[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 160 (Thursday, October 5, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6335-S6336]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Russia Investigation

  Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, I want to be able to give a quick 
update to this body on a conversation that started yesterday and has 
been ongoing for months about Russia and their interference in our 
elections and how they are trying to engage with us in a way that much 
of Europe has seen for decades but that we just haven't seen in the 
United States.
  Yesterday, Senator Burr and Senator Warner stood up and gave an 
update of where we are in the status of the investigation of the Senate 
Select Committee on Intelligence. They walked through some of the 
statistics. We have done over 100 interviews. We have 4,000 pages of 
transcript from those interviews. We have 100,000 documents that we 
have gone through so far, and there is more to go. We have completed 
some areas where we have interviewed everyone who we could possibly 
interview in that area. In other areas, as we do one interview, they 
quote a couple of other people, and we chase down those individuals, 
and it continues. So parts of the investigation are not done at this 
point, but some of it is.
  Several aspects are clear from the investigation, though, again, it 
is not complete, and we will have a final document at the end. Some of 
the areas that are clear are that Russia was trying to use active 
measures to engage us in our last election. That part is very, very 
clear.
  The question comes for many people: Why would they do that? Quite 
frankly, this is the way Russia has worked for a very long time--this 
asymmetric warfare they do where they try to constantly interfere in 
other people's thoughts and conflicts. They have done it across Europe 
for a long time. They are now doing it here.
  Some of this is a product of Russia's having a very weak economy and 
trying to find some way to bolster themselves up. In the last 2 years, 
the Russian ruble has dropped 40 percent in value. As they struggle 
with low oil prices and struggle in the way they function with their 
government with the oligarchs and have a select group of people who can 
succeed and other folks who continue to struggle around the country and 
as they struggle under that system where they have fake elections and 
such, they try to reach out to other countries and try to interfere in 
our elections to make us look like them.
  We have a free press that they try to engage in. We have free speech 
that they don't have in Russia. We have freedom of religion, which they 
don't have in Russia. We have the ability to be able to have disputes 
on political issues. They clearly don't have that in Russia. If you 
disagree with leadership in Russia, you will end up in prison. If you 
disagree with leadership in the United States, you will end up on TV. 
It is very different to be in an open society like ours. But they reach 
into what we consider a strength and try to make it our weakness.
  We are going to try to get the facts out on this over the next 
several months as we work through this process. We are going to expose 
what Russia is really trying to do. Do they use some overt propaganda 
networks like Sputnik Radio and RT? Is their Russian propaganda on 
multiple cable and satellite channels throughout the United States? 
Their version of the facts are designed to create discord in our 
Nation. That is what they do.
  They also have ways that are not quite as overt. They reach in on 
social media platforms. They have their trolls in Russia who have 
thousands of fake accounts on Facebook and Twitter and other social 
media apps. They use those thousands of apps to search around any news 
in America and find a place where there is conflict in America and then 
try to amp up the volume.
  To be clear, the Russians are not creating conflict in America. We 
have plenty of it. We disagree on issues. Again, it is our free 
society. When we disagree on something, we disagree on

[[Page S6336]]

it publically and sometimes loud. That is who we are as Americans. We 
try to work things out, sometimes at a high volume. But just like two 
kids who are fighting on the playground in the fifth grade--remember 
those two kids that started a fight and their friends were watching 
them? Then, eventually, someone on the other side of the playground 
started yelling ``fight,'' and the crowd started forming. The Russians 
aren't starting the fight. They aren't even in the fight. They are the 
kids on the far side of the playground, trying to get more people to 
run to the fight. They are not starting the Twitter wars and the 
battles, but they look at where America is divided, issues like race. 
Their troll farms will try to find areas where we disagree, such as 
areas of race, and reach in and try to amplify the volume on that by 
repeating accusations and by trying to be even more hostile online. 
They are trying to stoke disunity in our Nation.
  It is important that we know that every time you see something with a 
high number of hashtag counts that goes up, it is not always Americans 
who are pushing that up. Occasionally, it is an outside body trying to 
raise the volume and make a conflict look even bigger than it already 
is in America because they are into sowing discord. That is what they 
love to do. That is what the rest of the nations have seen them do. We 
should be very clear that the Russians are trying to continue to sow 
chaos into us.
  They have reached into our election systems. In the previous couple 
of weeks, the FBI notified 21 different States that during the last 
election season, the Russians tried to interfere in their election 
process as a State. Now, that doesn't mean they did interfere. That 
means they reached in and tested systems. That means they tried to go 
into voter databases to see if they could access a voter database to 
see who was registered to vote. They tried to get into a secretary of 
State's office in a local State to see if they could figure out how 
they do their elections. That means they reached into systems in States 
to see what voting machines they used and if they tried to connect them 
in. They were trying to find out how they do elections, learn as much 
as they could about their process, and see how far they could get.
  Through all of our work, we have yet to find a single vote that was 
changed. The Russians didn't get into voting machines. They didn't 
alter the election in any way, but they were constantly probing through 
multiple States to see what they could get access to.
  Now, it is my belief that they are preparing for something else. They 
are trying to see what they could get access to in the last election to 
see if they could get back into it and do even more in the next 
election. We should be aware of that. We should be aware not only of 
their propaganda, but we should be aware that they are going after our 
elections to see if they can find a way, at the end of the election, to 
make us doubt the outcomes.
  What can we do about that? I will give you several ideas. One of 
them, I would say, is that we need to protect the primacy of States 
running the elections. There is absolutely no need for the Federal 
Government to go to States and take over their election process. It is 
a constitutional protection that those States have to be able to run 
their elections, but every State is also responsible to do it. Of the 
21 States that I noted here that the Russians tried to engage in, they 
couldn't get to a single voting machine. The States are already doing a 
good job, but they need help.
  There is no reason the State of Oklahoma should have to work alone to 
be able to protect itself from the Russians trying to invade it in the 
cyber attack. They are going to need some allies to come along with 
them, but the States should still be able to run the system. There 
should be more sharing between the State and the Federal Government. 
There should be an opportunity for the Federal Government to be able to 
say to a State, earlier than 10 months after the election: Hey, you are 
being hacked. For the FBI to notify States a couple of weeks ago that 
they were hacked in the 2016 elections is a little late. When it is 
occurring, we need to have that engagement between State IT folks and 
Federal IT folks. We need to be able to have that conversation as it is 
ongoing so the State can take protective measures as it is occurring. 
We need to have that cooperation between States and the Federal 
Government. We need to be able to help States come up with ways they 
can audit their system after the election is over.
  When every election occurs, you should be able to audit it and make 
sure the machines that were running the election actually were not 
hacked. You can verify that. In Oklahoma, we have optical scanners. You 
fill out a paper ballot. You run it through an optical scanner at the 
end of the election time, and they can count everything from the 
optical scanner. If there is any question, they can go back to the 
paper and actually do a hand count. We can literally audit our 
elections and their process. It is a safe system that we have set up in 
our State. Every State does it differently, but I would encourage every 
State to set up a system where they can audit their system.
  We know this year that the Russians were trying to engage in our 
election. It could be someone else who could do it. Any number of 
groups could try to interfere in our process. It is basic common sense 
to say we should have a system of elections we can actually audit. 
Perhaps Russia, in the days ahead, hopes that our Nation will be more 
like theirs. We will not be.
  We are the longest constitutional Republic in the world. We still 
need the world. We still put out our values about free speech, free 
press, freedom of religion, and opportunities for individuals to 
actually engage and to have conflict with their own government and to 
be able to disagree publically on things. We still can disagree with 
each other. We need to be aware that they want to turn us into them. I 
would hope for the sake of the Russian people, in the days ahead, that 
they could be more like us.
  Ronald Reagan told a story about a friend of his who had a 
conversation with a Cuban refugee fleeing from communism and oppression 
in Cuba in 1964. He said that his friend, this Cuban refugee, said:

       If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. 
     This is the last stand on Earth.

  We are still a role model for the rest of the world. As much conflict 
as we have with each other, we are still a role model. I have no issue 
disagreeing at times with people on this floor. We can have our 
disagreements, but I don't want the Russians to interfere in our 
disagreements. They can keep their business over there. In the days 
ahead, we will continue to expose the things they are doing. So they 
can back off and go bug someone else because we are akin to what they 
are doing.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Ohio.