COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

WASHINGTON, D.C.

INTERVIEW OF: LISA PAGE - DAY 2

Monday, July 16, 2618

Washington, D.C.

The above matter was held in Room 2141, Rayburn House Office

Building, commencing at 11:92 a.m.

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Mr. Okay. The time is 1 minute past 11:69 a.m. on
July 16th, continuing from Friday's session of the transcribed
interview of former FBI attorney Lisa Page.

EXAMINATION
BY MR. BAKER:

Good morning, Ms. Page, and thank you for agreeing to come
back for a second session of questioning. A lot of ground was covered
on Friday, so I1~ant to clean up a couple of areas that I had questions
on. So I might jump around a little bit. I'm going to try not to be
repetitive from what you've already answered.

But I wanted to clarify, at a very basic level, sometimes in the
media's reporting you've been referred to as an FBI agent. In the
truest sense of the word, as an agent relates to a principal, you are
an agent of the government. But in FBI parlance, is it correct to say
that you're not an 1811 series investigator special agent?

A I am not.

You are, in fact, an attorney and were assigned to the General
Counsel's Office.

A That's correct.

Okay.

You started to get into a little bit on Friday and you articulated
the best you could that I think you opened the door as to the
different types of investigations or how an investigation is opened.
It's my understanding there's three basic types of investigations:

There's an assessment. Then it moves to predicated investigations,

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where you then have preliminary investigation and you have a full
investigation. Is that correct?

A That's correct.

And my understanding of the different types of
investigations is, on one end of the spectrum, it's how that case is
opened, how maybe credible the information is or how vague the
information is. And then on the other end of the spectrum, it's what
type of investigative techniques can be employed in that type of
investigation. And 

A I wouldn't agree with respect to the substance of the
information. It's not whether it's vague or crediblecw?not. It's
really an assessment -- and, again, I don't have the standards in front
of me, but each level of, sort of, investigative permissionaffords
different levels of tools available.

And so, to the extent you have more information or to the extent
the information comes from a particularly credible source, itmeans
that you can open a full investigation and -- but really
the distinctions between certainly between a preliminary
investigation and a full are a little bit of dancing on the headof
a pin. I mean, these are very, sort of, nuanced, subtle. Any credible
allegation is sufficient for'the FBI to open an investigation and take
action for to sort of generalize broadly.

But the assessment would be kind of the lower, a very
initial the information maybe not even relating to a violation of

criminal law or national security; it could be proactively to

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prevent or to develop information about something the FBI is tasked
to investigate?

A That's correct. I don't really want to I would hesitate
to go down this path too carefully because there are multiple different
types of assessments and different divisions have actually different
authorities with respect to assessment, and I am by no means an expert
on that. So without having the DIOG in front of me, I would not really

be comfortable --

Sure.

A answering specific questions about 
Sure.

A what we can do at what level.

(2 But at a very basic level, the assessment is kind of the lower
tier. You're limited in the types of investigative techniques you can
use in the assessment when you compare that to one of the predicated
types, either the PI or the full.

A That is correct.

Okay. When you're talking about a PI or a full, I talked
briefly about, you know, the one standard to open on the one end, and
then the other end, when you have a PI or a full that's properly opened,
those are the types of investigations where you can use the more
sophisticated investigative techniques. Is that correct?

A They're not always sophisticated, but you can use more tools.

Certainly more than you could in the assessment.

A That's correct.

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And then one of the most sophisticated techniques would be
a court?ordered Title or a FISC?ordered 

A That's correct.

And those techniques, even though they're authorized by the
FBI's manual of -- that deals with compliance I believe it's
referred to as the D106, domestic investigative operations guidelines,
even though you're working with a validly opened, predicated
investigation, when you get to those really extreme, sensitive
techniques, the ones that are really intrusive, it's not just the FBI
that decides or somebody in the FBI that decides, hey, we're going to
use this technique. Is that correct?

A That's correct. With respect to both of the two you
describe, both the Title 3 wiretap and a FISC order, not only do you
have vast approvals within the FBI itself, both of those tools require
high-level approval at theJustice Department. And, of course,u?th
reSpect to a FISA order, the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney
General, him or herself, has to approve that.

Okay. And then so, not only are there multiple approval
levels for those type of techniques within the FBI, the Department of
Justice also has approval requirements for that at the highest levels,
but also there's court approval required for those. Is that not
correct?

A Of course.

So it's fair to say that not one person in the FBI decides,

hey, we're going to do this sophisticated technique, electronic

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surveillance of some sort, in a?vacuum. There are levels outside Fthe
FBI and even outside the executive branch.

A That's correct. Certainly, the more intrusive the
technique becomes, the greater supervision over that technique that
the FBI has and the more approval levels, both within and outside the
Department, will fall.

There are in many places in the FBI, I believe, opportunities
for people that believe that compliance is not being adhered
to there's many opportunities for people to report compliance
concerns. And I believe this DIOG that we referenced has specific
requirements for'a supervisor that opens a case, if he's concerned the
compliance isn't being met, there's opportunities to report if you
believe that something is not being adhered to, either in the opening,
the reporting, or the use of techniques in an investigation. Is that
correct?

A That's correct.

If you can --I don't think this would be classified; if it's
not, don't answer what is an IOB violation?

A It's not that it's classified; it's that I don't want to
misspeak.

Essentially, if there is a compliance violation associated with
the activity that the FBI conducts while wearing its intelligence
community hat, so it would presumably be classified, but it would be
in the conduct of not a criminal investigation but a classified

investigation, to the extent there's an error, for example, an

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overproduction, you know, we this is just for example's sake: Ne
issue a national security letter. We receive back information which
is beyond that which we're permitted to obtain pursuant to a national
security letter. If that were to be uploaded into our, sort of, primary
database, that would be an overproduction, and that would need to be
required to the IOB.

So it doesn't necessarily speak to the severity or the nature of
the compliance incident, but compliance incidents involving the
activity we conduct on the intelligence side, on the classified side
of the work we do is reported to the IOB and often to other entities
depending on whether it pertained to a FISA order or something else.

Thank you. That's very helpful.

50, outside the confines of any particular investigation, there
is a mechanism and there are people responsible to receive andlook
into compliance issues.

A Oh, yes.

Okay. During your employment with the FBI, specifically
your role with Midterm or the Russia investigation, are you aware of
any compliance issues that were raised or even to the level of an IOB
violation?

A Not during the period of time in which I was on either
investigation, no.

Had you heard about 

A IIhavesinceheard --can Iconsultwithcounsel? IWnsorry.

Absolutely.

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[Discussion off the record.]

Ms. Rage; Thank you. Upon consultation with FBI counsel,I'm
either I'm not sure whether the answer would call for a classified
answer or whether I would be permitted to answer the question fully.
But I can say, during the period of time that I was involved in both
the Clinton email investigation and the Russia investigation, I am not

aware of any compliance incident or event requiring reporting to the

103.
BY MR. BAKER:
Okay. 50, during your tenure or at another time,
there -- without the specifics of the violation, the mechanismsfor

reporting compliance issues, including IOB violations, was not
stymied, stifled --

A Oh, no, no. ?They exist. Yes.

Okay. And they would be complied with, as far as you know.

A Yes.

Okay. The FBI --

A I guess I would note, too, that the Department of Justice
plays a significant oversight role with respect to what gets reported
to the 108 or to the FISC. And so, again, it's not an issue that exists
solely within the FBI's purview to determine but is often identified
by the Department of Justice and then the FBI would follow up with an
IOB or other notification as appropriate.

And would it be correct to say, in addition to that mechanism,

the FBI has their own internal audits of those techniques. The

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National Security Law Branch and others, the Inspection Division,
conducts random inspections of the files that were used to utilize those
sophisticated techniques.

A That is correct, yes.

Okay.

The FBI, by its very motto, "Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity,"
subscribes to very high ideals. They also have a core value a list
of core values that certainly is not intended to be exhaustive,but
what they indicate in the fewest words possible to sort of be the essence
and the heart ofthe FBI: rigorous obedience to the Constitution of
the United States; respect for the dignity of all those welbrotect;
compassion, fairness, uncompromising personal integrity and
institutional integrity; accountability by acceptingresponsibility
for our actions and decisions and their consequences; leadershipby
example, both personal and professional.

Do you believe that everyone, to the best of your knowledge,
associated with Midyear Exam and the Russian investigation upheld the
FBI's core values?

A I think so, yes.

And do you believe based on your experience as an
attorney -- and your role of an attorney, if I'm not mistaken, would
be to advise the investigators and other members of the team on legal
issues, what they could, what they couldn't do, and potentially
compliance issues as well.

A So that is the role ofan attorney. I wouldn't agree that

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that was necessarily my role, because described,
I think, on Friday, I was not on the team in the same way that the other,
sort of, members of the investigative team were. I was really -- I
was supporting the Deputy Director, so I was, in a way, a liaison between
the team and, sort of, executive management at the FBI.

So I wouldn't say that my role certainly in any day?to-day
capacity was to provide legal advice to the team.

So, in your role as a liaison from the Deputy's office to
the Midyear team, what was your role as a liaison? Did you attend
meetings? You relayed information back?

A I did. Both of those things. As I think I described on
Friday, part of the value that I tried to add to the Deputy Director's
office was to ensure that he had the most complete information possible
at all times. And so I definitely stayed abreast of the investigative
activity. To the extent there were disagreements or frustrations with
the Department or areas where there might -- where a disagreement or
other issue might ultimately rise to the Deputy Director's level, I
tried to stay abreast of those as well, keep him sufficiently informed.

And while you were assigned attorney adviser, special
assistant, what was your title in the Deputy's office as an OGC rep?

A Counsel or special counsel to the Deputy Director.

Were you -- I mean, you're answering to the Deputy. You're
still a part of OGC technically, though, right?

A Yes. I am a partof OGC. I'm still a lawyer. I'm still,

you know, to the extent relevant, covered by the attorney-client

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privilege. But my role is to support theiDeputy Director. But, to
that end, I was in regular, if not daily, contact with the general
counsel to sort of ensure that our efforts and information was in sync.

But you're not giving legal advice to the Deputy per se.

A We're sort of splitting hairs. I may have been,depending
on the issue. My role was not necessarily to tell him, this is
permissible, this is impermissible. That is really what OGC was there
to do. He might ask me, you know, what do you think, and certainly
that might result in the conveyance of legal advice. But he has an
entire division devoted to that type of activity. I was there more
to help him make decisions and, sort of, apply judgment to what it was
we were looking at.

I also, because of the unique position, had a macro view of the
entire organization. And so I sort of tried to help connect dots that
may have seemed otherwise disparate but might ultimately have a
relevance with respect to whatever particular issue was in frontof
us, not just in the Clinton investigation.

And if something came your way in this assignment that
related to legal advice, you certainly had the resources of the General
Counsel's Office to reach out to or to incorporate in a decisioncwi
whatever the legal issue might be.

A That's correct. And, in fact, that is what I did. So, to the
extent just as an example, if the Deputy Director was reviewing a
FISA and he had a question about the sufficiency of the probable cause,

he might ask me my opinion, and I might give it, but, at the endtif

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the day, it would notstop there. We would return it to the General
Counsel's Office. He would consult with Mr. Baker or the deputy
general counsel or whomever had the substantive information necessary
and would get the, sort of, final legal determination from the Office
of General Counsel.

So the way the General Counsel's Office is set up, it's not
a lot ofgeneral practitioners. It sounds like there's a lot of very
specific specialists. You have national security law people that
would know answers to FISA?type questions. You have criminal lawyers
that would maybe know answers to just general investigative techniques .

So you would kind of coordinate where a particular question that
the Deputy might have might be properly referred to in the General
Counsel's Office.

A That's exactly right, yes, and to other divisions as well.
To the extent it was not a legal question that came up but simply, you
know, the Deputy wants more information about this operational plan,
I might also reach back into a substantive division to pass that
information along.

Okay.

You mentioned in your role as a liaison you would go to a lot of
meetings, frequent meetings, and report back to the Deputy. Was there
disagreement, dissension at these meetings on any particular path to
take, either investigatively or prosecuting?

We talked a little bit Friday about the decision to or to not

charge in specific statutes. There was this issue of Mr. Comey

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drafting this press release and then releasing -- doing the press
release and then letters to Congress.

Was there dissension in meetings about any of these controversial
topics, or was everybody, yes, we agree1~ith this? Hovrdid that work?

A That's a very broad question. If you are talking
specifically about the Clinton email investigation 

Okay.

A Is that --

For now.

A Okay. So certainly there are, you know, 8 or 16 of us who
made up sort of the core group of people who met with Director Comey.
There was I wouldn't say dissension, but there was the benefit of
that group and the comfort that we all with each other, and, in fact,
the kind of culture and environment that Director Comey tried to foster
absolutely allowed for disagreement, and we were all quite comfortable,
I think, expressing our views.

And to the extent somebody said we should take step and somebody
disagreed, it was entirely common for that group of individuals to
openly disagree with one another, to do so in front of the Director,
in the hopes that the best answer would sort of rise to the top.

And is that how it ultimately was decided? Is that how a
decision was decided? There was discussion, there was consensus, the
best decision rose to the top? Was there ever a vote and juSt simple
majority 

A This is the FBI. It's not a majority rule. The Director

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would make an ultimate decision. So, no, I am not aware of anything
ever being based on majority vote. It's the Director's heleads
the organization. He's the one who'd ultimately be accountable for
those decisions.

But the people that I worked with and that group of people who
would regularly meet with the Director all unquestionably feItfree
to voice their views.

Do you recall Director Comey ever taking a position that was
contrary to the consensus of the group?

A I wouldn't say "consensus. I don't think that that's a fair
statement. I was not present for the meeting in October when he decided
to send -- to notify Congress of his decision to reopen theC?inton
email investigation, but I am aware that there was disagreement among
the team. There was not a consensus that everybody agreed it should
be done. People had different views about whether we should and
whether we shouldn't and we did in the first place.
And ultimately it was Director Comey's decision to make.

Okay. Thank you.

BY MR. SOMERS:

Could we back up for a second? Art asked a pretty compound
question. Was there dissent, disagreement, however you would
characterize it, with investigative techniques on the MidyearExam?

A Investigative techniques? That's a really broadquestion.

Whether a search warrant should be used?

A Oh. SO'this was before Ilwas involved in the investigation,

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but it's my understanding it's not a disagreement within the FBI,
but there were lots and lots and lots of disagreements between the FBI
and the Department.

Generally, I can 't think of anything in particular that would have
been FBI?specific with respect to, like, this agent wants t0'take step
and this agent -- somebody else wants to take step Y.

But, certainly, my understanding is, at the outset of the
investigation again, I was not personally involved, but there was
a great deal of discussion between the FBI and the Department with
respect to whether to proceed, obtain the servertuhich housed the bulk
of Secretary Clinton's emails, pursuant to consent or pursuant toza
subpoena or other compulsory process.

And was that dissent between the FBI and the Department?

A That's correct. Yes.

And what was the FBI's preference?

A To obtain it pursuant to compulsory process.

The server?

A I'm sorry?

The server?

A The server, yes. Sorry.

And how about were there any other disagreements between
the Department and the 

A Oh, my gosh. I mean 

-- FBI on investigative techniques?

A Yes, all the time. In a vacuum, it's hard to just come up

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with them off the top of my head.

Was the FBI being told that it couldn't use certain
investigative techniques by the Department?

A "It couldn't use." Not -- I'm trying to think of specific
examples. I'm sorry. Not that to the extent there would be a
disagreement, I don't think it would ever be quite that strident. I
think it would be the view of the Department that it was strategically
advantageous.

Oh. Well, so here is an example. We had but this is not about
the type of process to obtain, but there were, I think, months of
disagreement with respect to obtaining the Mills and Samuelson laptops.

So Heather Mills and -- Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson were
both lawyers who engaged in the sorting. Once it had been identified
that Secretary Clinton had these emails -- I'm guessing it's pursuant
to the FOIA request, but I don't really know -- she -- well, our
understanding is that she asked her two lawyers to take the bulk:of
the 69,000 emails and to sort out those which were work?related from
those which were personal and to produce the work-related ones to the
State Department.

They did so. That 39,000 is sort of the bulk of the emails that
we relied on in order to conduct the investigation, although we found
other emails 3 jillion other places.

We, the FBI, felt very strongly that we had to acquire and attempt
to review the content of the Mills and Samuelson laptops because, to

the extent the other 30,900 existed anywhere, that is the best place

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that they may have existed. And notwithstanding the fact thatthey
had been deleted, you know, we wanted at least to take a shot at using,
you know, forensic recovery tools in order to try to ensure that, in
fact, the sorting that occurred between or by Mills and Samuelson
was done correctly and 

Sorry.

A No, that's okay.

It was is that for lack of a better term, is it usual
to rely on the target of an investigation to provide evidence against
the target?

A Well, that happens. That's not uncommon. I mean, in
white?collar cases in particular, issuing subpoenas to the target, even
though particularly if it's, like, a corporate target, that's
certainly a way to do it.

You're misunderstanding a little bit, though, because that sort
and all of that activity took place before there was a criminal
investigation. So that activity is what -- the testimony that we
received, the, sort of, evidence we received, is that the State
Department reaches out to Secretary Clinton when they discover,"we
don't have your emails on a State Department system. Do you have your
emails?? And the answer is, "Yes." And the State Department, rather
than the State Department itself conducting that analysis of whether
or not there was -- or whether these emails were work-related or not,
deferred to Secretary Clinton to do that.

So this long precedes any FBI investigation or any FBI

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involvement.
BY MR. BREITENBACH:
But didn't you say that months went by before you made the
determination as to whether to access those laptops 

A No. I'm sorry.

though consent or through --

A Yes.

compulsory process?

A But that's -- so we have to we're talking about two

different events here.

Back in 2613 don't rememberiuhen this is before thereluas
any FBI investigation. When there is first an inquiry by theIState
Department into why do we have no Secretary Clinton emails that go to
Secretary Clinton herself, that precipitates Mills and Samuelson
conducting this sorting activity and producing to the State Department,
here are the emails which are work?related. Produce them to FOIA,
produce thenlto Congress, wherever'they'went. I haverKJidea. We had
nothing to do with this we, the FBI.

Skip ahead to February/March of 2916, right? The criminal
investigation has now been open for 6 or 7 months. We discover
that we discover these facts, right? These facts were not known
to us. We don't know how she first did the sorting for the State
Department. We discover these facts.

We go to the Department and say: We need to get these laptops.

We need to try to get in them and review them and see if, in fact, there

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are other emails which either are work-related or, potentially -- what
we were really looking for other emails which would speak to, you
know, give some indicia of her intent with respect to why she set up
this server and whether it was intended to mishandle classified and
all of that.

That back-and-forth starting February/March-ish of 2016 and
going through, I'd say, June of 2016 is the disagreement I was referring
to. So that's a disagreement between us, the FBI, and the DOJv?th
respect to why we needed to get these laptops and how to get these
laptops.

Andtuhat'the FBI believed -- and there's copious texts about this
because it was a, sort of, ongoing argument was that we had to at
least attempt to get them. Even if we were unsuccessful, even if a
court determined that they were attorney?client work product or opinion
work product, which is what the Department was concerned about, we
couldn't credibly close the investigation without having tried to get
into these laptops and to have reviewed -- see if any additional emails
could be recovered and to question Mills and Samuelson about how they
engaged in that sort in order to see whether it seemed righteous and,
you know, proper or whether there was anything, kind of, nefarious or
questionable about it.

The Department's view for months was that we would not be able
to get into them, a court would not, sort of, grant us access, so we
shouldn't bother trying. And that was a source of I wouldn't say

constant conflict but regular conflict every'timelit came up. Because

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quite early on we started pushing the Department to reach out to Mills'
lawyer and -- Mills and Samuelson's lawyer to sort of start the process
of trying to get into these laptops, and the Department was very
reluctant to do so for the reasons that I've described.

So you had the opportUnity, then, conceivably, to execute
a search warrant -- if you're using the timetable you had
mentioned -- back in February of 2016. You could have executed a
search warrant and obtained those --

A Well, not without the Department, right? The Department has to
we cannot on our own, the FBI cannot execute a search warrant
without approval from the Justice Department.

So was the Department pushing back on obtaining compulsory
process to obtain those laptops? Because months, you say, go by. I
mean, in your timetable from February to June, what is that 

A Ish. Let me just be --

4 to 5 months? Four or 5 months passes before you are
able to gain access to those laptops.

A To the best of my recollection, yes. It's either February or
March. I just want to put a little bit of hedge in it, because I'm not
lee?percent certain.

But I know that the conversations about whether to obtain the
laptops and how to obtain the laptops is one that is ongoing. It is
one that ultimately rises to the head of the OED, the Office of
Enforcement Operations, which is the unit at the Justicanepartment

who would have to approve a warrant on a lawyer because, of course,

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these were all lawyer laptops. It rose to that individual, it rose
to George Toscas, over the course of this 3 months or so.

But, yes, there was an ongoing disagreement about whether there
was utility to obtain the laptops and, if so, how to obtain them.

So, in your experience, what may happen when a subject of
an investigation is aware that the FBI is attempting to obtain evidence
yet the FBI does not obtain it and months pass? What are the
possibilities?

A Obviously, there's the risk of destruction of evidence. I
will note, however, that it's my recollection that those laptops had
been sequestered by Mills and Samuelson's lawyer. So it's not 
don't believe that they were in the possession of Mills and Samuelson
once we, sort of, started raising this question with the Department.
It's my recollection that the Department informed Mills and Samuelson's
lawyer that we had an interest in these and that she took possession
of them.

So destruction of evidence. Can you imagine any other
possibilities if you fail to obtain the evidence and the subjectis
aware of it?

Ms. Jeffress. I'm not sure what the question is.

Ms. Eagg, Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm sorry.

BY MR. BREITENBACH:

Any other possibilities in the in terms of a subject being

aware that evidence is attempting to be obtained by the FBI yet the

FBI does not obtain that compulsory.

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A I think destruction of evidence is the big one.

And you were never aware that destruction of evidence
occurred?

A Not to my knowledge, no.

Thank you.

BY MR. SOMERS:

Okay. Then the second part of Art's question was
disagreement about prosecutive techniques between the FBI and 
Were there any disagreements about techniques for prosecution?

A No, because nobody thought that the evidence could sustain
a prosecution. So 

What about, sort of -- I guess, what about impaneling a grand
jury? Was there disagreement about whether a grand jury should be
impaneled?

A A grand jury was impaneled.

But was there disagreement prior to the impaneling about
timing?

A Oh. I'm not aware.

What about discussion about the statutes that should be
charged or could be charged?

A No, I don't think so. I mean, it was always fairly
self-evident that we were looking at mishandling statutes. And,
again, the evidence was just never there to sufficiently support,
really, a prosecution. I mean, I think they even looked at Federal

Records Act violations -- they, meaning the Department andthere

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any statute.

Mr. Breitenbach. Wasaagrand jury impaneled for the purposes of
the email investigation?

Ms. gage; Yes. That's my understanding.

Mr. Breitenbach. Okay.

Ms. Rage; I'm sorry. Can I consult with counsel for a second?

Mr. Breitenbach. Yes.

[Discussion off the record.]

Ms. Sorry.

Mr. Breitenbach. Are you aware of whether evidence was ever
presented to the grand jury in terms of adjudicating a decision?

Ms. Page. Nell, wait. "In terms of adjudicating adecision."

Are you 

Ms. Bessee. Can I address?

So I will instruct her not to answer any questions that go into
the process of the grand jury.

He can rephrase the question, but if it goes into the process of
the grand jury, you will not be able to answer.

Ms. gage; Well, why don't I answer -- I can't speak to whether
any what activity was conducted before the grand jury. I can answer
that no case was presented to the grand jury because that would have
been an abuse of the grand jury.

The Department is required to at least believe that you have

probable cause in order -- probable cause that a crime has been

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committed. I'm sorry, that's not true. The Department's rules
require that to present a case before the grand jury you have to have
a reasonable belief that the case can be proven beyond areasonable
doubt. And we did not have that belief with respect to theClinton
email investigation.

And so we would not have put the case before the grand jury,
essentially presented all of the evidence that we had collected to date,
because, it's my I assessment -- although, again, this is just me,
personally, talking based on my prior experience as a prosecutor, not
with respect to what was conducted in this investigation. But it's
my assessment that that would've been an inappropriate use of grand
jury, because the prosecutors putting in that evidence would not have
believed that there was a crime to be charged.

Does that make sense? That was a little bit tortured.

BY MR. BREITENBACH:

Yes. But, as the FBI, did you make a recommendation or not
as to whether to present it to a grand jury?

A I don't know.

So it would've been the Department 

A So let me clarify one thing. The grand jury was used to
obtain evidence. Right? 50 there are certain things, for?example,
like a subpoena of records, which would require the impaneling ofa
grand jury and using tools before the grand jury in order Uaobtain
evidence. That occurred.

I am not, both substantively and also on advice of FBI counsel,

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in a position to discuss what type of evidence was obtained by the grand
jury.

What I can say is that I do not believe there was ever any
disagreement with respect to whether we needed to ask the grand jury
to return an indictment. It would have been inappropriate to have
presented all of the evidence collected, whether by grand jury subpoena
or any other tool -- consent, search warrants, testimony, youknow,
of other witness, interviews of witnesses. It would not have been
appropriate to ask the grand jurors to return an indictment or to review
the weight of the evidence where we did not believe that that case was
prosecutable.

But was that the FBI's decision to make?

A No, it was the Department's decision to make. It was the
decision made by the Department.

At the end of the day, you're saying it was the decision of
the Department --

A Yes.

prosecutors not to present this to the grand jury for an
indictment.

A That is correct, yes.

Thank you.

BY MR. PARMITER:

Can I ask a couple of additional questions regarding, sort

of, the internal discussions and what was discussed?

Was there ever, in your experience, any discussion at any of the

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meetings involving Midyear about whether the act of setting up the
server itself was problematic or whether that showed any level of
intent?

A I don't know.

But you were never you never experienced anything like
that.

A I don't recall being present for a conversation like that.
But, also, to the extent it may have occurred -- this investigation
was opened in July of 2015. I don't become involved in it until
February of 2616. So, to the extent there were questions about that,
they may have been resolved before I was involved.

Okay.

How often, in your experience, does the FBI Director or the Deputy
Director in the course of their ordinary duties access or review or,
you know, have dealings with classified information?

A Every single day.

Every day. Okay. So what by being on a private server,
would you agree classified information is not in its proper place?

A By being on any unclassified system, whether private or
_government, classified information should not have traversed it.
That's correct.

So, given your answers to both of those questions, do you
think that, you know, assuming the Deputy Director or the Director had
set up a private server of their own, just hypothetically, to, you know,

transact government business, all of their business, would you say it

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would be inevitable that classified information would pass over that
server?

A No, sir. So, at the FBI and at'the~State Department, we have
three separate systems for each level of classification. So whether
that system existed at the State Department or whether it existed on
somebody's private server, inevitably if there was -- if it was
somebody's private server, lots of unclassified governmentbusiness
would traverse that system in the same way it does for, you know, the
FBI's unclassified system or the State Department's unclassified
system, but there's nothing inevitable about whether or if classified
information would traverse that unclassified system.

That certainly may happen occasionally on the FBI system, on an
unclassified FBI?run system. It's called a spill. It's an
inadvertent, sort of, passage of classified information on asystem
in which it doesn't belong. But the same is true if you're dealing
with Top Secret information and it traverses the Secret side; that's
also a spill.

So it's sort of indistinguishable whether the system itself is
classified or unclassified, only in that it's not authorized to handle
classified information.

So would you so, okay. So is your answer is that if, you
know, a Cabinet Secretary or the FBI Director was using a private server
to conduct all of their business that it's not inevitable that
classified information would pass through that server?

A If they were using it to conduct every single thing they did.

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But it's not -- my understanding is that the Secret side was used for
Secret business and the TS side was used for TS business. So if every
single thing they did 

That's at the FBI, though, correct?

A Even at the State Department, it's my understanding. I
mean, it was a much more cumbersome system, in part because the
principals are constantly all over the world so the access tothese
other classified systems is less readily available and so it's, sort
of, more cumbersome, it's, sort of, harder.

But if the question is, if every single thing that the FBI
Director -- if all of the FBI Director's business was conducted on an
unclassified system, whether FBI?run or privately run, then, yes, it
is true, there would be classified information there.

But those facts as you presented them are not my understanding
of what occurred, obviously, either at the FBI or at the State
Department.

Mr. Meadows. Can I ask one clarifying question, Lisa?

It appears, based on documents that we have, that there was a
conscious decision in the MYE to go down one avenue in terms of
prosecution or potential prosecution, and that is with the retention
of classified information on a private server, not the disclosure of
classified information.

And, based on the documents we have, it looks like everybody
focused on the retention but no one ever pursued the disclosure. Why

was that made?

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Ms. Egg; I --

Mr. Meadows. And would you agree with that characterization?

Ms. Rage; I'm not positive. That's the thing that I hesitated
about. So I'm not sure that I those were really activities that
would have been handled at a lower level than I 'was involved in. These
would have been the discussions -n

Mr; Meadows. Right. Irlmost of the documents, the caselaw that
they were looking at only dealt with retention, which, actually,
disclosure is a bigger deal from a national security threat. And yet
it didn't appear that anybody looked at that, based on the documents
we've reviewed.

Ms. P_agg_._ So my guess and this is I'm speculating here just
based on my knowledge of what the statutes require is that disclosure
requires intent. And so, particularly when we charge disclosure
cases, it's often in the context, for example, of a media leak. Right?
It's somebody who had possession of the information and disclosed it
to somebody who was not authorized to have it. That's what those
disclosure cases look like.

And what was occurring on Secretary Clinton's server is all? people
who were righteously entitled to the information and who had aneed
to know it and who were using that information in the execution of their
duties, but it was occurring on a system that wasn't appropriate for
it. So I think that's why the focus was on retention.

Mr. Meadows. And one more, and then I'll yield back.

We have information from the inspector general of the

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intelligence community that, I guess, initiated this entire
investigation they'were'the ones that came before you -- that there
were anomalies that would suggest that there was copies of every email
going to a third party.

And I know you heard that in the hearing the other day, but we've
had substantial conversationsudth them. Is this news toyou today?

Ms. P_agg It is. When I heard it in the hearing, it was -- maybe
I had heard it one other time just with respect to, like, news things,
but it was completely baffling to me.

Mr. Meadows. Yeah. So --

Ms. I don't understand at all what that's a reference to.
I do know that we gave the server again, I'm not a technical person,
so this is going to be a little bit tortured here 

Mr. Meadows. Right.

Ms. -- but that we took exhaustive efforts to look at
whether there were any other intrusions, whether there was
any exfiltration --

Mr. Meadows. And you're saying they found none.

Ms. P_age_. Correct -- whether there was any exfiltration of data
and --

Mr. Meadows. Well, we know that some but it was basically in
the IG's report on how that came to pass.

So, I guess, why would the investigative team not have had
multiple interviews with Mr. Rucker, who brought it to the FBI's

attention originally?

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Ms. I 

Mr. Meadows. Because, according to the IG, you never interviewed
him and never interviewed them other than the initial conversation that
brought it. Why would that have 

Ms. P_age_. So I can't speak to that, because I don't know whether
he I'm relying on your representation that he was not interviewed,
but I also don't know whether he ever came to the FBI during the pendency
of the investigation and provided that allegation. If he had --

Mr. Meadows. Well, that was the whole reason it was opened up,
is my understanding, was him coming. They get it, they come to the
FBI. And so you're saying that's not the case?

Ms. I don't -- I am really trying 

Mr. Meadows. 0r that's not your understanding?

Ms. That's not my understanding.

Mr. Meadows. 50 how did this whole MYE start if it wasn't from
the --

Ms. No, no.

Mr. Meadows. inspector -:

Ms. So my understanding and this is -- I amIMay out on
a limb here, because this is not stuff I was involved in. But my
understanding is that the IC 16 did refer the existence of the server
to the FBI, but that was because of the existence of classified
information on that server, not because of any anomalous activity, not
because of potential intrusion activity. Because it's not my

understanding that the IC 16 conducted any sort of forensic analysis

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like that.

My understanding is that, once it was made evident during the
course of, I think, the FOIA production or maybe the production to
Congress that there was some classified information which existed on
a private email server, it got referred to the IC IG for those purposes,
not related to intrusive activity.

Mr. Meadows. So what you're telling me, it would surprise you
to know today that, if there were anomalies, that the inspector
general's forensic team found those before it was referred to the 

Ms. Eagg; That's correct. I'm not sure 

Mr. Meadows. Would that if that is indeed the fact, would that
be a major concern to you?

Ms. Lag; It would be a concern that we didn't know that or that
that wasn't part of what they told us when they made the referral, but
less so, sir, honestly because our forensic investigators are so
phenomenal that, notwithstanding whatever the IC 16 may or may not have
conveyed, I know we looked extensively at this question.

Because that was a serious question. And to the extent that a
foreign government or even a criminal outlet had had access to Secretary
Clinton's private email server, that would have been something we cared
very much about. And it's my understanding that there was no evidence
that would have supported that kind of conclusion.

Mr. Meadows. I yield back.

BY MR. BAKER:

Regardless of how phenomenal forensic investigators might

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be, is it still possible that an extremely sophisticated foreign
intelligence service could penetrate a server, could extract
documents, could do a number of things without leaving a single forensic
footprint?

A It's pretty -- I mean, everything is possible, but it's
unlikely. I think Friday's indictments are revelatory of that. You
don't get better than the GRU, and yet we have identified by name the
people involved in theDNC hacking. So I think it's quite unlikely.

Okay.

Are you -- following up on what the Congressman was saying, are
you familiar with a private entity, privately financed, using private
forensic resources, for lack of a better word, went looking for some
of the emails from Secretary Clinton's server, her network, and, in
fact, found at least one document on a foreign server?

A I don't know what you're referring to, no.

Okay.

Mr. Breitenbach. We were produced information indicating that
Mr. Strzok had indicated in an email that at least one Secretemail
was accessed by a foreign party. Are you aware of that?

Ms. gage, That may be true. I'm just not personally awarecrf
that.

BY MR. PARMITER:

I believe on Friday, in discussing the statute that you were

discussing, I believe, with Congressman Ratcliffe -- it was 793(f) of

Title 18 -- you had said that that statute was deemed by to be

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unconstitutionally vague. Is that correct?

A No. The "gross negligence" that the "gross negligence"
standard in 793(f), it was their assessment that it was
unconstitutionally vague, yes.

Were you involved in discussions about, you know, its
vagueness?

A I don't believe I was, no.

Do you have any idea of why they believed it was
unconstitutionally vague?

A I mean, I presume they looked at caselaw in which it had been
applied. I really don't know. I mean, I'm I am confident that it
was based on their?own, sort of, research in consultation with others,
but I don't have personal knowledge about what the Department did in
order to come to that conclusion.

Okay.

Speaking their own evaluation
of the statute, or did you just rely on DOJ's assessment?

A I don't know. I did not.

Okay.

A I can tell you that.

Speaking of caselaw, are you aware whether or not that
statute has been used in military prosecutions or the frequency with
which it was used in civilian prosecutions? I know you had said once
in 99 years, but --

A I think that there -- this is straining my memory now, but

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I think that there may have been one UCMJ, Uniform Court of Military
Justice --

Code of 

A Code of Military Justice -- thank you one UCMJ case in
which it was charged, but, again, if my memory serves so I may get
this wrong, but if my memory serves, the defendant in thatcase had
actually engaged in far more nefarious and suspiciousactivity, and
so it was a plea down to that, right? So if you're pleading to
something, then you don't really need to worry about I mean, if it's
unconstitutional, it's still unconstitutional.

But it was not the case -- again, my recollection is that it was
somebody who had a hoard of classified information and then, when
confronted, tried to destroy the classified information -- sortof,
again, the indicia of knowledge and criminal intent that you will
sometimes see.

So, if I'm not mistaken, there was one UCMJ case, but I think
that's it.

So, speaking of a hoard of classified information, do you

mean information that had been -- that was hard copies of physical
documents?
A Hard copies and I think even, like -- if I'm remembering

right, and I could be mixing this up with another case, but, like, a
thumb drive of classified information that they were notauthorized
to have. So both hard copy and digital classified documents.

Do you believe 

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[Phone ringing.]

Ms. Go ahead, please.

BY MR. PARMITER:

Just, you know, your own perspective on this, do you believe
that what would be more vulnerable, classified material on a
computer server where it's not supposed to be or hard copies of
classified material at someone's house?

A Well, if you're talking about more vulnerable to a cyber
attack, then obviously you need a computer in order for'that to occur.

Okay.

Do you sort of, going further down the line of, you know,
whether 793(f) in particular and the "gross negligence? standardin
particular are unconstitutionally vague, I mean, do you think that 
views that as sort of a dead statute that won't be charged anymore?

A I do.

Are you aware whether or not --

A I mean, just the "gross negligence" part of it. I don't have it
in front of me to but and, as I said last week, I'nlby'no means an
expert.

Thank you. Go ahead.

So are you aware of whether or not the Bureau ever sought
or obtained any sort of compulsory process, whether it's a search
warrant or something else, on the basis of 793(f) in particular?

A I think so, but that would not have to have been the "gross

negligence" prong. I think they could have relied on the second prong

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of 

On (f)2 right there --

A Right.
-- as opposed to 
A Yeah. And, again, I don't know what basis I shouldn't

have answeredthat question. I am speaking out of turn. I do not know
what statutes were alleged to the extent the Department sought
compulsory process. I have no idea, so I shouldn't answer that.

Okay.

BY MR. BREITENBACH:

If we were to tell you, though, that the search warrant was
predicated on 793, is that something that would be normal, to base a
search warrant and predicate a search warrant on a statute thatthe
Bureau is being told is unconstitutional?

A You're misunderstanding. So 793(f) has two parts to it.
The second part so the first is, okay, whoever being entrusted with
having lawful possession or control of any document relating tothe
national defense, one, through gross negligence permits it to be
removed or, two, having knowledge of the same, that it has been
illegally removed, Shall be fined blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So there would be nothing inappropriate for them to rely on the
second prong of 793(f), which is regularly charged and is a perfectly
common statute with respect to mishandling cases. There would be
nothing inappropriate with respect to relying on the second prong of

793(f), in my view.

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What are some of the factors that might rise to the level

of "gross negligence,? in your opinion?

A I don't know. I have done absolutely no research or review
of this. I'm not in a position to answer that.

Did Mr. McCabe ever ask you that as his lawyer?

A He did not.

Do you know whether Mr. Baker ever conducted any independent
analysis on the factors that might have met a "gross negligence" charge?

A I don't know.

But, at the end of the day, this is the Department's
determination. I mean, it is up to the Department to determine whether
or not we have sufficient evidence to charge a case. So, even
hypothetically, to the extent the FBI thought, you know, we have
infinite evidence to support charge A, if the Departmentdisagrees,
the Department is going to have the final determination because they
are the prosecutorsnot aware of the particular factors that
might be available in meeting that standard, then how would itknow
whether to recommend to the Department to obtain any type of prosecution
based on that standard?

A I mean, the FBI has to -- necessarily has to rely on the
Department's assessment of what's legally supportable under the law.
So there's nothing inappropriate about that sort of reliance.

I'm not saying that no research was conducted. I'm saying that

I personally didn't do any. And to the extent it was conducted, I'm

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just not aware of it as I sit here today.

Mr. Meadowsclarifying question. Because
I think this was an unusual case'where Loretta the.AG, said that
she was going to be independent of it and that she was going to leave
it up to the FBI.

So, if you did no research and from a "grossly negligent"
standpoint, how would you make the decision to prosecute or not if she
was being independent of that?

Ms. Rage; So, sir, I think that what she said was that she was
going to leave it up to the career prosecutors, not up to the FBI. So,
when she did her, kind of, half?recusal, she said that she was going
to defer'tO'the recommendations of the career prosecutors in the case.

Mr. Meadows. So what you're saying is that she halfway recused
herself but not really because there was other D03 officials that were
weighing in on that?

Ms. Rage, I'm sorry, I should have been more clear. I can't
speak to the recusal and whether it was appropriate or inappropriate
or necessary 

Mr. Meadows. No, but your characterization 

Ms. gage; Oh, okay.

Mr. Meadows. And I agree it's a half-recusal. Because, atthis
point so are you saying that it was prosecutors at thatmade
the decision on the "grossly negligent" versus "extremelycareless"

narrative?

Ms. Page. No.

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Mr. Meadows. Or was that the 

Ms. P_age_. No, no, no. So, I'm sorry, I understand your question
now.

With respect to whether a charge could be sustained under the
"gross negligence" statute, that's a determination made by the
Department.

With respectztolWr. Comey's July 5th statement, when he --in his
first draft of the statement back in May, he used the word "gross
negligence." I don't he used it intending to rely on its
legal definition or not.

With respect to the statement, we, the FBI, felt like it would
be confusing and misleading to use the word "gross negligence"\vhen
the information that we had received from the Department was that there
was no charge sustainable under the "gross negligence? statute. And
so we, the FBI, omitted the "gross negligence" words in his press
conference statement and moved up the paragraph that already contained
the ?extremely careless" language intoeadifferent spot h1his speech.

Mr. Meadows. So, Lisa, why would you change that within 2 days
of you know, you admitted the other day, on I think it was May the
4th, where you said now there was real pressure to get therx?itics
out of it. And then we know within days that it was changed in what
we call the exoneration letter. So why would that have changed at that
particular point? Do you see how it looks badit's the that's just when we

had we, the whole team, had received the draft. Right? So the

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Director -- and I don't remember the exact date 

Mr. Meadows. But you received the draft before the text message
that says, oh, my gosh, now he's the nominee. And so you had actually
received it. We've got documents 

Ms. Is that right? I just don't remember the dates
exactly, sir.

Mr. Meadows. And so receiving ??iJ:was not after'that. You got
that, and then all of a sudden within 48 hours it's changed. And as
a reasonable person, you look, well, there's this statement and then
all of a sudden it was changed. And you're saying that that had nothing
to do with it?

Ms. Yeah, I don't I'm not sure I'm totally following
you, sir. I'm sorry.

Mr. Meadows. Okay. Well, I'll be clear --

Ms. I'm sorry.

Mr. Meadows. -- because I want you to follow.

Ms. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mr. Meadows . And you know that I've appreciated your willingness
to help.

When you said that we had to get politics out of it and you

changed --

Ms. Page. The pressure. I think what I said was that --

Mr. Meadows. -- the pressure ramped up.
Ms. Page. now that it was a two?person race I'm going to

try to find thevtext itself. But now that it was a two-person race,

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the pressure to finish it had sort of increased.

Mr. Meadows. Right. So the memo was May 2nd.

Ms. Rage; Okay.

Mr. Meadows. Your text message that we've got to clear this up
was May 4.

Ms. Rage; Okay.

Mr. Meadows. And then we know it was changed by May 6. And
that's a real problematic timeframe that would indicate that all.of
a sudden we've got to get this cloud from over, you know -- -

Ms. Rage, Oh, I see.

Mr. Meadows. -- Hillary Clinton and we better change -- and it's
just -- it looks suspicious.

Ms. Rage, I see what you'resaying, sir. I don't know if this
is reassuring;at all, but the decision to change the statement, to omit
the "gross negligence" language from the statement, was actually not
either me or Pete's recommendation. It was another lawyer. I don't
know if this is any consolation, but 

Mr. Meadows. Yeah. We've got the email chains. So who was the
other lawyer?

Ms. I'm 

Mr. Meadows. That's a closed case. You should be able to tell
us.

Ms. Rage; I have been told by the FBI that people, other than
myself, who are we're not, sort of, providing that.

Mr. Meadows. So you' re saying this is someone lower than a 65?15

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that made that kind of decision?

Ms. Rage; Well, it's not a decision; it's just legal advice,
right? So there were a group of us --

Mr. Meadows. You?re saying someone lower than a 65-15 make a
legal decision 

Ms. No. It wasaiGS?15. It's not lower than. It was a
65-15. 50 we had received 

Mr. Meadows. 50 was it Ms. Moyer?

Ms. We had received the draft of the statement. A group
of us had gotten together in order to consolidate our comments so that
we were not providing back to the chief of staff to the Director four
separate drafts that they had to now reconcile.

Mr. Meadows. Right.

Ms. Rage; So the four of us got together. We were sort of
reviewing it, sort of, step by step. And the recommendation was: I
don't think that we should use this phrase, "gross negligence," because
it has an actual legal term.

And it was our collective understanding that the Department did
not think that and we agreed -- that there was not sufficient evidence
to support both "gross negligence? and that, more importantly, it was
not a sustainable statute because it was unconstitutionally vague and
never charged.

And so we, really, sort of, as a collective but on recommendation
of counsel, removed that language and moved up the "extremely careless"

paragraph.

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Mr. Ratcliffe. Ms. Page, let me ask youa question. How well
do you know Jim Comey?

Ms. Eagg, How well do I know Jim Comey?

Mr. Ratcliffe. Yeah.

Ms. Eagg; I mean, he's not my personal friend, but I've been in
a lot of meetings with him.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Did any of the other folks that you're
referencing in connection with making the change have more
prosecutorial experience than Jim Comey?

Ms. No.

Mr. Ratcliffe. As someone that knows Jim Comey, is he a person
that chooses his words carefully?

Ms. He is, yeah. But I 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Would he throw around a term like "gross
negligence" not really meaning gross negligence?

Ms. gage, In this case, I actually think so, sir, but Only
because it's a term that obviously heluas-familiar'with in the statute,
but as DAG I am certain he would not have ever seen such a case. And
the truth of the matter is 793(f) is not necessarily aparticularly
controversial statute; it's one that's used with some regularity. And
so I'm not sure, as I sit here today, how familiar with the detail and
the specifics of 793(f) he would have been.

So my guess is he's trying to use a term that makes sense, that
has sort of a commonsense feel to it, which "gross negligence"does

and obviously appears in the statute. But it was sort of our assessment

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that to use that phrase, because'it does have a.1egal meaning, but then
to not charge gross negligence, as we knew it was not supportable, would
just be confusing.

Mr. Ratcliffe. But you knew it was not supportable because the
Department of Justice told you that it wouldn't be supportable.

Ms. Bagg, That's correct, sir.

Mr. Ratcliffe. So you accepted that as the basis for which you
wanted to make that change?

Ms. That's correct.

Mr. Meadows. I think we're out of time, but one last question
real quickly.

So you made that determination without having interviewed the
last 17 witnesses and Ms. Clinton?

Ms. Eagg; Yes, sir, because the legal determination wouldn't
have been affected by the factual -- the facts, sort of, that may have
come out of those investigations, right?

So let's assume things are going swimmingly and, in fact, all 17
of those witnesses admitpurpose, we totally
wanted to mishandle classified information," gross 
still have been off the table because of the Department's assessment
that it was vague. We would have other crimes to now charge, but gross
negligence would not have been among them.

Mr. Meadows. Thank you.

[Recess.]

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[12:19 
Ms. Kim; We'll go back on the record. The time is 12:19.
Thank you for being here, Ms. Page.
EXAMINATION
BY MS. KIM:

Where you left off that discussion with Mr. Meadows, I just
want to read you back testimony that you gave last week and see if that
is responsive to the question.

So you said it was the FBI team's understanding that, quote, "we
neither had sufficient evidence to charge gross negligence nor had it
ever been done because the Department viewed it asconstitutionally
vague."

Is that correct?

A That's correct.

And so you said that: When we saw'the term gross negligence
in the Director's statements, we were concerned that it would be
confusing to leave it in there because it was our understanding that
we did not have sufficient evidence nor the sort of constitutional basis
to charge gross negligence.

Is that correct?

A Correct.

And so you said what you actually did was you didn't change
the language. You and this is me directly quoting you. "We didn't
actually change gross negligence to extremely careless. We removed

the gross negligence language."

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Extremely careless had already appeared in that draft, so it was
Director Comey's language, was it not?

A That's correct.

(2 And we moved that draft up earlier we moved that paragraph
earlier in the draft.

So it was not a substitution. It was simply an omission of the
phrase gross negligence because the legal team believed it woulclbe
confusing.

Is that correct?

A That's correct.

Thank you.

Ms. Page, there have been some other representations made about
your testimony last week already in the press.

I think one representation that has been made to the press is that
there was an inconsistency in the way that you read a text versus the
way that Mr. Strzok explained the text.

I would like to read your testimony about that text to you. The
text I'm talking about is the "menace" text?

A Okay.

So you stated when you were confronted with the text: "Well,
I'm not certain, to be honest with you. I think it's Donald'Trump,
but the reason I'm hesitating is because this is so close in time to
the opening of the Russia investigation that the concern that we all
had was there was a member of his campaign colluding with Russia was

so great that I'm not I'm not 196 percent positive that I can split

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those."

Do you recognize that as your testimony from last week?

A Yes.

Mr. Strzok, when asked about that same text, stated: "Sir,
my understanding of the word 'menace' and the use of 'menace' was the
broad context of the'Government of Russia's attempts to interfere with
our election. To the extent those allegations involved credible
information that members of the Trump campaign might be actively
colluding, I see that as a broad effort by the Government of Russia.
50 I don't think you can tease it apart, sir, but it is inaccurate to
say that it just meant Mr. Trump."

Given those two statements, would you agree with the
characterization that those two were incompatible statements?

A 50 I think that we're trying to say the same thing. He
probably said it more artfully. But, again, because this text is
coming so close in time and it involved my both feeling about my personal
distaste for Donald Trump as a person, but also my now concern because
of the predication we had received whicrlwould open the investigation,
I think that what we are saying essentially is consistent.

And ultimately, it's his -- you know, this is sort of ??1~hatever
I intended may not have been ultimately what he perceived. Soit's
hard to say that there is an absolute truth with respect to that -- that
statement.

I guess the other thing I would say -- well, I guess that's

sufficient.

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(2 And, Ms. Page, I think in beginning that colloquy on Friday,
you said you weren't certain. So that suggests to me that maybe you
don't remember precisely what you intended.

Is that correct?

A I do not. And I think I also said that -- I'm clearly
referring to an article or an op?ed that, I guess was about other GOP
leaders who weren't standing up to the President and my-Frustration
about that.

So I don't know to the extent that that was also informing what
I was thinking about, but I have, as I sit here today, can't tell you
concretely because it was just a sort of flash in time.

Understood. Thank you.

And then one more thing. You were asked on Friday againabout
the Christopher Steele dossier and how it came to the FBI.

I believe you claimed that you were not really involved with how
the dossier came to the FBI so you weren't clear on its.providence.
Is that correct?

A No, that is not correct. I am very clear about its
providence.

Oh, you're very clear about its providence?

A How we received the reports from Christopher Steele, yes,
I am very clear about how we received those.

Certainly. So are you also clear then as to whether Bruce
0hr gave those dossiers to the 

A This is in the category of things that I can't answer.

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What I can say is when we first received the set of reports that
are commonly referred to as the dossier, that initial ourhaving
obtained those documents initially, did not come from Bruce 0hr. They
came from Christopher Steele through his handler to the FBI.

Understood. Thank you.

BY MS. HARIHARAN:

I just want to good morning.

A Good morning. Please go ahead. I'm sorry.

I just want to go back quickly to the discussion about the
differences between the D03 and the FBI on compulsory process and just
general legal or investigative differences that may have existed during
the Midyear investigation.

So generally speaking, when thereTNerecdisagreements between the
FBI and D03 on how to seek evidence, what was the 003's position, as
far as you can characterize? Like in the sense would the FBI generally
want to purSLmea more aggressive stance and D03 was more conservative,
and is that common in investigations overall?

A Yes. That is true with respect to this investigation. I think
that even the IG found that the FBI consistently wanted to take more
aggressive steps in the Clinton investigation.

It's hard to characterize, you know, two enormous institutions
of many tens of thousands of people monolithically. But certainlyin
the counterintelligence realm, the Department tends to be quite
cautious and quite conservative.

And in the case of the Midyear investigation, do you think

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the career prosecutors that disagreed on pursuing a moreaggressive
stance, this was based on legitimate legal differences of opinion or
was it something on a was there a political bias involved or --

A I'm not aware of any political bias.

In the inspector general's report, on page 79, I'm just going
to quickly read the quote. Quote: "Despite the public perception
that the Midyear investigation did not use a grand jury and instead
relied exclusively on consent, we found that agents amdprosecutors
did use grand jury subpoenas and other compulsory process to gain access
to documentary and digital evidence. According to the documents we
reviewed, at least 56 grand jury subpoenas were issued, 5 court orders
were obtained pursuant to 18 USC 2763(d) orders, and 3 search warrants
were granted,? end quote.

Were you part of any of the decisions to issue one of the 56 grand
jury subpoenas?

A I was not, no.

Or the 2763(d) orders?

A No.

Were you part of any of the decisions to issue the search
warrants?

A I don't think 50.

Generally speaking, can you speak to why the FBI advocated
for the use of compulsory process in this case?

A I can't really 

0r before.

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A Yeah, I can't answer that question in the abstract. 50, I
mean, if'there's a specific example you want me to speak to, I can try,
but 

So, again, it's just -- we're trying to understand what the
difference between DOJ's approach to the case versus the FBI's
approach. And so, again, in your experience, was the differences based
on legitimate legal arguments or a strategic argument?

A I'm sure that's true, yes.

BY MS. KIM:

So let's take from the abstract to the specific. 50 I think you
were talking about the culling laptops and the server, the decision
whether to pursue those through compulsory process or to obtain those
through consent agreements.

In your interactions with Department of Justice personnel, were
their'arguments that those should be pursued through consent processes
governed by what you saw as differences of opinion from you that were
legitimate and grounded in legal justification?

A Yeah, I would say so. We what I personally found
frustrating is the Department would sort of make a determination
that -- part of the argument was that we would not be able to obtain
the laptops pursuant to compulsory process, which I -- as to nwlown
personal experience -- disagreed with. I thought that we would be able
to. Maybe there might be strategic reasons not to, there might be other
reasons not to.

But I disagreed sort of foundationally that it would not be

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available to us because we would not be able to make out the standard,
or to be able to pierce attorney?client privilege, or more likely, in
my view, there was a disagreement about whether it was the sorting
activity conducted by Mills and Samuelson was opinion workproduct,
which is quite protected under the law, versus some other privilege.

And so the frustration was in their sort of unwillingness to

explain their reasoning. They sort of, for many -- for some
time simply stated, as a matter of course: We can't, and we won't
be able to.

And it was my view that that was not the case. And I did my own
research with respect to that topic because I was frustrated. And so
we had sort of an ongoing back and forth about that.

But, yes, it was grounded in, you know, legal disagreement
ultimately.

And was it the subject of rigorous and vigorous debate?

A Yes.

Extensive debate where you were free to express your point

A Yes.

And extensive debate where the DOJ did eventually express
its point of view about its strategic justifications?

A Yes.

And do you have any reason or evidence to believe that those
strategic decisions were based on improper considerations, including

political bias?

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A No, I do not. I have no reason to believe that.

Ms. Hariharan. Did any of the senior political leaders of the
DOJ intervene at all in the decision to seek or not seekcompulsory
process?

Ms. Eagg, With respect to that decision, yes.

So this was very much a -- we were at very much a standstill for
a considerable amount of time. And it's my understanding -- I know
for sure that Mr. McCabe had multiple conversations with George Toscas
on the topic because we all, including up through the Director, just
agreed that we could not credibly end this investigation without having
attempted to obtain those laptops and search them.

And we were sort of not making progress trying to explain or
convince the Department prosecutors, the line prosecutors involved in
the investigation, of this feeling. And even though we kept invoking
the Director, and we would sort of say, like, we are not going to close
this thing until we have tried to get this, they didn't see it as useful.

They didn't think it was going to change the outcome of the
investigation, which we agreed with. We didn't have a reason to think
it would change the outcome of the investigation.

It wasn't about thinking that for sure there would be different
evidence in those laptops. It was about our credibility to beeable
to say that we ran down every sort of necessary investigative lead.

And so because we had sort of reached a stalemate a number of times
on this discussion, I know that it was elevated to certainly the Deputy

Director and George Toscas.

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If I'm not mistaken, I think that even the Director may have had
a conversation with Sally Yates, the DAG, about it, but I'm not
positive. If it occurred it's in the IG report, but I don't recall
exactly.

BY MS. KIM:

So that call seems to be DOJ expressing at the highest or
excuse me the FBI expressing at its highest levels the decision to
pursue a certain investigative step and convincing the Department to
come along with the FBI's reasoning. Is that accurate?

A Not its legal reasoning, but its strategic reasoning, yes.

That's yes. Thank you.

Are you aware of any instances wherexit went the other way, where
the FBI wanted t0'take strident action but a senior political official
at the DOJ had to talk the FBI down in the Clinton email caseyou look puzzled, so I mean 

A Yeah, I 

Let the record reflect you look puzzled.

A Okay.

Let my try to explain a little bit more clearly what Inhean.

I think the concern here is that there was a Democratically led
political DOJ in charge of an investigation where alorominent Democrat
was the subject and target.

Are you aware of any instances where senior political leaders at
the Department of Justice intervened to counsel or order the 

not seek a compulsory process?

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A No, not to my knowledge.

So you are not aware of Loretta or Sally Yates
intervening to stop the 

A No, not to my knowledge.

BY MS. HARIHARAN:

Okay. So I just want to move on to just sort of general
questions about the FBI'sinvestigative techniques. And I knowsome
of these this was somewhat addressed earlier, but just to clarify
a couple things.

On May 18th, 2618, President Trump tweeted, quote: "Apparently
the D03 put a spy in the Trump campaign. This has never been done
before. And by any means necessary, they're out to frame Donald Trump
for crimes he didn't commit," end quote.

Are you aware of any information that would substantiate the
President's claims that the D03 put a spy in the Trump campaign?

A No.

Does the FBI place spies in U.S. political campaigns?

A Not the current FBI.

Are you aware of any information that would substantiate the

President's claim that is out to frame him?

A No.
In your experience and this goes back a little bit to our
discussion on Friday about contacts with human informants does the

FBI use spies in any of its investigative techniques?

A We call them sources. They're not spies exactly, but 

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Can you, as much as again, understanding you were not a
counterintelligence official -- can you explain for the record the
difference betweenzahuman informant as the FBI specifically uses that
term and sort of the layman term that is often used in the mediatrf
a spy?

A The spy is somebody acting on behalf of a foreign government
in order to collect intelligence against that government.

So, you know, a spy is commonly, you know,?discussed with respect
to like an individual who is acting on behalf of a foreign
government -- say, like Russia or China or, who knows, Iran -- and is
in the United States trying to collect information in order to advance
its country's goals.

A confidential human source is somebody who has access to
information which may be relevant to an FBI investigation or may, him
or herself, have engaged in criminal activity and has agreed to
cooperate'with the government and collect additional information with
respect to the criminal activity he or her was he or shelwas engaged
in.

Have you been involved in any investigations where the FBI
did not follow the established procedures on the use of confidential
human informants?

A Me personally? Not to my knowledge.

Have you ever been involved in a or FBI investigation
conducted for political purposes?

A Never.

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Have you ever been involved in a or FBI investigation
that attempted to frame U.S. citizens for crimes they did not commit?

A No, ma'am.

Have you been part of any investigation where the FBI or 
used politically biased, unverified sources to obtain a FISA warrant?

A No.

Are you aware of any instances where the FBI and D03
manufactured evidence in order to obtain a FISA warrant?

A Never.

Are you aware of the FISA court ever approving an FBI or 
warrant that was not based on credible or sufficient evidence, in your
experience?

A No, not to my knowledge.

Are you aware of any attempts by the FBI or to
intentionally mislead FISA court judges in an application for a FISA
warrant by either omitting evidence or manufacturing evidence?

A No, ma'am.

Are you aware of any instances at the FBI and of an
investigation failing to follow proper procedures to obtain a FISA
warrant?

A No.

I'm going to quote the President when I say this. On
May 29th, 2918 he tweeted: hereby demand and will do so officially
tomorrow that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the

infiltrated or surveilled the Trump campaign for political

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purposes and if any such demands or requests were made by people\~ithin
the Obama Administration!?, exclamation point, end quote.

Does the FBI conduct investigations to frame U.S. citizens for
crimes they did not commit?

A No, ma'am.

Then at a political rally on May 29th, 2618, the President
again stated, quote: "So how do you like the fact they had people
infiltrating our campaign?" end quote.

Did the FBI or ever investigate the Trump campaign for, quote,
?political purposesever, quote, "infiltrate or surveil," end
quote, the Trump campaign?

A No.

(2 To your knowledge, did President Obama or anyone in his White
House ever, quote, "demand or request," end quote, that the or FBI,
again, quote, "infiltrate or surveil,? end quote, the Trump campaign
for, quote, "political purposes"?

A No, ma'am.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. I just have a couple of quick questions for
you.

First of all, I know that we covered this a little bit, I think,
on Friday, but can you talk a little bit about your role'on'the Clinton
investigation? How did you View it? And what was kind of the

limitations on your authority?

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Ms. Rage, So, as I have tried to describe, I'm not on the team
with respect to so the team is comprised of the following: case
agents, like line agents who are doing sort of the day?to?day
investigative activity, line engaged in the sanmeactivity,
a supervisor, forensic people, I think a forensic accountant,cyber
people, support staff, and then, up the chain, sort of more senior FBI
agents supervising the investigation.

I am none of those people -- lawyers, of course -- I am none of
those people. My job was to support the Deputy Director in all the
activity that the Deputy Director supervised.

So we're talking today just about the Clinton investigation and
the Russia investigation, but, of course, I assisted the deputy with
all of the responsibilities, save for limited ones like HR and budget
and sort of personnel?type matters, all of the activities ftw?which
he was responsible. So that would be any number of investigations at
any given time.

And with each of those I played both sort of a sounding board-type
of role, to sort of discuss my opinion or his View as to what particular
step we should take or whether we should, you know, brief theIMhite
House or Congress or X?activity or Y?activity.

So at a very high-level kind of macro?decisionmaking on all manner
of activity, but also to stay kind of with my ear to the ground on the
topics that would sort of come before him.

So, for example, if there was a meeting that was going to be held

about a particular cyber operation or some type of activity, I might

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reach out to the program managers who were responsible for that activity
in order to get a sense of what this is, why is it coming to the deputy,
is there a conflict, is there a disagreement 

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Got it.

 

Ms. you know, was he going to be deciding something,
so that we had a little bit of preparedness -For the topic that was coming
to him.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Got it.

So just so I understand it, basically you don't have any
supervisory role --

Mr. Page, No, sir.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. -- with regards to this investigation?

 

You're not a member of the team on this investigation, correct?
Ms. Page. That's correct.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. You don't have a supervisory role,

 

certainly.
Ms. Page. I do not have a supervisory role or a decisionmaking

role.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi . And what percentage of your overall time was

 

spent on this investigation?

Ms. Eagg, Oh, my goodness.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. If you just had toballpark it. Probably
a minimal amount, wouldn't you say?

Ms. Bagg, No, it wasn't minimal, but it wasn't the majority

either. Gosh, I really I have I cannot speculate 

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Mr. Krishnamoorthi. 50 less than 50 percent of your time.

Ms. Yes, that's fair.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. So let's say, let's say that you had
these political views expressed in your text messages -- and you can
see why people would be concerned about that. And let's say you wanted
to railroad this investigation a certain way.

Ms. The Clinton investigation.

Mr.Krishnamoorthi. 
and you wanted your political views to actually translate into biased
actions. It seems to me that you had no opportunity or ability to do
that because you had no supervisory role on this investigation team,
you weren't a member of this team. Even if you wanted to, you'd have
to go through your Deputy Director McCabe to do anything in terms of
taking action. Is that right?

Ms. Baggy That's fair, sir. I guess --

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. So -- go ahead.

Ms. ?ge; I guess the other thing I would flag is that I think I
mean, obviously you, the public, many have tens of thousands of my
texts. I think there are, I don't know, maybe two or three total in
which there's anything favorable said about Hillary Clinton atall.

And the note -- the fact that before July 28th when we received
the predicating information for the Russia investigation, the fact that
I didn't care for Donald Trump is not particularly relevant to me with
respect to the investigation we were conducting onf?llary Clinton.

The two of them had nothing to -- you know, my opinions on him

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had nothing to do with whether or not she in fact handled mishandled
classified information.

You know, I don't I don't -- what's been frustrating and what
has sort of strained credulity to me is that the sort of pejorative
texts about Donald Trump that I make before July 28th are just my
feeling about him personally and don't really have any bearingm?th
respect to how I feel about Secretary Clinton.

50 it just anyway, it just strikes me as how I feel about Donald
Trump doesn't really have any bearing with respect to whether or not
Secretary Clinton mishandled information. And the reality is, as I've
sort of said, I wasn't particularly fond or favorable toward Secretary
Clinton.

And during the course of the investigation, you know, as we've
discussed a number of times, both Pete and I were regularly the people
advocating for the most aggressive course of action with respectto
the Clinton investigation.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And what would be, in your view, kind of the
best example that would show that you took that type of approach?

Ms. Rage; It was true certainlywuith respect to the laptops that
we've discussed. I mean, we were we were -- sort of adamantly fought
the need to get those laptops, which Secretary Clinton's people were
adamantly fighting us sort of not to obtain, and the Departmentdid
not want us to obtain those.

Let me I'll have to think about other examples, but there's,

I think, two or three that at least I discussed with the 16 in the

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past, that where we sort of disagreed with the Department. And ii:was
Pete and I sort of advocating the more aggressive position against
Secretary Clinton.

Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Got it. Okay. If you guys want to take it.

Thank you.

Ms. You're welcome.

BY MS. KIM:

Ms. Page, Republicans have repeatedly raised questions about
why the FBI did not provide the Trump campaign with a defensive briefing
about Russians attempt to infiltrate the campaign.

We understand from public reportings that senior officials from
the FBI gave a high?level counterintelligence briefing to theTrump
campaign after he became the presumptive Republican nominee in
July 2016.

In that briefing we also know that FBI officials reportedly warned
the Trump campaign about potential threats from foreign spies and
instructed the Trump campaign to inform the FBI about any suspicious
overtures.

Did you have any involvement in giving these briefings to the
Trump campaign?

A I was not present for the briefings to the Trump campaign,
no.

Did you receive readouts from the briefings?

A I did.

Is it true that senior FBI officials warned the Trump

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campaign as early as July 2016 that Russians would try to infiltrate
the Trump campaign?

A I don't recall that specifically, but I don't have any reason
to disagree with you.

Would the briefing have touched on how the campaign should
react to offers from foreign nations to interfere elections?

A I don't think a briefing would have been that specific. I
think we would have as is the case in a typical defensive brief I
think that we would have flagged if you encounter activity which you
believe is suspicious, particularly from threat countries, that they
should notify the FBI.

To your knowledge, did the Trump campaign report any contacts
with foreign officials during this briefing?

A I'm not sure.

So are you aware of the Trump campaign reporting contacts
between George Papadopoulos and Russian officials?

A Oh, no, I don't believe that occurred.

Do you recall the Trump campaign reporting the June 2016
Trump Tower meeting with senior campaign officials includinglmonald
Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort?

Mr. Bessee. So I will sorry -- I will instruct the witness
not to answer anything that goes into the special counsel's equities
and the ongoing criminal investigation. So that would impact that
particular 

Ms. Kim. Thank you.

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Ms. Egge, Thank you. Sorry.

Ms. gig; Two weeks after this briefing, on August 3rd, 2916,
Donald Trump Jr. reportedly met at Trump Tower with an 
told Donald Trump Jr. that the princes who led Saudi Arabia and'the
United Emirates were eager to help his father win election as
President.

To your knowledge, did Donald Trump Jr. report this offer from
the Saudis and the Emiratis to the 

Mr. Bessee. Again, anything that goes into the ongoing criminal
investigation or anything that impacts that, the witness will not
respond to -- will not be able to respond to those questions.

Ms. Kim; Thank you.

BY MS. KIM:

Ms. Page, can you explain generally the national security
implications for a political campaign concealing or failing to report
foreign contacts of offers to interfere in our election?

A Well, this is I'm not sure it's a commonplace occurrence.
But speaking generally, an effort to affect an American electionis
obviously a quite serious one, regardless of voting and the
democratic process is obviously sort of a foundational backbone to what
makes America America.

So any effort by a foreign power to intercede or intervene in any
way is of grave concern. It would be even more so if it was in fact
true that a political campaign was working with a foreign power in order

to affect an American election.

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And again to your knowledge, a defensive briefing of this
nature would have involved general instruction to report outreach from
target foreign countries to the 

A I'm sorry, I don't -- I have to take issue with the nature
of your question.

You're suggesting that a defensive briefing with respect to an
involvement or an intrusion into the American election may have taken
place and I don't think I have answered that question.

What I have answered is that I am aware that a defensive briefing
with respect to foreign powers and what foreign powers may -- how
foreign powers may try to contact you collective -- your campaign
collectively, now that you are the presumptive candidate, and how you
should handle that.

But I don't think I have answered a question with respect to a
defensive briefing about interference in an American election.

That is fair. Thank you for clarifying.

And in a general defensive briefing about general foreign
threats, is thereaageneral guidance given that foreign threats should
be reported to the 

A Yes.

Thank you.

I think that leads us to -- leads us well to the question of why
the FBI, particularly the counterintelligence officials at the FBI1who
were working both on the Midyear investigation and on the Russia

collusion investigation, were prioritizing the Russia collusion

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investigation in the September/October timeframe.

The inspector general's report was not favorable to Mr. Strzok
in this regard. It characterized his prioritization of the Russia
collusion investigation as perhaps indicative of some kind of political
bias.

I think you were there. You saer. Strzok's workload. And you
were intimately familiar with both investigations.

Do you have a general response to that finding by the inspector
general?

A I do. I am honestly baffled that they would find such a
thing. And I do believe that they did the best they could to conduct
that investigation fairly. And I cannot understand, particularly in
light of what I know I said to them, I cannot understand how they could
reach that conclusion.

What we were dealing with at the outset was -- this is now, you
know, October. This is a month before the election. And I can't speak
to whether we were any closer to there was in fact
collusion, because I'm precluded from doing so right now, but we are
still looking very seriously at whether our most threatening, most
hostile foreign power was engaged in -- was working with an American
political candidate or members of that candidate's team to affect the
outcome of an American election.

It is an unheard?of investigation, in the first place, in the
counterintelligencerealm. 

activity, but this was a new height in terms of brazenness if

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true in terms of brazenness.
And with respect to how threatening that would be -- again, if
it were true -- the notion that there might be more emails that have

not previously been seen that existed on Hillary Clinton's email server
just simply don't even enter into the realm of the same room of
seriousness.

The Clinton investigation involved activities that had taken
place 3 years prior. It's an entirely historical investigation. Even
if -- even if there had been dispositive evidence which revealed I
don't know what even there, which would be a very serious allegation,
in my assessment, and I think in the assessment of the
Counterintelligence Division, they still don't even come close to the
threat posed if Russia had co-opted a member of a political campaign.

50 that alone is really baffling to me, that they equated the sort
of two investigations.

Furthermore -- and this is based on my own personal
knowledge almost as soon as we discovered that there may be these
additional emails, that was assigned to people who were not involved
in the Russia investigation.

50 it would not have been Pete' responsibility in the first place
to have engaged and conducted that investigation. He's the lead<yF
it. He's not the one who's going to go to New York. He's not the one
who's going to, like, do the forensics on it, like.

And so it made, in my mind, perfect sense what he did, because

he called on people who had been on the Clinton investigation, who were

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not on the Russia investigation, to follow up and find out what the
facts were, whether it was worth our while.

Because I will say, it's not as though every time there was any
allegation that there might be a new email that lives, you know, in
Peoria, not every one of those was necessitated investigative
activity.

The only reason that this one ultimately got our attention, and
this only occurred, to my recollection, later in October, is because
of the volume of the emails which potentially existed on Mr. Neiner's
laptop.

At the time that we first got the information, I'm not aware of
that having been told to us. I don't recall in late September, early
October, when I first found out by the Neiner laptop, I don't recall
being told that it was, you know, tens of thousands of Hillary Clinton
and Huma emails.

We knew that there were many tens of thousands, if not hundreds
of thousands of emails on Mr. Neiner's laptop, but it's not my
recollection is that it's not until later into October do we actually
learn that, no, no, these actually might be relevant and from a relevant
timeframe.

Ms. Hariharan. Can you describe the extent of the overlap
between folks who were on the MYE team and folks who were on the
Trump-Russia team? Because, you know, it's reported as if they'are
the same.

Ms. Page. They are not the same. What is the same are the sort

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of senior people. And that makes sense because there are-fewer people
who are in a senior position who could supervise the investigation.

So you have to understand, like, for example, in the
Counterintelligence Division, there are three DADs, there arethree
deputy assistant directors, one of whom is analyst, so not an agent,
not somebody who you would expect to run an investigation, and'then
there are twocyther ones. One was Pete and one -- I'm not sure when
it was filled, but was open for a short period of time.

So with respect to the personnel writ large, almost everyone below
Pete and Jon Moffa in the Counterintelligence Division in terms of the
agents who were working on the Russia investigation, almost all of
them I think all of them, in fact -- are different from the
line?level agents and who worked on the Clinton
investigation.

And this was in part, too, because everybody was exhausted. We
had worked incredibly hard and as fast as we possibly could on the
Clinton investigation. And the truth of the matter was, those of us
who were on Clinton and who stayed over for Russia all just really
couldn't believe ourselves that we had to sort of gear up again, you
know, 3 weeks after being finally done with Clinton and finally being
able to get back to all of our day jobs, that we were sort of gearing
back up again.

So it's only -- really it's the people that met with Jim Comey.
Those are the only people that were really the same with respectto

both teams. So it's the same general counsel, the same deputy general

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counsel, me, Mr. McCabe, Dave Bowdich.

The EAD for National Security Branch changed, but that was just
because of regular personnel turnover. Bill Priestap was the same.
Pete was the same. Jon Moffa was the same.

But other than that, all of the rest of the personnel were, to
the best of my knowledge there could have been one or two -- but
all of the rest of the personnel on the Clinton team and timaRussia
team were different.

BY MS. KIM:

Was there anything about the timeframe in which the Neiner
laptop was processed that seemed unusual to you? So that's to say,
would it have been unusual for imaging and processing that kind of data
to take more than a few weeks?

A No, it happens all the time. And especially with a laptop
that was as voluminous as Mr. Neiner's was, the forensic work and the
processing and the imaging regularly crashes and stops and has to be
done again.

I don't know precisely how long it took, but the notion that it
took a week or 2 as being unusual particularly, because it was not
a priority the case for the New York field office -- I should -- let
me take that back.

There was nothing about it that necessitated an exigency to the
New York field office. This was a potential child exploitation case
but, again, I don't think that there was an allegation that there was

ongoing exploitation.

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And so I don't know how the New York field office chose to
prioritize it with respect to all of the other work that they were doing,
but there?s nothing about it,1x)me, that stands out as necessitating,
you know, an emergency, you know, imaging.

Did you persbnally observe any evidence suggesting that
Mr. Strzok was prioritizing the Russia investigation at the costof
the Hillary Clinton email investigation reopening?

A Well, I mean the answer is we were prioritizing the Russia
investigation because it was more important and more serious. But I
wouldn't say that it was a zero?sum issue because he didn?tneglect
the Clinton investigation. He assigned it to the people who would
appropriately have to handle it.

Yes. Are you aware of any evidence that Mr. Strzok or anyone on
the Midyear investigation team was trying to bury the existence of the
Neiner laptop or the data found therefrom?

A No, not at all.

Ms. Hariharan. Are you aware of any evidence that Mr. Strzok
prioritized because of his political biases or was it because of just
how serious the Russia investigation and how grave a threat itwas?

Ms. Eagg; It's the latter. It's because the Russia
investigation was a serious threat to the national security. Whether
there are additional classified emails on a laptop that didn't belong
to Secretary Clinton just, in my view, did not rank in the same way.

BY MS. KIM:

And I just want to be clear of the nomenclature. When we

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talk about the Russia collusion investigation in this timeframe,
candidate Donald Trump is not the subject of that investigation. Is
that correct?

A That's correct.

I believe that's what Director Comey has publicly stated.

50 it was a very narrowly scoped, very discrete investigation,
because we understood the gravity of what it was we were looking at,
and we were not going;to take a more extreme step than we felt we could
justify.

Ms. Kim; I think we're okay going off the record at this point
for a lunch break until 1:39.

Thank you.

[Recess.]

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[1:36 

Mr. Parmiter. Let's go back on' the record. The time is 1:30 p.m.

BY MR. PARMITER:

And, Ms. Page, I just had a couple of followup questions from
things that were discussed in the first hour.

You had mentioned that charges it had been determined that
charges were not sustainable under 793(f)(1) in particular. I'm just
curious whether there are elements of that statute that were not

satisfied in the case or was it just the gross negligence issue --

A I think 
that led to that conclusion?
A Sorry.

I think that it was both. But honestly, I'm not positive as I
sit here today. Because if the statute is unconstitutional, it doesn't
matter if you have all the evidence in the world, you can't bring that
case.

So I think that I have said -- and I think that the minority staff
read back to me a comment that it was both insufficientevidence
and unconstitutionally vague. And I guess I'm not certain about the
first point, about insufficient evidence, because it doesn't really
ultimately matter what the evidence shows if the statute is is not
constitutional.

Okay. But, I mean, would you agree that, you know, the
Secretary of State is someone who' 5 lawfully entrusted with classified

information and that a private server is not the place -- if classified

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information is stored on anything other than a classified serveror
system, it would be out of its proper place?

A That is correct, sir.

Okay. To your knowledge and in your experience, did DOJ ever
inform you of any other statutes that are unconstitutionallyvague?

A In the history of my being at the FBI and 

Do you recall any 

A I'm not positive, to be honest with you. I mean, thetruth
of the matter is the counterespionage section at the Department,as
I think I've said, is just conservative by nature and cautious by
nature, very much to the frustration of the FBI.

And I've certainly been present with a number of meetings in which
they didn't want to prosecute or they didn't want to bring charges on
totally unrelated investigations, but didn't couldn't necessarily
articulate what was insufficient about the evidence or so, I mean,
this is I guess what I'm trying to say is this is a little it's
a somewhat institutional fact as well. But whether other statutes were
vague, I just don't remember.

Okay.

BY MR. SOMERS:

Do you remember any discussion of whether the Logan Act could
be charged?

A With respect to Secretary Clinton?

With respect to anybody.

A On the Clinton investigation, I don't remember a discussion

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of the Logan Act.

On the Russia investigation?

A I am privy to conversations about the Logan Act in the Russia
investigation.

Was it allowed to be charged?

A I don't think it's been charged.

My question is whether -- you were told that the gross
negligence part of --

A Oh, I see what you're saying.

793 could not be charged. I'm asking whether you were
told --

A Yes.

that the Logan Act could or could not be charged.

A 50 I -- okaycan answer this.

There were discussions about the Logan Act with the Department
and similar concerns, not about the constitutionality of the statute,
but about the age and the lack of use of the Logan Act. I did
participate in conversations with the Department about it being an
untested statute and a very, very old one, and so there being
substantial litigation risk, not unlike, although this comparison was
never made, but not unlike the gross negligence statute.

This would this would be a a risk, a strategic andlitigation
risk, to charge a statute that had not sort of been well-tested.

But the gross negligence part of 793, that was a clearly it

couldn't be charged versus a I think you just described it as a

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litigation risk with respect to the Logan Act?

A With respectix)gross negligence, that is correct, sir. I'm
sorry, that it could not be charged or should not be charged, because
it was I think it's both. It was not constitutional but also
untested, which goes to the question about its constitutionality,I
think. So I think they're somewhat intermingled, those two, with
respect to gross negligence.

Mr. Parmiter. Mr. Meadows.

Mr. Meadows. Thank you.

Lisa, I'm going to go over a few text messages. None of them are
personal. And so I just want to really try to get some clarification
from you.

I probably have read more text messages that have been published
and nonpublished, and even on some of the redacted words that originally
were redacted that you may be able to help me get a good understanding
of what's there.

So early on, in August well, first off, is there a difference,
from an FBI's perspective, of a confidential human source and a
confidential informant? Because I read the FBI manual, and it seems
like one gets treated one way and another gets -- but from your
perspective, they're one and the same?

Ms. P_agg, I the term that we use for it is a confidential human
source. A more, I guess, layman term would be an informant. But to my
knowledge there is no distinction with respect to the rules which

govern a source's activity. These are one and the same.

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Mr. Meadows. Because one of the things I was reading indicated
that I guess when we have confidential human sources that we pay there's
a whole litany of things that the FBI and have to go throughcm
those confidential human sources that we actually pay.

Are you aware of that?

Ms. P_agg I think there are I'm not sure there I'm not sure
about that, sir. There are certainly rules with respect to paying a
source, but the -- with respect to opening a source and how you handle
a source and the admonitions that you provide a source, those are the
same regardless of whether a source is paid or not.

Mr. Meadows. Okay. In a text message back and forth between you
and Peter Strzok shortly after he returned there was an
article that came out and it was "Inside the Failing Mission to Save
Donald Trump From Himself."

And in the redacted portion, it says: But see, this article so
rings true that then I think that the confidential human sourcehms
[redacted] is wrong is [redacted].

Were you aware of any time where you felt like you questioned the
confidential human source, as this text would indicate?

Ms. Can you, do you mind, could you --

Mr. Meadows. Yes. It would have been on the August 13th of 2916,
at 13:22:29, or 27, I guess. You're going back and forth talking about
3025 with the State Department and 

Ms. So are we talking about Clinton then it sounds like?

August --

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Mr. Meadows. Well, I don't -- the Clinton investigation would
have been over with at that point.

Ms. That's true. I'm sorry, sir, the date again?

Mr. Meadows. It would have been August 13th of 2016. It was
about 2 weeks after Russia opened.

Ms. Page. Okay.

Mr. Meadows. Russia opens. Peter Strzok travels 
Peter Strzok And you're going back and
forth, apparently mad because the State Department says, you know 

Ms. So we're talking about two different things. So the
State let me just take a second and look at this.

So there's no debate. So this is me. I'm sorry, so a couple
texts up, this is Pete: Hey, read the email I just sent. I did not
include CPA or OCI in the distro. I'm responding, I don't know what
the email is, but: There's no debate. I'm going to forward to Kortan.
God, it makes me want to tell State to go it.

So we're talking about Clinton now. And what I suspect we're
talking about is needing you know, there's still things that we need.
I don't know whether it's -- whether we're producing in FOIA or what
we're talking about. But there, I think --

Mr. Meadows. Then you switch, I guess, to the confidential human
source.

Ms. Page; 'Yes, I thinkthat's right. So then: Yep, you think
we would have you think we should have commented if only to rebut

State's expectation of interagency coordination crap.

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I think that there was like a press conference or something that
we were pissed about that State was essentially saying, like, maligning
the FBI. This is normal interagency, you know, kind of ?4

Mr. Meadows. Right, right.

Ms. gage; So the same thing with the next one.

Mr. Meadows. So it is right after that where you talk about not
believing the confidential human source, or believing that --

Ms. gage; Is that what that -- so I don't know what that --

Mr. Meadows. Yeah. In the redacted, it says, I think -- and

I'll give you the redaction -- that the other redacted

word.

So I guess the question becomes is, at any point did you question

whether as this text message

would indicate?
Ms. Page. So I think we're constantly questioning ourselves,
actually. I don't know 

Nun Meadows. This would have been very early on. So you'vehad
and almost immediately
you're questioning whether 

Ms. P_age_. So I think that's exactly what you want us to be doing,
right? So I don't know what this article says and I don't know what
is prompting the thinking, but we constantly want to be testingour
own assumptions and testing 

Now, with hespect to 
So it's not a matter of 

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right. That was sort of not in question with respect

to 

Mr. Meadows. Just that they had made the wrong assumption.

MS- _g_Pa e- or that 
right? Are 
or is the 

Mr. Meadows. 50 typically --

Ms. Page. That's the question that we're trying to answer. And

Mr. Meadows. Right. 50 there was some question back and forth
at this particular point between you and Peter Strzok on whether 
And in doing that, how do you


That'stheinvestigation,sir. That'spreciselymmat
the investigation was designed to do. And so the entire
objective -- and I really do hope to convince you guys that we did things

the way that the American people would want us to do them.

We get this predication that suggests 
and we take these 

steps to figure out is this true and, if so, who could be in a position
to have received this information.

And so -- but we're constantly challenging our own,assumptions.
And so we're taking investigative steps in order to try to figure out,
okay. 


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A Russian can't just like [sound of knocking]

knock on the door of any old stranger and say, hi --

Mr. Meadows. Let's hope not.

Ms. Eagg; I would hope, right? That's unlikely to be
productive. So you look to see are there 



And so, again, not knowing what I was thinking at the time or what
the article says, it wouldn't strike me as inappropriate at all,in
fact, quite the contrary. We are constantly, is this all just puffery
or is this real?

Mr. Meadows. 50 was this the only time that you feel like you

was this a single time?

Ms. Page. I can't remember any other particular time, but I
didn't remember this one so --
Mr. Meadows. But you're saying that it normally happens on a

pretty regular basis, so you go back and forth. So this would not be

out of the now to say, well. 

Ms. That is the point of the investigation, to try to get
to the bottom of it, sir.

Mr. Meadows. 50 let me go a little bit further then. In looking
at this review, very early on, without getting into the specifics of

the actual investigation, there were a number of briefings that were

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occurring. How many Crossfire Hurricane briefings were you involved
with?

Ms. Eagg, Briefings for whom, sir? I'm sorry.

Mr. Meadows. Well, how many briefings were you involved with
that were outside the -- that had outside players beyond the FBI or


Ms. Rage, None.

Mr. Meadows. All right. SO'there1~ere never any briefings that
you attended where there was other intelligence officials part of the
briefing outside the FBI and 

Ms. Not about the Crossfire investigation, sir. So
there's two things operating at this time. I certainly participated
in preparation sessions for the Director when the Director would either
be going to the White House or maybe have a call --

Mr. Meadows. Right. We've got that. I think we've talked
about that before, because I think early on, August 5th, there's maybe
the first original.what:we called at that time the Russia investigation
briefing that happened. Peter Strzok comes back makes
it just in time for you to have that. There's a briefing that occurs
on August 8th.

And then there's a briefing with Denis McDonough at the White
House where Jonathan Moffa and others attended. Were you aware of
that?

Ms. EaggL I'm surtayou're right. I was aware of the briefings

that were occurring at the White House. But those were not about the

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Crossfire. To the best of my knowledge, those were not 

Mr. Meadows. So they had nothing to do with any potential
collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign? That was never
mentioned?

Ms. Rage; Not tonw'knowledge. It was always about the Russian
active measures effort.

Mr. Meadows. All right. And so if'that's, indeed, the case, at
some point it changed. At some point, there were other people outside
the FBI and that were involved with that . And so I'm going to direct
your attention a little bit later.

Because on.August the 25th, there's a text message going back and
forth where I think it talks about the fact, you know, what areybu
doing after and it's redacted the I brief. And it's August 25th
at 19:39:56.

Ms. gage; I see that. But mine's redacted. What does itsay?

Mr. Meadows. Yeah, yours is redacted. But it says: What are
you doing after the I brief? And so that I brief you're saying was
an internal brief within the D03 and 

Ms. Eagg; Oh, yes, within, to the best of my knowledge.

Mr. Meadows. Because it's the same day'that Director Brennan is
briefing Harry Reid, is why I ask. And so what you're saying is you
were unaware that Director Brennan was briefing Harry Reid that same
day?

Ms. Rage; I had no knowledge of that, no.

Mr. Meadows. Okay. All right. So if you're looking at a brief,

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typically who would you brief?

Ms. So we had regular updates for the Director and the
Deputy Director. I'd say certainly every 2 weeks, but possibly even
more frequently. We had sort of standing sort of update meeting for
either the deputy --

Mr. Meadows. Similar to you did during the MYE --

Ms. Correct.

Mr. Meadows. and you're doing that now. And so you do those.
And those briefings were intended for the Director or the Deputy
Director to do what?

Ms. To stay abreast of what we had found to the extent
we it allowed for a regular tempo, so that if we had a question about
an investigative step or really just to sort of stay abreast of what
we were doing and what we were learning.

Mr. Meadows. 50 because of the critical nature, you know, as you
characterized it earlier, you believe that this was more important than
the MYE in terms of its potential.

When you were doing those briefings with the Director and the
Deputy Director and the minority were talking about the defensive
briefings -- to my knowledge, and it's been -- we've looked to try to
find anything other than what I would say the normal defensive briefing
that you do for candidates, where you say, by the way be careful, change
your passwords, you know, this is what you look for.

Did any of that brief that you ever did for the Deputy Director

or Director end up in a detailed defensive briefing for at that point

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candidate Trump?

Ms. Rage; I don't believe so.

Mr. Meadows. And if it were critical, especially in light of some
of the individuals and because Donald Trump was not a subject of your
investigation, and you were taking it seriously, who would have made
the decision not to do a defensive briefing, to say, "Hey, by the way,
you may have someone that's really getting contacted by a foreign entity
and you may want to be aware of it?? Who would have made the decision
to either tell the candidate or not tell the candidate?

Ms. Bag; That's a good question. I don't recall it ever coming
up.

Mr. Meadows. So you're telling me it never came up
to something this important, it never came up to tell the potential
candidate that they might have a problem with somebody talking to the
Russians?

Ms. P_ag$ So that's right, sir, but that's because we didn't know

_what we had. So typically, when we have a defensive brief, mmehave

pretty unassailable evidence. 

Mr. Meadows. Right, and I don't want you to.

Ms. No, no, no, I won't, but 

Mr. Meadows. Because it's been characterized sometimes that I
do, and I don't want you to go into that. I guess 

Ms. Egge; No, but 

Mr. Meadows . So you're saying you didn't have a conclusion. You

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didn't have a specific --

Ms. gage; Right. So typically what would happen is if we had
much more unassailable evidence or much more frequently is you would
have an individual who was already known to the United States Government
as suspicious in some way and associated with a hostile foreign
government.

50 we already know that, you know, Joe is of a concern to us. Once
we see Joe starting to reach out to a Member of Congress or starting
to reach out to a candidate, you know, to the extent we know what Joe
is saying or what Joe might be doing, that's when we would orobably
flag-for that individual: You need to be aware that so-and-SOrmay not
be what they seem.

In this case, we don't know1~hat we have. So it's not to say'that
we never would have gotten to a place where we might have done that,
depending on how what the evidence demonstrated, but certainly at
this stage, but even later in the investigation, my personal view is
I don't think that it would have been appropriate to do.

Mr. Meadows. So under your personal opinion, there was never
enough evidence to do a defensive briefing with specific targets? And
I don't want to put words in your mouth and I see you smiling, soI
don't -- but that's what I'm getting to.

I mean, at some point you have to have enough "there" there, I
guess, to quote someone else, to be able to suggest that there would
be a defensive briefing, and you're saying that that defensive briefing

never took place because of a lack of specificity.

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Ms. age; No, not exactly, sir. You would want to know for sure
what you had in front of you.

Mr. Meadows. So you wouldn't want to falsely accuse somebody?

Ms. ngg, You wouldn't want to -- well, you would want to
know -- you would want to be able to say: We believe that so?and?so
is, you know, an agent of a foreign power or we believe that so-and-so
may be working with, you know, a hostile foreign source.

Mr. Meadows. And so that did not happen prior to November 8th
of 2916 at least, because you would have done a defensivetwdefing,
based on 

Ms. Eagg; Not -- there's no no, sir. There's no
hard-and-fast rule. I don't I don't I don't want to leave the
impression that once you meet criteria a defensive briefing occurs.
This is fluid and happens at the sort of discretion and judgmentof
senior counterintelligence officials and, frankly, the deputy or the
Director himself with respect to certain high-level individuals.

It's -- I'm I'm I'nla little constrained. I feel a little
constrained in terms of what I can say. Let's try to speak
hypothetically.

One of two things might lead you not to conduct -- multiple things
might lead you not to conduct a defensive briefing. One of them might
be insufficient evidence.

Mr. Meadows. Which is what you said at least at this date, you

had insufficient 

Ms. Page. Certainly in August, I would agree with that. A

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couple weeks in, we don't know what we have. I think that that's fair.

On the opposite spectrum, it might be inappropriate for
investigative reasons to provide a defensive brief.

Mr. Meadows. But that would only be if Donald Trump was the
subject of your investigation.

Ms. Rage; No, sir.

Mr. Meadows. I mean, at what point so I guess take it from
my standpoint. As a Member of Congress, if I'm inadvertently having
contact with somebody, of which I have contact with Russian diplomats
on a weekly basis many times, and I assume every one of them want to
do us harm. I mean, so --

Ms. Rage; You should, sir.

Mr. Meadows. -- for the record 

Ms. Rage; I agree with you totally.

Mr. Meadows. -- I want to make sure that I assume every one of
them wants to do harm to us.

Ms. gage; Yes.

Mr. Meadows. So in doing that, at what point would you reach out
and say, you know, Mark, by the way, you may want to be this I
mean 

Ms. Rage; So the reason I am trying to tread here is I
don't think that Donald Trump would need to be the subject of the
investigation in order for us to make a decision that a defensive
briefing is not appropriate.

But there are certainly gradations shy of subject which, if

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true and I'm not suggesting that they are true but if
hypothetically, and I truly mean this in the hypothetical, if we thought
that Donald Trump is not the subject, we're not suggesting that he's
the person in touch with Russia, but maybe the evidence suggests that
he knows that his people are in touch with Russia.

Mr. Meadows. But to be clear for the record, there was no
evidence that suggested that.

Ms. P_age_. I am not speaking with respect to the evidence at all.

Mr. Meadows. I just want to make sure we're clear for the record.

Ms. Eagg; I am making no statement with respect to the evidence
we had. I am speaking hypothetically.

Mr. Meadows. So let me go back, because one thing gets really
concerning. So you give a brief on August the 25th. Director Brennan
is giving a brief. It's not a Gang of Eight brief. It is a one-on?one,
from what we can tell, a one?on?one briefing with Harry Reid at that
point.

And it becomes apparent, based on your text messages and based
on Director Comey's emails, that you all are aware that that
conversation took place.

Were you aware that Director Brennan had a briefing with Harry
Reid and that you expected a letter from Harry Reid?

Ms. gage; I take your word that I was.

Mr. Meadows. Well, no, I don't want you to take my word.

Ms. Egg I just don't I remember Harry Reid sending a letter,

like I remember that happening sometime during the course of this

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investigation. But I do not have any recollection if'I knew we had
regular Crossfire briefs of the entire team for the Director. Ido
not recall the Director telling us that Brennan was planning to brief
Harry Reid that day and 

Mr. Meadows. No, no, I'm not saying that he knew that he was
planning to brief him, but that once he briefed him, because it appears
that certain elements of what is now referred to as the dossier were
communicated to Harry Reid, based on that letter, because --

Ms. 233$; I have no knowledge of that. We didn't have the
reports yet.

Mr. Meadows. So and I know. According to other testimony,
apparently you didn't actually physically get the documents until
mid?September. Is that correct?

Ms. gage; That is correct, sir.

Mr. Meadows. So on August 

Ms. Not just physically. Even electronically, like -:

Mr. Meadows. 50 on August 36th but you were aware of it prior
to that?

Ms. Rage; No, sir. No, sir.

Mr. Meadows. So what yoU're saying is, is that you had no
knowledge'of'these potential unverified memos prior to the middle part
of September in your investigation?

Ms. That is correct, sir.

Mr. Meadows. Okay. So on August 30th, you and Peter are going

back and forth, and you go, "Here we go." If you'll look at9:44:5@

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on August the 39th, you go, "Here we go." And it's referencing "Harry
Reid Cites Evidence of Russian Tampering in the U.S. Vote amdSeeks


Now, what happens is, and what I guess gives me a little bit of
concern is, if you drop down, that if you drop down to the same day,
August 36th, 9:45, it says: "The -- which I assume means
Director "said at the a.m. brief that Reid had called him and told
him that he would be sending the letter."

Ms. Rage, Okay.

Mr. Meadows. So you get a brief that says, well, we got the
letter, but it's almost like it's a coordinated effort between Harry
Reid and the FBI Director, because obviously, he's briefing you.

Ms. P_age_. I I don't see so, again, this is just my personal
experience. We just don't really deal with the Hill that much.

Mr. Meadows. No, I know you don't, but 

Ms. Rage; No, no, no, but even the 

Mr. Meadows. 50 what you're saying is you don't recall ever being
briefed that a letter was coming from Harry Reid?

Ms. Rage, Not until this is the morning brief that this is
a reference to, so I must have attended the morning brief. And so this
is me just saying, yeah, the Director said we're going to be getting
a letter. But no, I'm not aware 

Mr. Meadows. Well, indeed, you did get a letter that got
published very quickly in The New York Times, and that was kind of the

start of much of that.

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You know, here's the other concern, because I guess Peter Strzok
sends an email to Bill Priestap that same day, with you carbon copied,
and it says: "Unfortunately, this will politicize things but was
unavoidable, I suppose."

So, I mean, obviously it's going back and forth.

Ms. Eagg, So my view on that is exactly what the FBI always is,
which is, no offense, politicians are involved, right? Like --

Mr. Meadows. None taken.

Ms. Eagg; We want to do this in secret. We want to do this the
way we do it. I don't know what Harry Reid was told or why ortuhat
the purpose of Brennan you know, this is way out of my pay grade.
But like that's not how we want to proceed. We do thingseffectively
when they're in secret. And so I think that that, you know, it's
unavoidablcu I guess, is, you know, well, these things happen, but not
on our watch.

Mr. Meadows. Okay. So let's taking you at your word, then
I guess what concern I have is why would Director Brennan be aware of
things that the FBI was not aware of at this particular point when it
actually would potentially involve, according to Peter Strzok's word
on January 16th of 2917, an unverified salacious set of memos?

Ms. So I don't understand why you're saying
this whatever is in the whatever occurs between Brennan and Reid,
I don't understand what the relationship to the dossier is. That's
what I'm not following.

Mr. Meadows. So the dossier apparently was mentioned. In fact,

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we have documents that would suggest that in that briefing'the dossier
was mentioned to Harry Reid and then obviously we're going to have to
have conversations. Does that surprise you 

Ms. Rage; Totally surprises me.

Mr. Meadows. -- that Director Brennan would be aware of 

Ms. Page. Yes, sir. Because with all due honesty, if Director

Brennan -- so we got that information 

Mr. Meadows. We do know there are multiple sources.

Ms. Rage; I do know that. I do know that the information
ultimately found its way lots of dif-Ferent places, certainly in October
of 2616. But if the CIA as early as August, in fact, had those same

reports, I am not aware of I'm not aware of that and 

Mr. Meadows. .50 you say"our source." Is your source, is that
because he was working for you?

Ms. Rage; No, sir.

Mr. Meadows. Well, I mean, how could he be -- is he exclusively
your source?

Ms. Rage; I don't know. If the CIA has had Mr. Steele open
as a source, I would not know that.

Mr. Meadows. So if we're talking about sources and we're looking

at sources, were you aware at the point that there was ongoing

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communication with other players, Fusion GPS and others, as it
relates to this confidential human source?

Ms. I didn't follow yourquestion, sir. Are you asking
was I 

Mr. Meadows. Were you aware that Christopher Steele had
conversations or multiple conversations with Fusion GPS and others
outside of just working special intel for you?

Ms. EaggL Nomore clear.

As of August of 2616, I don't know who Christopher Steele is. I
don't know that he's an FBI source. I don't know what he does. I have
never heard of him in all of my life. So let me just sort of be clear.

When the FBI first receives the reports that are known as the
dossier from an FBI agent who is Christopher Steele's handler in
September of 2016 --

Mr. Meadows. Right.

Ms. -- at that time, we do not know who -- we don't know
why these reports have been generated. We don't know for what purpose.
We don't know we know that this is a reliable source who has
previously reported (?mother things. We know who he I don't know
who he is personally. We know his history --

Mr. Meadows. Right.

Ms. Eagg; -- such that we know him to be reliable. And I think
we know that he's a former intel person.

But we do not know, to the best of my recollection, why these

reports have been generated, what they're for, what they're why they

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have sort of come to us, other than here's a reliable source and here
are some things that he has gathered.

Certainly between 

Mr. Meadows. 50 you don't know whether it's a coordinated effort
to get you those documents or not at that point in September?

Ms. Coordinated by whom, sir?

Mr. Meadows. Anybody, other than a confidential human source
saying, "Listen, I've got reason to be concerned and bring it to you."
It could have been coordinated
by Fusion GPS. You don't know.

Ms. Eagg, At the time that we received the documentation, no.
What we have is the preexisting relationship with the source and the
reliability of his prior reporting.

Mr. Meadows. Okay. So on October 16th and 19th, there's a
couple of text messages. I want to read them to you, because it's
actually text messages between you you won't have them in your book.

Ms. Eage; Oh, okay.

Mr. Meadows. Because I actually got these from a different
source. And so I'm asking you to see if you remember those so you can
help authentic them. But apparently it's a text message between you
and Mr. McCabe.

Ms. Rage; Okay.

Mr. Meadows. And it says: ?Just called. Apparently the DAG
now wants to be there and the White House wants to host. So we're

setting up a time now. We very much need to get Cohen's View" which

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we believe is probably Deputy Director of the CIA Cohen, David
Cohen "before we meet with her" and by the "her," I think it's
Sally Yates at that point, we're trying to put this all together.
"Better have him weigh in before this meeting. We need to speak with
one voice if that is, in fact, the case." That is October 14th.

And then on October 19th, it says:_ "Hey, can you give me a call
when you get out. Meeting1~ith thexwhite House counsel is finally set
up and I want to talk about the timing things."

Is that --

Ms. Are those about Russia?

Mr. Meadows. That was my question.

Ms. Oh, I'm not sure, sir. I'm not certain that itis,
to be honest with you, but I'm not sure.

Mr. Meadows. All right. Because it's just a couple of days
before the FISA application.

Ms. Eagg; Oh. There would be no need to go to the White House
or give any sort of briefing about the FISA. So if that's the timing
concern, I don't think that it's related, would be my guess.

Mr. Meadows. All right. So, as we look at this, one of the
concerns that I have is that there seemed to be a whole lot of chatter
back and forth in terms of between the FBI and the DOJ being at odds
in terms of and by "odds" what I mean is, you know, I guess pushing
back against George Toscas and some of the others in terms of some of
the opinions, based on text messages and emails.

Ms. Page. On Russia?

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Mr. Meadows. 0n Russia.

Ms. Page; I don't know that I agree with that assessment. The
only source of frustration, really the~only source of frustration that
I can recall, at least in the time that I was most heavilyinvolved
in the Russia investigation -- so this is from August to really the
end of the year, till December-of 2916 was the sort of speed or lack
thereof with respect to getting the FISA initiated. I mean, thatwas
a source of frustration. But I don't recall other other
controversies or other disagreements or other issues.

Mr. Meadows. Yeah, because I think and the reason why these
dates on the other text messages that I ask are critical, because
there's an email from Peter Strzok to you on October the 14th. And
that's where, you know, we've got to keep the pressure, hurry theF
up and 

Ms. Page; Yeah, right. And that was definitely happening, but
the White House doesn't have anything to do with that.

Mr. Meadows. And so the Stu, I haven't heard back from Stu, is
that Stu Evans who --

Ms. Page; That is correct.

Mr. Meadows. So why was there a push for a FISA warrant coming
from you guys and potentially less than expeditious on the -- I mean,
what's your perception of why that was? Obviously, it was important
enough for Peter to send you an email.

Ms. Page. Well, we sent a lot of emails.

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But separate from that, this again goes to kind of cultural
differences between us and 50 DOJ is necessarily going to be a
little more handwringing and a little more apprehensive and a little
more cautious.

Mr. Meadows. And why is that?

Ms. Just the institutional differences between us,
honestly. I mean, we're the investigators, we're hard?charging.

Mr. Meadows. The fact that they were opening up a FISA warrant
on a U.S. citizen that might be attached to a --

Ms. EaggL Well, almost all FISA warrants are on U.S. citizens.

Mr. Meadows. That's correct, but that might you didn't let
me finish --

Ms. Oh, I'm sorry.

Mr. Meadows. That might be attached to alDresidential campaign.

Ms. Egg; Well, he was no longer with the Presidential campaign.
But your point is taken. Certainly, this was one that, if leaked, was
going to get attention.

And so I'm not necessarily even criticizing them for their
handwringing. I'm just saying we had an operational reason thatwe
wanted to get this thing up quickly with respect to the subject himself,
and the Department is always going to operate with less alacrity.

Mr. Meadows. So is Stu Evans, is that his primary
responsibility, was processing 

Ms. Page. So he is the head of the Office of Intelligence. The

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Office of Intelligence is the organization within the Department that
writes the FISAs, that takes them to court. So he is the -- he's a
DAAG, a deputy assistant Attorney General, and he is the person in
charge of the entire FISA process for the Department.

Mr. Meadows. So I guess the question and this is my last
series of questions -- I guess the question I would have then is, going
back to August 16th, there's text messages back and forth between you
and Peter that would say, I remember what it was, Toscas already told
Stu Evans everything. Sally called to set up a meeting. You already
knew about the campaign individual. 50 there's conversations
happening on August the 10th already --

Ms. gage, But that's not about a FISA. That's not about a FISA
at that point, I don't think.

Mr. Meadows. But it was about the campaign, because it's
redacted.

Ms. Rage, Right.

Mr. Meadows. I mean, it was redacted.

Ms. So what that reflects, because I remember that,
because we were we were so concerned about the fact that we were
opening this investigation and we were so concerned about leaks that
we were literally individually making decisions about who to tell and
who not to tell, because we were trying to keep it so closely'held.

We had told George Toscas, because he's sort of the senior?most
career person in the National Security Division.

None of us had told Stu Evans, and I don't think any of us intended

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to tell Stu Evans until which time we would actually need something
from him. And so that text is a reflection of frustration, that like,
great, George told Stu. That's not what we would have done, because
we were trying to keep it so close-hold.

So I don't think it has anything to do with an actual FISA. It
was more that more people are learning about this investigation and
we are trying to keep it as tight as possible.

Mr. Meadows. And so what you're saying is when the Director
briefed the White House 2 days prior to that, on August the 8th,or
prepared for it, actually briefed him on the 10th, that it had nothing
to d01~ith any campaign. Even though George Toscas and Stu Evans knew
about it, it had I mean, there was no mention of this at all at any
time?

Ms. Eagg; Sir, I would be shocked. I would truly be stunned to
discover that the Director had briefed the President on the substance
of our investigation or even the existence of our investigation. I
would be I can't say it didn't happen, I wasn't there, but I would
be stunned to discover that. That is just not how we 

Mr. Meadows. 50 when did it happen? Ultimately never?

Ms. I don't know. I honestly don't know. And to be
honest with you, I guess I should clarify.

I think it's entirely possible that the Director himself never
briefed the White House about this. He just did not have that kind
of -- not relationship, that's not the right word. That's justnot

how he viewed us institutionally. I cannot speak to whether the

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Department ever briefed the White House about it.

Mr. Meadows. I'll yield to John.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Ms. Page, I do want to follow this line of
questioning about the FISA application and try and determine when you
were first aware of or there was a discussion of a possibility ofa
FISA warrant in connection with the Trump-Russia matter from a timing
perspective. Do you recall?

Ms. Maybe a month before we got it, possibly. I'm not
positive.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. So the dates, the date of the FISA
application, October let of 2616.

The reason I'm trying to find out is we know that the predicating
information that opened it was July 3lst. We know on August 8th, we've
talked about the text message about stopping Donald Trump, a text
message that involved the lead investigative agent.

50 I'm wondering, do you know whether or not there had been any
discussion of a FISA applications by that time?

Ms. No way. You have to understand, sir, it takes a lot
to get a FISA.

Mr. Ratcliffe. I know. I'm just trying I'm trying todive
in on where it is.

So on we know that there was the first interview conducted,
based on your prior testimony, sometime before August 11th of2916.
Do you know if there was any discussion of a FISA application before

or after or before that?

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Ms. Not to my knowledge.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. With respect to you talked earlier
about testing the information from confidential human sources. If a
confidential human source has a conversation with the subject of
surveillance that would undermine the presence I mean, the premise
that anyone associated with the Trump campaign either wascolluding
or would be willing to collude with the Russians, is that the type of
disclosure that would have to be made to the 

Ms. Rage; No, sir. What do you mean? We don't have a 

Mr.Ratcliffe. 
the FISA court?

Ms. Rage, Oh, sorry. Yeah, sure. I mean, we have a duty of
candor to the court.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Duty of candor.

Ms. So certainly to the extent we were to find reliable
that we thought undermined a FISA application, wewould
inform the court of that information.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Supposed to inform the court?

Ms. Eagg; To the best of my knowledge, sir, we would inform the
court.

Mr. Ratcliffe. No, I'm just saying the obligation is you
can't speak to whether it was or it wasn't.

Ms. Eagg; I don't know what you're talking about. I
thought if 

Mr. Ratcliffe. I'm not getting into any of the Specific content

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of it. I just want to know --

Ms. Rage; If in all cases 

Mr. Ratcliffe. If there is exculpatory or 

Ms. gage; if the FBI discovers, you know, reliable
information which it believes to be exculpatory or somehow affect the
probable cause of the FISA warrant, I would expect that we would provide
that to the court, yes, sir.

Mr. Ratcliffe. That's my question.

Ms. Yes.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Because there would be an obligation to do that.

Ms. gage, I think so. I'nlnot nearly aswwell-versed in the FISA
rules. But I would just -- I would presume that we would, because
that's how we generally operate.

Mr. Ratcliffe. And you know that Brady/Giglio disclosure
requirements would apply in the FISA court?

Ms. Rage; So Brady really doesn't I don't really want to be
so legalistic -- but Brady is a right of a criminal defendant. So what
I'm saying is I have no idea if it is absolutely obligatory. What I
am saying is I believe that that is -- would be the practice ofthe
Department and the FBI to be fully candid.

Mr. Ratcliffe. And should have been done if there was any
exculpatory information.

Ms. Rage, I think that that's what we would do. I believe so,
sir.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay, great.

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On Friday, Congressman Jordan asked you about the trip that you
took with Peter Strzok and three others.
I don't know if he asked you the purpose of that trip. Can you tell
us the purpose of the trip?

Ms. I cannot, sir. 1

Mr. Ratcliffe. Why not?

Ms. On advice of FBI counsel, because it would get into
the investigative steps we took.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Investigative steps related to the --

Ms. Rage, The Russia investigation.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Russia investigation?

Ms. Yes, sir.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. Mr. Jordan also asked you about and you
reviewed with him the January 10 email that you were on with Mr. Strzok
talking about the different versions of the Steele dossier involving
David Corn and Glenn Simpson and others. Do you recall that?

Ms. I do, sir.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. That was around the same time as the first
of Jim Comey's now somewhat infamous memos of his conversations with
both President-elect Trump and then President Trump. When did you
first become aware of the Comey memos?

Ms. ngg, I was aware of them as they were in real time. I
was aware of almost all of them in real time.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. So you were aware of them before they

became leaked to The New York Times by Daniel Richman?

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Ms. P_agg._ I was aware of them. I reviewed most of them. I can't
say all. I reviewed most of them within a day or on the same day that
they were created.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Would Peter Strzok have been -- I'm.sorry.
Would well, let me ask that. Would Peter Strzok have been aware
of those?

Ms. Page; No, sir.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Would Andrew McCabe have been aware of those?

Ms. Lag; Yes, sir. I don't know whether Peter Strzok was aware
of them or not. I did not provide them to him so 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. But Andrew McCabe would have been?

Ms. Page; Yes, sir.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. And was that -- the fact that you would
have been aware of them, were there discussions about opening an
obstruction of justice case or any other case against Donald Trump prior
to the firing of Jim Comey on May 9th of 2617, as reflected in the Comey
memos?

Ms. Bessee. Congressman, to the extent that goes into the
equities of the ongoing investigation that the special counsel is now
conducting, I will instruct the witness not to answer.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Yeah, I don't want to go into what the special
counsel, whether or not they are going to do it, but I think it'sa
fair -- I think it's a very fair question, Cecilia, because the former
Director of the FBI has talked about it. He's talked about it a lot.

He's given interviews about it. He has gone on TV about it. He has

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written books about it.

And he has said explicitly publicly in a congressional hearing
that he wanted a special counsel to be appointed for that purpose, to
investigate Donald Trump for obstruction of justice.

50 I think asking her about it at this point is a very fair request.

Ms. Bessee. To the extent that it doesn't go into what the
special counsel is looking at or their gathering of evidence, I
understand, Congressman, that former Director Comey has talked about
the memos and has talked about whether there should be an investigation.
50 I just want --

Mr. Ratcliffe. I don't want any of the details. I just want to
know whether there was a discussion about the possibility of opening
that prior to the firing of the Director.

Ms. Bag; Obstruction of justice was not a topic of conversation
during the timeframe you have described.

Mr. Ratclitfe. Okay. Then --

Ms. I think. One second, sir.

[Discussion off the record.]

Ms. Sir, I need to -- I need to take back my prior
statement.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Which one?

Ms . age; Whatever the last thing I just said was . Sorry. That
there were no discussions of obstruction, yeah. That is -- I need to
take that statement back.

Mr. Ratcliffe. So there were?

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Ms. P_age_. Well, I think that I can't answer this question without
getting into matters which are substantively before the special counsel
at this time.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, I think you've just answered it by not
answering it.

Was Andy McCabe privy to those same conversations?

Ms. I can't answer thissubstantively, sir. I'm sorry.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Nell, were these related to some charges, whether
obstruction or other charges, potentially against Donald Trump?

Ms. Eagg, I can't I can't answer that question, sir, without
getting into the substance of matters that are now before the special
counsel.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Again, I think you're answering it by not
answering it.

Did you have knowledge about Daniel Richman's special role for
Director Comey?

Ms. What do you mean, sir?

Mr. Ratcliffe. Did you know that he or1~hen, I guess, did you
learn that he was the source through which Director Comey would
communicate information to the press?

Ms. I learned that publicly, when it became publicly
known.

Mr. Ratcliffe. But not before that?

Ms. I don't believe so.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Did you have interactions with Daniel Richman?

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Ms. I had one interaction with him, but with respect to
a going dark sort of broad legislative interest, but that's it. That
was many months prior.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. So back to these Comey memos. You had
conversations about the Comey memos with.Andy McCabe. Did you have
conversations about them with Jim Comey?

Ms. ?ge; I think once. I think there was one time -- so, again,
I guess I should make be more clear. We didn't talk about the Comey
memos as a set, like the Comey memos. If Comey were to have a meeting
that concerned him, he might come back and inform, for example,

Mr. McCabe about them.

There was one time I believe in which I was part of a small group
he came back and reported back the details of aparticular
meeting. Those ultimately made their way into the memos.

So I was present for at least one, possibly more, I just don't
know for sure, readouts of a meeting that he would have just had with
the President, Donald Trump, and then subsequently read the memos that
he created about each of these meetings.

Mr. Ratclifte. What was it about Donald Trump that created a
practice that Director Comey told us didn't exist with President Obama?

Ms. Bagg, I can't speak for Director Comey, sir.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Did this process of the FBI Director sharing
information with others in the FBI about his conversations, giving
readouts of his conversations with the President, was that a standard

practice?

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Ms. Page, That's not unusual, if there was a need to share what
had happened. He certainly did that with respect to President Obama
as well.

Mr. Ratclifte. But never documented it in a memo form?

Ms. Page, I think that's his representation.

Mr. Ratcliffe. So you said 

Ms. Page; But I think he also answered, at least in his open
testimony, that it was about the nature of the person. So I
can't -- that's -- those are his words, but I can't speak beyond that.

Mr. Ratcliffe. I might come back to that, but I want to move on
to this now infamous tarmac meeting and at least get started in asking
you about that.

To refresh your recollection from a timing standpoint, the
meeting occurred on June the 27th of 2016 between former President
Clinton and Loretta 

I want to ask you about an email on June the 30th of 2016 that
Peter Strzok texted to you, if you'd look at that.

Ms. Page; June 39th, you said?

Mr. Ratcliffe. June 39th. We're 3 days after the tarmac
meeting.

Ms. Page; Okay.

Mr. Ratcliffe. It says: Oh my God, he -- I think speaking about
Bill Priestap Oh, my God, he is spinning about the tarmac meeting.
Viewed in conjunction with [redacted] wants to meet at 4, have us bring

lists of what we would do in ordinary circumstance, paren, easy,

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referred to PC, and in this circumstance, paren, easy, referred to the
seventh floor.

Do you see that?

Ms. I do.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. Let's -- first of all, is Bill, is that
Bill Priestap?

Ms. I'm sure it is, yes.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. Do you know what redacted is?

Ms. I don't.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. Do you know what PC is?

Ms. Public corruption 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Public corruption.

Ms. is my guess.

Mr. Ratcliffe. It's my guess, too. So --

Ms. Page. I mean, this I think is sort of a snarky text, right?

So my guess is he's spinning in conjunction with the -- maybe that is
like the statement, because we know that we're we're planningto
do the -- public announcement is sort of imminent. I'mspeculating

there, because I have no idea what's under the redaction.

But I think this is mostly us just being a little unkind with
respect to Bill Clinton Bill Clinton Bill Priestap, because
he he was a worrier. And so I think that this is more snarky, right?
There's nothing for us to do with respect to this.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. But I'm trying to find out whether this

is a big deal or not. You know, the Attorney General referred to the

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meeting as something she admitted cast a shadow over the integrity of
the Department. It's the reason for what you referred to earlier as
a quasi-recusal or halfway recusal. It is something that Director
Comey referred to as a game-changer and told the IG that it tipped the
scales with respect to holding a public announcement. It sounds like
Bill Priestap is spinning about it.

Was it a big deal or not?

Ms. Rage; To be honest with you, sir, and I'm speaking for
myself, it was a boneheaded move, certainly. But I guess
investigatively, I don't see it as a particularly big deal, because
absolutely every single person on the Midyear investigation, both at
the FBI and the Department, had concluded that there was no prosecution
to be had here.

So it's not as though the meeting with Bill Clinton, even no matter
what was said, even taken in the worst possible light, theevidence
is what the evidence is. So there's no way to have sort ofchanged
it.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Right.

Ms. gage; So even if, in fact, everyone's worst possible
nightmare about what may have transpired on that plane is alltrue,
it still doesn't change whether there's a viable prosecution.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Right.

Ms.Egg?L 
but not actually impactful of anything in particular.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. So I'm going to come back to this one,

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because I think we're about out of time. But you just said, and you
said this yesterday or on Friday, but that it was not a big deal.
Boneheaded but not a big deal investigatively, because everyperson
involved with the Midyear had concluded that she wasn't going'habe
charged. Is that right?

Ms. gage; That's correct, sir.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. So if I asked you the question, was the
decision made not to charge Hillary Clinton with the 
classified information before or after her July 2nd, 2616, interview,
the answer is what?

Ms. Pig; The answer is before her July 2nd interview we had not
seen evidence sufficient to charge her with a crime.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay.

Ms. If something had changed in the July 2nd interview,
then that would have all changed things. But short of an admission
in that interview, there was nothing that any of us, whether at the
Department or the FBI, could have anticipated that would have changed
that conclusion, short of an admission or something happening --

Mr. Ratcliffe. But your answer was before the decision had been
made before, that everyone had concluded.

Ms. Rage; Well, you're putting words in my mouth a little bit.

Mr. Ratcliffe. These are your words.

Ms. P_ag& No, I'm agreeing with what I'm saying is a decision
isn't final until it's final. So there was no final decision before

July 2nd. But before July 2nd 

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Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay.

Ms. it was the consensus of the investigative team, both
at the Department and at the FBI, that there was not sufficient evidence
to charge her with a crime.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. So where we' re going to leave off is that
the decision had been made before, but the final, final decision was
made after is what you're saying, to use your words.

Ms. gage, The decision isn't final until it's final.

Mr. Ra?tcliffe. Okay. We'll pick up with that when we came back.
Thank you.

[Recess.]

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[2:36 

Mr. Swalwell. Back on the record.

Thank you, Ms. Page, again for spending the morning and afternoon
with us. I only have a few questions. Our counsel may have some, and
I understand Mr. Cummings might be coming in today.

So, again, I first just want to say that, today, our President,
on foreign soil, insulted the men and women of the FBI. I'm sorry that
here in Congress that you're also seeing leaders of our country insult
the work that you do.

But I do think there are some fair questions, and I want to get
just to some of those.

Do you regret, like, some of the messages you sent or the way that
you framed some of those texts? And if you could just talk about that.

Ms. Rage; I do. I think that this has been an incredibly
humbling experience. Obviously, these were messages sent to somebody
close to me whom I intended to be private, and I think that there are
few people on this planet who would want their private messages released
publicly, regardless of what they said.

I think I'm entitled to the views that I'm entitled to, and I'm
entitled to express those views both publicly'and privately. But I
would have made different decisions had I thought about what the
possible repercussions could have been.

I can't do it over again. I can only learn from it.

Mr. Swalwell. Did you ever -- were you ever part of a criminal

prosecution where you so detested the defendant because of what they

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did or who they hurt and you had to set aside those feelings and just
stick to the four corners of the evidence?

Ms. Eagg; So I actually spoke about this at length on Friday,
Mr. Swalwell. In fact, not just me but I think I can speak for many
people at the FBI and the Department that we often loathe the subject
of our investigations. And we generally do not look kindly on
criminals in general and reserve plenty of harsh language for the people
that we investigate.

But we, regardless and in every instance, put our personal
feelings, both about them individually or the criminal activity that
they are accused of, we always put it aside and conduct investigations
independently and fairly.

Mr. Swalwell. Did you ever have an investigation where you
received exculpatory evidence and, you know, you've got a bad guy and
you really want to make sure that justice is done and then you get the
evidence and you're like, crap, like, if I turn this over, it's going
to make the case harder, if I keep it and I don't tell anyone, we've
got a better chance of a conviction, but I know what it means if I don't
turn it over? Have you ever had to make those decisions as a
prosecutor?

Ms. So they're not usually quite as stark, but,
absolutely, you often have information which could be exculpatory or
certainly could just simply be damaging to your case, and it is your
obligation as a prosecutor, it is your obligation to the fairness to

the defendant and the fairness in the system, to turn that information

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over.

So that is something that happens regularly, and it is a part of
our being, it's a part of our identity and the roles that we abide by
in order to --

Mr. Swalwell. Regardless of how you feel about the defendant.

Ms. gage; Of course.

Mr. Swalwell. In the Clinton case, were you the sole lawyer
making decisions about the direction of the case?

Ms. I was not making decisions about the direction of the
case at all. I was a lawyer supporting the Deputy Director. We had
multiple lawyers in OGC who supported the investigation, and, of
course, it was run by prosecutors at the Department.

Mr. Swalwell. How many lawyers could you estimate were involved
in the Clinton case --

Ms. So there were 

Mr. Swalwell. on the -- on your side.

Ms. gage; On the FBI side, there were two primary lawyers who
were involved. There was a lawyer who was involved on the filter team.
And then there were five prosecutors who had either regular or
semiregular involvement at the Department, and then their?management.

Mr. Swalwell. And on the decision to open the Russia
investigation, how many lawyers were involved in that decision?

Ms. Rage; The decision to open the investigation? I mean,the
general counsel was involved, the'deputy'general counsel.was involved.

At least, probably -- the decision to open? I'm not sure myself.

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Mr. Swalwell. Is it fair to say you were not --

Ms. No, no.

Mr. Swalwell. the person or lawyer that --

Ms. No.

Mr. Swalwell. signed off?

Ms. Eagg, I did not make any decisions with respect to opening
the Russia investigation.

Mr. Swalwell. Can you speak to well, Bob Mueller. How long
did you work with Mr. Mueller?

Ms. So I went over for a 45?day detail.

Mr. Swalwell. Oh, I just mean in your career.

Ms. Eagg; Oh. So I didn't have I had limited interaction
with Mr. Mueller when he was the Director of the FBI.

Mr.Swalwell. 
had with colleagues, can you speak to his character for truthfulness
and integrity?

Ms. Eagg; He is unassailable on those grounds. He is an
unbelievably upstanding, honest, rule-following, hard?charging,
thoughtful, fair individual.

Mr. Swalwell. And with respect to other lawyers and agents on
the special counsel's team, are those individuals that you had worked
with in some --

Ms. Yes.

Mr. Swalwell. manner?

Ms. Page. Some of them, yes, sir.

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Mr. Swalwell. And is there anyone on that team that you have
concerns about their integrity, their character for truthfulness?

Ms. No, sir. And, in fact, at least two of them I've
worked quite closely with, and I know both to be incredibly'bright,
incredibly fair, honest, brilliant prosecutors.

Mr. Swalwell. And did you observe during the time on the team
any, you know, cafeteria talk, any prejudging of the direction of the
Russia investigation? 

Ms. gage; No, sir.

Mr. Swalwell. I don't have anything else. I'll defer back to
counsel.

Thank you, Ms. Page.

Ms. Eagg; You're welcome.

BY MS. KIM:

Thank you, Ms. Page.

I'd like to ask you about several FBI employees who are mentioned
in the inspector general's report. To the extent that it asks about
things of which you have no knowledge, please let me know.

This, as you will see, will turn out to be a process of
elimination. To be totally candid with you, there is an individual,
Sally Moyer, whose name has been repeatedly brought up in connection
with these aliases. And I just want to confirm whether you can identify
Sally Moyer as any of the aliases named in the inspector general's
report.

A I think you need to ask that question more specifically.

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Yes. Exactly. And so I will attempt to do so.

A Okay.

The inspector general's report discussed instant messages
between two FBI agents, agent 1 and agent 5. The two were in a
preexisting romantic relationship.

As I understand it, Sally Moyer is not an FBI agent. Is that
correct?

A That is correct.

So do you have any reason to believe that Sally Moyer is agent
1 or agent 5?

A I know who agent 1 and agent 5 are, and Sally Moyer is not
agent 1 or agent 5.

Thank you.

The inspector general's report also discusses FBI attorney 2 as
an individual who sent instant messages of what the inspector general
called a political nature. That attorney, FBI attorney 2, is referred
to throughout with male pronouns.

Do you know if the FBI attorney 2 is Sally Moyer?

A I also know who FBI Attorney General 2 is, and FBI attorney
2 is not Sally Moyer.

Thank you.

Ms. Shg?, Okay, Ms. Page, I'm going to introduce a few text
messages in which it appears that you and Mr. Strzok arediscussing
the Russians and, sort of, their attempts at espionage and just kind

of ask some of the context behind it.

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[Page Exhibit No. 9
Was marked for identification.]
BY MS. SHEN:

So, for exhibit 9, I believe, if you can direct your
attention to the bottom of the page. So I'm looking at the
second-to-last text on July 18th at 16:54.

Okay. So that text reads and I believe this text is sent from
you --

A Oh, no, I don't think so.

Oh, I'm sorry. The first text is 

A Yeah.

Sorry. The first text is sent by Mr. Strzok, and it reads:
And fuck the cheating mother-Fucking Russians . Bastards . I hate them.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

And in response, you write: I'm sorry. Me too.

Ms. Page, do you recall sending that text?

A The "me too"? Yeah.

The "me too," yes. And do you recall under what
circumstances that exchange was sent? Was there any particular
context or issue that it was responding to?

A I honestly don't remember. But I do always hate the
Russians, so 

Okay.

Has Mr. Strzok ever communicated to you in other instances his

hatred for the Russians?

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A Uh-huh, yes. I mean, most everybody who works
counterintelligence at the FBI has pretty strong feelings aboutthe
Russian Federation. So this is not an unusually held view.

Okay. So, generally speaking, at the FBI, you've heard
other instances across the agency where agents or officials have
expressed their hatred for the Russians as well?

A Russia poses the most severe existential threat to Western
democracy in the world. So for those of us who care about democracy
and for those of us who think America is great, we have pretty strong
feelings about the Russians.

Okay. Thank you.

[Page Exhibit No. 19
Was marked for identification.]
BY MS. SHEN:

I'd now like to introduce another text message from
July 315t, 2616, as exhibit 10. And if you can direct your attention
to the top of the page this time -- I'm sorry, let me correctthat.
The first text message would be July 36th, 2616.

A Uh?huh.

So I believe that first text message is from you, correct?

A That's right, yes.

So a portion redacted. So ends the sentence: Hate them.
I think they're probably the worst. Very little I find redeeming about
this even in history. A couple of good writers and artists I guess.

And then redaction.

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In response to that, Mr. Strzok responds, with a redaction:
Fucking conniving, cheating savages at statecraft, athletics, you name
it. I'm glad on I'm Team USA.

Okay. Ms. Page, do you recall writing those texts?

A I do.

Okay. And do you recall any particular context those texts

were made around?

A I don't.
So 
A I mean, this is we've just opened or, you know, we're

about to open the Russia investigation, so it is very much, you know,
on the forefront of all of our minds. So it would not surprise me if
it's a reflection of that. But, as I said, this is an enduring
sentiment for people who are in the intelligence community.

Well, in the intelligence community, I imagine there
are you know, there are countries other than Russia who engage in
espionage efforts. And so 

A There are countries other than Russia who engage in espionage
efforts, but there are probably no other countries who are more
singularly focused on the destruction of Western ideals around the
world.

So it's true, other countries engage in espionage, and other
countries steal, and other countries lie. But I wouldn't say that

other countries do it the way that Russia does it and have as a goal,

sort of, creating fractions within the Western alliance in order to,

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you know, ascend to dominance the way that Russia does.

So would it be fair to say that Russia's espionage efforts
are just far more of a threat to the U.S. national security than some
other countries' espionage efforts?

A They are one of our most pernicious and dangerous threats.

Okay.

In Mr. Strzok's text, he refers to them as, quote, "cheating."
We're in an unclassified setting, so I wouldn't want to go there, but
can you describe some examples of what he may be referring to or just
generally what Russia has done to be cheating?

A Well, I mean, look at the doping scandals in the Olympic
Committee stuff. Look at the effort to get the World Cup ileussia
that was just recently completed. I mean, they cheat.

And in terms of statecraft, again, in unclassified setting,
are there certain examples of Russian statecraft that you find, you
know, particularly egregious?

A I mean, not beyond what I've already, sort of, attempted to
describe.

And then the last comment, Mr. Strzok, he says: I'm glad I'm
on Team USA.

Would you agree that, for example, investigating the Russians for
their attempts to interfere with the U.S. election wouldtxean example
of being on Team 

A Right. I mean, this is just being proud about being

Americans. Right? We want to spread American values and American

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democracy around the world, and we think that we live in the best country
in the world. And so this is simply a statement of pride and one that
is in contrast to the way that the Russian Federation operates.

So, last Friday, the special counsel's investigation, it
became public that they indicted 12 members of the Russiann?litary
intelligence, the GRU. Are you familiar with the report?

A I read about it, yes.

Okay. The GRU, they are Russian military intelligence,
which means President Putin would be in charge of them. Is that
correct?

A That's my understanding.

And so any attempts that the Russian military intelligence
would have of interfering with the U.S. Presidential election,
President Putin would be aware of that. Do you believe that to be true?

A Ask me that question again, please.

Okay. Sorry. I'll rephrase. Would President Vladimir
Putin be aware of any attempts the GRU had in interfering with the U.S.
Presidential election?

A I'm -- President Putin is the President of his country and
certainly is in charge of his intelligence apparatus.

Okay.

A I don't want to answer that question with more specificity.

Fair enough. I think the point I'm just 

A Okay.

getting at is that, as the President of Russia, he would

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be the head of the Russian military intelligence.

A I would agree with that.

Okay.

So, actually, just earlier today, reports have come out from
President Trump's meeting, summit with President Putin, and I'm just
going to read to you from a Washington Post article from 12:49anL
today.

So the title of the article is "Putin Again Denies Russian
Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election. Trump Calls Probe aIDisaster
for Our Country."

50 thearticle reads: After Putin said his government played no
role in trying to sabotage the U.S. election, Trump offered no pushback
and went on to condemn the Justice Department's investigation of
Russian interference as, quote, a disaster for our country.

Ms. Page, do you believe that the Justice Department's
investigation of Russian interference is a disaster for our country?

A I do not.

Okay.

So it goes on to say: Putin insisted publicly that the, quote,
Russian state has never interfered and is not going to interferein
internal American affairs, unquote. And Trump declined to dispute
these assertions, instead saying that Putin, quote, has an interesting
idea, unquote, about the issue of interference.

Now,le. Page, it is my understanding that thelJ.S. intelligence

community unanimously concluded that the Russian state did attempt to

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interfere in the U.S. 2016 Presidential election. Is that also your
understanding?

A Yes, it is.

Okay. And, Ms. Page, are you inclined to believe Putin's
denial that Russia ever interfered, or are you inclined to believe in
the U.S. intelligence community's assessment?

A As a part of the -- as a former part of the U.S. intelligence
community, I will go with the intelligence community assessment.

Okay. Thank you.

Later in the article, it also says: Trump says that he holds,
quote, both countries responsible, unquote, for the frayed relations
between the two nations and attacked Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller
investigation.

Ms. Page, do you believe that the United States is responsible
for the frayed relations between the United States and Russia?

A Well, we're responsible to the extent we're not going to
accept their meddling in a U.S. election. I suppose 50.

Okay. Well, would you blame Robert Mueller's investigation
for frayed relations with Russia?

A No.

Okay.

And this is the last one, I promise. The article also goes on
to say: In response to the questions, Trump said that both countries
were to blame for the deterioration of relations. Quote, I do feel

that we have both made mistakes. He added that, quote, there was no

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collusion, unquote, between his campaign and Russia, and he lamented
that the special counsel's investigation into the matter has had an
impact on U.S.?Russian relations. Quote, I think the probe has been
a disaster for our country, unquote. He said, quote, it's ridiculous,
what's going on with the probe, unquote.

Ms. Page, are you aware of anything ridiculous going on in Special
Counsel Mueller's probe?

A No.

Okay. Thank you. I think that's all I have.

BY MS. KIM:

I think this might be the last tranche of questions I have
for you, Ms. Page. I'd like to ask you about Director Comey.

You spoke earlier in general terms about Special Counsel Mueller.
Can you explain to me how long you worked in proximity with Director
Comey?

A So it would cover the span of time that I worked for Deputy
Director McCabe. So, prior to February 2016, I certainly had
interactions with Mr. Comey, but, once I started working -For Mr. McCabe
in the context of Mr. McCabe being Deputy Director, myinteractions
with Mr. Comey became far more frequent.

And can you describe for me Mr. Comey's general character
and honesty as you understood themenormous integrity. I am a better lawyer and
a better person for having, sort of, learned from his examples. He

is obviously an extraordinary communicator, but he's also just a very

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good person and is thoughtful about how to approach problems andis
a man of unassailable integrity, in my view.

To your knowledge, has Director Comey ever lied to you?

A No.

Are you personally aware of any instances where Director
Comey was shown to have lied or been knowingly untruthful?

A Never.

Overall, do you have any reason to doubt the accuracy of
Director Comey' oral or written representations of the facts from when
he was the FBI Director?

A No, not at all.

Have you followed the recent press coverage of Director
Comey's public descriptions of his meetings with President Trump?

A Yes.

(Q And you said you had -- usually you had -- you have firsthand
knowledge oleirector Comey's memoranda that he kept to document those
meetings. Is that correct?

A So I either in one or two instances was present for his
initial retelling of the meeting, and in most other instances Iums
provided with his memo to review in real-time, like, shortly after his
production of those memos.

Have you noted any discrepancies between Director Comey's
contemporaneous recollections of the facts on one hand and his public
representation of those facts on the other hand?

A No.

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Are you generally familiar with Director Comey's testimony
to the Senate Intelligence Committee about his interactions with
President Trump?

A I am.

Do you have any reason to believe that Director Comey did
not -- I'm sorry, let me put that in the affirmative. Do you believe
that Director Comey accurately shared with Senate Intelligence
Committee his memory of his interactions with President Trump?

A Absolutely, yes.

I imagine you are fairly familiar with the inspector
general's report. Is that correct?

A I have not read it all. I hope to never do so. But I am
familiar with parts of it, yes.

On June 16th, President Trump tweeted: The 16 report
totally destroys James Comey and all of his minions, including the great
lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who started the disgraceful witch
hunt against so many:innocent people. It will go down as a dark and
dangerous period in American history.

To your knowledge, did the inspector general's report contain any
information discrediting the special counsel's probe?

A No.

And are you aware of the inspector general's report
destroying anything about Director Comey's ability to testify as a
witness in the special counsel's probe?

A No.

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Ms. Kim; I think that ends our questioning for this round.
Thank you.

[Recess.]

Mr. Ratcliffe. All right. Back on the record.

So, Ms. Page, when we left off, I was asking you well, I asked
you a question based on the answer that you'd given, and I asked you
whether a decision had been made to charge Hillary Clinton not to
charge Hillary Clinton before or after her July 2nd, 2016, interview.
And your first answer was before. You said something to the effect
of, because every person I'm paraphrasing because virtually
every person on the Midyear Exam team had concluded that sheumsn't
going to be charged.

And then 

[Phone ringing.]

Mr. Meadows. You can tell a lot about a man by his ringtone.

Ms. Page; Will it say "boing, boing? on the transcript?

Mr. Ratcliffe. But then, in fairness to you, Ms. Page, you
qualified that a little bit and said, well, a final?final decision was
made after. I want to give you a chance to be clear.

Ms. Egg So the word -- and I don't mean to be overly lawyerly,
but it comes naturally, so forgive me. The word "decision"suggests
the finality. And my only point is that before the July 2nd interview
the uniform view was that there was not sufficient evidence to bring
any charges against Hillary Clinton.That?s not a final decision,

because it's not a final decision. But to that point, there was

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insufficient evidence to charge her with any crime. And that was
uniformly agreed to by both the FBI individuals involved and the DOJ
individuals involved.

But that, certainly, in the event, unlikely was our estimation,
but in the event that there was some admission or some other revelation
which changed our assessment, we were all open to that possibility.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Right. But you talked about you started your
answer before about, "to be candid," and I think that's an important
word, because "candor" has a specific meaning when you're talking about
an FBI agent, right? Candor and lack of candor?

Ms. Everybody at the Department has an obligation to
candor, yes.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Right . And you gave a very long explanation for,
you know, the decision and before, and you made reference to the
discussions. We know this went all the way back to a memo at least,
a memo drafted by Director Comey on May the 2ndc?32916. And there
were multiple drafts and a lot of conversation. All of that, right?

Ms. gage; That's correct.

Mr. Ratcliffe. What is a lack of candor for what does that
mean in the context of anyone associated with the FBI when they're
talking to an investigator?

Ms. Eagg, That they're being untruthful?

Mr. Ratcliffe. A lack of candor?

Ms. Rage; Yeah. A lack of candor means that they're being

untruthful.

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Mr. Ratcliffe. Oh, untruthful. I thought you said being
truthful.

Ms. Rage; Oh, no. Sorry.

Mr. Ratcliffe. I'm sorry. I misheard you.

Ms. That's okay. That's okay. Yeah.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Or that they're leaving out material facts,
right? Only telling part of the story?

Ms. Sure. Yes.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. Okay.

The reason I ask is I asked that same question that I asked of
you, that you gave a very long explanation, went into great detail about
a great many factors that impacted it, I asked that same question to
Director Comey under oath, did you make the decision before or after,
and his answer was after.

He didn't explain it at all. He didn't qualify it at all. He
didn't give any context to it. He didn't discuss number of decisions.
He didn't say, well, we made it after but everyone had concluded long
before.

Do you have any reason to give me any explanation or justification
for why Director Comey wouldn't have given that information to
congressional investigators or while under oath to Members of Congress?

Ms. Rage; I don't know, sir.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay.

Ms. Eagg; I can't answer that.

Mr. Ratcliffe. We were talking about the tarmac meeting, as

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well. And I was asking you about this email on June the 30th of 2916
that related to Bill Priestap. And you gave me the context that it
was, to use your words, of being a little bit unkind.

But I did want to ask, the reference to what we would do in ordinary
circumstance, in parentheses Peter Strzok says, "Easy, refer to 
which you and I both think is "public corruption." Was he makingza
joke there? I'm just trying to find out --

Ms. age; Yeah. I mean, I think that you have to take this whole
text in the, sort of, somewhat snarky tone in which it's intended.
Because there's nothing to do, right? Like, as I sort of described
already, the investigation is what the investigation is. It is
virtually over. We have seen what the evidence fails to, sort of,
demonstrate.

And so I think, as I said and I'm certainly not, sort of, proud
of this, but I think that it's more a reflection of, "Oh, gosh, he's
worrying again" 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Right.

Ms. and this is, sort of, not a basis to be worried
about. And so I think that's why you have the, like --

Mr. Ratcliffe. Right. And all --

Ms. flippant responses at the end.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. And all of that is somewhat reinforced by
the text message that we've talked about before that you sent the next
day on July about: She's not exactly a profile in courage because

she knows that Hillary Clinton is not going to be charged.

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Ms. Rage; Right. I think they're of a kind.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Yeah.

But, nevertheless, this tarmac meeting, obviously it generated
a lot of attention. And, again, the reason that the Director said that
he did the unprecedented step of acting as investigator and prosecutor
on July the 5th and, she said, cast a shadow.

The day after you sent the profile-in?courage text message was
July 2nd, which was the interview of Hillary Clinton, correct?

Ms. Eagg, This says the here, but I take you at 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Yeah, I think 

Ms. Page. -- that you have you know, I know some of them are
in UTC and some of them aren't, so I yeah.

Mr. Ratcliffe. I'll represent to you that it occurred on
Saturday, July the 2nd of 2916.

Ms. Rage; Okay.

Mr. Ratcliffe. And I've only got one copy of this, but I've got
a document I want to show you and just -- it's essentially, I think
you'd call it an LHM, or a letterhead memorandum, which is a summary
of -- supposed to be a summary of the interview based on the 3925 of
the people that were in the room.

Ms. P_agg._ It's a summary of, sort of, the investigation, of, sort
of, all the investigative steps and what we found.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Yeah. But specifically in connection with her

interview on July the 2nd of 2616.

Ms. Page. Okay.

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Mr. Ratcliffe. Yeah. Well, I mean, you look at did you play
a role in preparing that?

Ms. Rage; I 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Because there were some text messages, I thought,
where you --

Ms. Eagg; Yeah. 50 I did not play a role in preparing it. We
went through, like, 52 billion drafts of this thing, like, from?a"
to "the" to, you know, like, all kinds of changes, because we wanted
to be as perfect as we could get it. So I am certain I am on a jillion
drafts as well. I am not positive I ever read the entire thing. I
started to a couple of times, but other things 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. Well, I went through it, and I read it a
couple times, and I'll represent to you that the word "tarmac" doesn't
appear in there or "Loretta doesn't appear in there. And I 

Ms. Eagg, That makes sense to me.

Mr. Ratcliffe. It does?

Ms. P_age_. That's not -- yes. So, I mean, I believe you. I have
no way to disagree with you. But those were not investigative steps.
This was not designed to, sort of, be every single thing that happened
during the course of the Clinton email investigation. This is designed
to be an assessment of what the FBI did and what the FBI found. And
the tarmac incident doesn't really play a role with respect to those
two things.

Mr. Ratcliffe. So -- and that's your opinion. You're entitled

to it. I just want to be clear, though. So, if a meeting took place

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5 days before the interview that everyone in the country is talking
about, in terms of it being inappropriate, casting a shadow, calling
for a quasi-recusal, that involves the husband of the subject of the
investigation and the boss of five people from the Department of Justice
that are in the room, you think it's not unusual that someone wouldn't
ask a question of the subject of the investigation about that meeting
that had occurred 5 days before in public view?

Ms. Bagg, Well, so that's not what you asked me. You askedrma
why it wasn't in here. And so that's, sort of, my reflection of why
that statement isn't in here.

With respect to why they didn't ask her -- you're askinguuhy the
prosecutors didn't ask her a question in the interview? I can't answer
that except that Mr. it kind of goes to the point I was making
earlier. If we were close to charging her and then suddenly this tarmac
meeting happens and now we are not going to charge her, then I agree
with you, and then we have a serious controversy on our hands.

But I guess I just don't I fully understand and remember and
appreciate the firestormit created. I completely agree with you on
that. But if there was 6.0 percent evidence the day before the tarmac
meeting and there's 6.9 percent evidence the day after the tarmac
meeting, it doesn't change anything. It's a terrible optic, but it
doesn't change the outcome of the investigation.

So I was not a part of a decision to ask or not ask. I didn't
review the outlines with respect to whether to ask or not ask. I don't

know who made the decision whether to ask or not ask. I'm just saying,

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in my opinion, it's not that weird to me. I'm not sure what you would
get out of that question.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Well, I guess 

Ms. Rage; Because there still wasn't sufficient evidence to
charge her.

Mr. Ratcliffe. what you'd get if the stated premise that
everyone seems to have given is that she's not going to be charged unless
she lies in her interview, she can't lie if she isn't asked the
questions.

Ms. But she wasn't at this meeting. Her husband was.

Mr. Ratcliffe. I 

Ms. Rage; Right? So what is --

Mr. Ratcliffe. I guess you could confirm that if you asked her,
just like you could confirm what they talked about and whether or not
there was any number of discussions.

Anyway, you're entitled to your opinion. I just wanted to ask
you about it because I'd seen something in these text messagesthat
indicate that you were involved in this.

And do you recall some'text messages with Agent Strzok about some
of the 3025 being inflammatory and not letting Congress havethose?

Ms. gage; Yes.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. What do you recall about that?

Ms. Rage; So that was when we were starting our production of
the materials that Congress had requested. So it's not so much -- and,

ultimately, they were all turned over anyway. They were emails which

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were or emails, excuse me. They were 3025 which were -- didn't
ultimately speak to any of the evidence that we found. They were
inflammatory, they were certainly --

Mr. Ratcliffe. What do you recall about them? How were they
inflammatory? Because I don't know that they have been turned over.

Ms. So one is the quid pro quo. I mean, that we've
gone -- that's gone, sort of, to the end of the Earth, the Brian -- what
was his last name? McCauley maybe?

So this was the claim -- sorry. I haven't thought about this in
a while, so I don't want to get this wrong. So this was the claim that,
very early in the Clinton -- in the shortly after opening the
investigation -- no. Sorry. Before that. Sorry, let me think about
this for a second.

When the State Department was first, I think, complying with
either their something and had first determined that there may
be classified information among the emails which had been collected,
there was an allegation that Patrick Kennedy, who was then the Under
Secretary for Management, I think, at the State Department, had reached
out to Brian McCauley, I think is his last name but I could be getting
it wrong -- who was an executive in our International Operations
Division, and had essentially -- the allegation was that if McCauley
could get the classification of this particular document changed, that
the FBI could get the legat spots that they'wanted at certain embassies
or something like that. I don't I might be getting some of this

wrong.

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And so that had been investigated. I think both individuals had
been interviewed by the FBI. The classification of the document never
changed. The legat spots were never granted. And so it was sort of
a wash.

So the point was we were trying to prioritize the 3025 and the
documents which actually went to the underlying decision not to
prosecute. Those wereru?2those. And so, in terms of having limited
resources and trying to prioritize the things which would be most
salient to Congress' review of our investigation, the McCauley
stuff -- there was something else; I can't remember now what itis.
But the, sort of, sideshow things that didn't actually affect what the
outcome was or what the evidence was in the investigation were, sort
of, deprioritized.

So, mean, that's all that's meant to reflect, ultimately. It's
obviously a text message, so it doesn't have all of that context and

background, but that's what that's a reflection of.

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[3:11 

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. I want to go back the Comey memos that we
were talking about. And you were relating sort of the process that
you and Andy McCabe and others, apparently, would have a conversation
with Director Comey about the material and what became his memosas
a readout.

Did I miss anyone besides you and Andy McCabe?

Ms. Eage, It's a very small number.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. Who else can you think of?

Ms. I think the Director's testimony was Jim
Rybicki -- and this is from memory, so it's in some hearing transcript
somewhere JinIRybicki, Mr. McCabe,lWr. Ghattas, maybelWr. Bowdich,
and myself.

There may have been one or two other times in which one or two
other people may have been aware of a particular hearing a readout
of a particular memo I'm sorry; let me correct one thing. The one
exception to the list I just provided was that Mr. Comey did brief his
senior Crossfire Hurricane team of the meeting in early January when
he's there with Clapper and Brennan and the rest of the Admiral
Rogers, and the head of the -- the leaders of the intelligence community
briefing himcn1the intelligence community's assessment of the Russian
interference and the Russia active measures report.

The memo that he drafted following that meeting, in which he
also is that public? let me stop there -- the memo that he drafted,

he did brief the sort of senior Crossfire team of the events.

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We had talked about it in advance of that meeting, and he gave
a readout of, you know, a debrief following that meeting. So that's
the only exception in terms of the Comey memos that had a more expanded
personnel list, to my knowledge.

Mr. Ratclifte. Okay. And so was the discussion -- before you
had talked about, and you said, when, you know, when we talk about
concerns that the Director had were those concerns about the topics
that the President was talking about, or were they concerns about the
President?

Ms. Page; I don't know what you'retalking about. I'm sorry.
What do you mean? What concerns I had?

Mr. Ratcliffe. Giving the answer, you said he would bring us
together to talk about from his meetings with the
President concerns that came about.

And I'm wondering were they concerns about topics that the
President was talking about, or was the concern the President?

Ms. Pig; Well, I only recall being I think I was only present
for one other than the January one about the ICA, I think:I was only
present for one meeting in1~hich he kind of had described what had just
transpired. I don't remember which one that was of the memos that I've
read and was privy to. I just don't remember which particular one I
was present for. I just remember being present for one of them.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. Well, do you remember I asked you before
about an obstruction of justice as a topic, and you gave ananswer,

and then you came back and said: I need to take my answer back.

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Ms. That answer back, yeah.

Mr. Ratcliffe. But generally talked about certain matters, I
guess. Let me ask you this: I asked you the other day about a text
message that Peter Strzok sent you the day that Jim Comey got-fired
where he said: And we need to open the case we've been waiting on now
while Andy is acting.

And you explained: It didn't have anything to douuith when Andy
was acting, but the case we were waiting on.

Is that the same information that's reflected in some of the Comey

memos?18Usc924c@@

Ms. Eagg; Just a moment, please.

[Discussion off the record.]

Ms. gage, Mr. Ratcliffe, I'm sure this is going to be an
unsatisfying answer, but I have reviewed all the Comey memos, as I said,
I have read most of them in real time, at the time that they were written.
I don't have any basis to disagree with the claims made in the Comey
memos, but with respect to what steps we may or may not have taken,
based either on those claims or following the Director's firing,on
advice of FBI counsel, I can't answer that at this time.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. Your inability to answer tells me a lot.
And what it tells me is inconsistent. And what I'm trying to get at,
it is inconsistent with what Jim Comey has admitted that he told the
President, I think, that he wasn't under investigation during that
timeframe.

Maybe --
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Ms. Eagg; That is not inconsistent, sir.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. So he wasn't under investigation, but
that doesn't mean there was a discussion going on about potential crimes
involving the FBI Director's senior leadership team. That's what
you're telling us?

Ms. P_age_. I am not telling you that . But the statement, if taken
as a hypothetical, somebody could not be under investigation, but there
still could be-discussions about potential criminal activity, and that
is totally consistent with FBI policies and would not be unusual with
respect to any investigation.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Except the unusual part about memorializing it
in memos that hadn't been done with other Presidents, right?

Ms. Eagg; I don't know what you're asking me. I'm sorry. How
do you -- what?

Mr. Meadows. Well, let me follow up, if you don't mind.

Are you aware of any other time that Director Comey memorialized
conversations with President Obama?

Ms. I think he has testified that he did not do that.
That's correct.

Mr. Meadows. Okay. And so did you not find it unique that he
would be memorializing these conversations, and they weren't in
totality of the all the conversations you had, but he memorialized these
particular conversations. Did you not find that unique?

Ms. I think that he did memorialize all of his

conversations with 

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Mr. Meadows. President-elect.

Ms. Rage; President-elect or President Trump. I think that's
been his testimony. I wouldn't have known that he did or didn?tdo
it beforehand, to be honest with you. So I don't know that I can answer
your question.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Did Director Comey have any conversations with
you about the purpose behind him creating these memos?

Ms. No.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. Did Andy McCabe create any memos?

Ms. Yes.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Tell us about those.

Ms. I can't do that, sir.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. Without I'm going to respect -- try and
respect as much of this as I can, but given the fact that you've
acknowledged that there were memos or at least a memo, I want to find
out as mucrlas I can about the timing and the circumstances of it, even
if you won't disclose the content of it.

So, first of all, let me ask you, are you aware of the content
of the memo or memos?

Ms. I am.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Nere'you involved in the preparation of the memo
or memos?

Ms. Rage; I reviewed some of them, probably not all, but some
of them, mostly for like spelling and typographical things before he

finalized them.

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Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. You say "them," so there were multiple
memos. Do you know approximately how many memos?

Ms. Page, Let's be more specific about memos with whom, if we
could.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Memos with respect to President Trump.

Ms. Page, Just meetings with President Trump?

Mr. Ratcliffe. Just what?

Ms. Page, Just meetings with President Trump?

Mr. Ratcliffe. Meetings, conversations, interactions,
communications.

Ms. With the President?

Mr. Ratcliffe. With President Trump?

Ms. P_ag& There's a very small number. I'm not certain, but one
or two. I'm not certain.

Mr. Ratcliffe. And can you tell me anything about the timing of
thoselmemos? When they'were created and the circumstances under'which
they were created, without getting into the content?

Ms. Page, With respect to those one or two, to the best of my
recollection, he would have created them shortly in time following
whatever interaction he may have had.

Mr. Ratcliffe. And was it his interaction necessarily or could
it have been memos about I'm trying to find out, again, the timing
of this. Is this sort of related to the firing of Jim Comey or other
events?

Ms. Page. I'm sorry. Ask me that question again.

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Mr. Ratcliffe. I'm just trying to determine the context of now
what I'm going to refer to as the McCabe memos and when they were created
and what the circumstances of the McCabe memos were.

So can you give me a when was the first McCabe memo created,
if you can give me the general timeframe and the circumstances under
which it was created.

Ms. Egg I honestly, I could not guess at a date. I do not think
that the Deputy Director had any interactions with the Presidentof
the United States until after he became the Acting Director.

-Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay.

Ms. But that is my I am-speculating about that, as I
sit here today.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. You're not certain about that.

Do you knOW\~hether or not there were memos during the
Obama Administration?

Ms. Rage; Not to my knowledge I'm sorry. Memorializing
interaction with President Obama?

Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes.

Ms. No, not to my knowledge.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. What's your understanding of why Deputy
Director or Acting Director McCabe generated a memo or memos
memorializing his interactions with President Trump?

I'nlnot really crazy'about speaking-for'them. I would
say, in general, that an FBI agent memorializes the substance of a

conversation when he thinks there is a reason to memorialize it, whether

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it is the substance, whether it is the circumstances of the meeting,
whether it is the nature of the interaction.

We write something down when it seems worth writing down.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Were the McCabe memos ever disclosed outside the
FBI, to your knowledge?

Ms. Rage; Not outside the Department, to my knowledge.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Would the special counsel have access to the
McCabe memos?

Ms. I -- yes.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Would the McCabe memos be relevant to the matters
that the special counsel is investigating?

Ms. gage; Yes.

Mr. Ratcliffe. You mentioned that there were other memos
that -- I'm not sure I understood. These ones that we're talking about
related to his interactions with the President, but you intimated that
there were other McCabe memos that were responsive to my first
overarching question.

Can you tell me what those memos relate to? How you would
characterize those?

Ms. Mr. McCabe memorialized certain interactions with
either White House personnel or others when there was something
noteworthy to memorialize, sir.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Did either Deputy Director McCabe or Acting
Director McCabe, whatever capacity, did he discuss the memos, to your

knowledge with Jim Comey?

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Ms. EaggL Certainly, the ones that were written before the
Director was fired, I would expect 50. He would not havediscussed
them, any memos that he drafted after the Director was fired because
the Director was no longer a government employee.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Based on public reports, Acting Director McCabe
interviewed with President Trump for the position of Director of the
FBI on or about May 18th of 2617.

Do you know if first of all, do you know if Acting Director
McCabe discussed the McCabe memos or the Comey memos or disclosed the
existence of either to President Trump in that interview?

Ms. Eagg; I, I don't think -- I don't know.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Did you have a conversation with Acting Director
McCabe about his interview with the President?

Ms. I did.

Mr. Ratcliffe. His interview for the position of FBI Director?

Ms. Page; Yes.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Nhat generally did he relate to you about the
interview that you may recall?

Ms. Bagg; I'm sorry, sir. I'm not going to go into the details
of those conversations at this time.

Mr. Ratcliffe. For what stated reason?

Ms. Page; Because I have no idea what among the memos that
Mr. McCabe drafted is of investigative utility or not to the special
counsel, and so because I have no knowledge of that, I can't start

parsing some parts of the content and -- versus others.

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Mr. ?a_ke_r; When Mr. McCabe was just regular Deputy Director, did
he ever keep any memos from conversations or interactions he had with
Director Comey?

Ms. Eagg; He did not keep memos, but he obviously took notes,
you know, during the course of his duties.

Mr. ?gkgr; Okay.

Mr. Meadows. Let me, Lisa, may Ick)a followup from previously?

When we talked about the dossier's existence came into your
knowledge in mid?September, it's, I think, been reported, but also
during testimony, that there was a number of different versions of
different memos, I guess, that became aware -- that the FBI became aware
of. Is that correct?

Ms. Not memos but of the reports that are called the
dossier.

Mr. Meadows. Yeah.

Ms. Eagg; Yeah, I'm 

Mr. Meadows. Yeah, I'm not following up on his.

Ms. gage; Okay.

Mr. Meadows. But as we now know is the dossier because it had
a number of different reports there.

Ms. gage, My understanding is that, if there are -- I'm going
to make this up if there are 26 reports that the FBI received from
Christopher Steele, I've completely made that number up 

Mr. Meadows. Right.

Ms. Page. -- I'm just using it for example's sake.

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If there are 26 reports that the FBI received from Christopher
Steele at various times and from various individuals, people,other
government employees, wherever, the FBI has received certain subsets
of that 20.

So, from one person, we might have received 11; from another

person, we might have received 14. I'm again, I'm just doing this

for example's sake but, yes, it is my understanding that the~FBI
has received from various sources -- not confidential human
sources but from various places --

Mr. Meadows. Right.

Ms. -- varied subsets of the, quote-unquote, "dossier."

Mr. Meadows. So, when that happened, and we started to look at
that, and obviously, you've got mid?September through the third week
in October when a FISA application is actually issued on Carter Page,
did you receive multiple sources between the mid?September, orwere
the multiple sources after the original FISA application?

Ms. I think after.

Mr. Meadows. Okay. So did you communicate that or was that
outlined in the followup FISA applications that you might have gotten
additional 

Ms. I'm not sure -- that's my point -- I'm not sure any
were additional.

Mr. Meadows. Right, but as a subset, but they were different.
50, I mean here is 

Ms. Page. No, that's 

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Mr. Meadows. 50 what you're saying is they were all consistent;
it just was part it --

Ms. Rage, Duplicative. Right so 

Mr. Meadows. Let's say there were 16 different items, you might
have gotten 11 from this source and 16 from this, but they wereeall
consistent is what you're saying?

Ms. Rage; That's my recollection, yes.

Mr. Meadows. All right.

Ms. Eagg; So it's not as though, if we had 20, and Joe Smith
provided us with 11, all 11 were within the 20 we had. It is not as
though one of them was new to us out of the original 26. That's my --

Mr. Meadows. Right.

Ms. Rage; I guess I should hedge this, though, because I'm not
looking at any of these. That's my understanding based on what had
been briefed to Director Comey or otherwise. I never looked at any
of the nonofficial sources-?

Mr. Meadows. Right.

Ms. gage; -- of the dossier.

We got the set of the reports that we got from Christopher Steele,
our confidential human source. That was sort of the authoritative set
that we cared about.

To the extent we got chunks or subsets from other people, we
collected them, but 

Mr. Meadows. At what point did you start to get concerned that

there may be some potential credibility issues as it relates toumo

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may have paid for the work? Did you ever?

Ms. Rage; Me 

Mr. Meadows. I mean, because we know that, on January 16th of
2617, they were still, according to Peter Strzok's email to you.and
others, that they were unverified still at that particular point.

Ms. Rage; So, let's let there's a lot 

Mr. Meadows. January 10th.

Ms. Rage; There's a lot packed inthere, though. So, to your
first question, when did I get concerned?

I'm not sure that I ever actually had a concern. And tiwereason
is that, with respect to the certainly the first FISA I think
we had an understanding that Steele had first been engaged by a
Republican opposition but by I'm not going to be able to describe
it better, and I hope I'm not --

Mr. Meadows. Somebody opposite of Trump.

Ms. gage; Exactly. By a Republican who is seeking opposition
research. And then, after that person had dropped out I didn't know
who but after that had sort of fallen away, that the engagement
continued for the Democrats.

So that was sort of a wash, as far as I'm concerned. There wasn't,
in my view, a political motive that affected the --

Mr. Meadows. No, the one political narrative is that they were
all against Donald Trump. That would be the consistent theme there.

Ms. Rage; Right.

Mr. Meadows. Whether it was for Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz, they

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were all consistently against Donald Trump.

Ms. That's right. But because of the person that
Christopher Steele was and the -- both his --

Mr. Meadows. Because he was credible from before when you worked
with him.

Ms. P_age_. Exactly. And this was not a source of consternation,
in my view.

Mr. Meadows. 50 let me drill down. And specifically, Mike
Kortan and media contacts, potential media contacts, at what point did
that become a concern as it relates to Christopher Steele and some of
the communication that was not just a couple? It seemed to be
widespread.

Ms. P_age_. Right. 50 we were very concerned about the existence
and the content of Steele's reporting leaking. We were very concerned
about.

Mr. Meadows. In fact, did you not verify that he had leaked? I
mean, today, if you were to --

Ms. Rage, Let me -- hold on. I'm sorry. One second.

Mr. Meadows. Go ahead. Sorry.

Ms. Rage, No, no. At some point, December-ish, I think,
maybe well, maybe earlier than that, maybe November. Mike Kortan,
the head of our Public Affairs Office, does start to inform the team
that there are more outlets asking him about this.

Do you have it?

What is it?

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Have you heard of this?

Because the existence of these reports is starting to sort of
circulate in Washington circles. And I remember the team discussing,
as a collective sort of saying, like, how our singular focus wasto
not confirm that we had them because then we knew that the press couldn't
necessarily report on the substance of the allegations becausethey
were so inflammatory.

Mr. Meadows. Right.

Ms. But if they wanted to report in a way that would be
less inflammatory, they could simply say: The FBI has reports that
say blahbadee, blahbadee, blah.

So our single focus was to make sure they could not do that.

And with some regularity Kortan would inform us that this news
outlet or that news outlet had asked him: Do you have these? Do you
know about them?

And we just had a resolute "no comment" because we did not want
to allow the opportunity that we did have these to even allow that to
be the news story.

So --

Mr. Meadows. So was Mike Kortan's acknowledgment that this
potentially could have been happening with Christopher Steele, was that
part of the decision to not reimburse Christopher Steele, as has been
reported, or pay him for part of the work as a confidential human source?

Ms. I don't know what you'retalking about. I'm sorry.

Mike so Christopher Steele was never he came to us and gave us

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this information. We didn't, we didn't 

Mr. Meadows. So there was never an indication to reimburse him
for his expenses or anything else.

Ms. Rage; No, no, we reimbursed him for his --

Mr. Meadows. Pay him for his time?

Ms. his travel expenses.

Mr. Meadows. Pay him for his time?

Ms. Eagg; No, not to my knowledge.

Mr. Meadows. I can see my colleague from Texas getting anxious,
so I'm going to yield back.

Ms. I was going to say one other thing. One of the other
things you said sort of unverified, salacious. And so that's true,
and I can't get into sort of the substance of what we did, but
immediately, I mean as soon as we received the reporting from Steele
in mid?September, we set about trying to prove or disprove every single
factual statement in the dossier.

And so, and we had line level who are super experts on
Russia, try to pick apart each statement and either try to prove its
veracity or prove its inaccuracy. And to the best of nw'knowledge,
we were never able to disprove any statement in it. So we were never
able to say: There's a claim about X, and that is untrue.

There are some statements for which we have never been able to
confirm or deny its veracity. But there are no statements contained
in the at least at the last time that the review is done, which is

now many months ago -- that we were able to demonstrate or show were

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demonstrably false.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Ms. Page, are you talking about the Woods file?

Ms. Rage, No. The Woods file is a document that accompanies a
FISA, which provides the basis for each statement contained therein.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Right. I've seen it.

Ms. Okay.

Mr. Ratcliffe. But I 

Ms. I'm not talking about the Woods file. I'm talking
about a separate effort that was undertaken in order to try to verify
for investigative purposes, not for purposes of the FISA, but a separate
effort undertaken to try to validate the allegations contained within
the Steele reporting.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. So what would that, what was the
name maybe I missed it. What was the name of that document?

Ms. Rage; There's no name.

Mr. Ratcliffe. If I were trying to locate that or ask for it to
be produced, what would I be asking for?

Ms. I mean, the efforts to validate the Steele reporting?
I don't know. It's not like a document. I mean, it is not a 

Mr. Meadows. I guess what he's saying isuuahave not seen these
documents yet. We've madeemultiple requests. 50 I guess how can you
help us home in on where those requests may or may not be?

Mr. Ratcliffe. And the reason I mentioned the Woods file is
because I have seen the Woods file because I've wanted --

Ms. Page. The Woods file is different.

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Mr. Ratcliffe. And I understand that, but I thought maybe you
were talking about it without naming it. So, if there's another
document out there that attempts to do something similar, it sounds
like 

Ms. No, I don't it is not that similar. Every single
FISA that goes to the FISC has a Woods file.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Right.

Ms. Eagg, No matter the topic, no matter the subject, no matter
the threat.

The Woods file is part of the FISA process which is designed to
demonstrate that we have done due diligence with respect to the facts
supporting the FISA application. This is a sort of separaUeeffort
that investigative team undertook.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. Ms. Page, I have to -- I've had a chance
to ask you questions over'the last Friday and again today. I know I've
asked you some tough questions, but I want to get on the record, have
I been discourteous to you at all?

Ms. Rage, No, sir.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Have I given you the full opportunity to answer
or explain your answers?

Ms. Rage, Yes, sir.

Mr. Ratcli??e. And have I generally been fair in my questioning?

Ms. Yes.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Believe it or not, I'm asking that -- believe it

or not some folks might misrepresent houtwe conduct ourselves in here,

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and I want to get that on the record.

50 I thank you for your time.

Mr. Meadows. And I'm the gentleman from Boston has a couple
of questions for me, and you'll tell by his accent very quickly.

Mr. Brebbia. Hi. I'm Sean Brebbia, Oversight and Government

Reform, Majority.
Ms. Page; Sean?
Mr. Brebbia. Brebbia. 
BY MR. BREBBIA:

I show you an email between you and Peter Strzok from

October 18, 2616.
A I just want to take a second to start from the beginning and

look at it.

Sure. Please do.

A Okay.
Just beginning very basically, can you tell us a little bit

about what's being discussed here? The subject is 

A Am I allowed to I'm sorry. One second, please.
Ms. Bessee. May we confer?

Mr. Brebbia. Sure.

[Discussion off the record.]

Ms. Page. 50 I don't -- I can't -- I believe that I can answer

the question. I don't believe I can answer the question in an

unclassified setting.

Mr. Brebbia. Okay.

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Mr. Somers. But you could answer the question in a classified
setting?

Ms. Yes.

Mr. Brebbia. And FBI.

BY MR. BREBBIA:

Okay. Couple more. In this email, there's mention of
"they" editinga document. Subject of the email is "Re 

The document that's being discussed, did the - have any
involvement with preparing that document?

A There's no way I can answer that. I can't answer that it
in this. I'm sorry.

How about anyone at the White House? Anyone at the White
House have involvement in drafting that document?

A I can say, generally, I am not aware of the White House
ever -- in my personal knowledge, I've never been a part of any FISA
in which the White House has been involved?

And how about knowledge? Is there at the White
House -- anyone in the White House have knowledge of thatdocument?

A Not to my knowledge.

It probably makes more sense to take this up in classified
setting?

A I think so, sir.

Mr. Parmiter. Could I ask just a couple of followup questions
to some of the things you talked about with Mr. Ratcliffe?

You referred to a separate effort that was not the Woods file to

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validate allegations in the Steele reporting. I'm just kind of curious
as to the timeframe.

When did that sort of separate effort begin to corroborate the
Steele reporting, and when did it end?

Ms. It began immediately upon receiving the Steele
reporting. And I do not know when it ended.

BY MR. BAKER:

And what steps were taken to validate or refute any of the
points made in the document?

A I can't go into more detail about the specific efforts that
were taken, other than that herculean efforts were taken to try to prove
and -- or disprove or corroborate in any way the statements contained
in the Steele reporting.

Okay. Let's take the Steele reporting out of it.

If you were trying to validate points made in information given
from another source, would it be fair to say one of the techniques to

validate or disprove would be to task other sources?

So would you do everything and anything that's authorized,

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but that could include tasking other human sources to 
A Well, yes I guess it could, but think about really what you're

saying. If] havezadocument that says, "On January 25th of 2913, Joe

Smith and Sally Jones were at a restaurant," 
- that's a historical event- 

But if you have a source that owned the restaurant. I mean,
you could have a source that 

A If you 



And then you would get whatever answer then, certainly.

But more likely, I mean, so maybe you would 
I mean I'm making this
up, obviously, but the more expeditious and likely investigative
steps would be to look at what is 


Okay.

A And that would at least make that statement more likely to
be true or less likely to be true, depending on what you find.

Okay. Thank you.

BY MR. BREITENBACH:

You had indicated on Friday that there was an investigator

who had been brought over to the Special Counsel's Office prior to

Mr. Strzok being employed, but that that person was not a good-fit?

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A That's correct.

Who was that person?

A I think his name was John Brown.

And why do you think that the special counsel deemed
him Mr. John Brown, you said?

A I think that's his name, yeah.

Why do you think the special counsel deemed him not to be
a good fit?

A You would have to ask the special counsel.

So you're not aware of why he might have been removed 

A I'm not going to speculate.

-- from the team?

A No.

Why did you leave the Special Counsel's Office?

A I talked about this at length on Friday. When Mr. Mueller

first asked me to join, I was quite hesitant'UJdo so. It had been
an incredibly intense 2 years, and I have very young children at home.
And I wanted to be a better parent to them. And so I originally
demurred, and Mr. McCabe encouraged me to go and help out. And scaas
a sort of compromise position, I talked with Mr. Mueller about coming
over for 45 days to sort of help them stand up their effort and that
we would sort of reassess at the end of those 45 days.

And, ultimately, I knew I know what a Bob Mueller operation
looks like, and I know the intensity and the rigor and the incredibly

hard work that is required. And I was just ready to sort of makea

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change in my personal life. And so I left after the 45 days and
returned to the FBI.

Okay. And also in your testimony on Friday, you had that
indicated you had made some statement indicating that we had access
to all of your emails, texts, communications?

A I mean, this is my presumption. There's not a whole lot of
secrets out there left on me.

Are you aware whether there was any preservation order ever
issued with respect to any of your communications?

A Preservation by whom and for what?

That's what I'm asking. Maybe from Special Counsel's
Office, the FBI, by 

A I mean the FBI, to the best of my knowledge, preserves
everything. And I'm certain there have been preservation orders that
the FBI has sort of announced, but I'm not even there anymore. So I
don't have access to any of the stuff before you in the first place.

We understand you communicated through other devices, other
accounts, including iMessage and Gmail. Has there been any effort to
access any of those communications?

A Well, I don't have any iMessages. We communicated using our
personal devices for personal purposes. We very infrequently used
those devices for work purposes. And --

I'm sorry. I missed that.

A We very infrequently used our personal devices for work

purposes.

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Have you turned over those messages that were work-related?

A There are no work-related messages in my personal accounts.

But you indicated you "infrequently,? meaning, at some
point, you did communicate regarding work-related purposes over
personal devices?

A I am sure that I have. I never retained those. And unless
they were a record requiring, you know, sending it back throughthe
FBI system, there's no need to retain those.

And neither the FBI nor the special counsel has ever
attempted or requested your communications over personal devicesor
personal accounts?

A One moment, please.

[Discussion off the record.]

Ms. So there is my understanding is that there is some
FOIA litigation, either at the Department or the FBI for which my
personal accounts I'm sorry -- for which work-related material on
my personal accounts have been requested to be preserved, but I do not
have any such material to preserve.

BY MR. BREITENBACH:

You indicated previously that the importance that you placed
on the Russia investigation over the Clinton emailinvestigation in
terms of the effect you believed it might have on national security.

Are you aware whether there was ever any similar targeting of the
Hillary Clinton campaign by any foreign intelligence service?

A No, not that I'm aware. And just to be clear about your

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question, that answer was given with respect to, once we were in October
and we had the sort of ongoing Russia investigation and we had the
potential additional emails that may have existed on the Neiner laptop.

50 I just want to make sure we're talking about it's not as
though, other than in that one particular month, the two investigations
never overlapped such that we had to do alweighing or balancing of the
two investigations.

Serving as counsel to Mr. McCabe, the number two at the FBI, is
that the kind of information that you might learn of with respect to
whether another.

A If there had been a serious attempt by a foreign power to by
a threatening foreign power to work with members of the Clinton
campaign, I would have expected to know about it, yes.

Okay. Thank you.

BY MR. SOMERS:

You mentioned the name John Brown a few minutes ago. Can
you just clarify where he is, what his job is?

A I have no idea what his job is right now.

No. Was at the time. Sorry.

A So, when the special counsel first stood up and they were
looking to staff that effort, they -- the FBI, I think, originally
wanted to put somebody other than Pete on it so that Pete could kind
of go back to his day job, as I think I described in some depth on Friday.

And so the person that they originally sought to fill the kind

of lead FBI role on the special counsel was an individual named John

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Brown.
National Security Division? Counterintelligence?
A I think a Cyber SAC.

Mr. Somers. I think we're out of time for this round.

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[4:67 
Ms. Kim; We're back on the record. It is 4:67.
BY MS. KIM.

Ms. Page, the email that you discussed with the majority
about the has been used as an exhibit for a news article
that came out on July 6th, 2918, from The Hill entitled "Memos Detail
FBI's Hurry the FLu)to Probe Trump Campaign." Are you familiarwith
that article?

A I'm sorry, can you step just a little bit further from the
mike? It's a little bit yeah.

Does this help?

A Yeah. Sorry. So say that all over again, please.

Yes. The - email that you reviewed with the
majority was used in an article from The Hill by opinion contributor
John Solomon about how the FBI allegedly kept hurry the up pressure
on the Trump campaign probe. Are you familiar with that article?

A I am familiar with that article, yes.

The thesis question from that article, third paragraph of
that article I'll read to you is: The question that lingers unanswered
is, did those sentiments, meaning anti-Trump sentiments, affect
official actions?

A Right.

So, insofar as you can tell us in an unclassified setting,
did the - process reflect any political biases or other

improper motives?

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A No. As I as I think I discussed earlier I probably
shouldn't have discussed earlier in that setting. Okay, neverlnind.

No, there were no -- no political interest or bias which affected
the Carter Page FISA.

Did it reflect any undue haste on the part of the FBI in an
attempt to try to stop Donald Trump from becoming elected President?

A No, not at all.

BY MS. HARIHARAN:

Also a part of the article is they cite Peter Strzok's
testimony from when he met with us in the transcribed interview where
he said, quote, in response to Mr. Gowdy's question of whether he was
involved in the preparation of the affidavit in support of that FISA,
he said, quote: can tell you that I was aware of the FISA
application, but I did not participate in its preparation."

And then, when asked again, he wrote -- excuse me, he said: I
did not provide information. I did speak with people who were
preparing it.

So, referring back to the emails that the majority showed you,
was that Peter Strzok acting in his capacity as a supervisor for those
responsible for the FISA application?

A That's correct. So speaking more generally, a person in a
DAD role does not have any role in the FISA process. It's a very sort
of regimented process that goes back and forth from the Department to
the FBI. At no time does a DAD need to approve it or read it or write

it or provide intelligence toward it.

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To the extent Pete was involved, it was because he was -- to the
extent Pete was knowledgeable that it was happening, it's because he
was in charge of the Crossfire investigation. But he that's
consistent with my understanding and recollection. He did not have
a role in the drafting or the sort of approval of the FISA.

So just to be clear, he was not one of the individuals
involved in sort of the preparation of the factual 

A That's correct.

Okay. And then, to the best of your knowledge, then was his
testimony accurate?

A That's correct, yes.

Thank you.

Mr. Ms. Page, I'm sorry, I've missed your testimony on
Friday'and'this morning, 50'therelnight be things that are repetitious.
I believe I'm correct that you've said that even if people had political
perspectives, and some people were anti-Hillary and some people thought
Bernie was beyond the burn, et cetera, that none of those biases
affected any of the actions of Mr. Strzok or of you or anybodye?se
within the Mueller special counsel investigation.

Ms. Page, That's correct, sir.

Mr. Qghg?L Anything in the FISA applications that you know of
that was not dealt with according to procedures and 

Ms. Page; No, sir.

Mr. No nefarious activity?

Ms. Page. No, sir.

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Mr. gghg?, And wasn't there some information that if you went
too far in giving the court the court was given information, I
believe, about the fact that somebody might have paid for the dossier,
but that if they went too far, they might be outing sources or going
beyond what is legitimate activity?

Ms. Rage; Sir, I'm not sure I can answer that question in
this setting.

Mr. And I'm not sure if I asked it right.

Ms. Eagg, No, I understand your question. I'm just not
sure -- I'm really not sure what's been classified and what remains
classified and what's been declassified. So I'm not -- I'm not
comfortable answering that in this setting.

Mr. gghg?L And then you were asked about Mr. McCabe's memos and
Mr. Comey's and the fact that he made some notes about his conversations
with President Trump, and to the best of your knowledge he didn't do
this with any other Presidents. Is that correct?

Ms. Rage; I think that's been his testimony, yes, sir.

Mr. Qghg?L Do you think in your history as an attorney, your
knowledge as a human being, that the degree of the -- the reputation
a person has for truth and veracity might have something to doudth
the likelihood of somebody making a memo about their conversation with
them?

Ms. gage; I agree with you, sir.

Mr. So he wouldn't if he had talked to Abraham Lincoln,

he wouldn't have had to make a memo, honest Abe.

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How long were you involved with the 

Ms. Rage, I was -- I worked at the FBI for about 6 years.

Mr. Qghg?L And this was how many years were you there during
Comey's directorship?

Ms. Rage; For all ofhis directorship. So for the 3?1/2 years
that Director Comey was there, I was also an employee.

Mr. gghg?; And were you there after he was fired too?

Ms. Eagg; I was.

Mr. gghg?; Would you say the morale at the FBI went up or down
after he left?

Ms. We were devastated by his firing, sir.

Mr. gghg?; He was generally respected by members of the 

Ms. He was respected and well?liked, and people believed
in his vision for the FBI.

Mr. gghg?; You were never there during the time Mueller was
there, were you?

Ms. I was for about the first year, year and a half of
Mr. Mueller's tenure.

Mr. gghg?L Do you know what his reputation is among members of
the Bureau for honesty and for diligence and for, you know, hard work
and caring about America?

Ms. Egg; He his reputation for all of those things is strong.
He is regarded as very demanding, but also completely honest, you know,
with integrity that is really unparalleled.

Mr. Cohen. And a lot of the work that Peter Strzok had done at

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the FBI, particularly back in 2016, when he outed I think it wasas
many as 10 Russian spies, was a lot of his work centered in
counterintelligence on Russia?

Ms. Eagg, His entire career has been in the Counterintelligence
Division. 50 his full 26 years at the FBI has been almost exclusively
doing either counterintelligence or espionage cases, right. So
counterintelligence is our effort to counter foreign adversaries here
collecting against us. Espionage cases involve U.S. persons who have
decided to turn --

Mr. gghg?, Join another team.

Ms. Bagg; -- and work for a foreign power.

Mr. gghg?; Yeah. Maybe go and sit next to Putin and say nice
things to him, that kind of stuff.

Would you say that if he had a driving force in his life and
something that he was most concerned about that it was protecting
America and our country from Russian influence?

?Ms. Bagg, That is -- he is a patriot, first and foremost, and
he has devoted his entire life to defending the national security of
the United States. And Russia poses probably the most pernicious
threat to Western ideals and Western democracy. So, yes.

Mr. I don't think I have anything else. Thank you. And
I'm not going to offer you suggest you should get a Purple Heart
even though I'll probably be described as sexist for not doing it.

Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.

Ms. Page, I thank you for'being here. And I know it's not'the

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most pleasant moment in your life.

During his testimony the other day, Agent Strzok said something
to this effect: That while he may have had his own personal opinions
about Hillary Clinton and even his own opinions about Donald Trump,
that it did not impact his -- the investigation. In other words, when
he was deliberating with his colleagues, it did not affect that.

Do you believe that?

Ms. Yes, sir.

Mr. Cummings. And why do you say that?

Ms. Eagg; Because I was present for all of the investigative
steps and for the decisionmaking that occurred on both investigations.
And so I know the discussions that went on around them. I know the
reasons behind the steps that we took.

Certainly, with respect to the Clinton investigation, there was
not a single investigative step at all, under any circumstances, other
than the July 5th statement made by the Director, that wasn't done
either in conjunction with or at the direction of the Justice
Department.

So there is no room for bias, to the extent it even exists in the
first place, to have influenced official acts, because everysingle
act was taken in coordination with a half dozen to a dozen or more
people.

Mr. Cummings. Can you understand and I asked the same
question of Mr. Strzok, Agent Strzok. And I practiced law many years.

But can you understand why people might think when they read the texts

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that it would be almost impossible not to interject that, those
thoughts, into the discussion?

Ms. Rage; I do understand that, sir. But I do think that we do
not give up our right to have a view as to who is most qualified1x)
be President of the United States simply because we work for the FBI
or even because we are working on an investigation involving onetn~
the other of them.

And these were our personal views . They were views, particularly
before July 28th, which entirely reflected our view of the dignity
befitting the White House, of the decorum and the way one holds one's
self. I don't see how that is relevant at all to whether Hillary
Clinton mishandled classified information 3 years prior.

And after July 28th, we were now concerned about whether there
was a foreign adversary trying to work with a Presidential campaign.
And so I think that the concern there is both understandable and
recognizable.

I guess the other thing I would say, sir, is that -- and I've said
this a number of times in response to other questions -- we don't often
like the people we investigate. And that is true whether we are
investigating a pedophile or a fraudster or a terrorist or a drug
dealer. We don't like criminals. We don't like people who we think
are criminals.

And that does not ever under any circumstances pervade the
activity that an FBI agent or an FBI lawyer or*a DOJ prosecutor engage

in. We are not driven by political motivations. We are driven bya

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search for the truth. This is who we are as FBI employees. It is
absolutely what pervades our every decisionmaking.

And if at any opportunity we saw somebody acting in a different
way, we would not tolerate it. It's just not the way we operate.

Mr. Cummings. You said something;a moment ago in I think it was
answering one of Congressman Cohen's questions, and I don't remember
the exact words. I tried to jot it down. But you were talking about
Russia and the threat of Russia. I forget the words you used. You
said Russia was the greatest -- can you elaborate on that, please?

Ms. So it is my personal view that Russia poses probably
the most the greatest threat certainly to Western ideals of any of
our foreign adversaries. And we have vast foreign adversaries. But
even the threats that are posed by China or by Iran or North Korea or
others doesn't speak to sort of the core of Western democracy, right?

You have you have -- in the Russian Federation and in President
Putin himself, you have an individual whose aim is to disrupt the
Western alliance and whose aim is to make Western democracy more
fractious and in order to weaken our ability, America's ability'and
the West's ability, to spread our democratic ideals. I mean, that's
the goal, is to make us less of a moral authority to spread democratic
values.

And I happen to think that this is the best country on the planet
and that our values are universal values that can and should be spread
across the globe. And that is not a view that is shared by Russia.

And so every effort to sow discord, tOInake us fractious, to harm

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the Western and American way of life is a win for the Russian Federation.
It is a win for President Putin.

So it is my opinion I am certainly not the world expert on
it but it is my opinion that with respect to Western ideals and who
it is and what it is we stand for as Americans, Russia poses the most
dangerous threat to that way of life.

Mr. Cummings. Are you aware of any FBI investigations motivated
by political bias?

Ms. Never, sir. No.

Mr. Cummings. You never saw signs of that when you were there?

Ms. No.

Mr. Cummings. Are you aware of any Justice Department
investigations motivated by political bias?

Ms. Not that I'm aware of, no.

Ms. On February 2nd, 2018, President Trump tweeted, and
I quote: "The top leadership and investigators of the FBI and the
Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process
in favor of Democrats against Republicans, something1~hich would have
been unthinkable just a short time ago. Rank and file are great

people,' end of quote.

Do you agree that, quote, "the top leadership and investigators
of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred
investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans,"

and can you explain why you feel whatever you feel?

Ms. Page. No, sir, that's not been my experience. My experience

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is as I've described it, which is that every person to a person, there
are 36,560 of us, and we all care about doing things the'right way.

That is the reason that we have the authority that we have as the
FBI to show up at your door in the middle of the night and 
on it and to hope that you open. And the reason that we are able to
do that is because we have a reputation for honesty and integrity.

And if we cannot continue to do that, if people question our
motives and people question why we are showing up at their door in the
middle of the night, we are all unquestionably less safe becausech
it.

Mr. Cummings. Tell me, why did you become an FBI agent?

Ms. So I've been a lawyer, sir, for the last 12 years. I
am one of those nerdy kids who at 14 kneurI wanted to be a lawyer, knew
I wanted to serve -- be a public servant. I went to a public school
for law school in order to have less debt and lived at home sothat
I could not sort of take the route of a private sector job, because
I have always wanted to serve my country.

Mr. Cummings. I take it this has been a very painful experience.

Ms. It has, sir.

Mr. Cummings. Do you want me to pause for a minute?

Ms. I'm fine.

Mr. Cummings. Throughout your career at the FBI and D03, are you
aware of any instances of the FBI and the Justice Department conducting
investigations in favor of any party and against another?

Ms. Page. No, sir.

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Mr. Cummings. 22nd, 2018, Republican Members of Congress
introduced House Resolution 907. In that, they were requesting that
the Attorney General appoint a second special counsel to investigate
misconduct at and the FBI.

At the bottom of the first page, the resolution asserts the
following: ?Whereas, there is an urgent need for the appointment of
a second special counsel in light of evidence that raises critical
concerns about decisions, activities, and inherent bias displayed at
the highest levels of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau
of Investigation regarding FISA abuse, how and why'thel4illary Clinton
email probe ended, and how and why the Donald Trump?Russia probe began, 
end of quote.

Ms. Page, do you think that there was inherent bias at the highest
levels of and FBI regarding FISA abuse?

Ms. No, sir, there has not been.

Mr. Cummings. Is there any evidence of inherent bias displayed
at the highest levels of and the FBI regarding how and why the
Hillary Clinton email probe ended?

Ms. No, sir.

Mr. Cummings. Is there any evidence of inherent bias displayed
at the highest levels of the and the FBI against Donald Trump as
part of the Trump-Russia probe?

Ms. Sir, no. The actions that we took in that
investigation, at least in the time that I've been present for it, are

exactly what you want the FBI to do when confronted with the risk that

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a member of a Presidential campaign may be working in coordination with
the Russians.

There is no at the outset of an investigation, we cannot tell
you definitively what is happening.

But the notion that we should not have opened the investigation,
that we should not have looked into whether or not this is a truthful
or accurate allegation is just mind-boggling to me. It is precisely
what you want your FBI to do, investigate counterintelligence threats
to this Nation.

It doesn't mean that anybody has done anythinglurong, not at the
outset. It means that we need to look. And that's what we did.

Mr. Cummings. Are you aware of any actions ever taken to damage
the Trump campaign at the highest levels of the Department of Justice
or the 

Ms. No, sir.

Mr. Cummings. Are you aware of any actions ever taken to
personally target Donald Trump at the highest levels of'thelDepartment
of Justice or the 

Ms. No.

Mr. Cummings. Is there any evidence that any FBI or Department
of Justice official took any actions biased in favor of Clinton or
biased against Trump?

Ms. No, sir.

Mr. Cummings. Not James Comey?

Ms. Page. No.

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Mr. Cummings. Andrew McCabe?

Ms. No.

Mr. Cummings. Peter Strzok?

Ms. No.

Mr. Cummings. Loretta 

Ms. Not that I'm aware of.

Mr. Cummings. Sally Yates?

Ms. Again, same answer.

Mr. Cummings. I'm sorry?

Ms. Same answer.

Mr. Cummings. Rod Rosenstein?

Ms. No.

Mr. Cummings. And Robert Mueller?

Ms. No, sir.

Mr. Cummings . Is there any evidence that President Obama ordered
any investigative activity that was biased in 'Favor of Clinton or biased
against Trump?

Ms. No, sir.

Mr. Cummings. Is there any evidence that President Obama ordered
a wiretap of Donald Trump or the Trump campaign?

Ms. There is no evidence of that at all, sir.

Mr. Cummings. None?

Ms. None.

Mr. Cummings. I take it there was some time spent trying to

figure out whether there was truth to that.

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Ms. At the Department, certainly, yes, sir.

Mr. Cummings. On December 3rd, 2917, the President tweeted,
quote: "After years of Comey with the phony and dishonest Clinton
investigation and more running the FBI, its reputation is in tatters,
worst in history, but fear not, we will bring it back to greatness,"
end of quote.

Let me ask you something. I want to go back to somethingthat

Congressman Cohen asked you. He asked you about a certain period

where and he was asking you about the morale. And you said --and
I'm not I don't remember the exact words. But can you describe,
you know, when you -- I'm sure you all saw these tweets. And when you

get things like that, read stuff like that, how do you think it affected
the morale?

Ms. I will just say, sir, that that is not consistent with
my feeling about Director Comey or anybody that I know or that I've
spoken to about how we held Director Comey. He was widely liked. He
was respected. I don't know whether he would want to work with me ever
again, but I would work for him anywhere he went any time in my life.
He is a man of extraordinary intelligence and integrity, and it was
a total pleasure to learn from him.

Mr. Cummings. Do you agree with the President's statement that
the FBI's reputation is in tatters and is the worst is theuworst
in history?

Ms. Well, it is now.

Mr. Cummings. And why do you say that?

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Ms. Rage, Because we continue to be a political punching bag.
Because some private texts about our personal Opinions continue to be
used to as a broad brush to describe the entire activity of 36,508
individuals. Because we have been caught up in a place that we never
could have possibly imagined, because all of us did the job that was
asked of us.

Mr. Cummings. Is that painful?

Ms. It's horrendous, sir.

Mr. Cummings. Does it make your job harder to do?

Ms. Eagg, Yes, it does.

Mr. Cummings. How 50?

Ms. Rage, Well, it's the very point that Iwas making. If we
cannot be trusted to call on you, if we cannot be trusted to protect
confidential human sources, then we need to get out of the law
enforcement business. Because if we cannot be trusted to keep secrets,
if we cannot be trusted to to believe that what we do we do for the
right reasons, then we have a very big problem in this country.

Mr. Cummings. Do you agree with the President's
characterization that the Clinton investigation was, quote, "phony and
dishonest??

Ms. Eagg, I would welcome the President to point out what we
should have done differently in that investigation, what the evidence
would have shown, how we would have prosecuted beyond a reasonable
doubt, given the evidencebefore us. I would welcome aconversation

with President Trump about that.

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I am really tired of hearing all of the things that we should have
done with nobody actually demonstrating to me why that would have
resulted inaadifferent conclusion with respect to the prosecution of
Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Cummings. In your opinion, what kind of impact do statements
like this have on the morale 

Ms. They're demoralizing.

Mr. Cummings. of the rank and file?

Ms. They're demoralizing, sir.

Mr. Cummings. And what is the impact of statements like these
on the public's confidence in the FBI and how does that impact our
national security?

Ms. ?ag; I'm not sure I can expand on that further than I already
have, sir.

Mr. Cummings. Let mesay this. I don't have anything;else, but
again, I think I just want to defend the truth. And were you about
to say something?

Ms. Eagg; I was going to say, so do I, sir.

Mr. Cummings. And Ibelieve'that. I believe that. And Ithink
what I've been trying to get to is the bottom line.

You know, when I listen to some of the questioning, I try to figure
out where are we going with all of this. And it seems to me when you
told me and this body, this group of people, about your feelings with
regard to Russia, it makes it even more urgent that we get to the bottom

line or we won't have a democracy.

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And I want to thank you for your service. Going through difficult
times is difficult, but in the end I think if you survive it you come
out a stronger person.

Ms. Rage; Let's hope so.

Mr. Cummings. And I want to I do thank you for your service
and thank you for your testimony.

Ms. Rage; Thank you.

Mr. Cummings. All right.

[Recess.]

Mr. Parmiter. Let's go back on the record. It's 4:43 p.m.

BY MR. PARMITER:

Ms. Page, I appreciate you bearing with us. It's been a long
day. We just have a couple more questions to ask.

A No problem.

Are you aware whether during the investigation, the MYE
investigation, there was any evidence that Secretary Clinton or someone
on her behalf had transmitted classified material other than by email?

A How do you mean?

For example 

A Like a text or something or --

by fax.

A 0hr

Or, you know, either Ms. Clinton herself or someone on her
behalf.

A I don't know. I'm sorry.

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So you wouldn't know whether or not she directed someone to
do so?

A None of this is ringing a bell. I'm not saying that someone
wouldn?thavethatinformation. Ijust 
to me.

Okay. Are you generally familiar with something called the
President's Daily Brief?

A I am.

And is that document generally classified?

A It is.

At what level is it classified?

A It depends on the reporting contained therein, but it is
certainly a highly restricted document that, broadly speaking, is
classified at the TS level.

And would be inappropriate to transmit via fax or
unclassified email or to anybody who is not otherwise authorizedto
view it, correct?

A It could it could go over secure fax. It would depend
on what system you were talking about. But in general, yes.

Okay. Let me ask you a couple of followup questions also
about meetings that were held at the Bureau regarding the Midyear Exam
after the case had wrapped.

Did you attend any meetings at the FBI in 2018 regarding the
Midyear Exam investigation?

A In all of 2918? Oh, yeah, all the time. Yes. 0h, 2018?

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Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, I don't think so. No.

When did you leave the Bureau? Do you recall the date?

A May 4th of this year.

So I'm not going to I'm just going to show you an email
that has been produced by the Bureau.

A Oh, oh, oh, oh. I'm sorry. Yes. So this I can explain.
Sorry. Oh, no, what is this? So sorry.

When you talked about meetings at -- at FBI, I'm thinking about
meetings with the Director about the investigation. I sort of managed
or sort of ran point, coordinated, I don't know what the 
is, an effort to try to stay on top, however unsuccessfully, ofall
of the various oh, wait. I am gone at this point. Sorry. That's
weird.

Right. 50 this email, just for the record, is a May 17th,
2618, email to a number of folks at the Bureau, including, well, you,
even though you had left by this time, correct?

A Right. So my guess is that somebody just
cancelled the -- let me take a step back.

For some period of time, although I was not involved in this after
probably May of 2017, for some period of time starting in maybethe
winter of 2916 through probably May of 2017, I tried to assistwith
the coordination within the Office of Congressional Affairs tosort
of stay on top of the myriad requests coming from all thedifferent
committees for-documents and for letters and sort of the congressional

response and all of that.

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And so I wasn't in charge of any of it. I just tried to convene
a meeting weekly so as to try to not let disparate -- thetdisparate
people who were responsible for, well, this person's responsible for
this portfolio and this one has HPSCI and this one has HOGR and this
one, right, so that we were all talking with one voice, we all.knew
what requests had come in, the responses were consistent, right,we
were producing the right stuff to the right committees.

So for a period of time, like I said, probably from Decemberish
2316 through May 2017, I sort of led that effort. That's what this
is a I think there was a sort of standing Midyear meeting that was
once a week.

I don't know whether this is whether this reflects that, to
be honest with you. I just don't know. It seems like it. It's the
right personnel who would have been involved in that.

But by the date of this email, which is May 17th, 2918, I was not
an FBI employee.

Okay. Nell, would you say that this is canceling a meeting
series?

A That's what it might be, yeah. So --

And to your knowledge 

A And maybe it happened automatically. Like when they
disabled my.account, right, after leaving, it's possible that yeah,
but this would have exactly.

50 the message contained here could have been whatever the last

time I sent a cancellation. You know, sometimes Outlook savesthat

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last message, because obviously there's no way for me to havetyped
this when I'm no longer an employee.

Correct. 50 but, as far as you recall, had any meetings
of this MYE followup team taken place in 2618?

A No, not tx)my knowledge. The effort has now been ?-after
I left for special counsel, I never picked it back up. And so, to the
best of my knowledge, it was people in OCA who have been responsible
for convening meetings for congressional response, to the extent ones
are happening. I just don't know. I don't have knowledge of it
anymore.

Okay. And that would have been when you left for special
counsel in May of 2017?

A Correct. Correct. I never took my point is when I came
back from special counsel, I never took it back up.

Mr. Somers. Since we're at the close of the interview, just to
completely switch subjects possibly.

Mr. Meadows. Before you close out, Lisa, you have mentioned that
you worked for Andy McCabe. You were probably the closest individual,
professionally speaking, that he interacted with. Is that correct?

Ms. Eagg; Certainly -- maybe one or two people might be equally
close. But yes, I would say we were quite close professionally.

Mr. Meadows. So one of the things that I guess that I'm trying
to put my arms around is, you know, as you hear different things
communicated by different people, and we've had the opportunity to

interview Mr. McCabe previously, but it appears that he, you know, lied

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to the FBI, lied to the 16, was caught in that, admitted it, and then
kind of walked it back as it related to, you know, just some ofthe
story of sharing with The Wall Street Journal, some of the conversation
with Matt Axelrod.

How do you I mean, would you characterize that as something
that you saw typically over your professional career?

Ms. Eage_. I am constrained in what I can answer in light of other
ongoing investigations, but I can say that I have never seen Andy lie,
ever, under any circumstances. I have never seen Andy do anything
other than make the right decision and often the hard decision, even
when it has been personally unpopular or professionally unpopular.

I have consistently seen him make hard decisions because they were
the right thing to do. I have consistently seen him be the fly in the
ointment in the NSC under President Obama or in thisadministration
because it was the right thing to do.

The findings of the inspector general are entirely inconsistent
with the man I know and have worked very closely with for the last 4
years of my career. And I cannot I simply don't agree with those
conclusions, sir.

Mr. Meadows. So and I thought that that's where you would go.
And I guess my question is as it relates to some of the factual things
that have now at least come out and been reported.

So do you see this as more of and at odds with Director Comey and
Andy McCabe? I mean, where is the conflict? Because, I mean,both of

them can't be telling'the truth. And obviously memos that you were

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talking about earlier tangentially may or may not relate.

Ms. So I really -- I really can't answer substantively,
because it's the subject of other ongoing activity.

Mr. Meadows. So would it be fair to characterize that you believe
someone else is not telling the truth?

Ms. Me; No. I actually I am you'll be surprised to know
that I develop strong feelings about things. And I am actually quite
confident, although I've spoken to neither Mr. McCabe nor Mr. Comey
about this, I have a strong feeling that I understand where the
disconnect happened with respect to what Director Comey thought they
were talking about and with respect to what Mr. McCabe was talking
about.

Mr. Meadows. So you think it may be just a big misunderstanding?

Ms. Rage, I do, sir. I do.

Mr. Meadows. It's a pretty big one and you might -- and so I guess
where does you know, I mentioned earlier Mike Kortan. Where does
he come into all this? Because all of a sudden 

Ms. Rage; Yeah.

Mr. Meadows. And what is troubling with me is knowing that there
are a number of unauthorized disclosures that happened --

Ms. I disagree.

Mr. Meadows. Hold on. That happened in Congress and happens at
times in other agencies.

Knowing that, as we've been involved in this, that the FBI or

specifically DOJ has done a very good job of putting a narrative out

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there that sometimes is not based on truth, I guess the question I have
is, what role did Mike Kortan, Director Comey, Andy McCabe play in the
matter that we have where we have to question a high-ranking FBI
official that has now retired?

Ms. Yes. I really want to answer that question, because
it is as good one. Give me a moment, please.

[Discussion off the record.]

Ms. Mr. Meadows, I agree with you that it is curious that
there is no reference in the IG report at all to Mr. Kortan,
particularly in light of what I reported, which is that both
interactions with the reporter were done with Mr. Kortan, in
coordination with Mr. Kortan and with Mr. Kortan at my side. So I
cannot explain why there is no -- there is no reference to Mr. Kortan
in any testimony, if he did give any, in the IG report.

Mr. Meadows. So would it be prudent for this committee to have
Mr. Kortan come and testify to perhaps add some clarity in terms<yF
what he said, didn't say?

Ms. gage; I think that the U.S. Attorney's Office is probably
adequately equipped to answer that question sufficiently, sir.

Mr. Meadows. All right.

Ms. Rage; Particularly, honestly, it's so tangential to 

Mr. Meadows. The core issue.

Ms. Eagg; Right.

Mr. Meadows. Okay. So there seemed to be great

consternation and that's me characterizing the decision to

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recuse himself, Mr. McCabe's decision to recuse himself in the final
days of, I guess, when we reopened the MYE. It was apparent that he
did not necessarily agree with that decision to recuse. Would you
agree with that?

Ms. Pig; I would agree with that, and I agreed with him. I did
not think there was a basis to recuse.

Mr. Meadows. So was it that he'was encouraged to recuse because
of the appearance? Or why do you think he was encouraged tx3recuse
himself? I mean, I've read a lot of back?and?forth as it relates to
that, and it's still an unanswered question for me.

Ms. I know the 16 report has an entire chapter on this.
I haven't read it. That was ultimately what Director Comey asked him
to do, and so 

Mr. Meadows. But I guess did Director Comey ever tell him or you
why he asked him to recuse himself?

Ms. Rage; I have never spoken to Director Comeyabout it. He
did -- Director Comey did speak to Mr. McCabe about it, obviously,
because he instructed him ultimately to or asked that he
ultimately -- Director Comey asked that Andy ultimately recuse. And
I believe it's based on a sort of appearance, but I just -- I simply
think that was misguided and ill?timed.

Mr. Meadows. So the reason why I ask is because you have now
you have an Andy McCabe that recused himself, you have an Andy McCabe
that's been accused of lying several times to different people within

the Department. And what you're saying, that those are two unrelated

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events?

Ms. gage; Oh, wholly, yes.

Mr. Meadows. And so one is perception; the other is perhaps more
a direct action of Mr. McCabe?

Ms. Rage; I guess so, yeah.

Mr. Meadows. All right. Yield back.

And for the record, I want to thank you for being cooperative.
I want to thank you for doing the very best to answer as many questions
as possible. And I think I speak on behalf of the entire committee,
that your willingness to share transparently has served you well and
has certainly served this country well.

Ms. Eagg, Thank you, sir.

BY MR. BAKER:

(2 Did you say Mr. Kortan was present at your side when you were
having discussions with The Wall Street Journal?

A Correct.

And Mr. Kortan's position at the FBI was what?

A He was the head of our Public Affairs.

He's an assistant director of the Public Affairs Office?

A Correct.

So did you, by the fact he was present, believe that this
was an authorized and approved 

A It was an authorized. This is why -- we didn't get to it,
but it was 100 percent an authorized disclosure. I mean, thETNhOle

premise behind the IG report in the first place I take issue with,

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becauseZIMBS authorized by Deputy Director McCabe and by Mike Kortan
to engage with the reporter on this topic.

And so, you know, the 16 has come up with a different conclusion
with respect to McCabe's inherent authority to authorize it in the first
place, but I simply disagree with that.

So you believed it was authorized?

A Yes. It was authorized, as far as I'm concerned.

(2 You indicated in a previous round when there was a discussion
about McCabe memos that Deputy Director McCabe had made some memos of
his own. I had asked whether he had ever made any memos regarding his
conversations or interactions.with Director'Comey, and you said, well,
he took notes.

I was referring to any kind of documentation he made for proof
or clarity later on as to what he was told, not just taskingsnot aware of him ever having taken a memo
as you have just described it with respect to his engagement with
Director Comey. I just wanted to clarify that like every single day
he likely was taking notes with respect to his interactions with
Director Comey in the course of his official duties.

(2 And did you have conversations with Mr. McCabe that made you
believe that he thought Director Comey instructed him or wanted him
to have these conversations with The Wall Street Journal, even though
there weren't memos to that effect or notes to that effect?

A I'm sorry, ask me that question one more time.

Did you ever have a conversation with Mr. McCabe about the

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whole Wall Street Journal issue regarding whether the Directorkhew
about it?

A Oh, no, we did not have any conversations about that. But
the Director need not have known about it. The deputy had his own
inherent authority to engage with the media.

50 it's not something my point is, it's not something he
necessarily would have needed to seek the Director's authority or
approval for.

Okay. Is Mr. Kortan still employed with the 

A No, he's not.

And do you know why he left?

A Because he was long eligible to retire.

So he just retired?

J>r0

Yes.

Okay. One final question on an unrelated topic.

You had indicated your role as an assistant to Mr. McCabe was to
go to different meetings and sort of bridge back what had happened in
these meetings or something like that.

A Yeah.

(2 Are you aware of any meetings or did you hear discussion about
the sophistication level of Secretary Clinton as it related to handling
of classified information or emails and communications in general, that
she either was or was not sophisticated, and that would have been part
of the discussion regarding charging?

A I I'm not sure if I can tie it to your last statement.

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It's possible. But I was a part of I was a part of the sort of general
briefings that the Director or the Deputy Director had as we gathered
more evidence in the Clinton investigation.

And I don't remember whether it came out of Secretary Clinton's
interview or interviews with some of her senior staff or both.

But yes, we did come to learn that Secretary Clinton was not
particularly sophisticated when it came to technology and the use of
computers. I mean, she was not a sophisticated cyber user.

Was there ever any evidence or any dissent in opposition to
that View?

A Oh, not to my knowledge, no.

You had mentioned earlier that Mr. Priestap 

Mr. Somers. Can I ask one question?

Mr. Egkgr; Sure.

BY MR. SOMERS:

What about her sophistication in terms of knowledge of
classification and what classified documents looked like?

A She had that knowledge. Yeah. I don't --

Well, because in her the 302 of her interview, for
instance, she says that she did not wasn't aware of what the in
parentheses at the beginning of a paragraph meant.

A ?Yeah. I mean, that's not that doesn't shock me. I mean,
without the without the rest of the sort of header and footer and
cover page.

Should she have? Yeah, probably. But like on a single line

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randomly in the middle of an email, I don't find that terribly offensive
to my sensibilities, but --

I'm just bringing that out as an example of whether -- what
you saw as her level of understanding of markings on documents and
things.

A No, I think she I have no personal knowledge of this, but
given her history in government and her position, I would expect her
to have had, you know, some sophistication with respect to
classification.

Mr. Parmiter. On what did you base the conclusion that she was
not particularly technologically sophisticated?

Ms. I think both based on her statements about her
understanding on how a server works and my understanding and I never
read her 362, but my understanding is -- at least I don't think I
did is based on what was briefed to the deputy and theIDirector,
was like as technical questions were asked of her, she lacked the
ability to answer them, as well as other people who were interviewed
sort of had consistent statements with respect to her technical
sophistication.

BY MR. BAKER:

Are defensive briefings just for Members of Congress, or
would Cabinet secretaries also get them if they were potentially
targeted?

A Oh, certainly. I mean, any -- a defensive briefing would

go to any person in a position to have sensitive national secrets and/or

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interactions or exposure with people from foreign countries.

Do you know if Secretary Clinton had any in her role as

Secretary of State?

A Defensive briefings? 

Yes.

A I have no idea, sir.

Is it likely that she could have?

A Entirely plausible, sir. But it would -- again, like
there's a difference between a general CI brief, which is you're
traveling to this country, beware of these things, versus, you know,
we understand that Joe Smith has reached out to you to schedule a
meeting, you should be aware that intelligence suggests that Joe Smith
is blah, blah, blah.

So --

A That's -- the latter is a defensive briefing.

Sure. In addition to the specifics of who might be trying to
do something to you as the Congressperson or the Cabinetmember, is
there a boilerplate that would almost go with any defensive briefing as
to the how a hostile actor might try to exploit your position, exploit a
meeting?

A I would expect 50, but I don't have personal knowledge of
it.

Would you guess if there was that part of that would be that
email communications and communications in general and weaknesses in

networks would be an area for exploitation?

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A I'm not really sure. You know, that might go to a broader CI
briefing, a broader counterintelligence briefing, a warning about
spear phishing, a warning about, you know, how cyber networks might
be compromised.

But in a defensive briefing, to the best of my knowledge, in a
defensive briefing it is usually much more specific and pointed
information that we have.

50 general CI brief, sure, you might talk about how different
foreign actors use different tools or vectors to do their work. But
if you were conducting a defensive briefing, in my view, it's more
likely that it would be specific and sort of narrowly described to the
specific threat or risk that you're briefing on.

So you don't know if someone who received a lot of defensive
briefings would have their sophistication of weaknesses in email and
servers enhanced by being told such a thing in defensivetw?efings?

A No, I don't know. I don't know.

Finally, you'd mentioned earlier that Mr. Priestap was AD
Priestap was kind of a Worrier. What was his relationship with
Mr. Strzok? I know he would be Mr. Strzok's boss at the time that he's
the AD.

A Yes. They were very close.

Very close.

A They professionally. I mean, they both had a lot of
respect for each other. Both have had long careers in the

Counterintelligence Division. And so both respect each other's

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instincts and knowledge and experience workingC?Ztargets. So they
had a very strong professional relationship.

So no work tensions or 

A No, sir.

issues about decisions made?

A No, no. No, sir.

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Somers. I'd like to ask you about an email chain. There's
only one email on the chain in particular, but you can take a look at
that document. I'm mostly interested in the email from Peter Strzok
to you at 7:16 p.m.

Ms. Page; One second.

Mr. Somers. That email says: We need all of their names to scrub
and we should give them ours for the same purpose.

My first question is, who is "their" and "them," to your
knowledge?

Ms. Jeffress. It's a long article. Do you know which partof
the article this relates to?

Mr. Somers. I don't know which part of the article in particular
it relates to. I'm just looking at the email from Strzok.tole. Page,
and it looks like --

Ms. I don't 

Mr. Somers. she understood at the time, at least, what that

was.

Ms. Page. I'm not sure. I'm sorry.

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MP. Somers. Okay. What about "scrub"?

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[5:13 

Ms. I don't know what we're referring to, but that's
usually a "let's see if we have any information in our holdings relating
to these individuals." But I don't know which individuals we're
talking about here.

BY MR. SOMERS:

Well, I took "their" and "them" one question on
this "their" and "them? to mean another agency and not -- I took
it to be a list of their names. Could that not the people in the
article, not names of people in the article. I took it to be an agency
or a subagency.

A Oh, I don't I would have taken it to mean something in
the article, but I don't -- I don't remember this particular email as
I sit here today.

If you look up to the second email from the top: That's what
Bill said. I suggested we need to exchange our entire list.

A I'm not positive, sir. I'm sorry.

Okay. All right.

Mr. Somers. I think that's all we have for this. All right. So
I think that will conclude our interview. And I want to thank you again
for appearing both on Friday and again today. And that'll close the
interview.

Ms. Egge; Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 5:14 the interview was concluded.]

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Certificate of Deponent/Interviewee

I have read the foregoing pages, which contain the correct

transcript of the answers made by me to the questions therein recorded.

 

witness Name

 

Date

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