, you will be sitting at a
critical intersection between intelligence and policymaking.
Your job will be to give the President the best professional
judgment of America's intelligence experts at the CIA, even
when that judgment might be inconvenient or uncomfortable. I
need your public assurance that you will always seek to provide
unbiased, unvarnished, and timely intelligence assessments to
the President, to the Cabinet, to his advisers, and to those of
us in Congress.
I need your assurance that this intelligence will represent
the best judgments of the CIA, again, regardless of political
implications or views.
And though we should not need to say it out loud, I will
also need your assurance that you will work to appropriately
protect our intelligence community's sources and methods.
Thank you again for your service so far. Thank you for
providing what I know will be good testimony today, and I look
forward to working with you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Cotton. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman.
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft kindly offered to
introduce his former colleague when Congressman Ratcliffe was
nominated to be the Director of National Intelligence in 2020,
but COVID forced him to do so only by letter.
Fortunately, we have another chance to hear from him today.
So I am pleased to recognize Attorney General Ashcroft for his
introduction.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN ASHCROFT
Mr. Ashcroft. Good morning, Chairman Cotton and Vice
Chairman Warner. Thank you.
Members of the Committee: I want to thank you for your
serious consideration and attention to the constitutional
responsibility of confirming high ranking executive branch
officials, and it is an honor for me to participate with you by
my appearance here today.
Testifying and sharing my profound support for the
nomination of the Honorable John Ratcliffe as the Director of
the Central Intelligence Agency is something for which I am
deeply grateful. Good national security decisions proceed from
the combination of valid intelligence, information, and
considered judgment. Integrity is an indispensable imperative
for intelligence--the best friend of national security.
National security is the singular--unfortunately, is the
singular portfolio most allergic to the infection and
devaluation that results from inaccuracy and distortion. For
high-quality decisionmaking, sound intelligence must never be
diluted or contaminated by personal bias or political
predisposition.
John Ratcliffe's record of upholding the Constitution and
enforcing the law, including his farsighted work in the
intelligence field recommends him supremely to serve America as
the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. I have known
and worked with John for almost decades. I know of no person--
no person of a higher commitment to integrity. I have seen him
speak the unvarnished truth to those he works with and those he
works for, whether senior government officials or corporate
CEOs.
As a Member of the Congress, Ratcliffe's career stands as
an outstanding record of public service. He is consistently
well prepared, tough, but he is a tough and fair interrogator,
fundamentally focused on the Constitution, never involving
himself in personal attacks.
John has served on the House Intelligence, Judiciary,
Ethics, and Homeland Security Committees and as chairman of the
House Homeland Security Committee's Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Protection Subcommittee.
In the Department of Justice, John served as a Federal
prosecutor, first as an assistant U.S. Attorney and chief of
anti-terrorism and national security for the Eastern District
of Texas; then as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of
Texas, where he pursued more than 30 national security and
terrorism related matters. After his service as U.S. Attorney,
I had the privilege of working with John in the Ashcroft,
Sutton and Ratcliffe law firm where he focused on government
and internal investigations, homeland security, and foreign
corrupt practices law.
In professional moments, both public and private, I have
seen John's thoughtful, decisive, yet humble leadership. He is
a careful and willing listener, skilled at proceeding and
processing with different voices in complex situations. He is
comfortable in being held to account, and he will require those
in the Agency to be similarly accountable.
Over the past 15 years, he served in crucial roles as both
a developer and consumer of intelligence. John therefore brings
to the Office of the Director of the Central Intelligence
Agency a relevant reservoir of experience as well as sound
judgment on an array of issues related to national security. He
understands that the intelligence community exists to secure
the liberties and freedoms of Americans--liberties and freedoms
that he holds in highest regard.
As a prosecutor, John dealt with national security and
terrorism-related matters. This ranged from domestic and
international terrorism to drug trafficking, human trafficking,
and the transnational criminal organizations that threaten us
in ways that we have previously not been accustomed to.
During recent decades of our Nation's most elevated concern
regarding terrorism, John developed excellent relationships
with the international intelligence sources in order to aid
America. That experience will serve him well in fostering
appropriate cooperation with the intelligence agencies of our
allies.
Under John's leadership as Chairman of the House Homeland
Security Committee's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Protection Subcommittee, he forged policies and statutes which
will strengthen and do strengthen our Nation's intelligence
gathering capacity.
He is thoroughly conversant with a wide variety of national
security topics with a focus on emerging and expanding
cybersecurity threats. This includes investigating foreign
cybersecurity interference, reviewing the Department of
Homeland Security's efforts to secure government networks,
evaluating the cyber threat intelligence integration center,
the Wassenaar Arrangement, and the continuous diagnostics and
litigation program together with the interagency coordination
on cybersecurity.
John enlisted bipartisan support to build a national cyber
intelligence infrastructure to protect our country. President
Obama signed a significant cybersecurity bill that John co-
authored: The National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act
which passed the House of Representatives with an overwhelming
bipartisan vote.
His record reflects a commitment to continued building a
forward-looking intelligence community that is integrated and
coordinated. His experience signals his possession of the
skills necessary to lead the intelligence community in
effectively addressing proliferating national security threats.
John Ratcliffe is capable of and committed to delivering
the most insightful, accurate intelligence and
counterintelligence possible. He will supply decisionmakers
with excellent information upon which they can base sound
judgments safeguarding our national security.
Mr. Chairman and Committee Members, thank you for what I
consider to be a privilege of communicating to you my
unreserved endorsement of John L. Ratcliffe for the Director of
the Central Intelligence Agency. Thank you.
Chairman Cotton. Thank you, Mr. Attorney General.
I understand that Mr. Ashcroft will now step away?
Mr. Ashcroft. I will join the citizens.
Chairman Cotton. You are more than welcome to do so.
Mr. Ashcroft. And observe from the high perch of
citizenship the rest of the proceedings. And I pray God's
blessing on this Committee. I am very, very pleased that the
Committee is seriously considering the statement both of the
vice chairman--we used to call that person the ranking member,
but I think he is vice chairman now--and the chairman.
I am grateful to you. Thank you for allowing me to be here.
Chairman Cotton. Thank you, Mr. Attorney General.
Mr. Ratcliffe, before we move to your opening statement, it
is the custom of the Committee to ask a series of questions of
all nominees. Nothing personal about you.
So first off, do you solemnly swear that you will give this
Committee your full and truthful testimony today and in the
future?
Mr. Ratcliffe. I do.
Chairman Cotton. Again, we have five standard questions. A
simple ``yes'' will do. A ``no'' will require further
explanation, if you needed help with the test.
First, do you agree to appear before the Committee here and
in other venues when invited?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes.
Chairman Cotton. If confirmed, do you agree to send
officials from your agency to appear before the Committee and
designated staff when invited?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes.
Chairman Cotton. Third, do you agree to provide documents
and any other materials requested by the Committee in order for
it to carry out its oversight and legislative responsibilities?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes.
Chairman Cotton. Fourth, will you ensure that your office
and your staff provide such material to the Committee when
requested?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes.
Chairman Cotton. Finally, do you agree to inform and fully
brief to the fullest extent possible all members of this
Committee of intelligence activities and covert actions rather
than only the chairman and the vice chairman?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes.
Chairman Cotton. All right. Thank you very much, Mr.
Ratcliffe. The floor is yours for your opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN L. RATCLIFFE
Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you very much, Chairman Cotton, Vice
Chairman Warner, and distinguished Members of the Committee for
the opportunity to appear before you as the President's nominee
for the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. I have
enjoyed meeting with each of you individually, and I look
forward to answering your questions today.
Thank you to my friend and mentor former Attorney General
John Ashcroft for being here today, and for his gracious and
humbling remarks. Sir, I am forever grateful for your faith in
me.
Thank you to Director Burns and your excellent team at the
CIA for your commitment to a smooth and professional
transition.
I would like to recognize my amazing family, my wonderful
wife Michelle, our two daughters, Riley and Darby, my five
brothers and sisters, and watching from above, my parents Bob
and Kathie Ratcliffe. I simply have no words to adequately
express my gratitude to all of you.
Finally, thank you, President Trump, for the great honor of
nominating me to lead the world's premier intelligence agency.
I am grateful for the opportunity to serve under you once
again, and if confirmed, I will work tirelessly to help you
protect the American people and advance America's interests.
Today, we face what may be the most challenging national
security environment in our Nation's history. The Chinese
Communist Party remains committed to dominating the world
economically, militarily, and technologically. Transnational
criminal organizations are flooding American communities with
violence and deadly narcotics. The Russia-Ukraine war wages on,
spreading devastation and increasing the risk of the United
States being pulled into a conflict with a nuclear power. The
Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies continue to export
mayhem across the Middle East, and Iran is closer to nuclear
breakout than ever before. North Korea remains a destabilizing
force. Increasing coordination among America's rivals and
adversaries threatens to compound the threats that they each
pose to us individually. Numerous terrorist groups and other
non-state actors, some of which have even crossed our southern
border, still pose a persistent threat to our people and our
homeland.
These threats converge at a time of rapid technological
change. Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and
quantum computing will define the future of national security,
geopolitical power, and human civilization.
Ubiquitous technical surveillance is presenting
unprecedented challenges to one of the CIA's core missions,
collecting human intelligence. In short, the challenges are
great and increase the necessity of confirming a CIA Director
who is prepared on day one to take them head on.
For roughly a quarter of a century, I have devoted my
professional life to U.S. national security. I served as the
chief of antiterrorism and national security and then U.S.
Attorney for of the Eastern District of Texas. As a
Congressman, I was a Member of the House Intelligence, Homeland
Security, and Judiciary Committees. As Director of National
Intelligence, I had the privilege of working closely with
President Trump and oversaw the 18 agencies of the U.S.
Intelligence Community, including the Agency I now have the
honor of being nominated to lead.
In each of these roles I served with fidelity to the
Constitution and the strict adherence to the rule of law, and I
have always prioritized American civil liberties, something I
will continue to do, if confirmed to serve again.
Each of these experiences has shaped me as a leader and
national security professional. Together they have prepared me
to steer the CIA through a tumultuous time in the world and
toward a future in which the CIA's mission will be both more
difficult and more indispensable than ever before.
If confirmed, my leadership at CIA will focus on setting
and communicating priorities and demanding relentless
execution. Above all will be a strict adherence to the CIA's
mission. We will collect intelligence, especially human
intelligence, in every corner of the globe, no matter how dark
or difficult. We will produce insightful, objective, all-source
analysis, never allowing political or personal biases to cloud
our judgment or infect our products. We will conduct covert
action at the direction of the President, going places no one
else can go and doing things no one else can do.
To the brave CIA officers listening around the world, if
all of this sounds like what you signed up for, then buckle up
and get ready to make a difference. If it doesn't, then it is
time to find a new line of work.
We must be the ultimate meritocracy. I will
unapologetically empower the most talented, hardest working,
and most courageous risk takers and innovators to protect the
American people and advance America's interests. And I will not
tolerate anything or anyone that distracts from our mission.
It would be inappropriate in an unclassified setting for me
to discuss in detail some of my views on intelligence
collection priorities, but I am happy to do so in the
classified hearing that will follow this one.
However, if confirmed, there are several organizational
priorities that I plan to focus on that I would like to discuss
here.
The first is talent. As you are all no doubt aware, the CIA
has a remarkably low turnover rate among its workforce. This
shows the CIA's success in attracting mission-focused public
servants who find deep meaning and value in the unique work
they are privileged to do every day. But in some cases, it also
suggests that complacency is tolerated. High performers hate
nothing more than mediocrity and nothing poisons a high-
performance workplace culture than leaders who don't hold team
members accountable when they don't meet expectations. The CIA
must be a place that incentivizes and rewards meaningful
contributions to our Nation's security and holds accountable
low performers and bad actors who are not focused on our
mission.
It has been said that the CIA's World War II predecessor,
the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), described its ideal
recruit as ``a Ph.D. who could win a bar fight.'' This
sentiment is the essence of what today's CIA must recapture,
but we must find that fighting spirit in recruits whose
talents, skill sets, and backgrounds are more varied than ever.
I will also work to develop pathways for mid-career
professionals with highly sought after skills to fill gaps in
the Agency's workforce and for CIA officers to do rotations in
the private sector that broaden their perspectives.
I am committed to protecting and supporting CIA's
workforce. We will fully investigate workforce health and
wellness issues, including anomalous health incidents (AHI).
Our officers must embrace a culture of toughness and resilience
but we must also be clear that when they put themselves in
harm's way we will make sure they are taken care of when they
return home. We owe that to America's men and women in uniform,
and we owe it to the silent warriors who risk their lives in
the shadows as well.
Altogether, these talent strategies will be particularly
important in addressing another organizational priority that I
will focus on--technology. At the CIA technology is both a tool
and a target. As a tool, technology is baked into nearly every
facet of the Agency, from the spy gadgets imagined and created
by the Directorate of Science and Technology and used by the
Directorate of Operations, and the cyber capabilities deployed
by the Directorate of Digital Innovation to the Directorate of
Support using new technology tools to support our workforce and
the AI-powered large language models used by the Directorate of
Analysis. But over the decades, as technological innovation has
shifted more and more from the public sector to the private
sector, the CIA has struggled to keep pace. As a target,
technology is more important than ever, whether it is
understanding our adversaries' capabilities in AI and quantum
computing or their developments in hypersonics and emerging
space technologies or their innovations in counterintelligence
and surveillance, the recent creation of the Agency's
Transnational and Technology Mission Center was an
acknowledgment of that fact, but much more has to be done
because our adversaries, and one in particular, that I will
discuss now, understand that the Nation who wins the race of
emerging technologies of today will dominate the world of
tomorrow.
Which brings me to the need for the CIA to continue in
increasing intensity to focus on the threats posed by China and
its ruling Chinese Communist Party.
As DNI, I dramatically increased the intelligence
community's resources devoted to China. I openly warned the
American people that from my unique vantage point as an
official who saw more intelligence than anyone else, I assessed
that China was far and away our top national security threat.
President Trump has been an incredible leader on this
issue, and it is encouraging that a bipartisan consensus has
emerged in recent years. The recent creation of the CIA's China
Mission Center is an example of the good work that must
continue.
In closing, the Agency must provide the President and U.S.
policymakers with the best possible intelligence to inform
their decisionmaking in hopes of preserving peace and spreading
prosperity. This is our once in a generation challenge. The
intelligence is clear. Our response must be clear as well.
I am honored for the opportunity to appear before you
today, and I thank you for your consideration of my nomination
to be Director of the CIA, and I look forward to answering your
questions.
[The prepared statement of the witness follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Cotton. Thank you, Mr. Ratcliffe.
Colleagues, I will remind you that we will move on to
questions now for five minutes each in order of seniority at
the gavel. When we conclude this open session will have a 30-
minute break and move directly into a closed session.
Mr. Ratcliffe, the Director of the CIA has four
responsibilities under the law: No. 1, collecting foreign
intelligence and counterintelligence; No. 2, correlating,
evaluating, and disseminating that intelligence; No. 3,
directing and coordinating all human intelligence collection
outside the U.S., and No. 4, performing other intelligence
functions as directed by the President.
The way I count those four responsibilities, at least three
of them are about collecting foreign intelligence. And I said
in my opening statement that collecting foreign intelligence is
the core mission of the CIA. Do you agree that it is the core
mission of the CIA to aggressively and unapologetically collect
foreign intelligence; which is to say, steal the secrets of our
adversaries to protect this Nation?
Mr. Ratcliffe. I do, Senator. That is why in my opening I
said we would go to every corner of the globe no matter how
dark or difficult to do that. Look, I know this Committee knows
as well that on this issue with regard to HUMINT, the
collecting of human intelligence, we are not where we are
supposed to be. And other agencies collect HUMINT, but CIA is
the world's premier and must be the world's premier clandestine
collector of human intelligence.
Yes, there are challenges. We talked about some of those--
ubiquitous technical surveillance--but some of that, Senator,
is an issue of making it a priority and focus and execution.
You mentioned in your opening a former director once recently
said that the CIA does not steal secrets, and I think that was
demoralizing to the Directorate of Operations. So I am here to
publicly say that if confirmed, that is exactly what the CIA is
going to do.
Good decisions are hostage to good information and good
intelligence, and the better we do at collecting human
intelligence, the better decisions you all can make, the better
analytic judgments analysts can make, and the fewer
intelligence lapses or failures that you highlighted, Mr.
Chairman, will occur, if we embrace that as a priority.
Chairman Cotton. Thank you.
With intelligence collection as the core mission of the
CIA, then I presume you agree in my opening statement that the
people who collect the intelligence are the main effort in the
Agency, everyone else is a supporting effort--important jobs to
be sure but a supporting effort; is that right?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes.
Chairman Cotton. Do we need to increase the ratio of people
in that main effort who are collecting intelligence to the
people who are supporting and using it to harness its use?
Mr. Ratcliffe. To the point of what the core mission is in
increasing human intelligence one of the things if confirmed I
will spend some time. I had an opportunity to go out to the
Agency a few times as a nominee, but if confirmed, I do want to
spend time looking at that, Senator, in terms of the ratios and
how resources are being deployed, the structure in which those
resources exist currently, and whether or not that needs to
change to improve our performance.
Chairman Cotton. Thank you. Let's talk a little bit about
analytic objectivity at the CIA. That starts with you. You have
a partisan background. We all on this dais have partisan
backgrounds. We have thrown partisan punches as much as the
next guy has. It also is not without precedent. Republican
politicians have taken over this job before--George H.W. Bush
or Mike Pompeo; Democratic politicians like Leon Panetta have
taken it over. I think for the record all three of them were
pretty good at the job. Can you assure the committee, your
workforce at the Agency and the American people that despite
your partisan background and politics, you will set aside those
partisan views and you will be someone who can be effectively
lead the Agency delivering the intelligence and analysis that
the President and the Congress depends on?
Mr. Ratcliffe. I can, Mr. Chairman.
While I enjoyed my time in Congress, I enjoyed more my time
as DNI and the opportunity to be apolitical, and look forward
to, if being confirmed as CIA Director, to continuing to do
that. It is absolutely essential that the CIA leader be
apolitical.
As you know that when you walk in the building at the CIA,
inscribed on the wall is the quote ``and ye shall know the
truth and the truth shall make you free.'' That is a reminder
to CIA officers when they walk in about the truth. Collecting
the truth, intelligence, critical information, so that American
people can be free. Freedom and liberty are dependent on the
CIA doing that job and doing it in an apolitical way. So I am
very much committed to that, and look forward to that if
confirmed.
Chairman Cotton. Thank you.
Congress mandated by law the creation of the Office of the
Ombudsman for Objectivity at the CIA. It requires the office to
quote ``conduct a survey of analytic objectivity among officers
and employees of the Agency.'' In your preparation for this
hearing, have you had an opportunity to review the results of
the most recent survey of that office?
Mr. Ratcliffe. I have had a chance to see a summary. I
haven't seen in detail the results of the congressionally
mandated survey. I do know, though, that looking at it, what I
can tell you at the top line, the participation in the survey
was not what it should be and it reflects that a significant
percentage of the current CIA workforce does have concerns
about the objectivity of the products that they are producing,
and even cited that in specific instances to include the PDB,
the President's daily brief, included some of those products
that the workforce felt were not being objectively produced.
Chairman Cotton. Thank you. I am glad you saw and reached
those conclusions. The office in that survey is a good way for
the workforce to communicate to the leadership and to the
Congress what is happening sometimes out of our sight, and I am
hopeful that you will address that if confirmed.
Vice Chairman.
Vice Chairman Warner. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
And Mr. Ratcliffe, thank you for your opening comments. I
appreciate your comments about technology. I appreciate your
comments about independence in the workforce. I appreciate
actually the Chairman asking this as well.
I want to come back to a couple of these topics, because
there is concern in the community. I hear it, you may have
heard it. When we hear statements by incoming administration
officials, and occasionally even from the President-elect
himself, attacking the intelligence community and threatening
to replace long-term career civil servants if they are somehow
deemed as not sufficiently loyal. You have addressed this but I
want to address it again right now.
What assurances can you provide to this Committee and to
the CIA workforce that you will resist efforts to fire or force
out career CIA employees because of perceived political views
or somehow their views of loyalty to the President?
Mr. Ratcliffe. I think the best example of that, Mr. Vice
Chairman, is if you look at my record, and my record as DNI.
That never took place. That is never something anyone has
alleged and it is something that I would never do. So I would
approach this position very much the same way and provide the
same assurance.
Vice Chairman Warner. Again, I think there has been--a lot
has happened in the last four years since your prior service.
There have been these comments.
I would emphasize again, if you are asked to remove
personnel, to get rid of individuals based on this political
litmus test, I would ask that you keep the committee informed
of those requests.
Mr. Ratcliffe. I certainly will.
Vice Chairman Warner. Same thing--and again, I appreciate
the Chairman raising this as well. The most important job for
you, for the folks at the CIA, is speaking truth to power. And
I want to again reiterate the question Senator Cotton raised.
We want to make sure your analysis is objective. It is not
politically influenced. We have got to make sure it is timely.
This willingness to speak truth to power, even if it is
uncomfortable. I would like you to speak to that again.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Vice Chairman Warner, I appreciated the
opportunity for you and I to visit. As you recall, this issue
came up, and I was grateful then and will take this opportunity
to talk about what my record is in terms of speaking truth to
power.
If you recall, we talked about the fact that as a Member of
Congress, I was the individual who was outside the Judiciary
Committee in 2019 listening to the former FBI Director Jim
Comey say that my line of questioning was political; that the
idea that intelligence authorities at the FISA Court being
abused couldn't possibly happen--was a bunch of nonsense. But I
had reviewed those applications and I knew that I was speaking
truth to power, and the inspector general and the subsequent
FBI Director later confirmed that under oath.
To that point, Director Wray this week in his exit
interview said that China was the defining threat of our
generation. I wrote that and said that four years ago as DNI,
and when I did I was accused of being political. But I wasn't.
I was speaking truth to power. I wasn't outsizing the threat
from China.
In 2020, when a chairman of an intelligence committee
misrepresented that a laptop owned by then-candidate Biden's
son was somehow a Russian intelligence operation and 51 former
intelligence officials used the imprimatur of IC authority to
go along with that, I stood in the breach. I stood alone and
told the American people the truth about that.
So I think my record in terms of speaking truth to power
and defending the intelligence community and its good work is
very clear. And what I can assure you is, those types of
instances if I am in that position as CIA Director and have to
do that again, as uncomfortable as that can be to be accused,
you know, the truth will ultimately defend itself, and I think
that intelligence will as well.
Vice Chairman Warner. And the truth will defend itself even
if that truth is counter to the views of the current
administration. At the end of the day it has to lead back to
the truth.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Correct.
Vice Chairman Warner. Time for one last question. As you
well know, our intelligence community is the best in the world,
but we also receive an enormous amount of benefit from our
partners around the world. We have got to make sure, and
obviously the President has the right to declassify
information; but we have seen that willingness to declassify in
advance of Putin's brutal attack on Ukraine used effectively
but if we look at the declassification particularly if it is
done below the Presidential level, making sure we consider the
sources and methods of our allies, there is no requirement that
intelligence is shared. It is based on a trust relationship.
I'd like you to briefly speak to how we maintain that trust
relationship with the very valuable information we receive from
our allies and partners around the world.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, I agree completely. As DNI, I was able
to experience what you just said. We do have the best
intelligence enterprise in the world, but we have great
partners around the world that we work with to do great things
to improve not just our national security posture, but theirs.
That is reliant upon mutual trust and respect for intelligence
sharing between intelligence agencies.
And as CIA Director, if confirmed, I will understand that
improving our national security posture and protecting the
American people will be absolutely dependent upon maintaining
those relationships and maintaining that trust.
Vice Chairman Warner. Thanks. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Cotton. Senator Collins.
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome. For the past nine years at least, anomalous health
incidents also known as the Havana syndrome, have been a
serious and persistent problem within the intelligence
community. At first there was a robust effort to investigate
the cause of these incidents and to support the possible
victims. Along with other Senators on this Committee, I was one
of the authors of the HAVANA Act to ensure that there was
funding available for those who had been afflicted.
However, more recently, support for both investigative
analysis and for victims within the CIA have decreased. Then we
have had some interesting developments. On December 5th, the
House Committee on Intelligence released an unclassified report
finding that there was an increasing likelihood that a foreign
adversary was responsible for at least some of the reported AHI
cases.
Then on the 10th of January, the ODNI released an updated
intelligence assessment of the AHIs that revealed that two
intelligence agencies reported that they believed a foreign
actor may have used some sort of novel weapon or prototype
device to inflict AHI's on our personnel.
This is very disturbing to me. It raises questions of
whether dissenting voices were suppressed in earlier analyses.
And my basic question to you is this: What actions, if
confirmed, will you take to ensure that the CIA aggressively
and objectively investigates the causes of the AHIs including
examining whether or not a foreign adversary is responsible for
harming the men and women who are serving our country?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Senator Collins, thank you for the question,
and I want to start by saying that I enjoyed the chance to
visit with you. And as you recall, we talked about this issue
from my perspective four years ago when I was the Director of
National Intelligence and you were as concerned then as you are
now about this issue, along with Senator Rubio.
I asked then-CIA Director Haspel to look into the issue
four years ago. Having stepped away, I share your frustration
that four years later we are very much in the same place in
terms of trying to make an assessment and determination on the
cause of this. I share your frustration in not being able to
understand why. But, if confirmed, and have the opportunity to
be briefed on all the assessments and intelligence, my pledge
to you is that I will drill down and look carefully at that
issue and work with you to see.
I read the unclassified report, the House report and the
unclassified version of the Intelligence Community Assessment.
I have not had access to the--my understanding--very lengthy
classified report. But I look forward to drilling down on that
because as I talked about in my opening, the workforce has been
affected by this and it has affected their morale because of
this and it is why I highlighted that.
So the cause of it is one point, but the care of the CIA
workforce that has been affected is another. But they are
equally important to me. So my pledge is to look into it but to
work with you to try and--obviously we need to know if we have
an adversary that is using a weapon against our people, and I
look forward to my ability to look at that intelligence for
myself.
Senator Collins. Thank you, and I look forward to working
with you.
I have very little time left. The Chairman mentioned that
the intelligence community for which I have the greatest
respect has had some significant misjudgments lately.
For example, there was a misjudgment of how long the Afghan
government would stand after the United States' hasty and ill-
advised withdrawal. The IC missed early assessments on
Ukraine's willingness to fight, projecting incorrectly how
quickly the Russians would be able to take Kyiv. They did not
warn or predict the Hamas mass attack against Israel. The IC
was surprised at South Korea's martial law declaration, nor did
they predict the rapid collapse of the Syrian regime.
My question to you--and I know the IC is not going to get
it right every time. But when there is a pattern or even when
there is a miss, what should the IC do to review why these
major intelligence changes were not identified or predicted?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you, Senator.
It is what I talked about I think in response to Chairman
Cotton's question about this. The intelligence community is not
always going to get it right. It hasn't always gotten it right.
But we have had too many instances where you all as
policymakers are finding out by watching news reports about
some of these things that I think can be at least in some cases
at least fairly characterized as intelligence failures or
lapses.
We talked about what can we do, what do we need to do. Part
of it is a technical thing in terms of improving our
collection, addressing ubiquitous technical surveillance. I
know I haven't been fully briefed on this but I am impressed by
some of the things for instance that the Directorate of Science
and Technology is doing to help us solve for X with regard to
operating as human sources in an environment of UTS.
But I also think a bigger part of this that I am going to
focus on, Senator, is to look at what is happening in terms of
the focus and execution on core mission. Better--as I said,
good decisions are hostage to good information and we all know
that the human intelligence collection isn't where it needs to
be. So, looking at the reasons why we have lost our focus there
and some of those things are, you know, if you have a
politically motivated bureaucratically imposed social justice
agenda that takes up part of your attention, that can distract
from the core mission of collecting human intelligence that
matters and providing it to you in a timely way. My pledge to
you is that I am as every bit as concerned, and I don't want
those intelligence failures or lapses to happen on my watch,
and I will do everything I can to ensure that it doesn't.
Chairman Cotton. Thank you, Mr. Ratcliffe, for the thorough
answer. I know that you would be thrilled to stay here all day
long to answer our questions. But, colleagues, try to move it
along. I know there are four or other five hearings going on.
Some of you may have to get to those hearings. Let's try to
move quickly and stick to the 5-minute limit. We will have a
chance to question Mr. Ratcliffe in the closed hearing, and I'm
sure he will be happy to answer your questions for the record
as well.
Senator King.
Senator King. I am hoping that quantum computing might
solve the problem of having to be three places at once here
after these hearings.
I first want to acknowledge a new Senator at the end of the
dais, Senator Young, and welcome him to the committee. I am
pleased he is joining us and I know he will make a great
contribution.
Mr. Ratcliffe, congratulations.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you.
Senator King. Welcome. It seems to me that you have an
initial task that is a little unusual but also very important
and that is to restore the confidence of the President-elect in
the intelligence community. Before you could deliver the
information that he needs to know, you need to get him to a
place where he does have confidence in the judgments that are
coming to him and he is notoriously skeptical of the
intelligence community. Being skeptical is not necessarily a
bad thing. But I hope that is one of the first things that you
can work with him on is to make him receptive to the
information and the truth that you will be providing as a
result of your position.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, thank you, Senator.
I think one of the reasons that I am having this
opportunity for you all to consider me for confirmation is
because President Trump knows and wants me to lead with
integrity, wants me to carry out the duties of the CIA as
director to follow the law and authorities as far as it will go
and no further to protect America's national security.
Senator King. I think that confidence he has in you is an
important asset. I would suggest rebuilding his confidence in
the community is an important task.
Let me move forward. Everybody has talked about telling the
truth to power. Dan Coats, one of your predecessors at DNI, put
it most succinctly and persuasively. He said the mission of the
intelligence community is to find the truth and tell the truth.
I think that is a very good way to look at it. We haven't
talked much here today about why that is so important.
I recently reread David Halberstam's book ``The Best and
the Brightest,'' a comprehensive history of Vietnam.
It is heartbreaking about the intelligence failures and
frankly, intelligence manipulation that led to a great deal of
that tragedy. So that is why it is so important, because skewed
intelligence can equal lives lost. And you have already
committed and I won't make you say so again, but I think you
understand how important this is.
Mr. Ratcliffe. I do.
Senator King. Four years ago I asked you a series of yes
and no questions and you answered them all correctly. I would
like to run through them once more very briefly.
Would you ever ask, encourage, or support an intelligence
professional adjusting his or her assessment to avoid criticism
from the White House or political appointees?
Mr. Ratcliffe. No.
Senator King. Would you ever change or remove content in an
intelligence assessment for political reasons or at the behest
of political leadership?
Mr. Ratcliffe. No.
Senator King. Would you consider an individual's personal
political preferences to include loyalty to the President in
making a decision to hire, fire, or promote an individual?
Mr. Ratcliffe. No.
Senator King. And do you commit to exclusively consider
professional qualifications and IC personnel decisions without
consideration of partisan or political factors?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes.
Senator King. If you were to receive credible evidence as
Director of the CIA that an individual was undermining
objectivity and furthering a political agenda in the
intelligence community, would you remove or discipline that
person?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes.
Senator King. Will you or any of your staff impose a
political litmus test for CIA employees?
Mr. Ratcliffe. No.
Senator King. Finally, if confirmed, will you reassure your
workforce that loyalty tests are not allowed and not encouraged
in the CIA?
Mr. Ratcliffe. I will.
Senator King. Those were exactly the answers that you gave
before. Thank you.
One other brief question. I believe that you are the author
of an important statute on cybersecurity. And I have done
extensive work in that area myself. I believe that one of the
great failings in national policy is a lack of the cyber
deterrent strategy that our adversaries, particularly China,
feel that they can attack our telecommunications system, our
electrical system or whatever with impunity. Do you believe it
would serve the national interest to develop a declaratory
cyber deterrent strategy similar to the strategy that underlies
the rest of our national defense posture?
Mr. Ratcliffe. I do, Senator, and I know we share a similar
view on the threat from cyber. There is so much focus on the
integrity--the sovereignty and integrity of our territorial
borders, but as you well know, it is invasion through our
digital borders from half a world away and a few seconds and a
few key strokes that can cause----
Senator King. And it is happening every day.
Mr. Ratcliffe [continuing]. So much damage. The deterrent
effect has to be that there are consequences to our adversaries
when they do that.
One of the things that I hope to do if confirmed as CIA
Director is to work on the development of the types of tools
that will be effective in allowing us to do those things. The
deployment of those capabilities, of course, will be a policy
decision for others to make. But I would like to make sure that
we have all of the tools necessary to go on offense against our
adversaries in the cyber means.
Senator King. Thank you very much. I hope you will advocate
in the councils of the national security apparatus of the
administration. Thank you, Mr. Ratcliffe. I appreciate your
testimony.
Chairman Cotton. Senator Lankford.
Senator Lankford. John, Michele, thank you for being here.
Thanks for your leadership. Thanks for your sacrifice, and what
you have already done to serve the Nation. We really appreciate
that.
It is a tremendous sacrifice to serve in the intelligence
community. As my wife has said to me a couple of times, we
share everything about everything and talk about life together.
But now there is a portion of my life I can't talk about with
her, serving on the Intelligence Committee. You have had even
more of that serving as DNI. So thanks for your sacrifice to
serve.
I have several questions I want to run through quickly on
this. There are a group of folks in Oklahoma City. I can't name
who they are because they are alive, but their lives were
threatened on election day by an ISIS terrorist in Oklahoma
City that was discovered initially by a 702.
That 702 authority is important. There are people in my
neighborhood that are alive today because of that 702
authority. You have been outspoken on this. It has been much
maligned in many ways, but it has been vital for intelligence
collection around the world.
What is your position on 702 authority?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you, Senator Lankford, for the
sentiment and for the question. FISA and particularly Section
702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is an
indispensable national security tool. There is no other way to
get around that. I say that not as a matter of opinion, but as
an informed judgment in my role as Director of National
Intelligence being the President's principal intelligence
adviser, advising the President in the Oval Office and
understanding that a significant percentage--sometimes more
than half of the actionable foreign intelligence that we
provide to the President as the policymaker to act as Commander
in Chief comes from FISA-derived or 702-derived action.
I will say I have supported FISA in that regard, but I
also, as I outlined earlier, understand that it is an important
indispensable tool but one that can be abused.
Senator Lankford. Right.
Mr. Ratcliffe. And that we must do everything we can to
ensure it has the appropriate safeguards, because it can't come
at the sacrifice of Americans' civil liberties. So I have
supported those reforms and called out those abuses when they
have taken place.
Senator Lankford. I think the best way to do that is by
actually enforcing. Those that have abused it, that they are
actually called out and accountability is held for those
individuals so everybody knows this is an indispensable tool.
Don't abuse it. I think that becomes very clear. You have
mentioned in your testimony, we cannot ignore CIA's critical
counternarcotics and counterterrorism missions in support of
border security efforts. I think few Americans understand just
south of our border is one of the most violent areas of the
world. Today, there are murders, beheadings. There are aerial
bombardments with one cartel fighting within itself fighting
for leadership right now. It is an incredibly violent area just
south of our border, not to mention the thousands of Americans
that die with the narcotics they pump into the United States,
and destabilize our economy and our families. That is a
critical role for us in our national security. How do you
perceive that?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, and it also ties in, Senator, to your
question about the importance of FISA. So much of what the CIA
has done and can do to support U.S. Government efforts to
interrupt the drug trafficking rings and the places from which
the precursor chemicals for those drugs come from, our
disruptions are often as a result of FISA-derived information.
But you highlight an important point. We talk about the
threats from China and Russia and other adversaries overseas,
but I think we all know and understand and acknowledge that the
failures and the integrity of our border has turned my home
State of Texas as not only a border State but every State into
a border State. We have to make sure, and one of the things, if
confirmed, that I want to talk about and pledge is the
understanding that in addition to drug trafficking I made the
point about terrorists coming across our border, that we not
lose sight of counterterrorism as something that the CIA needs
to be focused on as we talk so much about the threat from China
and Russia and the great power competition.
Senator Lankford. Mr. Chairman, I will yield back 12
seconds to you. How about that for a gift?
Chairman Cotton. Thank you. Senator Bennet, please follow
Senator Lankford's example.
Senator Bennet. Thank you. I will take Senator Lankford's
12 seconds. I'm just kidding.
I want to congratulate you, Mr. Chairman, on taking on this
role, and I want to thank the Vice Chairman for your leadership
on this Committee. I hope that we will continue with the
standard that you set for all of us in terms of politics.
Congressman Ratcliffe, it is good to see you again. Thank
you for your visit to the office.
Mr. Ratcliffe. As well.
Senator Bennet. I know you are a student of history and a
student of this Committee, know that this Committee came out of
the series of reforms that Congress put together to deal with a
really dark chapter in American history. Senator King from
Maine talked about bad intelligence during Vietnam. There were
instances of the CIA engaging in assassination plots abroad. It
is hard to imagine today that that is even true.
That provoked bipartisan outrage, and the reason this
Committee exists in part is not just to make the policy that
you have been talking about and others this morning, but also
to provide oversight on behalf of the American people and our
colleagues who, as Senator Lankford was just saying, don't have
access to the intelligence that the people on this Committee
have.
I would just ask you to talk a little bit about your views
on what the purpose of that congressional oversight is and
what, if you are confirmed to this position, what your
responsibility to this Committee will be?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you, Senator Bennet. I enjoyed the
chance to visit with you and talk about a number of issues. As
you know from my background, I came from Congress. I was on an
Oversight Committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence. So I think it gives me a unique perspective, I
brought that over as DNI and if confirmed, as CIA Director. I
have the perspective of both the executive branch and the
legislative branch.
I will confess that one of the things I was disappointed in
was the fact that despite being on a congressional Oversight
Committee over the intelligence communities, there was so much
intelligence that I learned for the first time as DNI that I
knew that no Member of Congress was aware of.
And I think that that sort of speaks to my approach and
understanding, that I take seriously the obligation that I will
have if confirmed as CIA Director to keep this Committee fully
and currently informed on intelligence issues.
It is not that this Committee or any Intelligence Committee
or any oversight committee in Congress needs to know
everything, but you should at least know the topic exists.
Senator Bennet. So let's talk about that a little bit,
Congressman. When the President gets his Presidential daily
brief every day. There is a very high standard for veracity for
what is in that because he has to obviously make the most
significant decisions that any human has to make about
deploying our defense assets or the other things that a
President does.
We don't have anything like that in Congress. And a lot of
the time we are often, as you said, finding ourselves fishing
around in headlines and sort of less well-organized
intelligence materials that we are provided, with no assurance
that it is a complete picture of anything. So I wonder what
your conclusion about that is and what the obligation of the
CIA or any intelligence agency is with your leadership to be
able to provide a fuller picture, the picture that you are
talking about that a Member of Congress who is on this
Committee should actually know rather than be guessing about?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, my perspective is you have highlighted
all the things that sort of reveal that our national security
posture is impacted in a negative way when we are not
communicating well between the branches of government, and
particularly on sensitive national security matters.
I think a better informed Congress will allow for better
national security decisions and keep the American people safe.
I am open to a continuing dialogue about how--I won't stand on
tradition. This is traditionally what the CIA does or shares. I
am open to at the end of the day, we talk about the core
mission of the CIA. It is to provide a decisive strategic
advantage to you and to the President as policymakers. I don't
view it as just informing the President. I view it as integral
that I be informing you to provide that same strategic decisive
advantage.
Senator Bennet. I am out of time but I appreciate very much
of the fulsomeness of your answer. I want to observe that it is
really easy for politicians to accuse the intelligence agencies
of politicization and actually it is important that we do that
when it is an the appropriate thing to do. But this is the
place where that oversight is supposed to be provided. These
are the people that are supposed to fix that problem. And it
can only be done if we have people with integrity that are
working at the heads of these agencies that can help us fix the
problems, not just complain about it. And I hope we will be
able to work together to do that. Thank you Mr. Ratcliffe. I
look forward to working with you.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you.
Chairman Cotton. Senator Rounds.
Senator Rounds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Ratcliffe,
thank you for your service to our country already, and to
Michele, thank you for the sacrifice which you also offer in
allowing him to do this particular job in the future.
I want to go back to the FISA Section 702 just a little
bit. We are in an open session, and I think one of the
opportunities that we have is to perhaps share with the
American people with a little bit more clarity what 702 is
really all about and what actually happens.
Can you kind of describe in an approach that--OK. It is
coming up for renewal again in April of next year. And between
now and then we are going to have to convince the American
people and other Members of Congress that we have made
significant improvements in the protections, but also we have
done our best to try to explain why this is such an important
part of, as a tool, in our collection approach.
Can you talk a little bit about the mechanics so that as
those who listen to you today, they understand what FISA 702
actually is and how it fits into the collection process?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Sure. Senator, thank you. I enjoyed the
chance to visit with you. I know we, we are like-minded in
terms of the importance of 702 as I talked with Senator
Lankford and how I view it as an indispensable tool.
It is one that I used as a prosecutor. General Ashcroft
talked about national security and terrorism related
investigations. I have used it as a practical matter there.
Like you as a legislator have seen it. But then the unique
perspective as DNI and if confirmed here, the importance of it
in fulfilling the core mission.
702 allows for foreign--collecting foreign intelligence on
foreign persons, not on U.S. persons. The controversy, why some
people think that FISA is, no pun intended, a four-letter word,
that in the course of technical collection on foreign persons
for foreign intelligence to make good decisions to keep our
country safe, that sometimes U.S. persons are incidentally
collected. In other words, they are having a conversation with
a foreign person.
Senator Rounds. Look, we eavesdrop, don't we?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes.
Senator Rounds. We are not eavesdropping on Americans. We
are eavesdropping on people that are not American citizens and
we are doing it outside of our country.
Mr. Ratcliffe. That's right.
Senator Rounds. And in the middle of it, we have Americans
that are sometimes caught up and maybe perhaps having a
conversation with somebody outside the country.
Mr. Ratcliffe. That's right.
Senator Rounds. At that point there may have been something
collected inadvertently. Can we use that?
Mr. Ratcliffe. So there is, for instance, when the CIA
collects intelligence, it is allowable to do a U.S. person
query where you are looking for someone that might be
communicating with some foreign person to do something bad to
the United States.
What you can't have is accessing that or making the query
for political reasons or for some reason other than protecting
our national security. We have to have the safeguards to make
sure that those kinds of abuses can't take place and be
misused. And my pledge to you is, if confirmed as CIA Director,
that that won't happen.
I will point out that I haven't been briefed on everything,
but I am impressed with the CIA's compliance rate with regard
to U.S. person queries is 99.6 percent, meaning they do a
really good job of making sure that Americans who are swept up
incidentally aren't having their civil liberties violated. Is
it perfect? No. But----
Senator Rounds. But there were reforms made based upon
practices that were not appropriate several years ago.
Mr. Ratcliffe. That's correct.
Senator Rounds. As you are reporting it. But they have
already been addressed.
Mr. Ratcliffe. That's correct.
Senator Rounds. So you would be supportive of the renewal
of 702 and perhaps there are some additional considerations,
but at this point it is critical we get it renewed?
Mr. Ratcliffe. It is critical. It is indispensable, and for
critics of it, no one has offered a replacement. If, for
instance, half of the actionable foreign intelligence comes
from FISA 702, what are we going to replace that with? And the
critics haven't provided any alternative to that. And so----
Senator Rounds. And look, and I agree and I thought it was
important in this open setting that we there be a better
understanding or a better clarification.
Mr. Ratcliffe. I mean.
Senator Rounds. How critical it is and what it really is.
It is basically looking at things overseas and not in the
United States.
Mr. Ratcliffe. I think it is going to be an iterative
ongoing discussion and needs to be as it comes up for
reauthorization again, and it will be incumbent on me if
confirmed both within the administration and outside stress the
things that you and I are talking about and make sure that
people understand, and to dispel false narratives about how
FISA is being misused or can be misused.
Senator Rounds. Correct. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Cotton. Senator Gillibrand.
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr.
Ratcliffe, for your service. Thank you for meeting with me. We
had an excellent conversation about a number of our priorities
on the committee, but mine specifically. Pandemic preparedness
was one issue. AHIs which Senator Collins covered very
effectively and sexual assault and harassment in the military.
So I just want to address those so you can talk about them
publicly.
As we discussed, we need to do a much better job in
detecting and preventing and knowing the intelligence to
prepare for the next pandemic. We didn't have the type of
collaboration we needed to prepare for COVID. We had
disagreements about how COVID began and we never really got
resolution on that, which is a concern for me. But this idea of
a one-health proposal is creating essentially a fusion center
for the CIA, the NSA, the DoD, the Department of Agriculture,
and HHS, so that you are in real time working collaboratively
to detect this information. Because agriculture and science,
they often share data and information, and we know with regard
to the Wuhan lab that they were publishing data and information
about the tests they were doing. The scientific community had
access to that. The CIA, on the other hand, was looking into
other intelligence. They might have been able to get the
details about illnesses quicker than anyone else. But none of
these groups were talking so the data wasn't shared in a timely
basis, so we didn't really have the information we could have
had if the CIA was talking to the medical community, the
scientific community, and the agricultural community, in terms
of research. So I just want your commitment that you will work
with me on this very important issue because the CIA can play
such a meaningful role in protecting our Nation from such other
threats such as a pandemic or any use of a biological weapon or
any use of that kind of harm to the United States.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Senator Gillibrand, I really did enjoy the
chance to visit and talk about these issues. I agree
completely. I do pledge to work with you on that.
You know, we go back to one of the worst incidents in our
Nation's history, 9/11. It was a failure of communication. We
had the intelligence. We just weren't sharing it with each
other in a way that would prevent that. And you brought up
COVID is the more recent example where maybe as many as 25
million people died worldwide and at least a million Americans
as a result of that. And one of the things--when I came in as
DNI--to your point, was I was surprised at the lack of
coordination between for instance the intelligence community
and health agencies like the CDC and NIH and the ability to--
that channels were not open to share information like you are
talking about. So many of these things can be if not prevented
mitigated quickly if we are communicating and sharing
intelligence better.
I completely agree with the sentiment that you have
expressed and look forward to working with you to make sure
that we are doing those things if I am confirmed as CIA
Director.
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you. And I just want to associate
myself with the comments of Senator Collins with regard to
AHIs. I think it is essential, as I mentioned in our hearing,
that you collaborate with the Department of Defense, with their
intelligence agencies, to understand what the nature of these
effects are, what causes them, and what type of adversaries can
be using technology in a way to actually harm our
servicemembers.
I really appreciate that you will commit to delving deep
into this issue and really try to limit the siloing of
information between the CIA and the DoD on this very topic.
Mr. Ratcliffe. I will. I look forward to it. The CIA is the
premier intelligence agency in the world. And I am not saying
that it should always be able to make an assessment about
cause, but over time it is typically something we should expect
and in some cases demand.
For instance, COVID. You brought up that. That is one
issue. But AHI is another one. I am curious and look forward to
reading the classified version of the AHI in terms of the
assessments that were made or the inability to make an
assessment on causation, and if I am not satisfied, will
continue to look at that.
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you. And my last question--
obviously, the scourge of sexual assault is problematic in
every area of society. We want to make sure that the CIA is a
safe place to work and that people who are being harassed or
assaulted can come forward and demand justice. I just ask your
commitment that you will work with this Committee to make sure
all of our members of this community can work in a safe
environment.
Mr. Ratcliffe. I will, Senator. I appreciate your
leadership on this issue. I know it has been something you have
highlighted. And as we talked about in our meeting, over the
course of my career, I am grateful for what my record reflects
in leadership positions I have had and organizations I have had
in terms of not tolerating sexual assault and sexual abuse when
I was U.S. Attorney, when I was DNI, when I was in Congress,
all of those. And so I make that pledge to you gratefully.
Chairman Cotton. Senator Young.
Senator Young. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is great to
serve with you and other members of this Committee.
Mr. Ratcliffe, had a nice visit with you in the office. You
answered many of my questions. What I will ask you here today
will be familiar to you and build on that meeting.
Thank you again for your willingness to serve your country.
You are prepared, I think, for this step, this position. You
are qualified. I anticipate supporting your nomination. So we
will begin with that.
You spoke in your testimony to the growing role of emerging
technology and to advances being made by our adversaries. If
confirmed, how will you direct the agency to analyze and
respond to foreign threats that undermine, often overlook
critical areas of our security and economic well-being, such as
the food and Ag sectors?
Mr. Ratcliffe. So, thank you for the question. I did enjoy
our visit, Senator Young, and enjoyed serving with you in the
House of Representatives, and if confirmed, look forward to
working with you from this perspective.
I was talking with Senator Gillibrand about COVID-19, the
origins of that and the things that the intelligence community
needs to do to be better. Part of that is to your point in
embracing emerging technologies and making sure that one of the
things that the CIA does is adapt to the technology curve. For
instance, when we talk about utilizing artificial intelligence
and machine learning, there is so much data that's out there in
this great technological age that we live in, that sometimes
the intelligence community spends so much time sifting through
the data that they can't find the signal for the noise. And one
of the things that technology allows us to do is to find the
signal in all of that noise. In other words, so that we can
find the intelligence, spend more time using the intelligence,
and less time looking for it. You brought up different issues
where that can be valuable and where that can be helpful.
One of the things that I know you are interested in and we
have talked about was the biosecurity and the biointelligence
issues and how the CIA needs to expand its authorities in that
regard. And its relationships with scientists and researchers
to be on the leading edge of information as it is coming out
and develop early warnings to some of the problems that we are
talking about in that space.
Senator Young. I am encouraged that you are thinking
critically about this topic, and it is clear to me you are. You
should know as you are likely aware, but all others who are
watching this should know, that there has been commissioned by
Congress a National Security Commission on Emerging
Biotechnology, and that commission is charged with looking at
the national security implications of our current biotech
leadership but also making recommendations to make sure that
the United States can stay ahead of our adversaries, in
particular China.
So we will produce those recommendations in the spring
timeframe. I am chairman of that commission currently. And some
of those will implicate very directly our intelligence
community. And so I would just ask that you, your staff, review
that report when it is published and work with this Committee
and others on some of its recommendations.
Do you commit yourself, without having seen the report, but
to be attentive to its recommendations and findings?
Mr. Ratcliffe. I absolutely do and I appreciate your
leadership on that issue and as we talked about, and we will
talk about more. I look forward to supporting and collaborating
your efforts in that regard.
Senator Young. Thank you. Time is winding down and I am the
new guy, but one other quick question here. Would you like to
volunteer any particular approaches that you might want to lead
the agency in to delay or degrade the threats posed by foreign
nations using emerging technologies like AI or biotech?
Mr. Ratcliffe. I think we can talk about some of those
things in the classified session, Senator. I think that what I
would say in this setting is that when it comes to technology,
we have so much concern about what China and Russia and our
adversaries, what they are doing and how we need to counter
them. I have absolute confidence that we can and will. There is
only one country in the world that can parallel park a 200-foot
rocket booster. The Chinese can't do it. The Russians can't do
it. We do it, and we do it in part because of the great
collaboration we have and can have and need to deepen between
the private sector where there is so much innovation and
ingenuity in the space of emerging technologies, and I am
committed as CIA Director if allowed, to expanding upon that.
Senator Young. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Cotton. Senator Ossoff.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Ratcliffe,
congratulations on your nomination. Thank you for your service
to the country and congratulations to your family. I enjoyed
our engagement a few weeks ago. It is a useful opportunity for
me to learn more about your views and your plans for CIA.
I want to begin with a matter that impacts Georgia.
On election day 2024, there were a series of bomb threats
issued against polling places in DeKalb County, Georgia,
principally. Predominantly Black, predominantly democratically
leaning precincts that disrupted election operations and the
ability of folks to vote on the afternoon of election day. Our
State election officials attributed those threats to Russian
actors.
What assurance can you give my constituents in Georgia that
CIA will sustain collection to identify threats to voting
rights and election administration in the United States?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you, Senator, for the question. I
enjoyed our visit as well. I can give every assurance. As you
know, the CIA doesn't have domestic authorities. When we talk
about election security issues, the FBI and DHS are the
agencies that provide that protection. Where the CIA plays a
role is if we have bad actors who want to influence or impact
our elections, as you have related in this case. I haven't seen
that specific intelligence, but, for instance, if Russia--
Russian actors were behind those threats, those are the kinds
of things that the CIA not only should do but must do and,
frankly, do better in terms of collecting intelligence on how
our adversaries intend, whether it is through physical means or
through a cyber means of disrupting or influencing elections.
And the CIA's role should be to identify those threats over
there before they come over here.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you for that commitment to sustain
that collection. I appreciate it.
I want to give you the opportunity to provide some
clarifying information about events that have attracted some
scrutiny in September of 2020 when you sent a letter to the
chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that declassified
certain intelligence about Russian analytic products that had
been collected by the intelligence community and which pertain
to events four years past, during the 2016 election and the
controversy over alleged links between the Trump campaign and
the Russian Government. And my purpose is not to interrogate or
to relitigate that ancient history from 2016 but to understand
why you chose to send that letter to the Senate Judiciary
Committee declassifying intelligence on that day, September 29?
You will no doubt recall that that was the same day as the
Presidential debate, yes?
Mr. Ratcliffe. I don't recall that it was that date, but it
may be.
Senator Ossoff. You don't recall? Your testimony is that
you are not aware that that letter was sent to the Judiciary
Committee by you on the same day as the Presidential debate.
Mr. Ratcliffe. I don't recall that it was on that date, but
I will take you at your word. The dates will reflect what they
are. But to your question----
Senator Ossoff. I want to drill down on that. Because my
purpose is not to suggest some kind of political intent, but
you made it very clear that avoiding politicization of the
intelligence community's activities is a high priority for you;
is that correct?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Correct.
Senator Ossoff. It strikes me that in releasing politically
sensitive intelligence that you'd think carefully about the
timing of that; that you might consider that doing so on the
day of a Presidential debate, when this was intelligence
collected four years in the past, might reasonably draw the
question of whether or not there was some political impetus. Is
that reasonable?
Mr. Ratcliffe. It is reasonable for you to ask that, and if
I can, you asked me to clarify, if I can do that. You are
correct, it was my decision, but it wasn't my process.
To your point, that effort was actually the request of this
Committee during my confirmation hearing as DNI, was to go back
and look at the intelligence from 2016 and 2017 Intelligence
Community Assessment. I also received separately a request from
the Attorney General and from then special counsel to
declassify certain intelligence relating to that in support of
what would be a public report from the special counsel.
I in addition to that received what I would call requests
or what I would call demands from other Senate committees to
include the Judiciary Committee and the Senate Homeland
Security and Government Accountability--whatever the title of
that committee is, for information related to that. That took
place over a course of several months. And the process, just so
you are clear, was an iterative, collaborative process that
included the Attorney General, the CIA Director, the Director
of the NSA, myself as DNI, and again, an iterative process that
resulted in a highly redacted product to protect sources and
methods, but yet to respond to these requests or demands to put
that information out. So I take----
Senator Ossoff. That is useful information and my time is
running short, but we can discuss further in the closed session
if we need to. I appreciate you and enjoyed our recent meeting.
Mr. Ratcliffe. I thank you for that.
Chairman Cotton. Senator Cornyn.
Senator Cornyn. Mr. Ratcliffe, I think I have the
distinction of having known you longer than anybody else on
this Committee. I remember when you were----
Mr. Ratcliffe. They call that misfortune.
Senator Cornyn. [continuing]. When you were the mayor of
Heath, Texas. How many people live in Heath, Texas?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Around 7,000.
Senator Cornyn. You still live there with your wife?
Mr. Ratcliffe. I do. It is a great community.
Senator Cornyn. It is.
Mr. Ratcliffe. I say hi to all the Heathans out there.
(Laughter.)
Senator Cornyn. Absolutely.
So I have every confidence that you will do an outstanding
job as the next Director of the CIA. And I say that advisedly,
because as I said I have known you for a long time and watched
your career from the private sector to U.S. Attorney, acting
U.S. Attorney for a while, to Member of Congress. And I had the
privilege of introducing you to the committee at your previous
confirmation hearing as Director of National Intelligence. So I
don't really have any doubt about your qualifications.
I do want to talk about a couple of subjects, and one is, I
know people have heard the discussion of FISA and Section 702,
and I appreciate the clarity which you explain how essential
this tool is. I think part of the problem we have had with
reauthorization is that people don't trust the people actually
implementing that tool, because they have seen the abuses by
Members of the IC, including the FBI, particularly dating back
during President Trump's administration. So they figure, well,
everybody must misuse these tools.
But I thought you had a great analogy when we discussed
this on the phone. You said, well, you probably have a bunch of
steak knives in your kitchen, and they can be used for useful
and beneficial purpose but they can also be misused. And I
think that was a pretty good analogy.
But I want to ask you about one of the quote ``fixes'' that
some people have suggested to the current state of the law, and
that is to require a warrant to query lawfully collected FISA
information. You have properly identified the fact that these
are directed at people overseas--overseas--foreigners overseas
not Americans. But you are a former U.S. Attorney and a pretty
good lawyer, and you understand what probable cause requires.
To be able to establish probable cause in front of a judge you
need to have evidence. And if all you have is a FISA query of a
foreign target that happens to mention an American citizen or a
U.S. person, is there any way for you to go to court and
establish the requirements of a warrant or probable cause in
order to query that data?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, Senator, you know the answer to that
better than I do because you are a better lawyer and were an
Attorney General. But the answer is no, because the danger
there is that you really don't have the information to obtain
the warrant. And the process of obtaining the warrant, we are
talking about national security issues where sometimes minutes
matter and the ability to disrupt or interdict the bad actors
or to act upon the intelligence that you can gain from that. So
the process of even getting a warrant, the time that it takes,
much less the fact that as you say you won't have a probable
cause basis to get there.
Senator Cornyn. Well, I think there is a lot of
misunderstanding and misinformation about how FISA works. And,
admittedly, I have to periodically go back and refresh my own
memory because it does get to be fairly convoluted sometimes.
But the fact of the matter is it is illegal to use this tool to
spy on American citizens, and there are protocols in place to
lessen the likelihood that that could ever possibly occur. But
I think basically what has happened is there has been a lack of
trust in the people who had access to those tools in the recent
past, and I hope you will help restore that trust. I also think
you are going to need to share your experience and wisdom with
the nominees for FBI and Director of national security, because
we have had these conversations as well, and I think there is
some confusion about whether a warrant should be required or
not.
I think you are absolutely right, and that is I think is
not the answer. Thank you.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you, Senator.
Chairman Cotton. Senator Kelly.
Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Congratulations on
your new job. I look forward to working with you on this
Committee. And Mr. Ratcliffe, congratulations to your
nomination for this position. And congratulations to your
family as well.
I want to follow up on what Senator Ossoff was referring
to, the intelligence that was released prior to the 2020
election. That intelligence was rejected. First of all it was
before I was on the committee, but my understanding that it was
rejected by Democrats and Republicans on this Committee as
having no factual basis that put Russian disinformation into
the public sphere.
I just want to understand. So, in hindsight, knowing what
you know now, and this is four years removed from that and we
have had another election and, obviously, we have got
challenges we face with Russian, Chinese, Iranian
disinformation in our politics. So, in hindsight, are there any
changes that you would make to the way you handled that
information?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Senator, I appreciate the question. You
know, I certainly--looking back, having the opportunity to
change certain things might do that. I don't know in this case.
For instance, Senator Ossoff raised the point that the
declassification occurred on the day of a Presidential
election. I don't recall that. Obviously, that is when it did.
Senator Kelly. I think he said debate.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Debate, I am sorry. I wasn't aware of that.
I certainly don't think I did everything perfectly in terms of
making decisions about every issue that relates to--I am
talking generally. But I talked about my record in terms of how
I approach these things and how in terms of speaking truth to
power which sometimes includes declassifying information. Most
of the things that I have done, Senator, aged very well, and I
think others will continue to.
For instance, on COVID origins, I think that ultimately I
believe there will be an assessment that is consistent with the
position that I have taken.
Senator Kelly. It is hard to get this stuff exactly right.
I get that. This is complicated. In this case, you know, it did
become rather political and I appreciate your willingness to
look back.
Mr. Ratcliffe. The other thing I want to say is, part of my
answer to your question is classified, and I look forward in
the classified session to talk to you about one of the things
this Committee asked me to do that did influence my decision
was to look at the 2018 Intelligence Community Assessment. And
in not only looking at that, what I did--so to be clear. I
requested a briefing from the CIA from some members of the team
that were involved in that. And I am not sure that that
information or that intelligence has been shared with this
Committee. So I look forward----
Senator Kelly. Let's follow up on that.
I got a few more things to cover here and I got about maybe
90 seconds left here.
In your response to the committee, you indicated--this is a
different topic.
You agreed with the Trump administration's 2017 assessment
that the Assad regime used chemical weapons, including in
Douma, killing hundreds, injuring hundreds more. The U.S.
intelligence community had a similar assessment that these
weapons were used.
If you are serving or when you are serving as the Director
and the DNI asks you to explore evidence that Douma or other
attacks were staged or that analysis indicating the use of
chemical weapons is incorrect or there is some kind of similar
situation, what would you do?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, look at the intelligence. So you are
right, I did include that. That was based upon the intelligence
that I was able to review during my time as DNI. And I think
the intelligence was clear. I think the assessments were, I
forget if they were with high confidence, but I believe that
they were. What I haven't seen is any intelligence in the last
four years that I wouldn't have access to. So I would look at
that. But I would be surprised if there is intelligence that
would change my initial assessment but I certainly go back and
look at that.
Senator Kelly. Could I just very briefly just have a few
more seconds here? I just want to get your commitment to work
with me, focusing on transnational criminal organizations on
the other side of the border. It is a big problem. It affects
my State in a big way.
Mr. Ratcliffe. And my State.
Senator Kelly. Yes.
Mr. Ratcliffe. I absolutely make that pledge in working
with you to address that threat.
Senator Kelly. Thank you.
Chairman Cotton. Senator Moran.
Senator Moran. Chairman, thank you.
Mr. Ratcliffe, I appreciate our conversation in the office.
I particularly appreciate the indication of your transparency
with this Committee, your forthrightness, telling us the truth.
It has been difficult from time to time to know what the true
story is, and there is certainly--there are opinions about
truth but we ought to be trying to find the truth.
I want to ask you about statements that you have made. I
agree with you that China is the greatest threat facing our
country. I rate Russia as our second-greatest threat and
believe it is the most acute threat today.
Will you describe the scope of the threat as you see it,
and the importance of countering the Kremlin?
Mr. Ratcliffe. The question, the threat from Russia?
Senator Moran. Threat from Russia. You indicate China is
the first and greatest threat.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Absolutely. So Russia is very clearly an
adversary of the United States. The threat, it courses a
country with a very large nuclear stockpile. The thing that
separates the threat from Russia from China in my mind and why
I put them even though we include them in the great power
competition is that the United States is the largest economy in
the world. China is the second largest. Russia has an economy
that is roughly the same size as my home State of Texas. So
what it means is that the Russians have to decide where they
are going to compete with the United States, and so they have
chosen areas like hypersonics and other areas. But that comes
with a cost. I think we saw some of the costs in terms of troop
readiness as they engaged in their aggression against Ukraine.
So, a dangerous lethal adversary who in many respects is,
because of the limitations that I have talked about is focused
on areas where there are great equalizers, and one of those is
cybersecurity.
Countries that can't compete with the United States in
terms of kinetic firepower across the board can do so through
cyber means. In other words--and we see that with Iran and
North Korea and other countries who can't compete with us
kinetically focus on cyber means to cause us harm. Russia
certainly falls into that category as well in terms of where a
lot of their focus is and my assessment of them in terms of the
malign activities that they take across, against the U.S.
Senator Moran. Certainly invasion of another country has
significantly complicated the security of our allies and
perhaps the United States. I would point out that you are the
first Texan I have ever met that belittled the State of Texas.
(Laughter.)
In your answers to the committee's questionnaire you state
regarding Russia that you ``believe.'' I am quoting you. You
believe ``we cannot let our adversarial relationship boil over
into unintended wars.'' And you go on to say ``I will advise
the President when there are opportunities to work toward
mutually beneficial outcomes with Russia.''
You did not make a similar commitment for China, Iran, or
North Korea. What is the difference?
Mr. Ratcliffe. I don't recall, like the context of the
question why there would be a difference.
For instance, I think what I was referring to there,
Senator, was for all of the things that I talked about in terms
of Russia as a threat and the things where they challenge us
with malign activity, there are areas where we, for instance,
countering terrorism. Some of the same threats that we face
from terrorist groups are threats that they face. So there are
occasions where information or intelligence can be shared or
things can be done in our mutual--to the mutual benefit of our
countries and those types of things.
That would be true with China as well. You know. I think
President Trump's approach from a policy standpoint is to not
look for conflict with anyone, including our adversaries, but
to provide a strong deterrent effect to their malign activities
through America's strength--peace through strength.
I think Iran may be different in the sense that it is a
terrorist State, a terrorist regime, and has been designated by
the Trump administration. So I would put that in a different
category.
Senator Moran. In addressing the importance of analytical
objectivity and speaking truth to power, you state that as the
DNI you represented the IC's analysis to policymakers
faithfully, including dissenting views even when the full
analytical picture was unpopular.
Could you give me an example?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Sure. In connection with the 2020
Presidential election, assessment was made as to whether China
was trying to undermine President Trump's re-election efforts,
and there was a split between the community.
A majority opinion was that China was not doing that and
wouldn't do that for a number of reasons. The minority opinion
was that they were. I agreed with the minority opinion. But
what I did was not try to substitute my judgment for the
community. I wrote a dissent that would be public and people
could see the reasons for that and in the process supported a
whistleblower, one of our leading cyber officers, in support of
that position.
I will say that 15 months later, FBI Director Wray held a
press conference talking about the exact things that I was
saying China had engaged in that they were doing. And so the
opinion that China would never engage in those kind of
activities proved to be false, and I think that my dissent aged
well.
Senator Moran. Not only did you speak out against the
majority but you turned out to be right.
Thank you.
Chairman Cotton. Senator Heinrich.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman.
On July 21, 2020, you sent a letter to this Committee
stating that while you agreed to appear at the committee's Open
Worldwide Threat hearing as DNI, as Director of National
Intelligence, that you would not take any questions in open
session. And you wrote that letter while committing twice in
your confirmation hearing that you would appear and answer
questions.
Obviously, this position is one that requires congressional
oversight. I don't think any of us up here would ever ask you
to answer questions in a way that revealed anything that was
classified or was more appropriate for closed session. I want
to ask you why you thought that was appropriate, and today, can
you commit that, if confirmed, you will appear at this
Committee's annual Open Hearing on Worldwide Threats and take
questions from the Committee itself?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Senator, thanks for the question. I think
there was a slight mischaracterization.
I didn't refuse. I made a proposal about how to handle the
worldwide threats hearing. I did that for a number of reasons.
First of all, I didn't at that time as DNI--which, as you know,
the DNI speaks for the entire intelligence community.
My proposal was actually a reflection of multiple leaders
across the intelligence community who shared my opinion that
other countries don't hold public hearings like that where we
discuss sensitive national security information.
The problem isn't in terms of you asking questions about
classified material. The issue comes up in terms of being put
on the spot to provide an answer where sometimes you might
inadvertently provide information that is classified because
you don't recall at what level or if it is classified at all.
That is the danger, and that has happened.
That explains how I approached that issue.
What I would say is this. I am being considered for the CIA
Director which is not the head of the intelligence community. I
understand notwithstanding my opinion about how the worldwide
threat assessment hearing should take place, that the
committee--and I learned from that the committee disagreed and
didn't want that proposal. So that would not be an issue if I
am confirmed as CIA Director.
Senator Heinrich. So you will come.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes.
Senator Heinrich. And take appropriate questions.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes.
Senator Heinrich. Let me ask you and you answered Mr.
Ratcliffe this question in writing but I think it is important
for the American people and frankly for the world to hear your
answer in an open hearing as well.
Section 1045 of the National Defense Authorization Act for
fiscal year 2016 prohibited the use of any interrogation
technique that was not authorized in the Army Field Manual.
Will you abide by this law?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes.
Senator Heinrich. In your answers to the committee
questions you wrote that the CIA must, and this is a quote from
you: ``The CIA must help rebuild public confidence in the
intelligence community in the wake of prior abuses.'' End
quote.
You reference that on a number of different occasions in
your answers. I, frankly, never have been one to shy away from
criticizing either the IC or the CIA when I felt it was
appropriate. But I think most of us up here can agree that on
the whole that CIA's men and women produce the finest
intelligence in the world with a great deal of objectivity and
integrity, and if there is a lack of public confidence, it is
because it has become too easy for some elected officials to
throw around terms like the ``Deep State.''
If you are confirmed, what precisely would you do to help
rebuild public confidence in the agency, and where do you see
that necessary and appropriate?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you, Senator, for the question. I
think it is the things we have talked about already and some of
it you may not have been present for, but in terms of leading
by example if confirmed as a CIA Director. I went through a
series of examples where I talked about speaking truth to power
and the importance of that and setting the right example in
connection with that. So I think that is essentially how I
would go about it, is to lead by example.
Senator Heinrich. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Cotton. I believe the vice chairman has a follow-
up question.
Vice Chairman Warner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also
quickly want to mention. I appreciate your answer to Senator
Heinrich's question about appearance here. I think we do have a
unique situation in America where we have public congressional
oversight. I think it is critically important to help restore
that trust, and I appreciate your commitment to appear and
testify.
This is a topic I am going to raise in closed, but I wanted
to also at least get you on the record in the open session and
I think you will concur. Senator Cotton pointed out a number of
times, the Chairman pointed out when the IC didn't get it right
in recent times. And I think--I am not sure we are ever going
to get an all-seeing IC, but one particular area I have been
concerned about is the ability for the IC to monitor technology
advancement. I think historically that has not been the case.
We have told our spies to go spy on the military or foreign
governments, but we see repeatedly as we think about this
technology competition, particularly with China. And I can cite
chapter and verse from CIA getting it wrong about how slick it
was going to be to move to lower level semiconductors or to
move to smaller conductors or smaller semiconductors, area
after area.
I think Director Burns current administration we moved the
enterprise some. I think we still have a lot more to do. But I
did want you in this public setting to weigh in on how it is
absolutely critical that the CIA is able to not only look at
our adversaries in terms of government and military presence
but clearly in this technology competition and how we have to
up our game in terms of collection?
Mr. Ratcliffe. I agree 100 percent completely. You talked
about it, Senator, earlier in terms of military threats are one
thing, but, as you know, I believe for instance, the NSA, we
have the best code makers and code breakers in the world, but
if China gets to quantum computing before we do, that causes a
real problem. We have got to win the war, the race on
technology to stay ahead of the technology curve. Part of that
is, when we talk about technology as a tool and a target is, we
have to disrupt. CIA has to play a really important role in
disrupting our adversaries' technologies in terms of trying to
get ahead of us.
You mentioned semiconductors. We all know that the issue
that relates to Taiwan and that 95 percent of advanced
semiconductors are there and we are trying to address those
supply chain issues. But we can do things and CIA must do
things to disrupt how our adversaries are dealing with their
supply chain issues in regard to that. That is just one
example.
Vice Chairman Warner. Thank you, Mr. Ratcliffe.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Cotton. For the information of Senators, we intend
to hold a Committee vote on Mr. Ratcliffe's nomination as soon
as possible, most likely on Monday afternoon; therefore, any
Member who wishes to submit questions for the record after
today's hearing, please do so by close of business tomorrow.
Mr. Ratcliffe, I presume we can expect you to provide your
replies even more promptly.
Thank you all. The open session of this hearing is
adjourned.
We will reconvene in closed session in 30 minutes. That
will be at 12:37 p.m. Thank you.
(Whereupon, the hearing was adjourned at 12:07 p.m.)
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