UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE EXECUTIVE SESSION PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. INTERVIEW OF: SAMUEL H. CLOVIS, JR. Tuesday, December 12, 2017 Washington, D.C. The interview in the above matter was held in Room HVC-304, the Capitol, commencing at 11:01 a.m. Present: Representatives Conaway, King, Ros-Lehtinen, Wenstrup, Gowdy, Schiff, Himes, Carson, Speier, Quigley, Swalwell, Castro, and Heck. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 1 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE Appearances: For the PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE: For SAMUEL H. CLOVIS, JR.: VICTORIA TOENSING, ESQ. diGenova & Toensing, LLP 1776 K Street, NW Suite 737 Washington, D.C. 20006 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 2 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 3 Good morning. This is a transcribed interview of Sam Clovis. Thank you for speaking with us today. For the record, I am a staff member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. We have a number of other members and staff present, and they will identify themselves when they speak. Before we begin, I wanted to state a few things for the record. The questioning will be conducted by members and staff. During the course of this interview, members and staff may ask questions during their allotted time period. Some questions may seem basic, but that is because we need to clearly establish the facts and understand the situation. Please do not assume we know any facts you have previously disclosed as part of any other investigation or review. This interview will be conducted at the unclassified level. And as a reminder, I want to confirm that you guys left your electronics outside? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MS. TOENSING: Yep. During the course of this interview, we will take any breaks that you desire. We ask that you give complete and fulsome replies to questions based on your best recollection. If a question is unclear or you are uncertain in your response, please let us know. And if you do not know the answer to a question or cannot remember, simply say so. You're entitled to have a lawyer present for this interview, though you are not required to. I see that you do have a lawyer present, and if she would identify UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 4 herself for the record, that would be appreciated. MS. TOENSING: Victoria Toensing, T-o-e-n-s-i-n-g. As you can see, this interview will be transcribed. There is a reporter making a record of the proceedings so that we can easily consult a written compilation of your answers. Because the reporter cannot record gestures, we ask that you answer verbally. If you forget to do this, you might be reminded to do so. You may also be asked to spell certain terms or unusual phrases. MR. CLOVIS: Sure. Consistent with the committee's rules of procedure, you and your counsel, upon request, will have a reasonable opportunity to inspect the transcript of this interview in order to determine whether your answers are correctly transcribed. The transcript will remain in the committee's custody. The committee also reserves the right to request you return for additional questions should the need arise. The process for the interview is as follows: The minority will be given 45 minutes to ask questions; then the majority will be given 45 minutes to ask questions. Immediately thereafter, we will take a 5-minute break if you desire, after which the minority will be given 15 minutes to ask questions, the majority will be given 15 minutes to ask questions. These time limits will be strictly adhered to by all sides, with no extensions being granted. Time will be kept for each portion of the interview, with warnings given at the 5-minute and 1-minute mark respectively. To ensure confidentiality, we ask that you do not discuss the interview with anyone other than your attorney. You are reminded that it is unlawful to deliberately provide false information UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE to Members of Congress or staff. Lastly, the record will reflect that you are voluntarily participating in this interview, which will be under oath. I will now swear the witness. Do you solemnly swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? MR. CLOVIS: I do. Let the record reflect the witness has answered in the affirmative. And I turn it over to the gentleman from Texas. MR. CONAWAY: Mr. Clovis, thank you for being here this morning. MR. CLOVIS: Thanks, gentlemen. MR. CONAWAY: With that, Adam, over to you. MR. SCHIFF: Welcome, Mr. Clovis. MR. CLOVIS: Thank you, sir. MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Swalwell. MR. SWALWELL: Thank you. Welcome, Mr. Clovis. MR. CLOVIS: Thank you. MR. SWALWELL: Mr. Clovis, you're an Iowan. MR. CLOVIS: I am indeed. MR. SWALWELL: Where are you from in Iowa? MR. CLOVIS: I live in the Sioux City area. Actually, the address is in I live out in the country. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Near South Dakota. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 5 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 6 MR. CLOVIS: Very. A driver and a nine-iron into South Dakota, yeah. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. I'm from northwest. MR. CLOVIS: All right. MR. SWALWELL: Kossuth County. What is your professional background prior to joining the administration? MR. CLOVIS: I don't want to use up all 45 minutes, but I was raised in Kansas. I went to the United States Air Force Academy, 4 years, received a bachelor of science degree in political science. Went off to pilot training, spent 25 years on Active Duty in the Air Force. I was a fighter pilot. I did a lot of other things besides that, but that was predominantly what I did. When I retired in 1996, I went into the private sector, was a businessman for several years. Continued my education. I picked up an MBA while I was in the service, and then while I was working in Alabama, I received a doctorate in public administration. Became a college professor. I've been a dean and department chair. And I've also -- came back to Washington, D.C., to work in the -- I worked at Northrop Grumman Corporation, worked as Booz Allen Hamilton. I was a fellow at the Homeland Security Institute, working predominantly on homeland security and national preparedness issues, a host of other things. Then I went back to academic life in Sioux City. I was a tenured full professor of economics at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. And along the way, I'd, quite by accident, ended up with a radio talk show that I did part-time and became known in the Republican Party and then came to the attention of several candidates. I ran for office, myself. I ran unsuccessfully in the Senate primary in 2014. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 7 MR. SWALWELL: Ms. Ernst? MR. CLOVIS: Ms. Ernst won the primary. I was drafted by the party then to run for one of the constitutional offices, State treasurer. I'm one of the few Iowans to lose two elections in 4 months and still gain political traction. And so, when the 2015 cycle came around, I was a very popular date with a lot of the Presidential candidates and ended up with -- when candidate Trump asked me to join the team, I was very happy to do so. MR. SWALWELL: When you were in the Air Force, what countries were you posted at abroad? MR. CLOVIS: Bahrain was my only -- oh, well, and Iceland. I was in Iceland in 1979 and '80, and then I was in Bahrain 1992 to 1994. MR. SWALWELL: And who appointed you to the Air Force Academy? MR. CLOVIS: It was Garner Shriver, Fourth District of Kansas. But I had received an appointment to West Point from Congressman Bob Dole. That's how far back it goes. MR. SWALWELL: Now, did someone introduce you to the campaign, or did they -- did the campaign approach you, or did you approach them? How did that happen? MR. CLOVIS: Well, the story is that in 2014 we were at a fundraising event for one of our Congressmen from Iowa, and Mr. Trump was the guest speaker, the keynote speaker. We had a chance to get to know each other briefly there. And then about a year later I was asked by the Republican Party at Pottawattamie County, Council Bluffs area, to come down and introduce him at a UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 8 Lincoln dinner. And I went out and gave a hearty introduction to him, and he liked it, and I had a chance to talk to him. The next day, I officiated a townhall for him at Morningside College, and I had an opportunity to spend about an hour and a half with him one-on-one. And it was after that that his people approached me and asked me, if he ran for President, would I join the team. I told him that I'd already promised Rick Perry that I would support Rick if Rick ran, because I campaigned with him during the 2014 cycle, gotten to know him very well. We're good friends. And when Rick dropped out, I received calls from 12 campaigns, 7 candidates. And one of the calls I got was from New York. MR. SWALWELL: Early in 2014, who on the Trump team had been your contacts that were asking you to be a part of the team if he ran? MR. CLOVIS: It was only at that fundraiser, and it was just the two or three people he had with him. And it was just -- I just got acquainted with him. There was no followup to that at all. MR. SWALWELL: The followup that you referred to where he asked you, or his team asked you to work with him -MR. CLOVIS: Was after the 15th -- the 16th of May. MR. SWALWELL: Pottawattamie? MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. It was actually after the townhall at Morningside College on the 16th of May. MR. SWALWELL: Who on his team asked you the join the team? MR. CLOVIS: It was Chuck Laudner, who was his Iowa State director. MR. SWALWELL: When would you say it was official that you were on the Trump campaign team? What day? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. CLOVIS: It was official, I think, the 25th of August, 2015, something like that. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. What was your title when you were -MR. CLOVIS: I was the -- at that time, was the senior policy adviser and national co-chair of the campaign. MR. SWALWELL: And who did you report to? MR. CLOVIS: Corey Lewandowski, who was campaign manager. MR. SWALWELL: And were you stationed in Iowa, or were you in Washington or New York? MR. CLOVIS: No, I was -- I lived in Iowa, but I commuted wherever they needed me. So I would come to New York when I was needed in New York, or I would come to Washington when I was needed here. And so I traveled extensively, did the rallies. We spent a lot of time on the Trump airplane going to rallies -MR. SWALWELL: Who else -MR. CLOVIS: -- and debates. MR. SWALWELL: Let's just talk about 2015. MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Who were the other senior officials that were in the Trump orbit -- candidate Trump orbit at that time? MR. CLOVIS: Michael Glassner, who was our political director; Hope Hicks, who was the communications director; Dan Scavino, who handled social media; George Gigicos, who was our event planner. I think that was probably -- that was it. That was about the whole national team at that time. MR. SWALWELL: Was General Flynn on the team? In -UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 9 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 10 MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: -- 2015, was he on the team? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. How about Jared Kushner? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Did anyone report to you? And I'm just talking about 2015 for now. MR. CLOVIS: No. Pretty flat organization. MR. SWALWELL: To join the team, did you have to sign an NDA, nondisclosure agreement? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, I did. MR. SWALWELL: When did you sign that? MR. CLOVIS: It was that morning, the first day of work. MR. SWALWELL: In August 2015? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Where did you sign it? MR. CLOVIS: At a hotel in Dubuque, Iowa. MR. SWALWELL: Who asked you to sign that? MR. CLOVIS: Chuck Laudner. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. You know, the Hotel Julian in Dubuque, Iowa, is a nice -MR. CLOVIS: This was some event center out on the river, so -MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Chuck Laudner, why did he ask you to sign the -MR. CLOVIS: It was just -- it was standard. It was part of the -- I had a UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 11 contract I signed. The compensation issues and all that were all part of it. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Is there anything about that NDA that you believe precludes you from giving truthful or complete testimony today? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: So, in 2015, were you interacting with candidate Trump? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Where and how often? MR. CLOVIS: Regularly and all over, New York or on the plane or at debates or at events. I traveled extensively with the candidate at that time, not all the time, because occasionally we'd have to go home and, you know, get fresh laundry. And so it was a -- but generally I was either in New York or traveling with the team or we would be down at Mar-a-Lago between events. MR. SWALWELL: If you wanted to reach candidate Trump, how would you -- if you wanted to talk to him on the phone, how would you contact him? MR. CLOVIS: I would go through Corey Lewandowski. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Did you have candidate Trump's cell phone number? MR. CLOVIS: It may be in my phone. I don't know. I just -- I've never used it. I honestly don't know. MR. SWALWELL: So if you wanted to talk to him by phone, you would call or text Corey, and then Corey would arrange the phone call? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. And if candidate Trump called you, would it come up on your phone as, you know, a phone number or a number that you had UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 12 put in your phone or as a blocked number? MR. CLOVIS: No. It would come up as a phone number. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Did he ever call you and it would come up as a blocked number? Did that ever occur? MR. CLOVIS: No. A lot of people did, but not him. MR. SWALWELL: And was it always the same number that he would call you from, or was it always a different number? MR. CLOVIS: I wouldn't say always different, but it was -- you know, if I knew the phone call was coming in and it was a 212 area code, I would take the call. MR. SWALWELL: Sure. Did you ever text with candidate Trump? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever email with him? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever deal with a woman named Rhona Graff? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Who do you understand her to be? MR. CLOVIS: She was the executive vice president of Trump Organization. She ran the office on the Trump Organization side. MR. SWALWELL: Would you ever communicate a message that you wish to be passed to candidate Trump through her? MR. CLOVIS: Not through her, no. Not through Rhona. MR. SWALWELL: Did you understand her as a person that people would communicate messages through to get to candidate Trump? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 13 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. CLOVIS: I'm sure they did, but I didn't ever use her for that. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. MR. CLOVIS: I thought that was abusive. MR. SWALWELL: And as we sit here today, do -- we have some of your campaign email exchanges with various Trump campaign individuals, but we do not have any personal email production from you. Would you be willing to turn over to the -MR. CLOVIS: That's not true. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. You've produced personal -MR. CLOVIS: Six hundred pages of it. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. I'll check with our staff on that, and we can follow up on that. What personal email address -- and we can redact it if the record is ever produced for this interview. What personal email address were you using at that time? MR. CLOVIS: . MR. SWALWELL: Did you have any other personal email addresses? MR. CLOVIS: Not that were used, no. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. And when did you receive a Trump campaign email address? MR. CLOVIS: That day, I think, when -- that first day. MR. SWALWELL: In August 2015? MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. MR. CLOVIS: Don't ask me what it was. I don't know. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 14 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. SWALWELL: In addition to the Trump campaign email exchanges, would you also use the email to -- MR. CLOVIS: Occasionally. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. And what personal cell phones were you using at the time? MR. CLOVIS: I have one cell phone. MR. SWALWELL: Just one. Okay. And have you produced to the committee any records with respect to phone calls or text messages? MR. CLOVIS: No. Never been asked. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. And if you were asked, you would cooperate with that? MR. CLOVIS: Sure. MR. SWALWELL: Were you using any other messaging devices in 2015 or even 2016? And I'll just give you examples. WhatsApp? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. How about Signal? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Telegram? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Any other messaging devices -MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: -- besides a text messaging service? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. How would you characterize candidate Trump's view of U.S. policy towards UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 15 Russia and what it should be? MR. CLOVIS: Well, it was -- I think it's hard to characterize it. MR. SWALWELL: Well, I guess I'd ask, based on your interaction with him, what did you understand it to be? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I think he was really very guarded in his views. I think we -- I had and -- I had a very clear picture of what I thought our position ought to be, and I articulated that to the candidate when he would ask. We never really got into any heavy discussions on foreign policy. I think it made him uncomfortable. It was really up to me, as the policy person, to really take a -- you know, to try to steer that ship as best we could. And my view was a classic view as a Cold War warrior, was to contain Russia, to contain China and Iran, to deal with the rogue states in a direct manner, a position of strength, which we felt that we needed at least a couple of years to develop because we were behind the power curve in our military readiness. And then the separate piece was how do you deal with nonstate actors. So that was articulated. I think he absorbed that. I am not sure what his position was on any of that. MR. SWALWELL: So, going back to 2014 when you first met him -MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. SWALWELL: And it was in Sioux City? Is that where you first met? MR. CLOVIS: No. It was in West Des Moines, Iowa. MR. SWALWELL: West Des Moines. When you first met him in West Des Moines and you said you had a pretty long interaction with him, did he ever -MR. CLOVIS: Several short interactions, not long interaction. MR. SWALWELL: -- did he ever express any views in that first meeting UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 16 about Russia? MR. CLOVIS: No. No, we were -- it was typical fundraiser stuff. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. MR. CLOVIS: And it was just really a chance to get to know him. And he's quite engaging, very charming. MR. SWALWELL: And in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 2015, did he ever express his views on Russia to you? MR. CLOVIS: No. No, not at all. MR. SWALWELL: And, in 2015, from August until the end of the year, in the interactions that you had with him at Mar-a-Lago, Trump Tower, on the phone, or on the road, did he ever express to you any views on Russia? MR. CLOVIS: He never expressed definitive views on Russia. It was -MR. SWALWELL: What were the indefinitive views he expressed to you? MR. CLOVIS: I would say that we would articulate or we would argue our positions in front of him. He would listen to what we had to say. I wouldn't say it was arguments so much as we were trying to settle on, you know, what we thought was going on. There was a lot of moving parts, as you can imagine. And I think he was having a lot of fun with the Putin thing. MR. SWALWELL: What do you mean, "the Putin thing"? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I think it was the, you know, the bromance that he had with the -- or the apparent bromance that was reported in the news, and I think he really played up on that. MR. SWALWELL: And how did you perceive him as playing up on that? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I just think he really liked poking the media, and that was one way to do it. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 17 MR. SWALWELL: Is that something that you observed as an outsider or something you witnessed one-on-one or in his presence? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I just watched him, saw how he interacted with people. And I certainly watched him in the debates. That was my job, was to prepare him for the debates. MR. SWALWELL: And going back to, again, just your interactions, the personal knowledge you had, you talked about views that you expressed and others expressed to him about Russia. MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. SWALWELL: But I'm asking you, what did he say as far as the views he held about Russia? MR. CLOVIS: I want to make sure that I'm being very clear. I don't think he ever expressed to me definitively what he thought about foreign policy on any level. MR. SWALWELL: I'm not asking what he definitively expressed. Just what did he express at all? MR. CLOVIS: Generally, he would accept what we said. He might ask a question or two about it, but it was always general. I mean, there was no -- and I really got the sense that he was guarded about it because I don't think he wanted to share it with us, because I'm not sure that he was ready to take a position on it. And I really felt like that was all the way up through, I would say, March of '16. That's pretty much where he held his -- he held his own counsel, I guess, is the best way to say it. MR. SWALWELL: Did he ever express definitive or indefinitive favorable positions about Russia in your presence? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 18 MR. CLOVIS: No, I think just to pimp the media on Putin. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever share with him your strong views as a Cold War warrior, as you just -MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: -- mentioned? And what were his thoughts when you would express your strong views about containment? MR. CLOVIS: He never pushed back, but he also, I think, would acknowledge what I had to say. But he never pushed back. And he never really commented on it either, not to my recollection. MR. SWALWELL: Were you ever aware of anyone on the senior team, from Corey to you or Hope Hicks and others, as being assigned to deal with particular countries or foreign policy issues of particular countries? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. The policy shop was one-deep and it was me. MR. SWALWELL: Who was Carter Page? MR. CLOVIS: Carter Page was a person that approached the campaign. And I met him in New York on the fifth floor of Trump Tower. MR. SWALWELL: When was that? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure. It was 2016. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. What was on the fifth floor? MR. CLOVIS: That was the -- it was the old warehouse where they kept all of the "Apprentice" props. It was really stark. I mean, they had some -- it was mostly storage area. They had some offices that had been makeshift, just 2-by-4s and drywall. And all of our furniture were folding tables and chairs. And it was pretty austere. MR. SWALWELL: Can you recall if it was -UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 19 MR. CLOVIS: That was campaign headquarters, by the way. MR. SWALWELL: Can you recall if it was in the winter of 2016, meaning January, February, and March? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, it was. MR. SWALWELL: It was. Okay. MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. MR. SWALWELL: And what were the circumstances of meeting Carter Page? MR. CLOVIS: I had come over from the hotel I was staying in in New York. We always showed up for work really early. And so I came over, got into Trump Tower, went up to the fifth floor, and I walked -- literally ran into him when he was -- he was talking to Corey Lewandowski and Michael Glassner. Corey said, "Sam, this is Carter Page. I think you need to get to know him." So that's where I met Carter. We spent about 10 or 15 minutes in that first encounter. We just went into the conference room and sat down. I just tried to find out who he was and what it was about. MR. SWALWELL: Who else was there? MR. CLOVIS: Just me and him. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. And Corey at least appeared to you to have already met him or had a relationship with him? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. It appeared so. I mean, we had people show up all the time. I mean, you never knew for sure what was going on. But Corey -MR. SWALWELL: Had you ever heard of Carter Page before that? MR. CLOVIS: Never. Never. MR. SWALWELL: Is that the first time you had met someone new to the UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 20 team that you had no prior knowledge of? MR. CLOVIS: That's hard to say. I worked 16 to 20 hours a day, and I never had a day off. So it's hard for me to recollect all the circumstances -MR. SWALWELL: Sure. MR. CLOVIS: -- because we met a lot of people. MR. SWALWELL: Now, in an email dated December 31st, 2015, Mr. Page emailed Edward Cox. The subject was "Trump, Putin, and the Possible End of the Second Cold War." I'm going to go through the email in a second, but do you know who Ed Cox is? MR. CLOVIS: Only by the news. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Had you met him at this point? MR. CLOVIS: Never. I still haven't met him. MR. SWALWELL: And who is Ed Cox? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I honestly don't know who he is. Isn't he the son-in-law of Nixon or somebody like that? I don't -- that's how I know him. MR. SWALWELL: What did you understand his relationship to the Trump campaign to be? MR. CLOVIS: I didn't know he had a relationship. MR. SWALWELL: The email goes on to describe Page's hope for improved U.S.-Russia relations under a Trump administration. Cox replied and added Corey Lewandowski. He said, "Corey, Carter is a former Merrill Lynch investment banker and a Russia expert with business experience in Russia. He's interested in working with the Trump campaign and has an article in Global Policy Journal entitled "Trump, Putin, and the Possible End UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 21 of the Second Cold War." Were you ever made aware of this email? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Do you know whether Mr. Page had a relationship with Mr. Cox? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Once you met Mr. Page in the winter of 2016, did you exchange contact information? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. What type of contact information? MR. CLOVIS: Email, phone. MR. SWALWELL: After that meeting at Trump Tower with Mr. Page, do you recall a January 30th, 2016, email from Mr. Page to you with the subject line being, "J.P. Morgan Securities: GAZPROM INVESTOR DAY"? MR. CLOVIS: No, I don't recall that. If you had it, I can look at it. MR. SWALWELL: We'll mark that as exhibit 1, if that's okay with the chair. MR. CONAWAY: Without objection. [Clovis Exhibit No. 1 was marked for identification.] MR. SWALWELL: It's Bates stamped DJTFP00009711-12. MR. CLOVIS: So I probably ought to start at the end here, right? MS. TOENSING: Do you have another copy of that? MR. SWALWELL: Yeah. Mr. Clovis, having read exhibit 1, do you recognize that email? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 22 MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Is it your testimony today that you've never seen it before, or it's just something you don't recognize? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recognize it. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. At the time of this email, January 30th, 2016, can you tell us whether that is a date that's before or after that Trump Tower meeting you had? MR. CLOVIS: It would be after, because I'm pretty sure it was January when I met him. MR. SWALWELL: He also addresses the email to Michael in addition to yourself. Is that Michael Glassner? MR. CLOVIS: It says it right here, Michael Glassner. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. And at that point in time, January 2016, he's the executive director of the Trump campaign. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. Political director. MR. SWALWELL: And you reported to him? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: If there was -- and I know it's been described as -- you know, it was a campaign in formation, but would you say that still in 2016, January 2016, your only direct report is to Mr. Lewandowski? MR. CLOVIS: That's correct. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Did Mr. Glassner report to Mr. Lewandowski? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, I suspect he did. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. MS. TOENSING: Well, let's clarify. Do you know for sure? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 23 MR. CLOVIS: I don't know. I don't know if he did or not. MR. SWALWELL: Would you agree that, at this time, Mr. Page is on the campaign? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. But he's certainly emailing with a senior member of the campaign, yourself, and the political director, Mr. Glassner. MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. SWALWELL: He starts the email, he says, "Following up on our discussions about Russia earlier this month." Do you see that part? MR. CLOVIS: Which one? MR. SWALWELL: The January 30 email. MR. CLOVIS: Yep. Go ahead. MR. SWALWELL: Do you see that part? MS. TOENSING: Could you say if it's on page 1 or 2? MR. CLOVIS: No, it's first page, "Following up on our discussions about Russia." There we go. Go ahead. MR. SWALWELL: What is he referring to, "Following up on our discussions," "our" implying that it was a discussion that you and Michael were a part of? MR. CLOVIS: I think it was between Carter Page and me, because when I was in New York, we had met and talked. MR. SWALWELL: And this is that first meeting you're talking about? MR. CLOVIS: No, it was subsequent. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. How many times before January 30th do you UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 24 believe you met in person with Carter Page? MR. CLOVIS: I'm only speculating one or two times. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. And were they both in New York? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Is this the first email -- or are you aware of any emails -- and I understand your testimony today is you don't recall this email, but are you aware of any emails that predate January 30th between you and Carter Page, either on this campaign email address or the personal email address? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall. MR. SWALWELL: What were your discussions about Russia prior to this email with Carter Page? MR. CLOVIS: I think -- well, predominantly, it was interesting to try to get his perspective on where he saw Russia. And I really attributed the difference in views as almost generational, because I was about 20 years older and had been through a lot more of the Cold War than he had. And I felt he was far more -- because he'd been over there more recently -- I've never been there, but more recently -- he was far more, I would say, favorably disposed to Russia. MR. SWALWELL: In your first two meetings with him, he expressed to you that he had been to Russia before? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Did he express to you that he had contacts in Russia? MR. CLOVIS: I don't -- that never registered. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Did you -MR. CLOVIS: I know he had contacts because he talked about his UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 25 businesses, what he did. Because we wanted to know what he was doing. MR. SWALWELL: Did he ever express -- or did you ever express to him in these in-person meetings your counter views on Russia? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. I told him very clearly what I thought. MR. SWALWELL: He goes on to say in the email -- I'll refer you back to exhibit 1 -- "Through my discussions with these high level contacts, it is their belief that a direct meeting in Moscow between Mr Trump and President Putin could be arranged." Do you see that part of the email? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Did he ever express in those first two meetings contacts that he had that could arrange a meeting with Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall. MR. SWALWELL: Is that something that you would recall, though? Do you think it would jump out -MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: -- if a person you just met is saying he can connect your candidate and Mr. Putin? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Was anyone else present when you and Mr. Page discussed in person his views on Russia -MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: -- the first two times? Did you ever give any guidance in these first two meetings to Mr. Page about, you know, to cease communications with any Russians or to keep to UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 26 himself any views he had on Russia? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did you tell anybody after these first two meetings with Mr. Page about Mr. Page and his views on Russia? MR. CLOVIS: I don't think we discussed the views on Russia. I think we discussed the fact that he wanted to help the campaign. MR. SWALWELL: And it's fair to say that after your first two meetings with him and at least after this email he remained in the campaign's orbit; he wasn't dismissed? MR. CLOVIS: No, he was a contact, yeah. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. MR. CLOVIS: But you have to remember, we had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people daily that would contact the campaign. And so, you know, he was just one of them. MR. SWALWELL: How many of the hundreds and hundreds of people who would daily contact the campaign were able to get in-person meetings with a senior person like yourself and have your email address? MR. CLOVIS: A handful. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. So he was on a shorter list of -MR. CLOVIS: But email, I don't know how they do it. I have no idea how they do it. But you can't imagine how many emails I got where people were trolling us, you know, attacking us, death threats, I mean -- and how they got the emails, I have no idea. MR. SWALWELL: But Mr. Page was someone who got the email from you? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 27 MR. CLOVIS: He was not one of those, yes. MR. SWALWELL: Right. Okay. So he was in a much smaller list of people who you had met in person and had your email address -MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: -- and that you wrote back and forth? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Finally, in the last paragraph, he shares the details of a meeting he'll be participating in with senior members of Russia's Gazprom. He says, "The business-focused approach of this company and the unnecessary negative impact of the U.S. Government's failed sanctions policy has severely hindered the development of Gazprom in recent years with potential catastrophic consequences for the people of Russia. They too are eagerly awaiting the massive changes which Mr. Trump has readily positioned himself to soon bring." Do you see that sentence? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, I do. MR. SWALWELL: And I understand you don't recall reading this email, but did he ever discuss with you his views on Gazprom or Russia's energy sector? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I think the sanctions were something that he had asked -- or not asked about, but he had expressed his views on the sanctions, and I was totally uncommitted on that. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. And the sanctions we're talking about are the Magnitsky Act sanctions of 2014? MR. CLOVIS: I don't know what they were. I just know they're Russian sanctions. MR. SWALWELL: And you understand today that Gazprom is one of UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 28 those sanctioned entities. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. SWALWELL: Did you know that at the time? MR. CLOVIS: No. I'm not even sure I know it now, but I'll take your word for it. MR. SWALWELL: You responded to that January 30th email the same day. You said, "Carter, thanks. I will be in touch next week when the dust settles. Sam." MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. So, via the nature of you responding, we can assume that you did read the email and -MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. Yeah. MR. SWALWELL: You just don't recall it today? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. What dust were you waiting for to settle? MR. CLOVIS: The campaign. It was just constant. I mean, it's -- I'm a very nice guy most of the time, and I try to be polite to people. And, again, we had a lot of people that would solicit input or ideas from the campaign, and it was usually my job to make sure that we were nice, because not everybody in the campaign was nice. MR. SWALWELL: Now, you don't respond and tell him to cease efforts to connect high-level contacts or to make a direct meeting in Moscow between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: He was not part of the campaign. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 29 MR. SWALWELL: And you didn't express, at least in email, any counter views that you had on Russia? MR. CLOVIS: Not in emails, no, but I told him pretty clearly what I thought. MR. SWALWELL: In this email, he is expressing to you that he has been overseas. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. He's also expressing that he has ties to the Kremlin. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Uh-huh. MR. SWALWELL: He also expresses he has high-level contacts in Russia, right? MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. SWALWELL: And he also says that he wants to connect, as I said, Mr. Trump to Mr. Putin, right? MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. SWALWELL: Did you tell anyone about this email after you read it? MR. CLOVIS: Well, Glassner was on it. I didn't think I needed to. MR. SWALWELL: So is that a no? MR. CLOVIS: That's a no. MR. SWALWELL: Did it concern you that you had somebody who you had met with in person at Trump Tower, he had your email, he at least was offering advice for your candidate, and that they were views that were, it sounds like, 180 degrees different from how you perceived Russia? MR. CLOVIS: He wasn't talking to the candidate, so I didn't care. MR. SWALWELL: He responds to your email on -- I'm sorry -- on UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 30 February 2nd, 2016, he sends a new email. If we have that email, we'll mark this as exhibit 2. [Clovis Exhibit No. 2 was marked for identification.] MR. SWALWELL: And while we give it to you, its Bates stamped DJTFP00009721. So let's go back to the top of that page now, because we were referring to a January 30th portion at the bottom of the page. So, Mr. Clovis, you've read the top of the page of 9711 -MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. SWALWELL: -- which remains exhibit 1. In that exchange, he says, "It's now more clear than ever that the initiative we've been discussing can not only fix a longstanding failed element of U.S. foreign policy." Do you see that part? MR. CLOVIS: Uh-huh. MR. SWALWELL: What initiative was Mr. Page referring to? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I think he was trying to suggest that -MS. TOENSING: Let's just make the record clear. Are you speculating, or are you -MR. CLOVIS: I'm speculating. MR. SWALWELL: Do you know? MS. TOENSING: Do you want speculation? MR. CLOVIS: I don't know. MR. SWALWELL: I just want your personal knowledge. MR. CLOVIS: I don't know what initiative he was talking about. MR. SWALWELL: But he does reference "we"? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 31 MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Did you ever discuss U.S. trade policy -- and I'm just talking about trade policy now toward Russia. MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: You did with Mr. Trump? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: And what was discussed? MR. CLOVIS: Well, again, it was about -- you know, I didn't think that we needed to be -- my position had always been that we were to have no dealings with Russia without first consulting our NATO allies. Because it was important for us, even though we had been very harsh on NATO in a lot of our rhetoric, the idea was that we would not make any moves in that area without first getting our NATO allies on board. And that would be, from the trade perspective, we needed to compete with Russia, particularly in the energy sector, because we had the possibility, with energy dominance in this country, to displace some of Russia's hold on European countries with the trade particularly in energy. And I've always been a trade hawk on a lot of these issues, and I think that America ought to be first. And probably one of the reasons I supported Mr. Trump. MR. SWALWELL: So a new email, we'll mark it exhibit 2, is February 7th. That's Bates stamped -- and we'll give that to you and counsel -- DJTFP00009721 and also 722. MR. CLOVIS: Okay. So you just added the February 7th email to the other chain. Okay. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 32 MR. SWALWELL: Mr. Clovis, exhibit 2, do you recognize that? MR. CLOVIS: My name is on it, yes. MR. SWALWELL: And you actually responded to it too. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, I did. MS. TOENSING: Can we just clear the record, because you just said, "My name is on it, yes." Does that mean you recognize it, or does it come back into your head? MR. CLOVIS: No, I don't remember the email. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. But this was your email address. Is that correct? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: And, Mr. Clovis, just to set the context here, it's February 7th, 2016. I don't recall the exact dates, but we're around now the time period of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: The 1st of February was the -- I think was the Iowa caucus, and the 8th of February was the New Hampshire primary. MR. SWALWELL: So this is the day before the New Hampshire primary? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Safe to say this was probably one of the busier times you had in the primary season? MR. CLOVIS: Safe to say. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. And Mr. Page sends an email to you at 9:29 p.m., on February 7, and you respond to him about 63 minutes later at 10:32 p.m. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 33 MR. SWALWELL: So, even during this very busy time, Mr. Page was at least important enough to get a response within about an hour from you. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Uh-huh. MR. SWALWELL: Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: I responded to him, yes. MR. SWALWELL: In the email, Mr. Page says, "As I have alluded to before, there is no question that a Trump visit to Moscow and related meetings with Putin would prove to be the most important campaign event in the history of U.S. politics." Do you see that part of the email? MR. CLOVIS: I do. MR. SWALWELL: So this is the second time now that Mr. Page in the last 8 days is bringing up a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Uh-huh. MR. SWALWELL: Yes? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: And I only say that just for the transcriber. MR. CLOVIS: I'm fine. Mr. Swalwell, 5 minutes, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Thanks. You replied to Mr. Page, as I said, about an hour later, "Tuesday looks like a good day to talk. Everyone here will be turning out votes. Give me some windows for the calls." And when you say "turning out votes," are you referring to the New UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 34 Hampshire primary? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, I am. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Did you at this point tell anyone else that Mr. Page has now mentioned to you by email two times connecting Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin? MR. CLOVIS: I did not. MR. SWALWELL: Also on that email exchange was Mr. Glassner and Mr. Lewandowski. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: That's correct. MR. SWALWELL: Did you respond to Mr. Page's overture regarding the Trump visit to Moscow? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did the two of you connect the next day by phone? MR. CLOVIS: I don't remember. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Is that something that if we were to have your phone records we would probably be able to find out? MR. CLOVIS: I suppose. MR. SWALWELL: Did Mr. Page have your cell phone number? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Do you know if a call did occur the next day with Mr. Page? MR. CLOVIS: I don't remember. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever tell Mr. Trump -- or did you ever tell candidate Trump Mr. Page's offer? MR. CLOVIS: No. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 35 MR. SWALWELL: Did you tell Mr. Lewandowski? MR. CLOVIS: No. He was on the email. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Did you ever discuss offline, off email, with Mr. Lewandowski that this individual was offering to connect Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump? MR. CLOVIS: No. Corey's -- my role was to herd the cats. Corey had plenty of other stuff to do. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever discuss with Mr. Glassner offline -MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: -- off email, Mr. Page's offer? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did you discuss with anyone -MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: -- family members -MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: -- someone else in the campaign? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: February 9th, exhibit 3, you and Mr. Page emailed to confirm a phone call. That's Bates stamped DJTFP00009772 to 9773. [Clovis Exhibit No. 3 was marked for identification.] MS. TOENSING: Just for clarification for the record, this is a really screwed up way of numbering these things, because the different pages now have different numbers, because they're the thread. So it's just -- you might want to just clear it up for your records, because they're the same ones, just threading with UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 36 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE new numbers. MR. SWALWELL: Thank you for sharing that. MS. TOENSING: Sure. MR. CLOVIS: What about that? MR. SWALWELL: Do you recognize this email? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: It's an email, subject line, "Russia, the debate." Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yeah, I see it. Yeah. MR. SWALWELL: And Mr. Page addresses . Is that correct? MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. SWALWELL: That was your campaign email address? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: And when you say you don't recognize it, is it that you don't recall it or -MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall it. No, that is my email. I don't recall the email. I'm sorry I'm not clear. MR. SWALWELL: So Mr. Page in that email says, "Sam, just finished my dentist appointment and I'm free to talk when convenient. Please let me know what time is best for you. Does 2 pm work? Carter." MR. CLOVIS: And I respond, "Perfect. Call you then." MR. SWALWELL: Yes. And you respond, again, under an hour later. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: It appears so, yeah. No -- yeah, an hour and 1 minute, UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 37 yeah. One minute, sir. MR. SWALWELL: What is he referring to when he says "Russia, the debate"? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure. MR. SWALWELL: Had you and he discussed Russia coming up in a debate? MR. CLOVIS: I think the debates -- I can't remember how far along we were, because the debates started in August, I think, and the first debate prep I did was September. And I did all of the debate prep coming up to -- I think, February, we only had a handful left, only two or three left. And I'm not sure which one this would've been. MR. SWALWELL: Did you call him at 2:00 p.m.? MR. CLOVIS: I don't know. I can't remember. MR. SWALWELL: I'll yield. MR. CONAWAY: All right. Mr. Clovis, thank you again for being here. The question we're trying to answer relative to this whole exercise is what kind of relationship, if any, did either of the campaigns have with Russia, Russian Government, Russian Government entities, government agents, government provocateurs, folks who could spell "Russia." MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. CONAWAY: So let me get a couple easy ones out in the first place. Carter Page told us in his conversation that he made a trip to Russia in the summer of '16. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 38 MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. CONAWAY: Did you tell him to do that? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. CONAWAY: Did you know he was going to do that? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. CONAWAY: Any sense that he would've been there on official business for the Trump campaign? MR. CLOVIS: No, he would not have -- I don't think he would've been under any illusion he would represent the campaign. MR. CONAWAY: Okay. And then, with respect to the foreign policy advisory -MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. CONAWAY: I got corrected, that the Trump campaign created several advisory boards? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. CONAWAY: What was your role in the foreign advisory policy? MR. CLOVIS: Oh, it's a great story. I get a call, I think it was on the 12th of March. And I think we -MR. CONAWAY: What year? MR. CLOVIS: 2016. It was a -- we'd been at a debate, and we were on a plane flying back either -- I can't remember where, New York or -- I think it was New York. And then I was to catch a plane and I flew back to Iowa. I was actually at home in Iowa after one of these trips, and it was relatively late in the evening. And I got a call from Jared -- we had been talking about a national advisory UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 39 committee on national security on the plane. And Senator Sessions, then-Senator Sessions, had apparently talked to the candidate and volunteered to be the chairman of that committee. MR. CONAWAY: Foreign policy or national security? MR. CLOVIS: Well, it was a national security advisory committee, is what it was. MR. CONAWAY: Okay. MR. CLOVIS: And, if you remember, at that time, we had already had recently, like, 50 people sign a letter that were Never Trumpers, and then another 100 foreign policy people signed a letter -- it was in The Washington Post and New York Times -- Never Trumpers. And so we were getting beat up pretty badly by the press. So the effort was to try to alleviate some of the press pressure by having a national advisory committee put together. And so we had talked about it on the flight, I think it was back to New York. MR. CONAWAY: "We." Could you -MR. CLOVIS: Yes. It was the candidate, myself, Stephen Miller, Corey Lewandowski, and Michael Glassner, that inner circle that were campaign people. When I got back to Iowa on, I think it was the 12th or 13th, something like that, I got a phone call from Jared Kushner in the evening, and Jared said, can you put a team together? And so I spent the night and the next day cobbling together these eight individuals that became the national advisory committee, with Senator Sessions as the chairman. And that committee included Keith Kellogg, General Keith Kellogg; General Bert Mizusawa; General Gary Harrell; Admiral Chuck Kubic; George Papadopoulos; Carter Page; Walid Phares; and I'm missing someone. But there UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 40 were eight -- oh, Joe Schmitz. So there were eight people, and that was about all the people we had on a Rolodex that were supportive of the President that had any cache at all. And so I put together their bios and sent those back to the campaign, to Corey and to Jared. And the vetting that I had was what I was able to do online. And I had talked to some of these people previously in passing, so I knew who they were. I had not met all of them, but I knew who they were. And so I put this team together, sent it to the campaign. And then they rolled it out as the national advisory committee on national security. MR. CONAWAY: So were you responsible for making those calls once they agreed to the list? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. CONAWAY: And you talked to each of the eight? MR. CLOVIS: I talked to all eight of them, yes, I did. MR. CONAWAY: So we know how you met Carter Page. How had you met or did you meet George Papadopoulos? MR. CLOVIS: I think it was on the phone. I can't remember when I met him in person for the first time. MR. CONAWAY: When was that first phone call that you remember? MR. CLOVIS: Oh, just that he had contacted the campaign and that we were -- Corey had asked me -- I think he had contacted Corey. I can't recall exactly. But that was typical. People would contact the campaign; they would contact Corey or Michael. And like a good goalie, they'd kick the ball -- the puck into the corner, and it was my job to dig it out. So that was my job. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 41 So I took care of all of the handling of people that might have some help or support in the campaign. Because we dealt with not only people -- George's background was energy, and he had been at the Hoover Institute. He was young, didn't have a lot of experience, but at that point we needed people. And Bert was a Harvard Law School graduate. Keith Kellogg had been the commander of the 18th Airborne Corps. Gary Harrell had been commander of the Delta Force. He, in fact, was the commander of the Black Hawk Down effort there. Chuck Kubic had been -- he was a Middle East expert, was head of the SeaBees for the Navy. So these were, you know, reputable people. Walid Phares had a great academic record, and he was a friend of the family, too, so that helped a lot. But so that was -- Joe had been -- Joe Schmitz had been the DOD IG. So those were -- tried to find credible people to put on this so that we could get the press off our backs. MR. CONAWAY: So, in your role -- but you, yourself, were not on the list? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. CONAWAY: What role did you play with the advisory board once it was put together? MR. CLOVIS: Just to facilitate it and then to facilitate that first meeting, which I think occurred on the 31st of March at the Trump International Hotel. MR. CONAWAY: All right. And Sessions took over the chair at that point in time? MR. CLOVIS: I'm sorry? Yes. MR. CONAWAY: Jeff Sessions was the chair at that point in time? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, sir, he did. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 42 MR. CONAWAY: Out from then through any relevant period in 2017, are you aware of any effort to engage either Papadopoulos, Carter, or any of the other six in trips to Russia on behalf of the campaign? MR. CLOVIS: No. No. I was always delay, delay, delay, deny, deny, deny. It was because -MR. CONAWAY: Wait a minute. Hang on. Delay, delay, deny, deny what? MR. CLOVIS: Anytime somebody would ask about something like that, the notion -MR. CONAWAY: Russia? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. You know, you've got to remember, in March, my role in the campaign changed dramatically, and that was from being close to the candidate, you know, a daily interaction with him and the campaign, to then my job became much more as the -- and I hate to use the term, but John the Baptist, because I became the person who was to go out and deal with all of the think tanks, all the interest groups, everybody in this town, in Washington, everybody all over the country. And so it was my job to go out and tamp down, you know, resistance to the candidate or at least to try to neutralize that through meetings and interface with them so we could talk about the candidate. And that was really my job. I became the road warrior, and I traveled all over the country doing that. Stephen Miller took over most of the day-to-day hand-holding of the candidate from a policy perspective in that March timeframe. And so, you know, I was almost, I would say, just as the fact that -- I happened to be in D.C. at the time to help put that meeting together, the 31st of March meeting. But any interaction on foreign policy after that was -- I had virtually no say on foreign policy. I had UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 43 virtually no input on foreign policy. And I think what was, you know, going on is that these guys were still looking for contacts inside the campaign, and I was the one that maintained those contacts, even though I would never advance any of their ideas or thoughts above my level. MR. CONAWAY: That meeting on March 31st, did you stay for the whole meeting? MR. CLOVIS: I did for the whole meeting, yes. MR. CONAWAY: Okay. Do you recall any interaction at that meeting that Page might have had, Carter Page might have had? MR. CLOVIS: Carter Page was not at that meeting. MR. CONAWAY: Okay. How about George Papadopoulos? MR. CLOVIS: George was at the meeting, and he spoke for about 2 minutes. MR. CONAWAY: All right. Anybody at the meeting suggest following up on Carter Page's previously suggested meetings with Putin, that he was -MR. CLOVIS: Never brought up. MR. CONAWAY: -- the main guy? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir, never brought up. MR. CONAWAY: All right. Was Russia brought up much at all? MR. CLOVIS: George tried to bring it up, but I -- and, again, this is based on what other -- I honestly don't remember George saying anything in the meeting other than, when he started talking, Senator Sessions interrupted him, and then the candidate interrupted him, and he did not get to say any more, and they moved to the next person. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 44 MR. CONAWAY: Okay. Were other people added to the national security board after that -MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. CONAWAY: -- eight? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. CONAWAY: In terms of George Papadopoulos, what, if anything, can you tell us his role with the campaign was through the election? MR. CLOVIS: Well, one, he didn't have a role. I mean, he was -- that advisory committee essentially became moot after that meeting, because we had the press come in, you know, the Washington Post people came in after that meeting and had a one-on-one interview with the candidate. And I had gone -- I left, I didn't stay for that interview. So I don't know what transpired in that interview other than what I read in the paper. As far as George's -- that committee had virtually no role or input into the campaign after that meeting. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 45 [12:00 p.m.] MR. CONAWAY: So, other than Jeff Sessions and whatever role he might have played in the campaign -MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. CONAWAY: -- is it fair to characterize those other seven as window dressing? MR. CLOVIS: I would say there were some that didn't have a role. Bert Mizusawa and Keith Kellogg went to New York and advised in New York over the course -- the rest of the campaign. MR. CONAWAY: Directly with the candidate or -MR. CLOVIS: Directly with -- well, I don't know if it was directly with the candidate. I have no knowledge of that. But I do know that they were in New York and they were party to that. MR. CONAWAY: Okay. So, in your role, were you aware of any collusion with the Russian Government, with Putin, with Russians in general and the Trump campaign, Trump himself, Trump orbit folks? MR. CLOVIS: No. And I would never have advised him to follow up on any of that. MR. CONAWAY: How about coordinating efforts that the Russians might have been doing on their own with respect to impacts it has with the Trump campaign, or the campaign wanting the Russians to do something on its behalf that would advance its interests? Any knowledge of that with the Russian Government, Putin himself, elements of the Russian Government, or Russians in UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 46 general? MR. CLOVIS: I have no knowledge of any of that. MR. CONAWAY: How about a conspiracy to do anything among President Trump, then candidate Trump, Trump campaign, Trump orbit and the Russians to conspire to rig the election, to do anything with respect to having an impact on the election? THE WITNESS. I have no knowledge of any of that. MR. CONAWAY: I'm trying to make sure I ask that question as broad as I can -MR. CLOVIS: Yes, sir. MR. CONAWAY: -- Mr. Clovis, because that's obviously the core of what we're trying to get done -MR. CLOVIS: Yes, sir. MR. CONAWAY: -- and I want to make sure we've got your perspective in our record so that -MR. CLOVIS: Yes, sir. MR. CONAWAY: -- we have that there. Just briefly, sir. MR. CONAWAY: All right. BY Q The committee has four parameters for its investigation. A Right. Q What did Russia do with respect to interfering with the U.S. election? Two, with whom, if anyone, did they do it? Number three, what was the U.S. Government response? And, number four, discussing potential leaks of classified UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 47 information. A Right. Q You just spoke with Chairman Conaway about the first two. I'll ask you about the last two, starting with the fourth one first. Are you aware of any leaks of classified information with respect to the Russian Government interference with the 2016 Presidential election? A No. Q And do you have any personal knowledge about the U.S. Government's response to the Russian interference in the -A No. Q -- 2016 Presidential election? A Other than me being involved in these investigations, no. MR. CONAWAY: So you explained to us that post-March 30th-ish -MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. CONAWAY: -- your role changed. You became some sort of ambassador after that. MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. MR. CONAWAY: Did that role -- how long did that last? MR. CLOVIS: All the way up to the election. I also -- I built coalitions. So my job was to go out and deal with that. So I was principally responsible for putting together the agricultural and rural affairs coalition, the Second Amendment coalition, the law enforcement coalition. MR. CONAWAY: All right. MR. CLOVIS: I worked with Alan Cobb on that. MR. CONAWAY: And that was through the election. And after the UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 48 election -MR. CLOVIS: Yes, sir. After the election -MR. CONAWAY: -- through the inauguration, what did you do, if anything? MR. CLOVIS: After the election, I was asked to come back, and I was a policy director during the transition up until -MR. CONAWAY: Is that an official title? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, sir. MR. CONAWAY: Okay. MR. CLOVIS: Policy director. Then I was responsible for making sure that we had consistency with the campaign promises for all -- we dealt with 46 agency action plans to go in the first day, first 100 days, first 200 days, and it was my job to vet all of those and get those ready, making sure they were consistent. And then I was asked to lead the beachhead team into the Department of Agriculture, and that's where I've been ever since. MR. CONAWAY: So when did that start? MR. CLOVIS: January 20th, Inauguration Day. MR. CONAWAY: So was there an official transition team in the USDA during the transition or just -MR. CLOVIS: Well, there is, and they're called -- those are landing teams. MR. CONAWAY: Right. MR. CLOVIS: And those teams reported back to us, the policy directors, on what they were learning. And this is how we developed our action plans to go in. MR. CONAWAY: And then, since January 20th, what's been your role? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 49 MR. CLOVIS: I've been the senior White House adviser to the United States Department of Agriculture. MR. CONAWAY: All right. Well, we'll turn it over to the other side. MR. SWALWELL: Did you want a break? MR. CLOVIS: No. I'm good. MS. TOENSING: Why don't we just take a break? Five minutes. [Recess.] MR. SWALWELL: Mr. Clovis, going back to February 10th, 2016, Mr. Page emailed you, copying Corey Lewandowski and Michael Glassner, thanking you for the discussion yesterday. And my counsel just stepped out, and she has the emails. I'll read the email to you when she gets back. MR. CONAWAY: Is that the one they already passed out? MR. SWALWELL: No, it's a new one. Do you recall Mr. Page emailing you and thanking you for a discussion in February? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Mike, let me grab our lawyer and tell her I need those exhibits. [Recess.] MR. SWALWELL: So we need the February 10th email. Bates stamped 9780? MR. SWALWELL: Yes. So, as he's reading that, Mr. Chairman, I'd just ask to mark this as exhibit 4. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 50 MR. CONAWAY: Let me ask a question, if I might. How are you putting these guys together? Because you've got one dated February 7th at 9:29 -MR. SWALWELL: So this is -They're different strands of -MR. CONAWAY: -- another one is 8:32. Some of them are different strands of the same email, so we wanted to look at different parts. MR. CONAWAY: How would one be dated ahead of the other one? MR. SWALWELL: Well, so this is how the Trump campaign produced them to us, was in this form. MS. TOENSING: Are they Bates stamped? Yes. MR. SWALWELL: They stack the emails on top of each other. MR. CONAWAY: All right. MR. SWALWELL: But I'm referring to the February 10th, 2016, portion of this. MR. CONAWAY: You said exhibit 4? MR. SWALWELL: Yes, exhibit 4. MR. CONAWAY: Without objection. [Clovis Exhibit No. 4 was marked for identification.] MR. SWALWELL: And, Mr. Clovis, I'm only asking about the top portion of this. MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Again, is that Mr. Page emailing you? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 51 MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: That's your email address? MR. CLOVIS: [Nonverbal response.] MR. SWALWELL: Yes? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Do you recall this email? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: What is Mr. Page referring to when he says, the conversation -- the discussion that he and you had yesterday? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. So "yesterday," if we believe Mr. Page, would've been February 9th. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Is that the date of the New Hampshire primary? MR. CLOVIS: No, I think it was the 8th. MR. SWALWELL: The 8th. MR. CLOVIS: It would've been the day after. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. February 12th, 2016, exhibit 5, Mr. Page emails you and Mr. Glassner, subject line, "Trump, Putin, and the Possible End of the Second Cold War." That is Bates stamped from the Trump campaign 9643. And I would ask -MR. CLOVIS: Oh. MR. SWALWELL: -- to make that exhibit 5. [Clovis Exhibit No. 5. was marked for identification.] UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 52 MR. SWALWELL: And I'll let you refer to that one. And I said February 12th, 2016. That's actually January 12th, 2016. MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. This establishes the date of our first meeting. MR. SWALWELL: So you recognize that email? MR. CLOVIS: No, I don't recognize it, but it is -- you know, I don't remember it. Let me put it that way. MR. SWALWELL: And he references -- and I just want to clear up this to get an exact date on the first meeting. He says, "It was a pleasure to meet each of you today, upon Corey's introduction." So would you say it's fair to say that January 12 was probably the first time you met Carter Page? MR. CLOVIS: I would say that's fair. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Did Mr. Page ever discuss with you anything other than Russia in your interactions with him in January and February 2016? MR. CLOVIS: Oh, we talked about a lot of things. You know, I had a lot of conversations with him. I found him a very intelligent person. He had a Ph.D. He had an excellent academic background. He was a Naval Academy grad, and so we had a shared experience of being service academy grads. And I think that that's always something that helps get through a lot of the, I think, social conventions, because you have similar experiences even though they were 20-some years apart. MR. SWALWELL: With respect to policy, what do you recall discussing -- what did you discuss with Mr. Page that was not related to Russia? MR. CLOVIS: I think -- I can't recall anything specifically, but I'm sure that UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 53 we had a ranging discussion. He was an energy guy, so we probably talked -- I talked about American energy, I know, with him. MR. SWALWELL: But, again, are you speculating, Mr. Clovis, or do you have any -MR. CLOVIS: No, I remember talking about energy policy with him. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. MR. CLOVIS: Because that was really at the heart of a lot of what we were trying to achieve economically, was to gain energy independence in this country. And we also, because I had been involved in tax reform efforts, a lot of our trade policy discussions -MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever discuss that with Carter Page? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. February 17, 2016, exhibit 5, Carter Page emails you, copies Mr. Lewandowski. MS. TOENSING: I'm confused. That was just exhibit 5, 9643, and it's dated -MR. SWALWELL: I'm sorry. You're right. Exhibit 6. February 17th, 2016. [Clovis Exhibit No. 6 was marked for identification.] MR. SWALWELL: And the email subject line is "Trump Foreign Policy Team," Bates stamped 9815. MR. CLOVIS: Right. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. SWALWELL: Did you read that email? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Do you recall that email? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: It is from Carter Page to your email address. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: February 17th, 2016? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: In the email, he twice references Russia. Is that correct? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: But he also references that you can contact him on a UAE number that he has. Did you see that part? MR. CLOVIS: No, I don't -MR. SWALWELL: At the very end, he says, "Feel free to call me on my UAE mobile number." MR. CLOVIS: Oh, okay. Yeah. MR. SWALWELL: Do you know why he had a UAE cell phone? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did you call him on that phone number? MR. CLOVIS: No. [Clovis Exhibit No. 7 was marked for identification.] MR. SWALWELL: Going to exhibit 7, on March 6, 2016, you email Jared UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 54 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 55 Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Corey Lewandowsky, Michael Glassner, and Stephen Miller. And the subject is "Policy Team Agenda." It is Bates stamped DJ -MS. TOENSING: This is exhibit 7? MR. SWALWELL: Exhibit 7. It's 9899. MR. CLOVIS: Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah. MR. SWALWELL: Do you recognize this email? MR. CLOVIS: I've seen it in other parts of investigations, yes. MR. SWALWELL: You reference a matrix of potential members for the team. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: And you said that you had a strong team coming together in foreign policy and national security. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Was Page a part of that team at that point? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. At this -MR. CLOVIS: I -- I -MR. SWALWELL: Yeah? MR. CLOVIS: If I were a speculate, I was -- and I don't want to speculate, but if I were to say that our Rolodex was thin, I would say yes. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. And by my count, at this point we have 10 emails back and forth between you and Mr. Page. So it's fair to say, at least by March 6th, 2016, you and Mr. Page are actively engaged back and forth by email. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: That's correct. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 56 MR. SWALWELL: Okay. You also referred to the team as a strong team. Why did you make that reference? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I think I was asked to look at who we might have available to put together on a team. I don't think that any decision had been made on doing that, because I remember specifically that that request was made, I think, somewhere around the 12th or 13th of March, to put the team together. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. MR. CLOVIS: These are people who had approached the campaign, like Keith Kellogg and Gary Harrell. And I was asked to get NDAs executed on them so we could ask them to help if we needed the help and, at the same time, we would have some protection there. MR. SWALWELL: The next exhibit -- I believe would be exhibit 9 -- is a March 17, 2016, email that Carter Page forwarded to you. MS. TOENSING: I don't have an 8, unless I missed one. MR. SWALWELL: Exhibit 8 would be the next one. MR. CONAWAY: No, you said 9. MR. SWALWELL: No, I corrected myself. I think it's 8. [Clovis Exhibit No. 8 was marked for identification.] MR. SWALWELL: It's a March 17, 2016, email from Carter Page to you, Bates stamped 9958. Is that an email from Carter Page to you, Mr. Clovis? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, it is. MR. SWALWELL: Do you recall that email? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 57 MR. CLOVIS: No, I do not. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Mr. Page refers to, "I know some people who work closely with the Kremlin who made the comments, Dmitry Peskov." Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: That's what it says. MR. SWALWELL: Who did you understand Mr. Peskov to be? MR. CLOVIS: I have no idea who that is. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever discuss in person or by telephone with Mr. Page about his relationship with Dmitry Peskov? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever tell anyone -- so the email is only addressed to you. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: It looks that way, yes. MR. SWALWELL: Did you tell Mr. Lewandowsky about Mr. Page's offer? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall doing that. MR. SWALWELL: Did you tell Mr. Glassner? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall doing that. MR. SWALWELL: Did you tell Mr. Trump? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. MR. CLOVIS: I would not have communicated this to Mr. Trump at all. I know that for a fact. MR. SWALWELL: And, again, this is another reference from Mr. Page to Russia and his contacts. MR. CLOVIS: Yes. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 58 MR. SWALWELL: Are you concerned at this point? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Why not? MR. CLOVIS: I didn't think that our campaign was headed in that direction. And I think that, at least as far as my advice had been up to this point -- you have to remember that my input to the campaign on foreign policy after the team was put together had changed dramatically. MR. SWALWELL: But you were a part of putting the team together. MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Why did you put Mr. Page on the team? MR. CLOVIS: Because he was one of the few people we could find that had a credible enough background that we could put him on that team and would help assuage the press, which is exactly what it did. MR. SWALWELL: Did anyone on the campaign team ask you to find someone with an expertise in Russia? MR. CLOVIS: Well, yeah. I mean, not necessarily Russia specifically, but to find somebody that had, you know, some background. Russia was a topic that was consistent in the debates. It was also a continuation of the poking that the candidate was doing of the media, as far as the relationship with Putin. And he was an energy expert as well. MR. SWALWELL: You thought that Mr. Page's contacts with Russia were consistent with the Presidential candidate -MR. CLOVIS: I didn't say anything about his contacts with Russia. He had knowledge of Russia. I don't want you to think for a moment I cared about his contacts in Russia. What I cared about was his energy expertise and the fact UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 59 that he had been to Russia and he had boots-on-the-ground experience in Russia. MR. SWALWELL: And it sounds like you didn't care about his contacts with Russia. MR. CLOVIS: I didn't care about his contacts. MR. SWALWELL: I yield back. That's time. MR. CONAWAY: Fifteen minutes. MR. SWALWELL: Who on the campaign, as you were assembling the team, was asking you for foreign policy experts? MR. CLOVIS: Jared Kushner. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. When did this begin? MR. CLOVIS: I think I said it was -- occurred somewhere on the 12th or 13th of March, something like that. MR. SWALWELL: And you mentioned a meeting on the plane. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Well, we were on the plane and started talking about the foreign policy team. And that's where -- apparently, Senator Sessions had talked to the candidate and said that he would chair it. And so we were trying to figure out when we would pull the trigger on that and then go ahead and execute that. MR. SWALWELL: Was Senator Sessions on the plane? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Who else was on the plane? MR. CLOVIS: I think I've already answered that. It was Corey Lewandowsky, myself, Michael Glassner, and the candidate talking about this. MR. SWALWELL: Did you tell -UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 60 MR. CLOVIS: And Stephen Miller. MR. SWALWELL: Did you tell any of those individuals about Mr. Page while you were on the plane? MR. CLOVIS: They knew of Carter Page. MR. SWALWELL: How did they know of Carter Page? MR. CLOVIS: Because of his association and emails that he'd been sending to Corey Lewandowsky and Michael Glassner. MR. SWALWELL: How about Mr. Miller? Did you have knowledge of Mr. Page sending emails or communicating with Mr. Miller? MR. CLOVIS: I don't know if he did or not. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. And you also mentioned Mr. Trump was in the conversation. MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: How did Mr. Trump know of Mr. Page? MR. CLOVIS: He didn't, not that I'm aware of. Page never came up in the conversation. The conversation was about forming a national security team. MR. SWALWELL: And you mentioned -- you said "they" knew of Mr. Page. And Mr. Kushner was in that conversation as well? MR. CLOVIS: No. Kushner was not in that conversation. I don't remember Jared being on the plane. That particular -MR. SWALWELL: So Jared followed up -MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: -- after the plane. Got it. MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Did you express Mr. Page's name to Jared, UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 61 Mr. Kushner, when he followed up? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I sent him the roster of the eight names, and Carter Page was one of the names. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Did anyone object to Mr. Page when you sent that roster along? MR. CLOVIS: [Nonverbal response.] MR. SWALWELL: Is that a no? MR. CLOVIS: No. Yes, it's a no. [Clovis Exhibit No. 9 was marked for identification.] MR. SWALWELL: So March 17th, 2016 -- now this is exhibit 9 -- Mr. Page emails you again, and the subject is, "2016.03.17 - President's Daily Briefing." And that's Bates stamped 9962. MR. CLOVIS: Okay. MR. SWALWELL: Do you recognize this email, Mr. Clovis? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: It's an email on March 17th, 2016, from Carter Page to your email address. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: That's correct. MR. SWALWELL: And in the email, Mr. Page makes reference to, "While I understand the logic of this week's 'Is this what we want for a President?' video on Instagram, please note that there might be some downside in juxtaposing the images of the leader of Russia with an ISIS terrorist." Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: That's what it says. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 62 MR. SWALWELL: And this appears to you to be an effort by Mr. Page to change the messaging or juxtaposition of Vladimir Putin and ISIS? MR. CLOVIS: I don't remember the context of this, so I cannot comment on that. MR. SWALWELL: In the second paragraph, he also references, "A key advantage of a Trump Administration could be the improved relationship with Russia." Did you see that part? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, sir, I did. MR. SWALWELL: So, on March 21st, the team is announced by candidate Trump during an editorial board meeting. You referenced that earlier. Were you with Mr. Trump that day? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did you speak with him by phone that day? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Carter Page was announced to be on that team. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: If that's what it says. MR. SWALWELL: Is that your recollection? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Before Mr. Trump made the announcement of that team, did you ever speak in person with Mr. Trump or by phone with Mr. Trump about Mr. Page? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: To your knowledge, what did Mr. Trump know about Mr. Page prior to him telling The Washington Post that he was on the team? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 63 MR. CLOVIS: Other than what I sent biographically to Jared Kushner, I don't know what else he knew. MR. SWALWELL: What did Mr. Kushner know about Mr. Page prior to the March 21st, 2016, announcement? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure, other than what I sent him biographically. MR. SWALWELL: Is it fair to say that Mr. Page was put on the team by your recommendation? MR. CLOVIS: He was a -- yes. That's fair. MR. SWALWELL: Other than Mr. Lewandowsky and Mr. Glassner, who were aware of Mr. Page's multiple references to contacts in Russia and connecting Mr. Trump with Mr. Putin, did you tell anyone else on the campaign about Mr. Page's Russian suggestions? MR. CLOVIS: No, not that I recall. MR. SWALWELL: Is it possible that you could have? MR. CLOVIS: I would not speculate on that. I doubt it, because I was -- I had no -- at that point, I had virtually no impact or input on anything related to foreign policy other than putting this team together and arranging that March 31st meeting at Trump International. MR. SWALWELL: But that's a pretty big impact, to put the team together, right? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I was asked to, and I had the names, and so, yeah. MR. SWALWELL: Are you aware as to whether candidate Trump made any phone calls to tell individuals that they were going to be on the team? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not aware of any of that. MR. SWALWELL: That now-widely-known March 31st meeting -- I'm going UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 64 to hand you a picture. MR. CLOVIS: Sure. MR. SWALWELL: Mark it as exhibit 10. [Clovis Exhibit No. 10 was marked for identification.] MR. CLOVIS: Cool. MR. SWALWELL: Where's Mr. Page? MR. CLOVIS: He is not there, as I said before. MR. SWALWELL: Do you know why? MR. CLOVIS: I think he was in Hawaii traveling. MR. SWALWELL: Did he tell you this, or did someone else tell you? MR. CLOVIS: No, he told me he was not going to be at the meeting. MR. SWALWELL: He was invited? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. General Harrell is not there either. MR. SWALWELL: I'm going to mark exhibit 11. [Clovis Exhibit No. 11 was marked for identification.] MR. SWALWELL: It's a March 22nd, 2016, email from Carter Page to you, subject line, "Expect a Call," Bates stamped 0092. And it is double-sided, so you'll see -- I think it originates on the back page. MR. CLOVIS: Oh. MR. SWALWELL: Do you recognize that email, Mr. Clovis? MR. CLOVIS: I do not. MR. SWALWELL: It is signed in your name. Is that right? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 65 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: And -- MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: -- would you agree is your email address? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: And it says, "Gentlemen" -- on March 22nd, 2016 -- "Expect a call from Mr. Trump today at some point." Now, the way this email was produced, it's hard to see who is referred to as "gentlemen," but Mr. Page is at least responding. Who else was that email sent to? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure. MR. SWALWELL: Having looked at the email and read it, is your recollection refreshed as to why you were sending that email? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: It goes on to say, "I was asked for your numbers this morning. Given the events of the day, expect to be asked some questions about what we need to be doing about the unfolding events. Talk to you all soon." So I just want to go back. You said earlier that you don't recall Mr. Trump making any calls. But this email from you seems to suggest that, at the time, you had knowledge that he intended to do that. MR. CLOVIS: I don't know if he made the call. MR. SWALWELL: Did Carter Page ever tell you whether he received a call from Mr. Trump? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall. MR. SWALWELL: And, again, Mr. Page responds, thanking you, and then UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 66 attaches some talking points that he has put together that again include Russia. Is that correct? MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. I suppose. MR. SWALWELL: But I don't want you to suppose. I want you to just -- and I can direct you -- again, in the way that this was provided by the Trump campaign, it's not easy to follow along, but you'll see, about six paragraphs down, he references, "He was very much focused on containing Russia." MR. CLOVIS: So what are you asking me? MR. SWALWELL: Do you see the Russia reference there? MR. CLOVIS: About "consistently antagonizing Russia with NATO's expansionist policies"? MR. SWALWELL: Yes. MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Did you ever ask Carter Page to sign an NDA? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: When was that? MR. CLOVIS: It would've been early on, probably January, right after -MR. SWALWELL: Who asked you to do that? MR. CLOVIS: It was the policy of our campaign if we had people that were going to be providing advice. It was just a cautionary issue for us. MR. SWALWELL: Were you specifically asked, though, for Mr. Page, to have him sign an NDA? MR. CLOVIS: I was asked to have all the members of that team to sign NDAs. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 67 MR. SWALWELL: But in January you didn't know if Mr. Page was going to be on that team. MR. CLOVIS: No. It was probably later. I honestly don't know why I asked him to do it. MR. SWALWELL: Where were you when you asked him to do it? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I don't know. I don't recall. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever meet with Mr. Page for breakfast in northern Virginia? MR. CLOVIS: Oh, yes. MR. SWALWELL: Often? MR. CLOVIS: I would not say often, but occasionally. MR. SWALWELL: How many times did you meet with Mr. Page outside of Trump Tower one-on-one? MR. CLOVIS: One-on-one? I would say no more than a half a dozen times. MR. SWALWELL: Who did you give the NDA to once Mr. Page signed it? MR. CLOVIS: I sent it up to the headquarters. I think it was to, gosh, Campbell Burr, I think was the name. MR. SWALWELL: Is that B-u-r-r? MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. It was one of the executive assistants that we had up there. MR. SWALWELL: Do you know where that NDA is today? MR. CLOVIS: I have no clue. MR. SWALWELL: Going to Mr. Page's trip to Moscow, you testified earlier that you did not know he was going to Moscow in July 2016. Was that right? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 68 MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall him telling me that he was going. MR. SWALWELL: Is it possible that he did? MR. CLOVIS: I don't know. MR. SWALWELL: Mr. Page spoke to our committee last month, and he was asked by me, "Did you speak with Mr. Clovis about your trip to Moscow in July 2016 after you returned?" Mr. Page responded, "I did, because I saw him at the Republican National Convention." Did Mr. Page tell you at the Republican National Convention that he was -MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall. Honestly, I don't remember him telling me that he was going. I do remember I was surprised when I found out he had gone. So if he did tell me, it didn't register. MR. SWALWELL: Did you find out about it before it was reported in the press or after? MR. CLOVIS: No, it was after. It was in the press. I think that was -- that's what I thought was so stunning about it. MR. SWALWELL: Just to be clear, your testimony is that the first time you heard Carter Page had gone to Moscow was when it was reported in the press? MR. CLOVIS: That's -- that's the first time I recall being aware that he had gone to Moscow. MR. SWALWELL: If he had asked you if he could go to Moscow, what would you have told him? MR. CLOVIS: I would've told him, like I would tell anyone, you go as an independent person, and you do not represent the campaign, you cannot represent yourself as a member of the campaign. But I can't tell anybody that they can't travel. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 69 MR. SWALWELL: Well, he's on a team that you arranged. Isn't it something that would at least concern you, that he'd be traveling over to Russia in the peak of the campaign, and Russia's been accused of interfering in the campaign at that point? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I didn't know that they had been accused of interfering at that point. MR. SWALWELL: In June of 2016, Mr. Page -- actually, let me back up. In June of 2016, CNN and Politico reported -One minute. MR. SWALWELL: -- that Russia had hacked Democratic emails. Do you remember that reporting? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever meet with Mr. Page at the Capitol Hill Club? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall. MR. SWALWELL: Do you know what the Capitol Hill Club is? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, I do. I know where it is. MR. SWALWELL: Have you seen Attorney General Sessions' testimony about attending a meeting in June of 2016 at the Capitol Hill Club? MR. CLOVIS: No, I have not. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever attend any meetings at the Capitol Hill Club with Attorney General Sessions in June 2016? MR. CLOVIS: I don't believe so. MR. SWALWELL: I'll yield back. MR. CONAWAY: Mr. Clovis, just to clarify a couple points. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 70 One, Carter Page's trip to Russia was before the convention. Is that correct? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not -- I don't know the date of it. MR. CONAWAY: I believe it was before the convention. So any conversation you would've had with him at the convention would've been after the trip, is your understanding? MR. CLOVIS: [Nonverbal response.] MR. CONAWAY: My colleague had a series of questions a while ago with reference to Carter Page and his alleged contacts with Russia, Russians, and Putin, et cetera. My colleague made the affirmative statement that Lewandowsky and Glassner were aware of all those contacts simply because they were on the email chains that you had received. You, personally, can you confirm that statement, that they were, in fact, aware of it? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir, I can't. MR. CONAWAY: So the statement that my colleague made would've been his own statement, not your statement -MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. CONAWAY: -- that you would've been associated with? MR. CLOVIS: I don't know what they were aware of and what they -- we had hundreds and hundreds of emails every day. We were working 16 to 20 hours a day. I joined the campaign in August of 2015; I did not have a day off until the end of March of 2017. MR. CONAWAY: Okay. All right. I yield back. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 71 Fifteen minutes. MR. SWALWELL: And it was your testimony earlier that the reason you did not speak with Mr. Lewandowski and Mr. Glassner was because you saw them on the email exchange. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: So you assumed they were aware. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: I assumed, yes. MR. SWALWELL: Did you know that Mr. Page had traveled to Budapest during the summer of 2016? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: We'll go to exhibit 11. It's a May 16, 2016, email. MS. TOENSING: 0092 is supposed to be 11, according to my figures. So are we on a new one, or are we on the same one? Are we on 0092? MR. SWALWELL: Twelve. It would be 12, yeah. The next one would be 12. [Clovis Exhibit No. 12 was marked for identification.] MR. SWALWELL: It's a May 16, 2016, email, Bates stamped 182. While they search for that email, Mr. Clovis, to your knowledge, when did Mr. Page's affiliation with the campaign end? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not exactly sure. I couldn't give you a specific date. It would be after the Russia trip. MR. SWALWELL: Was the Russia trip the reason that his affiliation ended? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure what the decision was. I was not part of that UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 72 decision. MR. SWALWELL: How were you told? MR. CLOVIS: I was told to contact him and tell him that he couldn't -- he needed to make sure that he never represented himself as a member of the -- as a part of the campaign. MR. SWALWELL: Did you see Mr. Page at the Republican National Convention? MR. CLOVIS: I did indeed. MR. SWALWELL: How many times? MR. CLOVIS: Once. MR. SWALWELL: Where? MR. CLOVIS: It was the last day of the convention. It was at a -- there was a -- RNC had set up a diplomat forum out at -- I think it's Case Western. Is that the college there in Detroit? MS. TOENSING: Cleveland. MR. CLOVIS: Cleveland. Excuse me, in Cleveland. Case Western? We were out on the campus of Case Western. And it had been something RNC had set up, and they had a host of ambassadors. And it was myself, Governor Bob Ehrlich, one of the vice presidents from Ford Corporation, myself on a panel. We did about an hour-long panel there. Carter was there. And then -MR. SWALWELL: He was on the panel, or he was in the audience? MR. CLOVIS: No. He was in the audience. And then again at the -- there was a European Union panel that was set up by the RNC in town. I don't remember the venue. But it was a member of the UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 73 European Union Parliament, a United States Senate staffer, a member of the European Parliament from Hungary, and myself. MR. SWALWELL: Did you interact one-on-one with Mr. Page? MR. CLOVIS: Only in the fact that I -- I had coffee with him between events. That was the interaction there. MR. SWALWELL: What did you discuss? MR. CLOVIS: Oh, just the convention, what was going on. I was glad it was the last day. MR. SWALWELL: Did he talk at all about any contacts he had with Russia? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir, not at all. MR. SWALWELL: Did he mention his trip to Russia? MR. CLOVIS: No, not that I recall. MR. SWALWELL: Did you see the Russian Ambassador at the Republican convention? MR. CLOVIS: I wouldn't have known him if he walked up to me. No. MR. SWALWELL: When was the last time you talked to Carter Page? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall. Before the election, I'm sure. MR. SWALWELL: Did he contact you -- did you talk to him at all after the Republican National Convention? By phone, email, in person? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. I'm sure I did. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Anything you can recall? MR. CLOVIS: No. No, sir. I'm sorry. MR. SWALWELL: Who's George Papadopoulos? MR. CLOVIS: He was a person that approached the campaign, again, UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 74 through the -- typically, made contact, I think, with Corey Lewandowsky, got referred to me, and established a contact with the campaign. MR. SWALWELL: George Papadopoulos recently pleaded guilty to a false statement to the FBI. The plea agreement indicated that his contacts with the campaign began as early as March 6, 2016, when he spoke with a senior campaign official about the campaign and were informed that a principal foreign policy focus of the campaign was an improved U.S. relationship with Russia. Are you familiar with the statement the facts surrounding Mr. Papadopoulos' plea? MR. CLOVIS: I read his plea. MR. SWALWELL: Are you the senior campaign official Mr. Papadopoulos identified in the statement of facts? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Why do you say that? MR. CLOVIS: I'm just not. I'm not sure. MR. SWALWELL: Could you be? MR. CLOVIS: I could be, but I'm not sure. MR. SWALWELL: Could you be a principal -- could you be somebody that told him a principal foreign policy focus of the campaign was an improved U.S. relationship with Russia? MR. CLOVIS: I don't remember ever discussing an improved relationship with Russia with George about anything. MR. SWALWELL: Was March 6, 2016, your first conversation with Mr. Papadopoulos? MR. CLOVIS: If you say so. I -UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 75 MR. SWALWELL: Well, I'm asking you. MR. CLOVIS: I don't know. MR. SWALWELL: Was it around that time period? MR. CLOVIS: Again, I have no way of -- I don't recall. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Where did you first see Mr. Papadopoulos in person? MR. CLOVIS: I don't remember. I'm not exactly sure. I'm sorry. I just -- I don't recall. MR. SWALWELL: Have you ever seen Mr. Papadopoulos in person? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. How many times? MR. CLOVIS: I'd say maybe twice. Three times, maybe. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Did you see him before the March 31st meeting in person? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall, but I would guess that maybe I did. I honestly don't know. I can't remember. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. You had a pretty clear memory of meeting -MR. CLOVIS: Look -MR. SWALWELL: -- Mr. Page on the fifth floor of Trump Tower. MR. CLOVIS: Yes, I do. I don't remember meeting George in person. You asked me specifically. I do not specifically recall when I met George Papadopoulos. MR. SWALWELL: Where did you meet him when you met him in person? MR. CLOVIS: I am not sure. MR. SWALWELL: Was it in New York? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 76 MR. CLOVIS: I don't know. I -- no, I don't think it was New York. MR. SWALWELL: Was it in Washington? MR. CLOVIS: If it wasn't New York, then it probably was Washington. MR. SWALWELL: Who else was with you when you met with him? MR. CLOVIS: I don't think anyone was. MR. SWALWELL: Who set up the meeting, he or you? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I was probably here in town, and if he was in town, then that's probably -- it was a series of meetings that I had starting at 7:00 in the morning and typically going until about 9 o'clock at night. MR. SWALWELL: If you were in Washington, where would that likely have been? MR. CLOVIS: At the DoubleTree in Crystal City. MR. SWALWELL: Why there? MR. CLOVIS: Because that's where I was staying. MR. SWALWELL: And your recollection is that it was two to three meetings, you said, with Mr. Papadopoulos? MR. CLOVIS: I -- yeah. I'm guessing that's about right, in person. MR. SWALWELL: And did Mr. Papadopoulos have your email address? MR. CLOVIS: Oh, yes. Yeah. MR. SWALWELL: And you say that -- it sounds like he emailed you a lot? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I think that -- you know, my view of George Papadopoulos was that he was, particularly after I got a chance to size him up, was that he was a man on the make. I felt like that he was a person who was trying very hard to insinuate himself into the campaign. I think it was -- I thought he was in it for himself, and I didn't think he was in it for the candidate. And so I UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 77 put -- that always raises my guard. MR. SWALWELL: And you didn't hold this view about Carter Page? MR. CLOVIS: No, I did not. MR. SWALWELL: Did Mr. Papadopoulos have your cell phone number? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Did he also have your personal email? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever discuss Russia with Mr. Papadopoulos? MR. CLOVIS: He would send -- I think he sent me emails suggesting that he had ways to get meetings and all this. But I never really responded in the affirmative to that, you know, other than to just keep him in the fold. MR. SWALWELL: According to his plea agreement, on March 14th, 2016, he traveled to Italy and met a professor. Do you remember reading that in his plea agreement? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Did you have any knowledge of Mr. Papadopoulos traveling to Italy? MR. CLOVIS: No. I don't recall. MR. SWALWELL: The plea agreement went on to state that the professor claimed to have substantial connections with Russian Government officials. Did Mr. Papadopoulos ever express to you that he had met a professor with connections with Russian Government officials? MR. CLOVIS: George's emails would oftentimes have notations about the fact that he had contacts that he thought would be valuable to the campaign and that he would be willing to facilitate meetings. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 78 MR. SWALWELL: Did he ever express any of these contacts to you by telephone or in person? MR. CLOVIS: I'm sure he did. MR. SWALWELL: Why are you sure he did? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I'm just -- that was George. He was always trying to insinuate himself into the campaign. MR. SWALWELL: Was he trying to insinuate himself into the campaign with respect to any contacts or relationships he had outside of Russia? Five minutes. MR. CLOVIS: I'm not -- I'm not sure I understand your question. MR. SWALWELL: Well, you told me earlier that, with Mr. Page, it was primarily Russia, and he talked a little bit about energy -MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. SWALWELL: -- non-related to Russia, but you can't recall anything other than Russia and energy that Mr. Page talked about. I am asking if Mr. Papadopoulos, other than his contacts with Russia, did he try and insinuate himself into the campaign or leverage any other relationships he had? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I think he was -- he purported himself as a Middle East expert. And I think he probably had a -- probably a more aggressive dialogue with Walid Phares than he did with me about that. MR. SWALWELL: Did Mr. Papadopoulos ever inform you of any of his foreign travel while he was with the campaign? MR. CLOVIS: Well, he lived in London, so he traveled extensively. And I don't recall any specifics on that, sir. I'm sorry. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 79 MR. SWALWELL: Did he ever ask permission to travel to Italy or London? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir, not that I recall. MR. SWALWELL: How did you know that he lived in London? MR. CLOVIS: He told me he lived in London. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever travel abroad in 2016? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did you have any knowledge from Mr. Papadopoulos and your contacts with him as to whether he was ever in regular contact with Steve Bannon? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did he ever mention that he was in contact with Steve Bannon to you? MR. CLOVIS: No. I don't recall that at all. MR. SWALWELL: Did Mr. Papadopoulos ever tell you whether he was in contact with General Flynn? MR. CLOVIS: No, and I don't recall that at all. MR. SWALWELL: How about Ivanka Trump? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: How about Jared Kushner? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: How about Attorney General Sessions? MR. CLOVIS: No, not that I recall at all. MR. SWALWELL: How about Corey Lewandowsky? MR. CLOVIS: Well, he's on -- I think he had Corey on emails that he sent to me occasionally, so, yeah. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 80 MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever talk with Corey Lewandowsky about Mr. Papadopoulos? MR. CLOVIS: No. I don't remember that as -- because I just didn't -- no. I don't think so. MR. SWALWELL: How about Donald Trump Jr.? Did Mr. Papadopoulos ever express to you a relationship with Mr. Donald Trump Jr.? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did Mr. Papadopoulos ever express to you any contacts that he had with candidate Trump? MR. CLOVIS: No, not at all. I probably would've remembered that. MR. SWALWELL: Do you know if candidate Trump connected with George Papadopoulos in the same way that you were trying to connect Carter Page by phone with candidate Trump? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir, I don't. MR. SWALWELL: On March 21st, 2016, Mr. Trump said of Mr. Papadopoulos to The Washington Post, "He's an energy and oil consultant. Excellent guy." Do you remember Mr. Trump saying that? MR. CLOVIS: No, I don't remember him saying that, but I remember reading it. MR. SWALWELL: Prior to Mr. Trump saying that, did you ever discuss Mr. Papadopoulos with Mr. Trump? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Who put Mr. Papadopoulos on that national security team? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 81 MR. CLOVIS: I did. MR. SWALWELL: Why? MR. CLOVIS: Well, we needed people, and he was one of the people that -- we didn't have very many, as I said. I've said many times that we were -- we already had 150 people that had signed letters and posted them in The Washington Post and New York Times that were Never Trumpers, and they were criticizing us because we had no depth on our foreign policy or national security effort. George happened to be one of the eight people that I could pull up that had some background in one of these areas that we could put him on the team. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever seek to verify Mr. Papadopoulos' background? MR. CLOVIS: I did. I just -- I did as much as I could online -One minute. MR. CLOVIS: -- in the time period I had. MR. SWALWELL: And can you just explain to the committee how Mr. Papadopoulos, in your mind, as you're putting this team together, was put in the same category of national security representatives as, for example, Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg? MR. CLOVIS: Well, we needed a team, and we didn't have very many. And that -- he would've been the eighth person put on the team. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. I yield back. MR. CONAWAY: We have no further questions at this time. Fifteen minutes. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 82 I believe we're on exhibit -[Discussion off the record.] MR. CONAWAY: Fifteen minutes. [Clovis Exhibit No. 12 was marked for identification.] MR. SWALWELL: Let's go to exhibit 12. This is from the production that we learned about this morning. It's an email between Mr. Clovis and Ivanka Trump. If you could review it. And, Mr. Clovis, again, just the way these emails work, oftentimes they originate on the back page, and you have to read -MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. I get it. MR. SWALWELL: -- from bottom to top. MR. CLOVIS: I get it. MR. SWALWELL: This one actually looks like it starts from top to bottom. MS. TOENSING: [Inaudible.] MR. SWALWELL: Well, this is what was turned over to us from -MS. TOENSING: [Inaudible.] MR. SWALWELL: Well, this is what was turned over to us from -This is from Mr. Clovis' production. MR. CONAWAY: Gentlemen, is there a question in our future? MR. SWALWELL: He's reading -MR. CLOVIS: No, I'm done. MR. CONAWAY: There's not that much to read. MR. SWALWELL: Mr. Clovis, this appears to be an email from Ivanka Trump to you on March 22nd, 2016. Is that right? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 83 MR. CLOVIS: Correct. MR. SWALWELL: And she says, "Can you please send me the best telephone number for each of the members of our national foreign policy team? My father would like to reach out to them today." MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. SWALWELL: You respond with the phone numbers for eight individuals. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: That's correct. MR. SWALWELL: Including Carter Page? Yes? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: And including George Papadopoulos. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: That's correct. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. And then -- I think we now have a more complete version of the Trump-produced email on the back page, subject line, "Expect a Call" -- you email the individuals that you referenced to Ms. Trump at 9:39 a.m. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: And it appears that George Papadopoulos and Carter Page are both a part of that "gentlemen" group that we discussed earlier. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. And now that you have seen this email exchange originating with Ivanka, and then understanding who you were emailing to expect a call, do you recall whether Mr. Trump called any of these individuals? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 84 MR. CLOVIS: I do not know if he called them or not. MR. SWALWELL: Going back to George Papadopoulos' statement of facts, on March 24th, the statement of facts said that Mr. Papadopoulos again met with the professor as well as a Russian woman who purportedly had ties with the Russian Government. This was 3 days after he was announced by Mr. Trump to be on the foreign policy team. [Clovis Exhibit No. 13 was marked for identification.] MR. SWALWELL: Exhibit 13 is a March 24 email to you, along with other members of the campaign. I want to show that to you. That's Bates stamped 10112. You've seen this email before? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: It's an email from George Papadopoulos to you. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: It also includes Carter Page, Keith Kellogg, Bert Mizusawa, Chuck Kubic, Joe Schmitz, Walid Phares, and Michael Glassner. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Is who MR. CLOVIS: Gary Harrell. MR. SWALWELL: Who is it? MR. CLOVIS: Gary Harrell. MR. SWALWELL: Can you spell the last name? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. CLOVIS: H-a-r-r-e-l-l. MR. SWALWELL: Oh, you had mentioned him earlier. MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. Major General Gary Harrell. MR. SWALWELL: So Mr. Papadopoulos, in this email, references his friend Joseph Mifsud. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 85 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 86 [1:07 p.m.] MR. SWALWELL: Did he ever talk to you in person about Joseph Mifsud? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall that at all. MR. SWALWELL: He mentions Putin's niece. Is that correct? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Did he ever talk to you in person about meeting Putin's niece? MR. CLOVIS: Not that I recall. MR. SWALWELL: Is that something you would recall if he had? MR. CLOVIS: I would, yes. MR. SWALWELL: He also mentions the Russian Ambassador in London, who is the Deputy Foreign Minister. Did he ever talk to you in person about the Russian Ambassador in London? MR. CLOVIS: I do not recall that. MR. SWALWELL: And, again, is that something you would recall if he had? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, I would, yeah. MR. SWALWELL: And he mentions now that the topic of the lunch was to arrange a meeting between us -- the campaign -- and Russian leadership to discuss U.S.-Russia ties under President Trump. Is that correct? MR. CLOVIS: That's what it says. MR. SWALWELL: Now, this sounds quite similar to what Carter Page is talking to you about. Is that correct? MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever tell Carter Page that George UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 87 Papadopoulos was making similar suggestions? MR. CLOVIS: No, but I think, if you look, I think -- I'm not sure, but I think Carter is on that email. MR. SWALWELL: But as Chairman Conaway pointed out earlier, we can't assume that Carter Page knew, right? MR. CLOVIS: I can't assume that at all. MR. SWALWELL: He also mentions that the leadership, including Putin, is ready to meet with us and Mr. Trump should there be interest. Is that correct? MR. CLOVIS: That's what it says. MR. SWALWELL: Did he ever talk to you in person, Mr. Papadopoulos, about arranging a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall that at all. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever tell candidate Trump about this offer on March 24th by Mr. Papadopoulos? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Why not? MR. CLOVIS: I didn't communicate with the candidate. MR. SWALWELL: Well, you told us earlier that you had communicated a lot with -MR. CLOVIS: I did up until the middle of March, and then, after that, my role changed, and I didn't communicate with him at all after that. And most of my communications with the candidate were either in person when we were doing debate prep or on the airplane or at events, to and from, or through Corey Lewandowski or Hope Hicks. MR. SWALWELL: Did you communicate in person with Mr. Lewandowski UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 88 about Mr. Papadopoulos' offer in this March 24th email? MR. CLOVIS: No, I don't remember that at all. MR. SWALWELL: Did you communicate with any person about Mr. Papadopoulos' offer? MR. CLOVIS: No, because I thought it was a bogus offer. I didn't think it was very good at politics on our part at all. MR. SWALWELL: Well, you didn't tell Mr. Papadopoulos it was a bogus offer, because in your response you started out with, "This is most informative." Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. And what does it say? Do you want to read the whole thing? Do you want me to read it into the record? MR. SWALWELL: Mr. Clovis, it's submitted in the record as an exhibit. But you do end the email with, "Great work." Is that correct? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, I do. MR. SWALWELL: Why was that great work? MR. CLOVIS: Because it's my job to make sure that I keep people in the fold and that I'm a nice guy most of the time. And I'm trying very hard to cultivate this particular group to keep them in line. MR. SWALWELL: Why would you want to keep in the fold somebody who has a relationship this close with -- or is telling you he has a relationship this close with Vladimir Putin? MR. CLOVIS: You're making an assertion in your question, and it's not appropriate. MR. SWALWELL: Well, Mr. Clovis -MR. CLOVIS: The assertion in the question is that this person was up to UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 89 something nefarious and we would keep him in the fold, knowing the full knowledge of what he was doing. And that is not an accurate representation of the relationship at all. MR. SWALWELL: Well, he was telling you that he had a relationship with Putin's niece. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, he did. Yes. MR. SWALWELL: And he was telling you that he wanted Mr. Trump to meet in Moscow with Mr. Putin. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Why would you want to keep an individual like that in the fold? MR. CLOVIS: Well, we had not gone full forward, we had not had our meeting with the national advisory team. The issue there was I would -- you know, I didn't advance this to anyone. And if you would check, you know, that none of his suggestions were ever acted on, as far as I know. I certainly didn't meet with any Russians. And I didn't recommend that anybody meet with Russians, at all. MR. SWALWELL: Did you believe that Mr. Papadopoulos' interest in connecting Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin aligned with the candidate's interests? MR. CLOVIS: Not at all. MR. SWALWELL: Why not? MR. CLOVIS: Because I just didn't think that's where we were as a campaign. MR. SWALWELL: But you did acknowledge earlier that Donald Trump was, as you put it, pimping the media about his relationship with Putin. Is that UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 90 right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: You referenced that you would provide Mr. Papadopoulos with more thoughts later today. How did you update him with more thoughts? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure I did. MR. SWALWELL: Is it possible that you did? MR. CLOVIS: I don't know. I can't remember. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. And if you did, could it have been in person? MR. CLOVIS: I don't know. MR. SWALWELL: Could it have been by the phone? MR. CLOVIS: Well, of course it could've been by the phone. I don't know. I can't remember. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever text back and forth with Mr. Papadopoulos? MR. CLOVIS: No, I don't remember ever texting George. I don't remember that at all. MR. SWALWELL: And just to be clear for the record, you never told him to stand down on this? MR. CLOVIS: No. Not at this point. [Clovis Exhibit No. 14 was marked for identification.] MR. SWALWELL: Exhibit 14, March 27, 2016, you email the national security team, and the subject line reads "PP on Foreign Policy." It's Bates stamped 148 to 49. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 91 Do you recognize that email? MR. CLOVIS: I do. MR. SWALWELL: And Mr. Papadopoulos and Mr. Page are on that email. Is that correct? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Was this part of the process of developing the foreign policy framework? MR. CLOVIS: I think it was a revision to it. I'm just looking at the dates here, and I'm trying to guess what that was about. This is -- this would be something I -- yeah. Yeah. I recognize it. One minute, sir. MR. SWALWELL: The March 31st meeting, Mr. Papadopoulos, you testified, was there. MR. CLOVIS: Yes, he was. Yeah. MR. SWALWELL: Where did you sit? MR. CLOVIS: I'm -- that picture, if you look at the very right, in the back, you know, over -- you see Walid Phares there in the picture? MR. SWALWELL: Yes. MR. CLOVIS: If you would go to the right and back, I'm sitting against the wall back there. I'm out of the picture. MR. SWALWELL: Who else is out of the picture? MR. CLOVIS: Oh, it would have been Dan Scavino, Hope Hicks, Corey Lewandowski, Stephen Miller. I'm not sure who else was there. MR. SWALWELL: How long did the meeting last? MR. CLOVIS: One hour. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 92 MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever see Mr. Papadopoulos and Mr. Trump interact one-on-one in that meeting, prior to the meeting starting or at the conclusion? MR. CLOVIS: No, no. No. No. Never. I was in the room when everybody came in. The meeting started promptly -- I can't remember if it was 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning -- started promptly. Everybody had their seats. And it was typical to try to introduce themselves and go around the room. It was a very interesting meeting, for a lot of reasons. But it was 1 hour, and then at 1 hour it was over. : Time. MR. CLOVIS: And then there was -- some business leaders were brought in. MR. SWALWELL: I yield back. MS. TOENSING: I'm going to need to make a phone call. MR. CONAWAY: Let's take a 5-minute break. [Recess.] MR. CONAWAY: Fifteen minutes. MR. SWALWELL: Could the reporter read back my last question? [The reporter read back the record as requested.] MR. SWALWELL: To your knowledge, had candidate Trump and George Papadopoulos chatted before the meeting? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: When they interacted with each other, did you get any sense that the two had met or talked before? MR. CLOVIS: Not at all. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 93 MR. SWALWELL: How was it that George Papadopoulos was able to bring up the idea of Donald Trump meeting Vladimir Putin in this meeting? MR. CLOVIS: I need to probably give you the whole -- the evolution of the meeting, which was really interesting. I'll use that term. As you know, there's an array of people around the table. Mr. Trump opens with some opening remarks. And then he starts down the left-hand side with the people to introduce themselves and brief comments from them. And he got to about the fourth or fifth person in that line, and it would be -- that was Dr. Keith Payne. And Keith, as you know, is a world-renowned scholar on national security issues and particularly nuclear doctrine. In fact, I had him as a professor when I was going to Georgetown many, many, many years ago. And so Mr. Trump and Keith engaged in a very long discussion, about 40 minutes, talking about the nuclear arsenal, nuclear weapons, nuclear doctrine, national security philosophy and policy about that. So it was about a 40-minute discussion. And so you can imagine, with all the rest of those people in the room, that when we moved off of Dr. Payne, it was quick to the -- got around to Senator Sessions and then over to, I think it was, J.D. Gordon and then up the line. And when it got to George, George introduced himself, and he started -- and I -- this is the third or fourth time I've done this particular evolution. I still do not recall what George said. I do not -- I cannot remember what he said. But I know that he didn't get very far into the discussion, and Senator Sessions interrupted him, and then Mr. Trump interrupted him. And so George's total speaking time, probably 90 seconds to 2 minutes, and then it went to the next UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 94 person. MR. SWALWELL: Is your recollection of Senator Sessions' interrupting Mr. Papadopoulos from what you've seen Senator Sessions say in the press or what others have recalled in the press, or is that your independent recollection? MR. CLOVIS: This is my independent recollection. I do not remember what George said. I just know that Senator Sessions interrupted him and then the candidate interrupted him. MR. SWALWELL: What did Mr. Trump say when he interrupted him? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall that. I do remember Senator Sessions talking about the Logan Act. That was something that was mentioned. MR. SWALWELL: Do you remember Senator Sessions specifically saying the Logan Act? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, specifically the Logan Act. And that's why I remember it, is because that was not something I was expecting. So, you know, it was -- and, again, I don't know what the reference was because I couldn't fully understand what George was saying. MR. SWALWELL: Is there anything else you remember Senator Sessions discussing? MR. CLOVIS: Huh-uh, because they moved on to the next person, and then the meeting was over. I mean, we'd eaten up all that time, and there was virtually no time left, and they were up, that group was out. And a group of businesspeople came in, and that was the next meeting. MR. SWALWELL: Do you recall Mr. Trump saying yes or no? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Or is it you just don't recall what Mr. Trump said? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 95 MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall, no, sir, I don't. And I've been asked this several times, and I just simply cannot reconstruct that. MR. SWALWELL: Was Russia discussed by anyone other than Mr. Papadopoulos? MR. CLOVIS: I don't remember that at all, no. I don't remember that as even being brought up. MR. SWALWELL: Did Mr. Trump ever discuss Russia in the meeting? MR. CLOVIS: No, not that I recall. MR. SWALWELL: Did Mr. Trump ever discuss Ukraine in the meeting? MR. CLOVIS: Not that I recall. MR. SWALWELL: Walid Phares, you said that he was a friend of the family. What did you mean by that? MR. CLOVIS: I think that his -- well, the way he was introduced to me was through Ivanka and Jared, that they were the ones that suggested Walid Phares, Dr. Phares, be part of this team, because they knew him. And then when I had made contact with Walid, he reinforced that, that he was friends with Ivanka and Jared. MR. SWALWELL: April 25th, 2016, a couple weeks after, Mr. Papadopoulos, according to his statement of facts, emailed a senior campaign adviser and said there was an open invitation by Putin from Mr. Trump to meet when he is ready. Are you the senior campaign adviser referred to in this statement of facts? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure. I'm not sure. MR. SWALWELL: Could you be? MR. CLOVIS: I certainly could be, but I'm not sure. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 96 MR. SWALWELL: Other than what Mr. Papadopoulos said in that March 31st meeting, between March 31st and April 25th, did Mr. Papadopoulos ever express to you in person, by phone, by text, an open invitation by Putin for Mr. Trump? MR. CLOVIS: I don't have any artifacts in front of me. I don't know. I can't recall. MR. SWALWELL: On April 26, in another meeting with the professor, Mr. Papadopoulos was told, according to the statement of facts, that the Russians had obtained dirt on Hillary Clinton involving thousands of emails. Do you recall receiving an email or any correspondence from Mr. Papadopoulos about the professor and his claims to have dirt on Secretary Clinton involving thousands of emails? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir, I don't recall that at all. MR. SWALWELL: At this point in the campaign, end of April, from the time you started in August 2015 until the end of April, did anyone on the campaign or affiliated with the campaign ever discuss with you dirt on Hillary Clinton? MR. CLOVIS: No. It was never a topic that I would be part of. MR. SWALWELL: Were you ever a part of any conversation with anyone on the campaign, affiliated with the campaign, about Hillary Clinton's emails? MR. CLOVIS: No, other than just the news reporting on it. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever hear the candidate talk about Hillary Clinton's emails? MR. CLOVIS: No, other than just in his normal discussion about, you know, "lock her up" and that kind of thing. MR. SWALWELL: Did anyone tell you about Mr. Papadopoulos' claims UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 97 relating to the April 26 meeting with the professor? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall that at all, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. On May 7th, 2016, Mr. Papadopoulos emailed Hope Hicks, asking about protocols for interviews and specifically a Bloomberg request seeking the team's thoughts. Ms. Hicks replied, "Fine with me, but please make sure not to suggest your position is Mr. Trump's." Were you aware of this request that Mr. Papadopoulos made to Ms. Hicks? MR. CLOVIS: If I was on the email, I might have been aware of it at the time, but I don't recall that. MR. SWALWELL: You would agree that Ms. Hicks, at that point, in May, was a senior member of the team? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: In June, Mr. Papadopoulos, according to the statement of facts, asked a high-ranking campaign official about arranging a Putin-Trump meeting, stating that, "I am willing to make the trip off the record if it's in the interest of Mr. Trump and the campaign to meet specific people." Are you the high-ranking official in that referenced statement of facts? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure. I'm not sure. MR. SWALWELL: Could you be? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, I could be. MR. SWALWELL: Did Mr. Papadopoulos ask you about making an off-the-record trip? MR. CLOVIS: He had asked about going to Russia, and I had made it very clear to him that in no way, shape, or form could he go and represent the UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 98 campaign. MR. SWALWELL: When did he do this? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure. The June or July timeframe I think it was. MR. SWALWELL: Was it in person, by phone, or by email? MR. CLOVIS: I think it was probably by phone. There was probably an email exchange in there. I think you'll find it in the documents that I gave you. MR. SWALWELL: Was he calling from London when he talked to you about -MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure. The issue was that he could not represent the campaign. He could not represent himself as a member of the campaign. And if he wanted to travel, we could not tell him no, but he could not in any way, shape, or form, represent himself as a member of the campaign. MR. SWALWELL: If you felt so strongly about him not representing himself as a member of the campaign, why did you not feel strong enough to encourage his removal from the campaign? MR. CLOVIS: I didn't think that was my role, to remove him. I didn't have that -- that was not my authority, to do that. And he was still -- you know, this team was put together, and it was essentially there -- even though it was defunct, we already had people that had gone to New York that were part of the providing advice -- this is what I've been told -- providing advice to the candidate. And that team was -- until they showed themselves to not be -- when they became liabilities greater than what we were already dealing with, then that's when they were asked to leave. MR. SWALWELL: When you had this June or July what you believe to be UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 99 a telephone conversation with Mr. Papadopoulos about going to Russia, did he ever express to you that he had talked to anyone else on the campaign about going to Russia? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not -- no, I don't think so. MR. SWALWELL: To your knowledge, did he express to you that he had talked to candidate Trump? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall ever him mentioning talking to candidate Trump. MR. SWALWELL: How about Jared Kushner? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not -- no, I don't believe so. MR. SWALWELL: How about Steve Bannon? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not -- I don't believe so. I don't know that for a fact, sir. MR. SWALWELL: How about General Flynn? MR. CLOVIS: I don't know that -MR. SWALWELL: Did Mr. Papadopoulos ever talk to you about any conversations he had with General Flynn? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. I don't recall that at all. MR. SWALWELL: Did you know as to whether they had a relationship or not? MR. CLOVIS: I didn't know what General Flynn's relationship was with the campaign, frankly, because he was -- you know, in that time period, I think that -- he had been awfully coy in his relationship -MR. SWALWELL: Who's "he"? MR. CLOVIS: Flynn, General Flynn -- and whether or not he was going to be associated with the campaign. And I think he had a book coming out in June UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 100 or July, and I think he wanted to wait until that was out before he made a commitment on whether he was going to support the campaign. MR. SWALWELL: But he was certainly supportive of the campaign when he spoke at the convention in July, right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, he was, yeah. MR. SWALWELL: In August, you encouraged Mr. Papadopoulos and another adviser to make the trip if it's feasible. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, as private citizens, yeah. That was Walid Phares, I think. MR. SWALWELL: When you said "if it is feasible," what did you mean by that? MR. CLOVIS: Well, if they could go, I mean, they should go. I mean, whatever the timing was, if they could go, they should go. MR. SWALWELL: Did you mean feasible to them or feasible to the campaign? MR. CLOVIS: To them. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ask anyone to travel with Mr. Papadopoulos? MR. CLOVIS: No. I don't recall that. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever ask Walid Phares if he would travel with Mr. Papadopoulos? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall asking Walid to do that specifically, no. MR. SWALWELL: Is it possible that you did? MR. CLOVIS: No, I don't recall that. MR. SWALWELL: If Mr. Phares said that you did, would that be incorrect? MR. CLOVIS: I don't know. I don't know what he said. I don't recall that UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 101 conversation is what I'm saying. I just don't recall it. MR. SWALWELL: Did Mr. Papadopoulos, to your knowledge, have a relationship with Stephen Miller? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure. MR. SWALWELL: To your knowledge, did Mr. Papadopoulos organize any meetings with foreign leaders, such as President Sisi? MR. CLOVIS: No. I wouldn't know about that. MR. SWALWELL: When was the last time you talked to George Papadopoulos? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall. MR. SWALWELL: Was it after August? Have you talked to him since August? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall. I don't think so. MR. SWALWELL: Did you go to the election night party in New York? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Where were you on election night? MR. CLOVIS: In my home in Iowa. MR. SWALWELL: Did you go to the inauguration? MR. CLOVIS: No. Mr. Swalwell, 1 minute, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Thanks. On January 27 of this year, where were you? MR. CLOVIS: January 27th of this year? MR. SWALWELL: Yeah. Where would you have been? MR. CLOVIS: So that would've been on Saturday -UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 102 MR. SWALWELL: Post-inauguration. MR. CLOVIS: Saturday, I would've been at the Old Executive Office Building at a meeting. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. According to the statement of facts, on January 27th, George Papadopoulos was approached by the FBI. Were you aware that day or within days of Mr. Papadopoulos being approached by the FBI that they had contacted him? MR. CLOVIS: No, not at all. It's time, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Did anyone tell you -- oh, sorry. I yield back. MR. CONAWAY: Were you aware, Papadopoulos' trip, did the campaign reimburse him for his expenses on those trips? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not aware of any arrangement that he -- financial arrangement he had with the campaign at all. MR. CONAWAY: Thank you. Fifteen minutes. MR. SWALWELL: When was the first time that you learned that Mr. Papadopoulos had been talked to by the FBI? MR. CLOVIS: When I saw the report on the news. MR. SWALWELL: I want to introduce exhibit 14. It's a -MR. CONAWAY: Fifteen. MR. SWALWELL: Fifteen -- July 19th, 2016, email from Paul Erickson to you. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 103 MR. CLOVIS: Okay. [Clovis Exhibit No. 15 was marked for identification.] MR. SWALWELL: This is from the production that we discovered this morning. MR. CONAWAY: Off the record. [Discussion off the record.] MR. SWALWELL: Did you get a chance to read this email? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Paul Erickson to Sam Clovis. Who's Paul Erickson? MR. CLOVIS: He's a person that I met at a dinner one night at The Monocle. MR. SWALWELL: When did you meet him? MR. CLOVIS: I said at a dinner one night at the -MR. SWALWELL: No, when. MR. CLOVIS: When? I'm not sure the exact date. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Was it in 2016? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, it was. MR. SWALWELL: What does he do? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure what he does. MR. SWALWELL: But you met just him? MR. CLOVIS: No. I was at a dinner, and he introduced himself to me at the dinner. MR. SWALWELL: And it looks like from this email that he was given your UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 104 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE email address? MR. CLOVIS: I gave him a card, yeah. MR. SWALWELL: And he actually has your and emails. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Right. Yeah. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. In the email, he's referring to the Republican convention in Cleveland, but he mentions a "Rohrabacher dinner that I've been developing a back-channel to the Kremlin for the past couple of years -- really, just the recipient of their outreach. Comes now an important inquiry on that front." What's the Rohrabacher dinner he's referencing? MR. CLOVIS: It was a dinner at The Monocle that I got invited to. Dana Rohrabacher, your colleague Dana Rohrabacher had set up a dinner there. You know, I didn't know how big it was, small it was. I showed up, and it was probably 20 people. It was in one of the upstairs dining rooms there. Congressman Rohrabacher's view about Russia was quite contrary to mine, so I was very uncomfortable that evening with the discussion. But it was a free meal, and I needed one. MR. SWALWELL: Who asked you to go? MR. CLOVIS: It was -- I think one of his associates had invited me. MR. SWALWELL: One of Congressman Rohrabacher's? MR. CLOVIS: Rohrabacher's. But my Congressman was there, Steve King was there. So I went because Steve and I had communicated about it. MR. SWALWELL: Who else was there? MR. CLOVIS: I don't know who the other people are. I do know Senator UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 105 Sessions was there, and he and I sat together. I knew hardly anyone there at all. And I met Paul when I literally walking -- getting ready to go, because I went up to the restroom, and after using the restroom he introduced himself. And we were standing up on that landing up there by the bathrooms, and we exchanged cards. MR. SWALWELL: So, Mr. Clovis, was this dinner at The Monocle after the March 31st meeting or before? MR. CLOVIS: Oh, after. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. MR. CLOVIS: It was warm weather, so I'm guessing it was probably late June, early July. And I'm not so sure -- it was probably before the convention because this is July 19th and the convention was over on the 18th. MR. SWALWELL: So Paul Erickson references in the email that he mentioned at the Rohrabacher dinner his development of a back channel to the Kremlin. MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. MR. SWALWELL: Where did he mention that at the dinner? MR. CLOVIS: It was in a brief exchange, because we had, like I said, when we exchanged -- he had given me some relationship that he had with Iowa, and he knew I was from Iowa. And he had talked about the fact -- oh, he was mostly talking about transition, because transition was a topic that I was very keen on, because we had not done and the campaign had not done a tremendous amount of preparation on transition. And I was very concerned because I had been doing a lot of research on transition, I talked to a lot of people, and I knew that we were way behind the power curve on being prepared for transition. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 106 So, Paul, that's how -- he used that as an entree to me to talk to me about whatever it was. Like I said, it was a brief exchange, probably not more than 3 minutes, and it was just while we were standing on the landing. And then I went out and got in my Uber and went home. MR. SWALWELL: Was the back channel to the Kremlin mentioned among the dinner party guests? MR. CLOVIS: The discussion at the dinner was about a more direct engagement with Russia. And it was, you know, even to the point of -- and I don't know if you've talked to Congressman Rohrabacher about this, but, you know, I don't want to misstate his position, but, you know, I think that there are certain Members of the House that would, you know, see a more direct engagement with Russia and more of an alliance with Russia in particularly dealing with terrorism in the Middle East. And I think that was kind of the gist of it. It made me very uncomfortable because I didn't -- it certainly wasn't my position, and it certainly wasn't Senator Sessions' position on our views of Russia. And I think we remained mute the whole time we were there. And then when we got up and left -- we didn't comment, didn't speak, other than just to leave. MR. SWALWELL: What were you told the purpose of the dinner was going to be? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I thought it was a discussion on foreign policy. I was interested. I mean, you know -- and I was, you know, a policy guy, and so I was going there. And Senator Sessions said he was going to be there, and I said, okay, then it's safe for me to be there. And I think we were both surprised at the topic and how it evolved. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 107 MR. SWALWELL: How long did the dinner last? MR. CLOVIS: Oh, hour and a half, 2 hours. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever see Mr. Erickson talk to Mr. Sessions? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: In the email, in the third paragraph, Mr. Erickson says, "Was Trump supporter Carter Page's recent visit to Moscow (major speech delivered a couple of weeks ago) his idea based upon his previous years in Russia, or were you (or the campaign) aware of or sanctioned his remarks? So, from the reading of the email, it sounds like you were made aware on July 19th by Mr. Erickson that Carter Page had gone to Moscow. MR. CLOVIS: Well, it was after -- it was already in the news. So, I mean, I'm guessing it was. I have no idea. I can't keep track of the timeline here. MR. SWALWELL: And then Mr. Erickson says, "Carter EXACTLY echoes the 'new relationship with Russia' strains echoed at the dinner, by nominee Trump and by smart international security experts." Was Mr. Trump at the dinner? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Was anyone in the Trump family at the dinner? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: "His speech is sweeping the Russian internet AND has deeply interested the most inner circles of the Kremlin. For a host of reasons, it has further reinforced Putin's / Russia's desire for a Trump victory over a pointless 'Hillary re-set' administration." Did you ever respond to Mr. Erickson's email? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 108 MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever tell him whether or not you or the campaign had sanctioned Mr. Page's trip to Moscow? MR. CLOVIS: No, I would not have ever discussed that with him. MR. SWALWELL: Did you sanction Mr. Page's trip to Moscow? MR. CLOVIS: I have said many times no. MR. SWALWELL: On April 26, 2016, the Center for the National Interest hosted an event at the Mayflower Hotel. Are you familiar with that event? MR. CLOVIS: No. Oh, is that the foreign policy speech? Is that the -MR. SWALWELL: There was a foreign policy speech hosted by Dmitri Simes and the Center for the National Interest -MR. CLOVIS: Is that where Mr. Trump gave a speech? MR. SWALWELL: Yes. MR. CLOVIS: Yes. Okay. MR. SWALWELL: Were you there? MR. CLOVIS: No, I was not. MR. SWALWELL: Were you part of the planning for that event? MR. CLOVIS: No, not the planning of it at all. No. MR. SWALWELL: What did you know before that event? MR. CLOVIS: I knew that they were in the -- "they" being the New York crowd -- was in the process of putting together a speech for Mr. Trump. MR. SWALWELL: You mentioned that you worked on Mr. Trump's debate prep. Did you ever work on his speech prep for major addresses? MR. CLOVIS: Well, during the campaign, up through the last debate, I did most of the -- of his -- he didn't use a text, he used talking points. So it was my job to put together the talking points for all of his campaign events. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 109 And then when Stephen Miller came on board, Steven had a great deal of expertise in speechwriting, and, as I said, he took over the day-to-day hand-holding of the candidate. So Stephen was really responsible for most of that after March. [Clovis Exhibit No. 16 was marked for identification.] MR. SWALWELL: I'm going to show you exhibit 16. It's an email from Peter Smith to you. MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. No, it's -- if I might correct you, it's to a lot of people. MR. SWALWELL: It's hard to tell. MR. CLOVIS: Yeah, it's hard to say. MR. SWALWELL: So this is a part of the production that you have given us. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, sir. That's what was asked for. MR. SWALWELL: Who is Peter Smith? MR. CLOVIS: I have no idea who that is. MR. SWALWELL: The subject line of the email is "WikiLeaks has a strong case for Whistleblower Protection." Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: That's what it says. MR. SWALWELL: It also says that it's addressed to -- well, it's Peter Smith sending it to himself, and it looks like somehow you received it. Is that right? MS. TOENSING: I don't think I got what your -- my thing is about half the size of what he has. MR. CLOVIS: I don't know what that is. MS. ROS-LEHTINEN: Oh, you just don't have that other side. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 110 MS. TOENSING: It's blank on the other side. MR. CLOVIS: Here it is. MR. TOENSING: Oh. MR. SWALWELL: Do you remember reading that email on October 28th or around that time? MR. CLOVIS: I don't remember reading it, no. MR. SWALWELL: Your testimony is you've never met Peter Smith? MR. CLOVIS: Never met him. Not that I'm aware of. MR. SWALWELL: Any idea how he got your email address? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Ever hear anyone on the campaign discuss Mr. Smith? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Well, the email refers to WikiLeaks. And WikiLeaks, to your knowledge, in October was releasing hacked emails from John Podesta. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: I don't know for sure. MR. SWALWELL: Do you remember that being a part of the campaign -MR. CLOVIS: Well, I just remember the news. I mean, I don't know who they were from. Were they Podesta's emails? I -MR. SWALWELL: Do you remember John Podesta's emails being hacked and released by WikiLeaks? MR. CLOVIS: I don't remember specifically that, no. I had a lot of other stuff on my mind. MR. SWALWELL: Did you tell anyone about receiving this WikiLeaks email? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 111 MR. CLOVIS: No. No. MR. SWALWELL: Is it something that would be unusual for you, to be emailed about WikiLeaks? MR. CLOVIS: I think this is unusual, the type of emails that I got a lot of. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever communicate throughout the campaign with anyone at WikiLeaks? One minute, sir. MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever communicate with Julian Assange throughout the campaign? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Are you familiar with anyone on the campaign communicating directly with WikiLeaks? MR. CLOVIS: Not that I'm aware of. MR. SWALWELL: I yield back. Do you have any questions? Another 15 minutes. MR. SWALWELL: Thanks. [Clovis Exhibit No. 17 was marked for identification.] MR. SWALWELL: Exhibit 17 is a March 28, 2016, email from Carter Page to you, Bates stamped 218 to 219. MR. CLOVIS: I don't have it. MR. SWALWELL: We're bringing it over. I believe we've already introduced that exhibit. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 112 MR. SWALWELL: 218 to 219? Counsel, do you have that one? MS. TOENSING: I don't have that number. At least on this page, I don't. Huh-uh. MR. SWALWELL: Well, we'll get that. I'm going to move on. I mentioned earlier that public press reporting in June 2016 from various outlets reported that the Russians had hacked Democratic emails. Do you recall that being reported? MR. CLOVIS: Just the news, yeah. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. And by this time, in June 2016, from our conversation today, it sounds like at least two people on your team had told you about contacts they had with Russia, Mr. Page and Mr. Papadopoulos. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Did anyone else, other than those two individuals, ever mention to you contacts with Russia that they had, that they held, other than Mr. Page or Mr. Papadopoulos? MR. CLOVIS: That were part of the national advisory team or any of that? MR. SWALWELL: Anyone on the campaign that you talked to. MR. CLOVIS: Not on the campaign, no. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Anyone outside the campaign? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Who? MR. CLOVIS: Mr. David Klein. MR. SWALWELL: Who's David Klein? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 113 MR. CLOVIS: David Klein is a financial person in New Jersey who introduced himself to the campaign early on. It was through -- I don't know exactly the organization, but they were -- it appeared that they had a stake in antiballistic missile defense. And they were trying to get the -- get our campaign's attention and to brief us up on what they were doing with antiballistic missile technology. MR. SWALWELL: What was Mr. Klein's relationship to Russia? MR. CLOVIS: I have no clue. MR. SWALWELL: When I asked you if anyone -- I guess, what did he tell you about Russia? MR. CLOVIS: He had a rabbi that he knew that was -- that had contacts in Russia. MR. SWALWELL: And why would a rabbi in Russia assist with antiballistic missile defenses in the campaign? MR. CLOVIS: You got me. That's about as far as it went. MR. SWALWELL: Where was the meeting held? MR. CLOVIS: You asked me the question; I -MR. SWALWELL: Yeah, no, I appreciate -MR. CLOVIS: -- answered the question. I have no clue where that was -- where it came from. I have no idea. And it didn't go anywhere. MR. SWALWELL: Where was the meeting held? MR. CLOVIS: There was no meeting. MR. SWALWELL: Where was the conversation? MR. CLOVIS: It was in an email that he had sent. I think it was an email or a text that he had sent me. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 114 MR. SWALWELL: Mr. Klein reached out directly to you? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: And if I understand it right, he mentioned an interest or a stake he had in antiballistic missile defense, and he knew a rabbi in Russia who could be a part of that. MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. I would say: Break paragraph, I know a rabbi. So I never saw the connection between antiballistic missile defense and knowing a rabbi. MR. SWALWELL: Do you know why he would reach out to you with respect to -MR. CLOVIS: I have no clue, other than the fact that I think he was just trying to be helpful. He was very aggressive in, you know, still trying to reach to get us to pay attention to issues that were going on in Huntsville, Alabama, and in the ballistic missile defense office and those kind of things. So I think he had a financial stake in new technology, is what I think it was. And he wanted to make sure that he was in on the ground floor with the new Trump administration if we happened to win. MR. SWALWELL: Did he ever discuss a financial stake in any business in Russia? MR. CLOVIS: No, not that I -- no. MR. SWALWELL: So, other than -- and I should also include now Mr. Erickson, because Mr. Erickson's email references Russia. So, other than Mr. Erickson, Mr. Klein, Mr. Papadopoulos, and Mr. Page, did anyone contact you from your time August 2015 until the end of the campaign, about contacts that they had in Russia? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 115 MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Did anyone tell you during that time period who was on the campaign or affiliated with the campaign or seeking to be a part of the campaign that they had traveled to Russia? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did anyone other than those four individuals tell you that they had traveled to a foreign land to meet with Russians? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. You mentioned earlier that you partially worked on the campaign's law enforcement contacts and portfolio. MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. And that's because you, yourself, have a number of contacts in law enforcement. MR. CLOVIS: I did, yes. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. And did those include any contacts in Federal law enforcement? MR. CLOVIS: No. These were all State and local guys. Most of them were retired police officers, and that's about it. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Did you ever tell anyone in law enforcement, up until the end of the campaign, about the contacts that Mr. Page had with Russia? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever tell anyone in law enforcement, up until November 8th, about the contacts that Mr. Papadopoulos told you he had with Russians? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 116 MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever tell anyone in law enforcement, up until November 8th, about the back channel that Mr. Erickson was expressing to you with Russia? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: I'm going to yield to Mr. Schiff. MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Clovis, you testified earlier that when Mr. Papadopoulos expressed interest in going to Russia that you encouraged him to do so if it was feasible. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: To go as an individual if he wanted to, yes, he could. MR. SCHIFF: But you used those words "if it was feasible"? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. It was in an email, I think, sir. MR. SCHIFF: So when Mr. Papadopoulos in his plea refers to being told by a campaign supervisor that he could go if it was feasible, he's referring to you? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, I think we can draw that conclusion. MR. SCHIFF: But Mr. Papadopoulos wasn't asking you about whether he should go in his private capacity. He was asking you if he should go on behalf of the -MR. CLOVIS: Yeah -MR. SCHIFF: -- campaign. MR. CLOVIS: -- that's the context. MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Clovis, let me finish my question. MR. CLOVIS: Yes, sir. I'm sorry. MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Papadopoulos wasn't asking you whether he should go in his personal capacity. He was asking if he should go as a part of the campaign UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 117 and in service of the campaign, wasn't he? MR. CLOVIS: No. I don't recall that. MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Papadopoulos -- let me read you from the information he filed with court. "On or about June 1st, 2016, defendant Papadopoulos emailed the high-ranking campaign official and asked about Russia. The high-ranking campaign official referred him to the campaign supervisor because 'he is running point.' "Defendant Papadopoulos then emailed the campaign supervisor with the subject line 'Re: Messages from Russia.' 'I have the Russian MFA asking me if Mr. Trump is interested in visiting Russia at some point. Wanted to pass this info along to you for you to decide what's best to do with it and what message I should send (or to ignore).' "From mid-June through mid-August 2016, Papadopoulos pursued an off-the-record meeting between one or more campaign representatives and members of President Putin's office and the MFA. "For example, on or about June 19th, 2016, after several email and Skype exchanges with the Russian MFA connection, defendant Papadopoulos emailed the high-ranking campaign official with the subject line, 'New message from Russia.' "'The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs messaged and said that if Mr. Trump is unable to make it to Russia, if a campaign rep (me or someone else) can make it for meetings? I am willing to make the trip off the record if it's in the interest of Mr. Trump and the campaign to meet specific people.' "After several weeks of further communications regarding a potential UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 118 off-the-record meeting with Russian officials, on or about August 15th, 2016, the campaign supervisor told defendant Papadopoulos that 'I would encourage you' and another foreign policy adviser to the campaign to make the trip if it is feasible.'" So he was asking you, I am willing to make the trip off the record if it's in the interest of Mr. Trump and the campaign. Did he not? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure that that trip refers to Russia. I think that trip may have been to the Middle East. MR. SCHIFF: So he was proposing to go to the Middle East to meet Russian representatives? MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. You're missing some -- there's -MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Clovis, please let me finish the question. So it was your understanding that Mr. Papadopoulos was offering to go on a trip to the Middle East to meet with Russian officials? MR. CLOVIS: Not to meet with Russians, to go to the Middle East. MR. SCHIFF: Well, the statement from Mr. Papadopoulos' plea is, "The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs messaged and said that if Mr. Trump is unable to make it to Russia, if a campaign rep (me or someone else) can make it for meetings? I am willing to make the trip off the record if it's in the interest of Mr. Trump and the campaign to meet specific people." So you're saying that he's talking about a trip to the Middle East? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure what he's talking about. MR. SCHIFF: Well, when you advised him to make the trip if it was feasible, you were talking about making a trip to Russia, were you not? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 119 MR. SCHIFF: What trip were you referring to? MR. CLOVIS: The trip to the Middle East. MR. SCHIFF: And was it your understanding, then, from Mr. Papadopoulos that he was in communication with the Russians about meeting in the Middle East to make it even more off the record? MR. CLOVIS: There's no -- I didn't see any connection over the trip that he wanted to take with Walid Phares to the Middle East and Russia. I didn't -- there -- I didn't see that connection. MR. SCHIFF: Well, Mr. Papadopoulos, in his statement under oath to the court in connection with his plea, referenced the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs' interest in meeting with representatives of the campaign if Mr. Trump could not undertake those meetings. And, according to Mr. Papadopoulos, when he asked whether that was the interest of Mr. Trump and the campaign, the person you have identified as yourself encouraged him to make the trip if it was feasible. MR. CLOVIS: What I'm trying to explain is that the Russian contacts is not the context of the trip that he wanted to make if feasible. Those are not connected. What that document does not have is the fact that he is talking about a Russia trip and he's talking about a Middle East trip. Those are two separate things. MR. SCHIFF: Well, he was referring here in his plea to a trip to meet with Russian officials and says that you encouraged him to make the trip if it was feasible. Are you testifying now that you did not encourage him to make a trip -MR. CLOVIS: To Russia, no, sir. MR. SCHIFF: Did you encourage him to meet with Russian officials or UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 120 those connected with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs if it was feasible? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. I never would've encouraged him to do that. MR. SCHIFF: So when Mr. Papadopoulos stated this under oath to the court, that was a false statement? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure it's a false statement. I'm just not sure the context is there. MR. SCHIFF: Did Mr. Papadopoulos discuss with you the request by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to meet with campaign officials? MR. CLOVIS: He had sent emails, and I think those have been provided. But I'd never encouraged him to meet with the Russians. Mr. Schiff, 1 minute, sir. MR. SCHIFF: So it's your testimony that the only trip that you encouraged him to make if it was feasible was to the Middle East? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, sir. That's my understanding, yes. MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Papadopoulos also states in his plea that he forwarded to you the May 4th Ministry of Foreign Affairs email, along with a message, "Wanted to pass this info along to you for you to decide what's best to do with it and what message I should send (or to ignore)." What did you tell him to do about that message? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure what I -- I don't think I ever encouraged him to ever meet with the Russians. That's time, sir. MR. CONAWAY: Mr. Clovis, my colleagues have been reading extensively from a court document in which Mr. Papadopoulos got himself in front of that court as a result of lying to the FBI. And my colleague has mentioned on UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 121 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE numerous occasions that he was under oath in front of that court, and he probably had the same obligation not to lie to the FBI. Is that your understanding? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, sir. MR. CONAWAY: I yield back. Fifteen minutes. MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Clovis, we're still going through the production that we received only today -MR. CONAWAY: Excuse me for interrupting. I'll have to get this on the record. was handed that binder the same day we got it. That's not true. MR. CONAWAY: Well, my side says, according to bipartisan -- -- and is a a nonpartisan staffer -- handed the document to It was produced in a binder, not electronically. There was an exchange. And so I challenge -- or not challenge, but I just want to make sure on the record that you say one thing and I'll say the other. Let the record reflect. MR. SCHIFF: I'm not interested in litigating this, Mr. Chairman. Let me just rephrase the question. MR. CONAWAY: Thank you. MR. SCHIFF: In the materials that I've just been presented and have barely had a chance to leaf through, I don't know all of what's in those materials and I -- so I ask you this question without knowing the answer. Mr. Papadopoulos, in his plea, says that he emailed you a document from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that he wanted to pass along to you for you to decide what's best to do with it. Did you produce that document in your production to the committee? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 122 MR. CLOVIS: If his name was on it, it's in that stack. MR. SCHIFF: Well, regardless of whether his name is on it, did you receive any materials from Mr. Papadopoulos from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall, sir. MR. SCHIFF: Isn't that something you would recall if -MR. CLOVIS: I would recall that, and I don't recall it. MR. SCHIFF: Is it also the case that you don't recall producing that for the committee? MR. CLOVIS: If George Papadopoulos' name was on it and it was in my private email, I generated everything that has his name on it. MR. SCHIFF: Well, I don't know whether it would be in your private email or not, but -MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall every single page of the 600 pages that I produced. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 123 [2:15 p.m.] MR. SCHIFF: But you would recall if you received the document from one of your few foreign policy advisers that came from the Russian Ministry of Affairs -- Foreign Affairs, wouldn't you? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, I would, probably, yeah. MR. SCHIFF: And did Mr. Papadopoulos from mid-June through mid-August pursue with you the idea of an off-the-record meeting between one or more campaign representatives and members of president Putin's office and the MFA? MR. CLOVIS: I was pretty busy during that time, sir. I'm not exactly sure what he pursued or didn't pursue other than what may be in those exchanges. MR. SCHIFF: So you don't recall, as we sit here today, whether Mr. Papadopoulos proposed to you that he or one of the other campaign representatives meet with members of Putin's office or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. MR. CLOVIS: I would never have encouraged him to do that. MR. SCHIFF: Well, my question is whether he pursued this with you? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall that. MR. SCHIFF: Is it your testimony, Mr. Clovis, that when Mr. Papadopoulos referred to another campaign adviser, he's referring to Walid Phares? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure who that would be. MR. SCHIFF: If the subject -- well, the subject of Mr. Papadopoulos' plea is about Russia. Was there any one else that you were recommending with Mr. Papadopoulos undertake a trip to Russia or meet with Russian officials? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir, I never -- I'll say it again, I never would have UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 124 encouraged -- I did not encourage George to ever make a trip to Russia. The only connection with Walid Phares was the fact that they wanted to go -- they were talking about going to the Middle East and that's -- I said if it's feasible, then go. MR. SCHIFF: Was there a discussion with Mr. Papadopoulos, or Mr. Phares, about arranging a meeting or discussion between candidate Trump and President Sisi? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall any of that. I was not part of that. You have to remember that after March, my role as a foreign policy person was greatly diminished. In fact, I didn't advise on any policy after that. I had no interaction with the candidate directly on any of these issues. And my role had evolved and I changed -- my portfolio changed dramatically after March. MR. SCHIFF: According to Mr. Papadopoulos, he was having repeated discussions with you -MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SCHIFF: -- from mid-June through mid-August. Was he having frequent conversations with you from mid-June to mid-August on any subject? MR. CLOVIS: Well, the issue was that George and others that were part of that team, some like Keith Kellogg and Bert Mizusawa had occasion to go to New York and were part of the foreign policy team in New York, and my job was really to keep people on a tether, because we had enough liability issues with the press as it was, and we didn't need anybody going outside of that. MR. SCHIFF: My question, Mr. Clovis, was, Mr. Papadopoulos has represented to the court that between mid-June and mid-August, he pursued an off-the-record meeting between campaign representatives and members of President Putin's office and the MFA multiple times. Did he pursue that with you, UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 125 multiple times during that period from mid-June to mid-August? MR. CLOVIS: I'm sure he corresponded with me about it. MR. SCHIFF: So you do recall now him corresponding with you about -MR. CLOVIS: No, I don't recall, but I'm sure that he did. MR. SCHIFF: And what makes you sure that he did? MR. CLOVIS: Well, because I produced 600 pages of documents, and I've also had this same interrogatory with several other agencies in the city. That's why -- some of this conflating, so I'm having a struggle trying to separate exactly what you're asking away from other places that I've had to talk about these things. MR. SCHIFF: Well, I'm trying to understand the basis of your testimony. So are you -- you say you're certain you did have these -MR. CLOVIS: No, I'm not certain I did. I'm certain that you have already presented me with evidence or emails that exchanged between us, and that's what I'm acknowledging. MR. SCHIFF: Well, what I'm asking you about, Mr. Clovis, is not something in an email, it is in Mr. Papadopoulos' plea in representation to the court. MR. CLOVIS: Uh-huh. MR. SCHIFF: You have testified that essentially beginning in mid-March, you had little interaction with the foreign policy team -MR. CLOVIS: After March, yes. MR. SCHIFF: According to Mr. Papadopoulos, from mid-June through mid-August, he made a number of attempts to pursue an off-the-record meeting with members of President Putin's office and the MFA. MR. CLOVIS: Yes. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 126 MR. SCHIFF: And what I'm asking you is, did he pursue that with you during that period of time? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall the specifics of that. I don't think I ever acknowledged, or ever told him to have a meeting with anybody. And I think maybe that's where I'm having difficulty answering your question, because I don't remember ever exchanging an email, text, phone call or directly to him, ever asking him to do this, or ever telling him to go to Russia. MR. SCHIFF: And did -- you apart from emails and texts, did you discuss it with him, either by phone or in person the offers that had been made by the Russian MFA? MR. CLOVIS: No. I can say with certainty that I did not -- we did not have elaborate discussions. If he sent me emails and they were in there, I didn't respond in kind. Those meetings never took place. I never would have encouraged him to do that, and I didn't encourage him to do that. MR. SCHIFF: We will be going through your production, Mr. Clovis. MR. CLOVIS: Yes, sir. MR. SCHIFF: But if we go through the production and don't find the emails that, or emails that -- or email or emails that Mr. Papadopoulos referenced when he says he forwarded the May 4th MFA email to the high-ranking campaign official, who you've identified as yourself -MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. No, sir. I'm the campaign supervisor. I'm not the campaign high-ranking official. MR. SCHIFF: Oh, I'm sorry. So then your testimony would be that you don't recall ever seeing those emails? MR. CLOVIS: I don't -- no, sir. I don't remember them. I do not. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 127 MR. SCHIFF: Did Mr. Papadopoulos ever inform you whether he and Mr. Bannon were making a joint effort to arrange a Presidential meeting, or candidate Trump meeting with President el-Sisi? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir, I never -- never was part of that discussion. MR. SCHIFF: After the meeting that was depicted in the photograph, the first meeting with the candidate among that foreign policy team, there was a private meeting immediately thereafter, I thought it was a lunch meeting but in a restaurant. Did you participate in that? MR. CLOVIS: I don't remember that. MR. SCHIFF: Among the different foreign policy advisers, including Walid Phares and George Papadopoulos, apparently went across the street to get a bite to eat, and the conversation that took place in the meeting depicted in the photograph continued. Did you attend that? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir, I did not. I went back to my -- I'm pretty sure that I would have remembered that meeting and no, I don't remember being there. MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Papadopoulos stated that the professor informed him, as my colleague alluded to in late April, that they were -- Russians were in possession of dirt on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. So we're abundantly clear on this, did Mr. Papadopoulos ever communicate that fact to you? MR. CLOVIS: I don't remember that at all. MR. SCHIFF: Would you remember it if he had? MR. CLOVIS: I probably would. Yes, I would. MR. SCHIFF: Particularly in light of the fact that subsequently it would become known that the Russians did possess her emails? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 128 MR. CLOVIS: No, I -- it is hard for to me to answer that. I don't remember that at all. That's my answer. I don't remember that at all. MR. SCHIFF: Well, did anyone else on the campaign inform you that they understood the Russians were in possession of Hillary Clinton's emails. MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SCHIFF: Or that they had been informed by Russians or represent a Russian Government that they had dirt on Hillary Clinton in the form of emails? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. I don't remember that at all. MR. SCHIFF: My colleague may have asked you this and I may have missed it. On March 27th, 2016, when you had emailed along with Keith Kellogg, Carter Page, Bert Mizusawa, Chuck Kubic, Joe Schmitz, et cetera. MR. CLOVIS: Uh-huh. MR. SCHIFF: With the subject line the PP on foreign policy. Who was ? MR. CLOVIS: Major General Gary Harrell. MR. SCHIFF: And in response to the email, and we can pull up the document if you need it. Thank you. This is a Bates stamped ending in 218 and 219. Another copy of that. MR. CONAWAY: Can we have a copy of that? One minute, sir. MR. SCHIFF: One -- according to this document, you forwarded Mr. Page's work to Corey Lewandowski and Michael Glassner stating, this is the work done by Carter Page over the weekend based only DJT interview with NYT. This is quite comprehensive, and I know it is too long to consume, but I wanted to UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 129 let you know the type of work some of our advisers are capable of. Was that your email? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, sir. MR. SCHIFF: Does that indicate that you thought highly of Carter Page's work? MR. CLOVIS: I did. MR. CONAWAY: No questions. 15 minutes. MR. SCHIFF: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think you testified earlier that if Mr. Phares, Walid Phares and Steve Bannon were arranging -- were engaging with Egyptian officials to organize candidate Trump's meeting with President el-Sisi, that was something that took place without your knowledge? MR. CLOVIS: Absolutely, sir. MR. SCHIFF: Do you know anything of the relationship between Mr. Papadopoulos and Mr. Bannon? MR. CLOVIS: No, not at all. MR. SCHIFF: The administration has made an effort to characterize Mr. Papadopoulos as a coffee boy. If he was interacting with Steve Bannon and establishing a meeting with President el-Sisi, does that indicate to you that his role was something more that that? MR. CLOVIS: You're asking me for an opinion I don't care to offer. I don't think -- I don't know that I would be able to characterize it one way or the other. I don't mean no disrespect, sir. MR. SCHIFF: But if, indeed, he was involved with Steve Bannon and organizing a meeting with a president of another country, that would indicate that UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 130 Mr. Papadopoulos had other roles in the campaign that were outside your knowledge? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, sir. MR. SCHIFF: During or shortly thereafter, I think it was during Mr. Page's trip to Russia on July 8th, he emailed J.D. Gordon, Walid Phares, and Tera Dahl, with a document entitled Feedback From Russia Executive Summary. "Please see attached an executive summary of the feedback I received in Moscow this week. I've tried to follow the campaign's format per the document J.D. sent us in recent days. Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or requests you would like to discuss." Did -- were you aware that Carter Page had sent a readout to J.D. Gordon, Walid Phares and Tera Dahl of his trip to Moscow? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SCHIFF: Do you have any idea why you would be left off this email? MR. CLOVIS: Well maybe -- no, sir, I don't. I don't have any idea to answer you directly. MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Page also emailed communicating that he had received significant insights and outreach during his meeting Russia, that he'd met with members of the Duma and Presidential administration. Was that information ever conveyed to you? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Clovis, did you have any role at all in the debate over the Ukraine amendment -MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SCHIFF: -- at the convention? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 131 MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SCHIFF: Was that ever raised with you by anyone in the campaign? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SCHIFF: So that was the first you learned about the debate over that when you learned about it in the newspaper? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, sir. MR. SCHIFF: I will yield back to Mr. Swalwell. MR. SWALWELL: Mr. Clovis, I just want to go through some persons who we have not talked about to see if you interacted with them during the campaign. MR. CLOVIS: All right. MR. SWALWELL: And this is something we've asked every witness. Did you deal with Paul Manafort at all during the campaign? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Robert and Rebecca Mercer? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Alexander Nix? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Eric Trump? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: In what capacity? MR. CLOVIS: Eric was -- would be -- occasionally would travel with us, so he was one of the -- so he was one of the children and had developed a very good friendship with him. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever pass any messages to Eric that you would wish for his father to receive? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Did you talk to Eric about your contacts with George Papadopoulos? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir, no. That was never the relationship we had with the children. MR. SWALWELL: Did you talk to Eric about your contacts with Carter Page? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: How about Paul Erickson? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever meet Dimitri Simes? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. I read a lot of his stuff, never met him. MR. SWALWELL: How about Roger Stone? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: You'd not meet Roger Stone. MR. CLOVIS: No, sir, I do not know Roger Stone. MR. SWALWELL: Felix Sater? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Oleg Deripaska? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Nigel Ferage? MR. CLOVIS: No, I only know of him. MR. SWALWELL: You didn't meet him? Sergei Gorkov? MR. CLOVIS: No. I only know of him. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 132 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 133 MR. SWALWELL: Sergei Gorkov? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Sergey Ivanov? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Aras Agalarov? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Emin Agalarov? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Rob Goldstone? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Ike Kaveladze? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Rinat Akhmetshin? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Anatoli Samochornov? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Where were you when the June 9th, 2016 meeting took place? MR. CLOVIS: Where was that meeting? MR. SWALWELL: Trump Tower, were you there at Trump Tower that day? MR. CLOVIS: Oh, no, no, not at all. No. MR. SWALWELL: Natalia Veselnitskaya, have you ever met her? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: In July 2016, Donald Trump publicly stated that he UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 134 wished for the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton's emails. Do you remember that statement? MR. CLOVIS: I remember reading it about, yes. MR. SWALWELL: Were you a part of putting together that speech? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. It was not my role. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever interact with Rick Dearborn? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: When did you first meet him? MR. CLOVIS: I met Rick probably, I would guess, April or May of 2016? MR. SWALWELL: Did you go to an NRA conference in Kentucky? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: In May of 2016? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Did you go to an NRA conference at all that year? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever meet with Maria Batina? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Do you know who she is? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Would you pass along messages to Attorney General Sessions through Rick Dearborn? MR. CLOVIS: No. Generally I talked directly to Senator Sessions. MR. SWALWELL: How would you communicate with Senator Sessions? MR. CLOVIS: By telephone mostly. MR. SWALWELL: You had his phone number? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 135 MR. CLOVIS: Yes, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever communicate with Senator Sessions about your interactions with George Papadopoulos? MR. CLOVIS: No, not specifically. MR. SWALWELL: How about indirectly? MR. CLOVIS: Only about the team, the national team, because he was the chairman of it? MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever talk to Jeff -- Mr. Sessions about your interactions with Carter Page? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever talk to Mr. Sessions after you met Mr. Erickson about what Mr. Erickson had offered you? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: During the campaign -- and these are just general questions, Mr. Clovis -- did you ever provide any individual with any information related to Hillary Clinton or another political candidate party? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Are you aware of anyone who provided information to an Russian Government, or an agent of Russian Government during the campaign? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Are you aware of anyone who provided information about Hillary Clinton, or any other political candidate, or party to any other party other individual during the campaign? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 136 MR. SWALWELL: During the campaign, did you ever receive information about Hillary Clinton or any other individuals related to the Democratic Party and Clinton's political campaign from an unidentified source? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Were you ever approached during the campaign by any individual claiming to have information about Hillary Clinton or any entities related to the Democratic party and the Clinton's political campaign? MR. CLOVIS: I don't recall that, no. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever interact with any foreign nationalist during the course of the campaign? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, I did. MR. SWALWELL: And why did you do that? MR. CLOVIS: Well, I had the opportunity to meet with several representatives of embassies in Washington, that wanted to meet to confer about the campaign. And so it was in the course of my duties at the time. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever meet with any Russian foreign nationals? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever meet with any foreign nationals who discussed Russia with you? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Are you aware of anyone on the campaign or related to the campaign who received information from Russia or an agent of the Russian Government about Hillary Clinton or any other individuals related to the Democratic party in Clinton's political campaign? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 137 MR. SWALWELL: I yield to Mr. Schiff. MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Clovis, I'm sure you read about the now infamous meeting in Trump Tower. Did you have any knowledge that that meeting was going to take place? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SCHIFF: Did anyone ever communicate to you after the meeting -MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SCHIFF: -- and prior to becoming public that the meeting had taken place? MR. CLOVIS: I didn't know about it until it became public. MR. SCHIFF: Did the Agalarovs ever come up in conversation? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SCHIFF: Emin and Aras Agalarov? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SCHIFF: My colleague went over an email that you had received along with others apparently from Peter Smith. Are you familiar with the public reporting that Peter Smith had been engaged in trying to find the stolen Hillary Clinton emails online? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure what -- what -- no, I'm not really familiar with that story at all. MR. SCHIFF: It's been reported that he had contacts within the Trump campaign and that he was in contact with American people on the dark web who might be Russian offering stolen Hillary Clinton emails. Did anyone at the campaign ever describe to you that someone doing a quasi independent expenditure, or not or very independent expenditure was searching for the Hillary UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 138 Clinton emails through the dark web? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. I don't recall that at all. MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Chairman, if we could have about a 5- or 10 minute break, we want to finish going through the documents. We're trying to avoid necessity of bringing Mr. Clovis back. But if we could have a brief break to go through that, we should be able to wrap up shortly. MR. CONAWAY: Let's reconvene at 10 until. MR. SCHIFF: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [Recess.] MR. CONAWAY: Mr. Swalwell, 15 minutes. MR. SWALWELL: Mr. Clovis, are you aware of a trip that Donald Trump Jr. took to Paris in October 2016? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Have you ever heard of the Center of Political and Foreign Affairs in Paris? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Have you ever met Fabien Baussart, B-a-u-s-s-e-r-t? MR. CLOVIS: No, I have no idea who that is. Great name, though. MR. SWALWELL: How about Rhonda Kassis, K-A-S-S-I-S? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: We discussed earlier a statement of facts, Mr. Schiff and I both asked you questions about Mr. Papadopoulos' statement of facts, and I want to clarify. You stated that you were not the quote, unquote, "high campaign official" I referred to. Who was higher than you at that time in the campaign? MR. CLOVIS: Well, it would have been Michael Glassner, Corey UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 139 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE Lewandowski. At that point, I'm not sure what role Jared had, but I'm sure he was part of it. Manafort was involved by then, so I'm not exactly sure what the timeline was. But I know Manafort came into the campaign in March, and took an active role in March, and then Corey got fired, I think, June. So I can't -- I don't have exact dates in my mind. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever meet Manafort? MR. CLOVIS: No, I wouldn't know him if he walked in here. MR. SWALWELL: Now we've seen in your production and printing the copies right now emails that you or others sent to . Who was DJT? MR. CLOVIS: I don't think there was ever any email sent to -- r. perhaps. MR. SWALWELL: No I'm talking about MR. CLOVIS: No, I don't -- Mr. Trump did not have an email account, so that wouldn't have been him. And I never sent him any emails ever. MR. SWALWELL: So, no. I show you I guess this will be Exhibit 18, the title is a forwarded email. [Clovis Exhibit No. 18 was marked for identification.] MS. TOENSING: We already have an Exhibit 18. Did they do it twice? My apologize, it's we got two copies. This is 18. MR. SWALWELL: It's an email titled this is from your production, Mr. Clovis, "New Wikileaks dump reveals thousands of emails from Clinton campaign chair Podesta." MS. TOENSING: Can we have one? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 140 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. SWALWELL: You can give her another one. MR. CONAWAY: Which one is this? MR. SWALWELL: It's actually -- do you see that email, Mr. Clovis? MR. CLOVIS: I'm not sure which one you're talking about. MR. SWALWELL: It's the subject line "New Wikileaks dump reveals thousands of emails from Clinton campaign chair Podesta." MS. TOENSING: What, what? It's a multiple page. Are you just referring -MR. CONAWAY: Just one page out of it, one of several. MR. CLOVIS: Oh this one back here, so it's Rick DeLilo, is that who it is? MR. SWALWELL: Yes. Do you recognize that name? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: And you see that it is a to ? MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. SWALWELL: Is an email you've ever used? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Next, I want to direct you to an email titled Trump's Russia Adviser Speaks Out, Calls Accusations Complete Garbage. And that's page 1 of 5. MR. CLOVIS: I've got it. MR. SWALWELL: So I will go through each of those. Are you familiar with that email? I will mark that as Exhibit 19. [Clovis Exhibit No. 19 was marked for identification.] MR. CLOVIS: Yes. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 141 MR. SWALWELL: So that is an email from Hope Hicks on September 26th. MR. CONAWAY: The document's on both pages. So how are we going to do that? We have page 1 of 1 on one side and page 1 of 5 on the other. So how are we going to go do the exhibit piece? Just offer it as one exhibit and refer to different parts of it. I think that would be the easiest. MR. CONAWAY: Okay. Very good. So that the entire 1 through 5 will be in that 1 of 1? MR. SWALWELL: Sure. MR. CONAWAY: Is which number? 19. MR. SWALWELL: And the subject is "Trump's Russia Adviser Speaks Out, Calls Accusations Complete Garbage," The Washington Post. That's a September 26, 2016, Mr. Clovis. It's from the Hope Hicks to you. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: It looks -- like, yes. MR. SWALWELL: And in the email, Ms. Hicks says, please make sure his NDA was, in fact, countersigned. Send him a copy and please ask him to stop talking. He is not being helpful, he has never spoken to or met Mr. Trump. Did you talk to Mr. Page after that? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: What did you tell him? MR. CLOVIS: I told him not to talk any more -- actually, I'm sorry, that is incorrect. I'm sorry, I conflate a lot of these and I apologize for that. I think this was Jason Miller is the person who had the responsibility of UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 142 making sure that -- because he interceded in this and I think he was the one that told Carter to stand down, because Jason had taken on that role. MR. SWALWELL: What does she mean when she says "countersigned to the NDA"? MR. CLOVIS: Just that somebody in the campaign had signed the NDA That -- and Cassidy Dumbauld, see Dumbauld there? Cassidy is the one who was the keeper of the paperwork. MR. SWALWELL: Did you talk to Mr. Page? MR. CLOVIS: I don't know. I -- I'm absolutely sure that Jason was the one that interceded on this. MR. SWALWELL: How often did you communicate with Hope Hicks? MR. CLOVIS: Oh, fairly often as -- you know, she was the one that coordinated -- I usually got permission to do all of my media appearances through Hope, and then it was Bryan Lanza and Jason Miller, because Hope was dealing predominantly with the candidate, but that evolved over time. Hope and I communicated up through the time that Jason Miller and Bryan Lanza were brought on to the campaign, and then they took over the media scheduling. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever communicate with Hope any conversation or communications that you had with George Papadopoulos? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: Did you communicate with Hope prior to this email exchange in exhibit 19, any conversations or communications you had with Carter Page? MR. CLOVIS: No, not that I remember. MR. SWALWELL: Exhibit 20 works it email subject line some policy recs. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 143 Do you see that one? [Clovis Exhibit No. 20 was marked for identification.] MR. CLOVIS: Okay, recommendation, okay, yeah. MR. SWALWELL: And I would just refer you to page 3 of 4 in this exhibit and the exchange between -MR. CONAWAY: One second, it looks like we have three of four. Yep, all right, thank you. MR. SWALWELL: The exchange between you and Ms. Trump on February 28th, 2016. Do you see that part? MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. MR. SWALWELL: And that's your email, right? MR. CLOVIS: Yeah. MR. SWALWELL: And you say to her, "As far as I know, we handled the administration of NDAs through Michael and his staff." Who was Michael? MR. CLOVIS: Michael Glassner. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. How often did you interact with Ivanka Trump? MR. CLOVIS: Just whenever she called or emailed. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever express to Ivanka Trump your knowledge of Mr. Page's contacts or visits to Russia? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever discuss with Ivanka Trump your knowledge of Mr. Papadopoulos' foreign travel? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever interact with Jared Kushner? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: How would you normally do that? MR. CLOVIS: Well, usually, through phone or email. MR. SWALWELL: And did you ever discuss, through the course of the campaign with Mr. Kushner, Mr. Papadopoulos' conversations about Russia? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: How about his foreign travel to London and Italy? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever mention to Mr. Kushner anything about Mr. Page's contacts with Russia? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever mention to Mr. Kushner anything about Mr. Page's trip to Moscow? MR. CLOVIS: No. MR. SWALWELL: AND finally, exhibit 20, subject line, "Russian media request on Trump's Crimea comments." MR. CONAWAY: 21? [Clovis Exhibit No. 21 was marked for identification.] MR. SWALWELL: Yes, 21. Page 1 of 2, subject line, "Russian media request on Trump's Crimea comments." MR. CLOVIS: Right. MR. SWALWELL: Do you see that? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: And it's a Leandra Bernstein. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 144 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 145 MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: A Gmail account reaching out apparently on behalf of Sputnik International News. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: It looks that way, yes. MR. SWALWELL: And that's to your email address? MR. CLOVIS: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Who do you understand Sputnik news to be? MR. CLOVIS: I have no idea who that is. MR. SWALWELL: She says she's a reporter with Sputnik and reaching out as foreign policy adviser to Mr. Trump, and she asks about Mr. Trump's outreach to Russia. Is that correct? MR. CLOVIS: I'm curious specifically about Mr. Trump's statements about Crimea this weekend, acknowledging the 2014 referendum where the people voted to be part of Russia, not Ukraine. And then this is the questions she asks? MR. SWALWELL: Right. She asks about his outreach to Russia, and also, why Mr. Trump's unafraid to have the media portray him as pro Russian? Do you see that part of the exchange? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, I do. MR. SWALWELL: Is that how you understood Mr. Trump's views to be that he was unafraid for the media to portray him as pro Russia? MR. CLOVIS: I think that's an accurate statement. MR. SWALWELL: And you forwarded that email on just a short while later to jmiller and blanza. Is that right? MR. CLOVIS: Yes, Jason Miller and Bryan Lanza. MR. SWALWELL: And was there any followup with those individuals about UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 146 this request from Russia? MR. CLOVIS: I don't remember any follow up from them. I did not respond to her. MR. SWALWELL: We talked a lot about your work with Mr. Trump from August 2015 to March 2016. But is it your testimony today that from March 2016 until election day -- well, can you tell us from March 2016 to election day if you ever spoke directly by phone or in person with Mr. Trump about his views on Russia? MR. CLOVIS: No, I did not speak to him at all. MR. SWALWELL: The Peter Smith email that we referred to earlier references an attachment. We do not have the attachment. And I'm hoping, Mr. Clovis, you commit to provide to the committee the attachment to your emails from Peter Smith. MR. CLOVIS: Yeah, if you need them, I will get them for you. MS. TOENSING: Do you know if you have them? MR. CLOVIS: I'd have to go back and look, but if they are on the emails, the emails have not been altered in any way, shape or form. So if they are there, they are there. MR. SWALWELL: I will yield. MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Clovis, when you were asked by my colleague who high-ranking campaign officials were, you listed several. With respect to Mr. Papadopoulos, though, in reporting to a high-ranking campaign official on a foreign policy issue or Russia issue, do you have any insight into who that might be particularly? MR. CLOVIS: No, sir, I don't. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 147 MR. SCHIFF: Did Mr. Kushner have a portfolio in handling interactions with foreign diplomats or foreign parties? MR. CLOVIS: It was my understanding that he did. MR. SCHIFF: And he was one of the high-ranking campaign officials that you mentioned earlier that might have been -- might have met that description. MR. CLOVIS: Might have been is a good word, yes, sir. MR. SCHIFF: What was Mr. Glassner's role as you understood on the campaign? MR. CLOVIS: He was our political director and he -- he essentially handled the mechanics of the campaign and that was generally from the start. I mean, my interactions with Michael were few, but whenever I would go -- he traveled with us, but his interactions were to run the State staffs, to coordinate with RNC, to work on facilitating donors, the mechanics of the campaign more than anything else. I mean the no-kidding bloody-knuckle stuff. One minute, Mr. Schiff. MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Chairman, we yield back. MR. CONAWAY: All right. Mr. Clovis, thank you very much for your interview today. We appreciate it. With that, we're adjourned. MR. CLOVIS: Thank you. [Whereupon, at 3:05 p.m., the interview was concluded.] UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES