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EXECUTIVE SESSION
PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE,
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
WASHINGTON, D.C.

INTERVIEW

OF:

LORETTA LYNCH

Friday, October 20, 2017

Washington, D.C.

The interview in the above matter was held in Room HVC-304, the Capitol,
cornmencing at 10:14 a.m.

Present: Representatives Stefanik, and Schiff'

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Appearances:

Forthe PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

FOR LORETTA LYNCH:

THEODORE V. WELLS JR, ESQ.,
RICHARD C. TARLOWE, ESQ.,

JUSTIN D. LERER, ESQ.,
PAUL, WEISS, RIFKIND, WHARTON, & GARRISON, LLP
1285 AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS
NEW YORK, NEW

YORK 10019

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All right let's begin. Thanks to
a transcribed interview of Attorney General Loretta

all.

Good morning. This is

Lynch. Thank you for

speaking to us today.

l.rI,

For the record,

for the House Permanent

Select Committee on lntelligence for the majority. Also present are a number of
members and staff who will introduce you as they speak.
Before we begin, I want to state a few things for the

questioning willbe conducted by members and

staff.

record. The

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

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.

The interview will be conducted at the Top Secret SCI

level.

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 recollec'tions.
lf 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 are entitled

to have counsel present for you for this interview, though you

are not required to do

so.

I see that you have brought

counselwith you.

For the record, would counsel please state their names for the record.
MR. WELLS: Theodore V. Welts, Junior.
MR. TARLOWE: Richard Tarlowe.

MR. LERER: Justin Lerer.

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Thank

you. The

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interview will be transcribed. There is a

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reporter making a record of these proceedings so we can easily consult a written
compilation of your answers. Because the reporter cannot record gestures, we as
that you answer verbally. lf you forget to do this, you might be reminded to do so.
You may also be asked to spellcertain terms or unusual phrases.
Consistent with the committee's rules of procedure, you and your counsel,

upon request will have a reasonable opportunity to inspect a transcript of this
interview in order to determine whether your answers were correctly transcribed.
The transcript will remain in the committee's custody. The committee also
reserves the right to request your return for additional questions should need arise.

The process for the interview is as follows: The majority will be given
45 rninutes to ask questions. Then the minority will be given 45 minutes to ask

questions. lmmediately thereafter, we will take a S-minute break if you wish, after
which time the majority will be given 15 minutes to ask questions, and the minority
will be given 15 minutes to ask questions. And those rounds will continue until
questioning is complete. However, these time limits for the rounds 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- and 1-minute mark

respectively. I will do

so.

I apologize in advance for interrupting any question or

answer period, but we just want to stay on time.
To ensure confidentiality, we ask that you do not discuss the interview with
anyone other than your attorney. You are reminded that it is unlaMul to
deliberately provide false information to Members of Congress or staff.
Lastly, the record will reflect that you are voluntarily participating in this
interview, which will be under oath.
Madam Attorney General if you would raise.your right hand to be sworn.

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Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
MS. LYNCH: I do.

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And also, thank you Madam Attorney General. Please

make sure the microphone button is pressed and the green light is on so the court
reporter can hear allthe commentary today.

And I will turn it over to Chairwoman, Ms. Stefanik.
MS. STEFANIK: Thank you, Madam Attomey General, for being here

today. As I mentioned, my name is Elise Stefanik. I represent New York's 21st
district. I am a member

of the majori$ on the House Permanent Select

Committee on lntelligence. And I thought it would be helpful if we outlined the
scope of this investigation, and then I will start with the questioning.
So the scope of this investigation has four key points agreed to by both the

majority, Chairman Nunes, and Congressman Conaway, who is leading this on
behalf of the majority, and Ranking Member Schiff. Those four questions that we
seek to answer are as follows: What Russian cyber activity and other active
measures were directed against the United States and its allies?

Two, did the Russian active measures include links between Russia and
individuals associated with political campaigns or any other U.S. persons?
Three, what was the U.S. Govemment's response to these Russian active
measures, and what do we need to do to protect ourselves and our allies in the
future?
And four, what possible leaks of classified inforrnation took place related to
the lntelligence Community assessment of these matters? So that is the scope of
this investigation.

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I wanted to start off with a very broad

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question. As Attorney General, can

you outline the counterintelligence investigation process from start to finish? How
you would open an investigation? Who that would be delegated

to?

Just so we

have an understanding for follow-up questions as to specifics.
MS. LYNCH: Well, thank you and good morning. With respect to the

initiation of a counterintelligence investigation, I don't know if I am actually the best
person to start that process with you, because it is multi-layered. And I am

drawing on my experience both as Attomey Generaland as a former United
States attorney who had contact with intelligence investigations in connection with
terrorism cases.
My understanding is that counterintelligence investigations can be initiated
any number of

ways.

Sometimes we learn information from already established

intercepts. Sometimes information is brought to the attention of the lntelligence
Community. lt is really very similar to the initiation and predication for other types
of investigations as

wel!. There is no one way to say how information would come

to the attention of the lntelligence Community that would lead it to feelthat it
sufficient predication to start an investigation.
Some situations there are long term sources in place. Some situations
people walk in with information that has to be vetted and determine whether or not
it is

valid. So it is really difficult for me to really say that there

is one straight path

to beginning a counterintelligence investigation. But what I would say is that
similar to any other investigation, information would come to the lntelligence

Community's attention by any number of sourccs, means, or methods. And
based upon the information that was given and whether or not the initial reviewing
person thought there was sufficient predication, an investigation would begin.

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Similar to other investigations also, it could take severalforms.

lnvestigations in the counterintelligence community are typically, however, covert.
That differs greatly from other investigations say in the criminal arena, where they
are covert or overt depending upon whether it is financial fraud or the

like.

But in

the counterintelligence world, they are typically covert. They are typically long
term because they will involve transmitting information sometimes from foreign
countries, sometimes from individuals who are cooperating with the lntelligence
Community who may be living overseas or may have contacts

there. There is just

really a variety of ways.

So I don't want to give the impression that there is one straight linear path
to how a counterintelligence investigation in generalwould begin. Typically, the
counterintelligence investigations are handled by agents in the counterintelligence
and counterespionage section for the Department of

the

FBl.

Justice. lt would be within

And that is really one of the few times where you will have a lot of

activity for the FBI that may be at the outset coming from overseas. The FBI does
a lot of intemationalwork, as does the entire Department of Justice, but
counterintelligence often has that component depending, again, upon the types of
investigative techniques that are determined to be necessary, whether it is human
sources, whether it is documents, whether it is electronic surveillance.

Again, there would be an agent or a group of agents really assigned to work
with

that.

Depending upon how far the information comes, depending upon the

nature of it and what might be needed in terms of process, attorneys from the

NationalSecurity Division who work on counterespionage matters are often
assigned to work with agents, again speaking from lhe DOJ's perspective, from
the

FBl.

And they would assist with preparing legal process as needed. There

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might be the need for electronic surveillance. Certainly there would be the need
for lega! advice about the parameters of investigations, what is allowed, what is
nol allowed.
These investigations typically are not part of criminal investigations. The
times when they overlap typically are the terrorism matters that we investigate.

And there I am drawing upon my experience as a United States attorney for the
Eastern District of New

York.

Because a number of our terrorism investigations

drew upon and received information from the lntelligence Community. There is a
process by which approval is sought to utilize information from the lntelligence
Community in a criminal terrorist investigation.
MS. STEFANIK: So you talk about the approval process. How does that

work in terms of making a decision to open a counterintelligence investigation?
Knowing that no two investigations are

alike.

But is there a set process and a set

of protocols in terms of is the Attorney General made aware? ls it the Deputy
Attorney General that is made aware? ls it within the National Security Division of
the Department of Justice?
MS. LYNCH: I would have to refer you to the U.S. Attorney's manualthat

would speak to that, as wellas to the FBI's manual. lwouldn't want to try and
give you chapter and verse without having reviewed those things, which I haven't
done, since that was not what I thought you wanted to focus

on.

But I do believe

that you would be able to find within operational manuals those answers. ljust
don't want to give you misinformation or inaccurate information.
MS. STEFANIK: Well, the reason I am asking is to tie it to the

counterintelligence investigation which falls under the scope of this regarding

Russia. Before I go to the specific, I want to ask

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is there a notification procedure

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in terms of notifying Congress of any counterintelligence investigation?

MS. LYNCH: Wellcertainly there are notification procedures for a variety
of the investigative techniques that we

use. There is an annual

notification to

Congress about FISA warrants, for example, the number requested, granted, initial
as well as

renewal. That is something that the Attorney Generalsigns every year.

I signed it on at least two occasions when I was in

office. Again, within the FBI

I

would have to refer you to the specific procedures there for the steps that are
taken to open something literally within the Bureau's computers. I wouldn't want
to misstate that.
MS. STEFANIK: Again, just to provide context around this line of

questioning, when Director Comey testified in the open hearing, so this was widely
reported in the media, he, quote, said, "l have been authorized by the Department
of Justice to confirm that the FBI as part of our counterintelligence mission is
investigating the Russian Government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 Presidential

election."
How did that authorization

work?

Did that come from you directly? ls that

atypical in terms of how you notify Congress of the existence of that
cou nterintelligence investigation.

MS. LYNCH: So my recollection of the public reporting that you are
referring to was that it occurred in I believe in the spring of this year,2O17. I was

no longer the Attorney Generalat that time, so I wasn't involved in any discussion
or decision as to what the director would be saying before Congress. So I can't
speak to that.
MS. STEFANIK: Going back to when the counterintelligence investigation

was opened, because it wasn't opened in spring of this year, we have to look back

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to 2016, when you were the Attorney General, was there a notification process in

place? Again, how does that typically work in terms of notifying Congress when

a

Cl investigation is opened?
MS. LYNCH: You know, again, I don't have the specifics of that, so

I

wouldn't want to misspeak.
MS. STEFANIK: So as Attorney General you are not aware of what the

process is to notify Congress of a counterintelligence investigation? Or is it
delegated?
MS. LYNCH: lf I were still in the position and the question were put to me,
I would have someone research that so I could give you an accurate answer.

MS. STEFANIK:

Okay. Let's talk about specifically the

counterintelligence investigation regarding Russia. How was that opened?
When did that begin?
MS. LYNCH: I am not able to give you a specific date as to when that

began. I can give you my recollection of when I was informed of certain issues
that were included within

it. But I am not able to give you the actual date when it

would have been opened, for example, you know, when was a file opened in the

computer. I don't have that information, so lwouldn't be able to give that to you.
MS. STEFANIK: When were you made aware to your recollection?
MS. LYNCH

lwas infonned by then-Director Comey and Deputy Director
McCabe that the Counterintelligence Division had essentially uncovered some

information or received information involving Russian intelligence operatives.

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MS. STEFANIK: Based upon your recollection, it sounds like you did not

make the decision to authorize and open the counterintelligence investigation, that
you were being briefed on the fact that it already had been

opened. ls that

correct?
MS. LYNCH
We did not discuss the timing or the opening of
the investigation per

se. So lwould say that is not correct.

MS. STEFANIK: Who opened the investigation?
MS. LYNCH: Again" ! would refer you to the FBI's procedures on that,

because I wouldn't want to give you a speculative answer on that.
MS. STEFANIK: So you weren't made aware when the investigation was
opened?

MS. LYNCH: I was made aware of the information that I just relayed to
you, but lwouldn't be able to give you a date relative to that as to when the exact
investigation was opened.
MS. STEFANIK:

Okay. But just to clarify, you didn't open the

investigation. As Attorney Generalyou didn't make the decision to open the

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investigation?

MS. LYNCH: As lhe Attorney General, that is not my

role. That

is

accurate.
MS. STEFANIK: And you were notified after the fact when the
investigation was opened?
MS. LYNCH: I just want to be specific in terms of what was said to me
don't want to give you a misimpression as to what was said to me

But the nature of the discussions I would have at that levelwould not be about the

specifics of the opening and timing of that.
MS. STEFANIK: ln terms of they informed you

MS. LYNCH: I wouldn't be aware of that, because I don't

recalll

And I don't think lwas given the
So lwouldn't be able to give you
that.
MS. STEFANIK: ls that an authority that

- I mean is that something

that is

delegated to the Deputy Attorney General, to the National Security Division within

the Department of Justice? Who is that delegated to?
MS. LYNCH: Within the Department of Justice, the authority to sign FISA

warrants rests within the Attorney General, and it is delegated to

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or delegable,

and has been delegated to the Deputy Attorney General and to the head of the

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National Security Division, as long as lhe head of the National Security Division
has been Senate confirmed.

So if for example there is a situation where the head of the NSD, as we call
it, were to depart, if the person who took over is acting, were not confirmed to that

position, that person would not be signing the FlSAs, just by way of example.
MS. STEFANIK: At the beginning you talked about how there are different

processes and procedures for opening a counterintelligence investigation. To
your knowledge, were there any different ways in which the opening of the
counterintelligence investigation regarding Russia differed from other examples
within the Department of Justice?
MS. LYNCH: You know, in my role as Attorney General, those matters
wouldn't have been brought to me, so I am not able to respond to that question.
MS. STEFANIK: Did the FBI request FISA authorization from the

Department of Justice, or is that something that you had delegated to the National
Security Division or lhe Deputy Attorney General in this particular case regarding
the Russia investigation?
MS. LYNCH: Can you give me sorne context? When you say did they

request FISA authorization

for:

MS. STEFANIK:

MS. LYNCH:

There is a number of ways in
which information is provided. So I don't have that information for you.

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MS. STEFANIK: What was the role of Deputy Attorney General Yates in
this process specifically?
MS, LYNCH: When you say this process

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MS. STEFANIK: ln the Russia investigation, this Cl investigation.

MS. LYNCH

I

that information was also provided to a principals group within the

National Security Council. At the time, I was the only principal from the
Department of Justice who was attending the meetings or on the secure calls that
we had to have.
I am aware that later in the

fall, I believe that Deputy Attorney General

Yates certainly was aware of subsequent developments that occurred after the

election. But she was not involved in the discussions or reviews that I was having
in the spring and summer and early

fall.

lt was a principals only series of

discussions at that time.
MS. STEFANIK: And who were those principals?

MS. LYNCH: They were principals from within the National Security

Council. So the meetings that I was having were -- and I willapologize for not
being able to necessarily recalleveryone. Typically, if we had a meeting on the

issue it would have been led by Susan Rice, myself, Jeh Johnson as the Secretary
of Homeland Security, CIA Director Brennan. Then-FBl Director Comey would be
present because he would provide the counterintelligence information from the
FBI's standpoint. And I believe that after the election there were some meetings

when Deputy Director McCabe provided information.

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But before the election, my recollection is it was primarily Director Comey.

And I don't recall the names of -- well, Admiral Rogers from NSA. And if there
was ever anyone who sat in for him, I don't recall the name of that person. And

I

also don't recall if this is an exhaustive list.
MS. STEFANIK: So the spring of 2016, was there a process to notify

Congress or congressional leadership or, you know, the ranking member and the
majority chairman of the House lntelligence Committee, the Speaker of the House,

the majority leader -- I am sorry, Leader Pelosi? Was there a process to notify
leadership of this counterintelligence investigation?
MS. LYNCH: You know, again, I would have to refer you back to the

procedures that were present within FBI and DOJ at that

time. And since I am not

there, I don't have access to those materials, so I wouldn't want to speculate.
MS. STEFANIK: But do you

recall? I mean at that time you were

Attorney General. Was there a congressional notification process for this
investigation?

MS. LYNCH: Again, I would have to refer you back to the procedures that
were in place at that

time.

I think

that is going to be the most accurate description

of how any information would have been provided.
MS. STEFANIK: And you don't recallthose procedures? What are those

typical procedures?
MS. LYNCH: Again, I am not in that capacity right now, so it is not
something that is within my recollection at this time.
MS. STEFANIK:

Okay. Turning to the dossier, which has been in the

news quite a bit, were you involved in the decision to brief the President-Elect on
January 6th on the existence of the dossier?

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MS. LYNCH: No, I was not involved in that decision.
MS. STEFANIK:

Okay. Are you aware of who paid for it, or what role did

the Department of Justice have regarding the decision to pursue the dossier?
MS. LYNCH: To pursue it?
MS. STEFANIK: To either pay for it or

-

that the FBI Director briefed the President-Elect

obviously, this was something

on.

Was the Department of

Justice involved in that decision-making process to either brief the President or
treat it as a piece of intelligence?
MS. LYNCH: I was not involved in the decision, so I am not able to speak

to anyone else that the then-director might have spoken to about it.
EXAMINATION:

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Good morning, Madam Attorney General. Nice to see you again.
Good morning.
I

would like to just circle back real quick to Chairwoman Stefanik's line

of questioning regarding how counterintelligence investigations are opened.
While I understand that information regarding a counterintelligence investigation
can come from any number of areas or sources or what have you, the FBI picks
up that information and brings it to the attention of the National Security Division of

the Department of Justice. ls that not correct?

A

Are you referring to the opening of the counterintelligence investigation

within the FBI?

O No. Once the FBI opens it, in order to connect the FBI with the
Department of Justice and the attomeys of the counterespionage section of the

National Security Division, what is the process by which that bridge is gapped?

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Well, again, I think there would be specific procedures in place. The

process that you have outlined could be one way of doing

that.

Also, you could

have a situation where information in an ongoing case could reveal something that

could lead to the view that it needed to be reviewed. And it could go the other
way as well.

O

And that is fair. So my question is obviously only we want to bookend

it with your time as Attorney

General. Could you just give us those dates real

quick, approximate dates that you served as the Nation's number one law
enforcement officer?

A
of the

I

was confirmed in April of 2A15, and I served untilJanuary -- the end

- I think it was end of January 19th. The inauguration I believe was the

20th.

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I understand.

Yes.

2A17,1 am sorry.

With counterintelligence investigations under your leadership, was it

the practice of the FBI and then-Director Comey to notify the National Security
Division and/or your designees within the Department of Justice lhat they had

obtained information regarding a matter and that matter needed to be pursued
further?

A

Well certainly that would have been one

way.

I can't tell you -- I can't

cabinet as to the only method in which an investigation would have been begun.

O
A

Okay.

And again, I am sorry to cut you off, I apologize for that, is I don't want

to give you the impression that there is only one linear way in which things as
diffuse and diverse as counterintelligence matters are handled. And that is why

I

 I
am just not able to

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No, and lthink you hit it right on the head, there is absolutely not one

way to do that sorl of work. And what I am trying make the connection specifically
is how this relates to the Russia investigation and this committee's open

investigation on that.
Because Director Comey testified in an open hearing that
counterintelligence investigations that he starts within the FBI under his leadership
as director could only go to a certain point, unlike counterterrorism investigations,

which could go past that point, without the express permission of the Department
of Justice. So what we would like to know is who obtained or who issued that
express permission to Director Comey and his FBI to continue the investigation
into the Russia hacking?

A

! think you have to speak to then-Director Comey and the people who

were working on the case at that

time.

That type of .. because again, it is a

multi-layered system and process, as in the National Security Division has a
number of outstanding lawyers

there. That type of managerial issue would not

have come to my attention.

O

Okay. So in this instance, and I think that is what we are trying to get

to, in this instance that fact that the investigation was started, however it started in

the FBI under then-Director Comey, in regards to the Russia investigation, would
not have been brought to your attention for authorization to continue the
investigation as then-Director Comey stated was necessary pursuant to the USAM
and the FBI manual?

A

That is correct. For this matter as well as for counterintelligence

matters in general, they would not need to come to the Attorney General for that.

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That would be dealt with at a different level.

O

Okay. And because of the nature of the subject, while there is

numerous Cl investigations that the Department and the FBI are working on on
any given day, because of the nalure of this subject and the timeliness of this

subject, that it involved Russia, that it involved our elections during an ongoing
Presidential election cycle, you are saying that it was still not brought to your

attention for authorization?

A

Not for authorization

purposes. But as I mentioned before, the
ad been in

inform

brought to my attention and
was discussed with me relative to the nature of the discussions, the information
the FBI had about the nature of those discussions, and ultimately was expanded to
the National Security Council, with that sarne information.
And then discussions were had involving both the
was focused on what they were learning from the sources they were using, and

O

Thank

you.

And you made reference to a communication in the

beginning of your answer that was brought to your attention. What do you recall
were the specifics of that communication that the FB! director relayed to you?

A

So my recollection is, as I indicated,

And again, they may have said

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And

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O

And just so I have an understanding, was it the brieling that you

received from then-Director Comey and Deputy Director McCabe that the

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And given that as Attorney Generalyou have a myriad of

investigations going at any one time, since this information was brought to you
during a Presidentialelection cycle possibly involving Russians attacking our
election system, at that time did this receive any priority in your Department of
Justice as Attorney Generalfor you as something that you wanted to continue to
be briefed on or was it handled in the regular fashion under your stewardship?

A

Wellwhat I would say is that every counterintelligence investigation,

the regular fashion for it is to give it priority, is to give it importance, and is to
essentially pursue it with diligence and all due efforts. So the distinction you are
drawing is not one that I would recognize at the

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oulset. I would also say that in

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conjunction with the conversation that I had with then-Director Comey and Deputy
Director McCabe, we discussed what, if anything, to do with the information. And

they informed me that they intended to continue to see if further information
developed, but that one of the possibilities the three of us discussed was whether
or not to provide what is called a defensive briefing to the campaign, wherein there
would be a meeting with a senior person within the Trump campaign to alert them
to the fact that someone -It is not an uncommon thing to do both in intelligence matters as

well as in certain criminal investigation matters as well

And we again discussed the possibility of a defensive briefing to the

campaign. I do not recall the timing, just because, again, I don't have any
specifics on that --

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And so whose decision is it ultimately in order to provide a defensive

briefing to a candidate for President? Who makes that call?

A

lt would depend upon the facts of the

what the information or what the issue

situation. lt would depend upon

was. And it would be a decision that

would

be made in conjunction with the agents who were looking at the matter and their
supervisors, as well as anyone from NSD who would be handling the matter and
their supervisors.

O
A

ln this instance in this investigation who made that decision?
You know, I don't have specifics on that, and I don't recall

recall the result of
or

not. ljust

O

it.

-

I don't

That is to say I don't recall if a defensive briefing was given

don't have that recolleclion now.

And I am sure as Attomey General and sitting with the Principals

Committees and on the National Security Council, they would have sought your
opinion on the matter. Did you provide one as to whether or not a defensive
briefing should have been given to then-candidate Trump?

A

I concuned with the directods view it was something that we should

consider.

O

And did you provide an ultimate answer as to yes or no that al some

point in time a defensive briefing

A

*

We didn't have that question at the principals level thereafter. I don't

recall being asked that question in the context of the discussions we had at the
PCs.

O

So I mean obviously we now know that eventually a defensive briefing

was issued and given to the President-Elect. Was that done without your

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notification? That is to say did other folks make that decision and that decision
occurred?

A

Are you referring to the discussion that you just referenced recently

where then-Direclor Comey spoke to the President-Elect

O
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O
A
O

-

Risht.

-- or something else?
Yes.

Again, that was -- I was not involved in that decision.

Okay. You referenced, Madam Attomey General, you referenced the

USAM, the United States Attorneys Manuals. The rules and regulations within

that govern, obviously, national security investigations and processes and
procedures, but those rules are subject to each Attorney General's authorization
and approval of those

rules.

My question to you is did you adopt those rules

under the USAM in full for National Security Division from your predecessor,

Attorney General Holder, or did you make any material alterations?

A

You know, I don't recallwhether I made any alterations or not, but

there would be a record of it if I did. So you would have to refer to that record.

O
A

Within the Department of Justice. You would have to check with

O

And you would have signed off on those alteralions within the USAM,

Sure. And the record would be where?

them.

and they would contain your signature, obviously?

A

lf that was required and if it was presented to me, and.if I did that,

those records would be

there. But I don't

have a recollection right now as to

whether I was presented with alterations or changes. ljust don't have that

I

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25

recollection.

O

Sure. Right. That is what

! am

asking. You don't remember now

whether the USAM was changed in any way, shape, or form as it relates to
NationalSecurity Division investigations in Cl matters?

A

You would have to check with those records. And that would

essentially follow the path of any changes that were made.

O

Okay. I would like to turn your attention, Madam Attorney General,

over to what we commonly refer to as FISA, the Foreign lntelligence Surveillance

Act.

Within the Department of Justice, I think you mentioned this, there

are -- correct me if I am wrong

-

only three individuals that can authorize a FISA:

That is the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, and the Senate-confirmed
Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division. ls that correct?

A

Well, to authorize the request of a FISA. lt is the FISA court that

actually aulhorizes the surveillance.

O

Right. Thank you. And are there any other individuals at DOJ who

can make that authorization to the FISC?

A
O
A
0

No.
No.

Well, attorneys present it to the FISC after
Sure,

sure.

-

No, no, I understand. But they can't go in there before

your say so?

A
O

Correct.
ln this instance, let's keep it on scope here, we now know that there

was information briefed to you by the FB! regarding Russian entities, Carter Page
and contacts and whatnot. When do you recall was the first presentation of a

I

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26

FISA application to the FISC in relation to this subject matter?

A

You know, I don't have a recollection of signing

that.

would have to look at whatever documenls exist to see whether

And again, you

- if a FISA

warrant was requested, whether it was signed by myself, the deputy, or the head
of the National Security Division. But as I sit here today, I don't have a
recollection of being briefed and having a presentation to sign that.

O

Were you made aware of, at any point in time, because as we now

know there was in fact a FISA issued by the FISC, were you made aware of that

timeline that this was occurring while were you Attorney General, that this
investigation was ongoing? Were you kept up to speed about the ongoings of the
FISA and the FISC orders?

A

No.

And I typically would not

be.

ln terms of the various

investigative techniques that are done within an investigation, they wouldn't have
to be briefed to the Attorney General.

O

Sure. And in this instance, just so we are clear, in this instance with

the Russia investigation, they were not briefed to you as the Aftorney General?

A
O

I don't have a recollection that they were.

Okay.

Do you have a recollection that once this investigation came in

you delegated it down to then-AAG John Carlin or then-DAG Sally Yates?

A
O

When the investigation came in?
When the investigation came into the Department of Justice and then

FISA applications were sought and then ultimately presented to the FISC, did you

delegate the authority or the supervision of this investigation from the
Department's perspective to DAG Yates or AAG John Carlin?

A

Again, I think the construct of your question is a little dfficult because,

 I

27

again, the investigation would not be presented to the Attorney General for intake
so to speak

O
A

Okay.

.. and then delegated down to anyone. lt would come up through the

usual processes, So again, I want to make sure that I am clearly answering your
question, and I don't want to give you information that isn't responsive to that. So
the construct of your question doesn't really apply to the premise.

O

Okay. Fair enough. Let me clarify. And I appreciate your response.

ls it your understanding that the investigation came in through the normal sort of
stovepipes that DOJ has, for lack of a better word, was entered into the National
Security Division, was raised through the Assistant Attorney General, then John
Carlin, then up to the Deputy Aftomey General's office, and then finally up to the
Attorney General's office? ls that what happened in this investigation?

A

I don't have a recollection of that being the process that would happen

event, Again, you know, it wouldn't be presented to me for intake is thb
point that I am trying to make. ' lt would be handled and worked on, and if
in any

something required my attention as Attomey General, it would be brought to my

attention. But it is not the case with any investigation

in the Department of Justice

that every step of every investigation be vetted up the chain that you have
described.

O

No, of course

not.

So I am trying to focus it to just this one

investigation. And as you mentioned, maybe intake is not the right word, but were
there certain aspecB, as you just said, that might require your notification because
those working for you thought it important enough and timely enough to notify

you?

So were there any subjects that were brought to your attention in relation to

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28

this investigation at this time?

A

As I described, the information that I received in the spring was

brought to my attention. But again, with respect to investigative techniques, those

were not, and norwould I expect them to be.

O

Okay. Fair enough. Are you aware how many FISAs were

authorized ultimately in relation to this investigation, how many were put before the

FISC?

Do you have a ballpark number there?

A
O

No.

Do you recall if you were briefed on -- because as FISC -- so the FISA

authorities are either 90- or 180-day extensions depending on who the person is
and the subject of the

FISA.

Do you recall being briefed over the course of those

re-a pprova ls and reauthorizations?

A No. That would have only happened if I had been needed to actually
sign the document. And in instances when either the head of the National
Security Division or the deputyAG was not available, NSD would request time on
my calendar. I would then be briefed on whatever those FISAs were.
Sometimes they were original, sometimes they were renewals. But I don't recall

being briefed on FISAs involving this investigation that we are talking about today.

O

Okay. Thank you. ljust have two more subject matters, ma'am, and

a few minutes to try to get through

them.

I am sure you have heard of the

company Fusion GPS either in press reporting or in your time as the Attorney

General. Were you ever briefed by or did you ever learn of the processes

in

which by Fusion GPS and ils employees and/or relationship with Christopher
Steele, that information they cultivated was utilized in a FISA application on an

American citizen?

I

 I
A
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29

I don't have any information on Fusion GPS,

so lwould say no.

Okay. So during no point in the investigation under your leadership

as Attomey General you had any information on Fusion GPS?

A

I don't have a recollection of anyone bringing that to

me.

But again,

this is my recollection as I sit here today, but I don't have a recollection of being
briefed on matters involving Fusion GPS.

O

Sure. And would the same answer be for

Christopher Steele, who is widely reported to in public reporting to have created
the so-called Trump dossier and the salacious allegations therein? Was any of
that information utilized in a FISA application for an American citizen under your
leadership as Attomey General?

A

You know, I don'l have any recollection of being briefed on any

matters involved Mr. Steele in terms of things that were brought to my attention.
And so since I did not review and wasn't briefed on the FISA applications that may
or may not have been authorized in this case, I am not able to speak to the
information contained in them.

O

Okay. And did then-Director Comey and Deputy Director McCabe or

any other representatives of the United States Government ever brief you or
provide you with information as to lhe relationship between the United States

Government as a whole and Fusion GPS and/or Christopher Steele?

A
O

I don't have a recollection of briefings

on Fusion GPS or Mr. Steele.

So you have no knowledge, as you sit here today, during your time as

Attorney Generalthat the United States Government had a relationship with
Fusion GPS or Christopher Steele?

A

I don't have any information on that and I don't have a recollection

I

of

 I

30

being briefed on that.

O

Okay. Did you, as your time as Attorney General, ever request sort of

in your position which you may or may not have chosen to do, request out, down

the chain of command so to say, for lack of a better expression, I would like more
information on the Russia investigation on this component or on Fusion GPS and
on this component or anything like

that? Was that

request ever made by you as

Attorney General to those working for you?

A

No, I did not make lhat request because I was receiving regular

briefings as part of the PCs on the information both from the FBI and from the CIA
as to the larger issue of Russian attempts to interfere with the election. So I was
receiving briefings on a fairly regular

basis. And I did not have the need to

request further briefings on that.

O

And those were occurring at the Principals Committees meetings that

you referenced. ls that conect?

A

Yes, they

were.

They were either meetings, and sometimes they

were secure either video or phone calls, depending upon where people were
located.

O

Fair enough. And can you tell us, as it relates to this subject matter,

approximately how many or how frequently those were occurring?

A No. I would have to refer you to the notes of the NSC. I am sure
they have a record and a calendar of

that.

They were certainly fairly frequent, but

I don't want to misspeak and say it was once a month or once every 6 weeks,

because as I sit here now, I am just not able to recall with enough specificity there.
But I will say that my recollection is that the briefings were frequent throughout the
late spring and throughout the summer and into the

I

fall. And so to say that they

 I

31

would have been every few weeks is my recollection. But I am not going to be
able to give you the dates, unfortunately.
Of course. Madam Chairwoman?
MS. STEFANIK: Understanding that you can't give the dates, one of my

questions, which our counselwas getting at, you have talked about the briefing
you received in the early spring when you were made aware by Director Comey of
evidence regarding the counterintelligence investigation. You talked about the
Principals Committee in late spring, where it was considered whether a defensive
briefing. should be presented to the Trump

campaign. What other specific topics

were touched upon? Understanding that you can't get into the specifics of when
those PCs happened, whether they were phone calls or in person, what other
specific subject matters were discussed? Because that is a lot of specificity for
the first

two, What was discussed?

Summer, early

fall?

Can you expand upon

that?
MS. LYNCH:

Yes.

throughout at almost every

And there were several strands that were discussed

PC. And my recollection is at the very first PC that we

had, which again I am thinking was late spring
having that date

-

-

and again, I apologize for not

but in addition to the FBI raising the information that they had

relayed to me, then director of the ClA, Director Brennan raised information,

although not with a great deal of specificity, about information that the CIA had
obtained

- and again without specificity as to how -- that the Russian Government

as an entity was interested in the 2016 Presidentialelection, or had an interest in
it, and was going to, and likely was already making attempts to try and have some
sort of influence there.

I

 I

I

32

At the outset, we had severalstrands of thought, as I had mentioned.

One was to receive the information. During the course of the summer, Direclor

Brennan provided more specifics of the information.
MS. STEFANIK: Can you get into what those specifics were?
MS. LYNCH:

Surely. But as I said, we had several strands. First was to

So over the course of the summer, we looked at those three rnain issues.

I

am sorry the fourth issue, and I am sorry about this, was -- and this is primarily at

So over the course of the
summer we got information about that as

well. And that was also part of the

strand of discussion of what action should be taken and how should this

information be made public? How and what format, et cetera. So those were the
main issues that were under discussion at pretty much every PC or phone call that
we

had. And sometimes these were

longer meetings like over an hour,

sometimes they were shorter if it was just to update someone on

- update the

group on something.
With respect to Director Brennan's information, over the course really of the

I

 I

33

r
That during Secretary Clinton's time as Secretary, the interaction there had
led Vladimir Putin to have negative views of her and the United

States.

lt was of

the entire country

We again received information primarily from Director Brennan -- I don't
believe he had anyone else doing the briefings for him
principals level at this time

-

this was still at the

- that -.

MS. STEFANIK: This is late summer again?
MS. LYNCH: Early sumrner.
MS. STEFANIK: Early summer. PC meeting in early summer. Okay.

MS. LYNCH: This is Late spring, early summer. This is over the course
of the summer.
MS, STEFANIK: Okay.
MS. LYNCH

I
And ! didn't get the
specifics of for example what someone was supposed to say, but it was that

 I

34

strand

And there may have been one other that I can't recall right now in terms of

I

And my recollection is

that it

And while that was mentioned as something that
was being reviewed, it was not part of the PC discussion. However, it is
something that from DOJ's perspective would be considered part of an
investigation into Russian attempts to somehow impact something that was going
on during the campaign. That is why I raised it, so you have that information was

well.

But again it wasn't part of the PC's.
MS. STEFANIK: Our time has expired.
MR. SCHIFF: Madam Attorney General, thank you for coming in, and

thank you for your service to the country.
MS. LYNCH: Good morning. Thank you.

I

 r

35

MR. SCHIFF: Good morning. I want to go through the timeline you have
been discussing with a few more questions, just to see if we can flesh this out any

further. When did you first become aware of what we have been describing as
the Russian active measures campaign, either in the form of the hacking and
dumping operation or social media or other operation or outreach to the Trump

campaign? What was the first you learned that the Russians may be seeking to
influence our electoral process?
MS. LYNCH

I
But lwas aware that the FBI and DOJ were looking into attempts to hack
into the DNC and that there was a concern that it was coming from Russia.

Again, kept on a separate track, but lwas aware of that.

r
I
I

 I

36

And that this was very much a goal of the Soviet Union, and particularly a

goalof Putin

And certainly it was being
reviewed with a view towards the fact that it was likely part of the overall Russian

campaign to influence the election.

That is to say if in fact the election went a different route and Secretary
Clinton became the President, that it would still be considered a victory if people
did not have faith in the democratic process, if they did not trust the veracity of the

results. And also if they could undermine Secretary Clinton's future Presidency if
she were to attain that office.

I

 I

37

The Department of Homeland Security was offering assistance. And my
understanding, again from the information he was providing, that sometimes the
States came to DHS for assistance and sometimes this activity was detected, as is
often the case, in cyber reviews during information that DHS was gathering sort of
from its own processes. Much as when the Department of Justice, through the
FBl, sees intrusion activity and notifies a company or an entity or the like.
lnitially, Secretary Johnson reported that the States were eager to work with

the Department of Homeland Security in terms of requesting assistance, which
could be forensic or it could be economic to support their own efforts to allow them
to conduct forensic analysis. And over the course of mid-summer, Secretary
Johnson indicated that he wanted to propose designating the nationalelections
system, Statewide system, as a critical infrastructure, which woutd allow more
Federalfunds to flow and would streamline processes for sharing information
about what was being seen on a State by State basis so that the States could
share that information rnore easily. And he began to take those steps to try and
craft a proposalto do

that.

That was something that was discussed at the PCs

also.
MR. SCHIFF: Going back to when you first learned of the Russian actions,

were you aware of the hacking of the DNC or the DCCC prior to knowing that it
might be the Russians that were the actors? ln other words, were you made

 I

38

aware that there had been a break-in and there was an investigation to determine
who was responsible or at the point you found out the attribution had already been
made?

MS, LYNCH

MR. SCHIFF: And at the point that you first learned that it was a Russian

source that was involved in the hacking of the computers, was it the sense of the
principals that this was an information gathering operation or was there a

suspicion that the information might later be dumped or weaponized?
MS. LYNCH: Well, just to be accurate, this wasn't discussed at Principals

Meetings. This would have been discussed within DOJ leadership meetings,
because it was kept separate from the intelligence side of the house, so to speak.
And so my recollection is that initially I was informed of the attempted hacking and
the case that we were opening
And then later

- the investigation

we were opening into that.

-

MR. SCHIFF: Do you recallwhen that would have been?
MS. LYNCH: I don't recallwith specificity. I am

sorry. I do know that it

And as I think back, I am just not able to peg it to a

was

specific event. So I don't have a recollection as to

that. And that then -- in fact,
but I don't have a

think it may have been
specific recollection.

MR. SCHIFF: So you were initially informed of the break-in. You were

I

I

 I

39

later informed that it was likely attributed to the Russians.
MS. LYNCH: Correct. Yes.
MR. SCHIFF: And at the point you learned that the Russians were

involved in the hacking, was there a sense in those meetings that it was merely
the same kind of information gathering as in the pasl, or was there, by virtue of
other information coming from Director Brennan, the concern that this may be
different in kind?
MS. LYNCH: You know, I didn't discuss the hacking case with Director

Brennan. So I didn't get his views on it and didn't ask for his views on that.
lnitially, I think the review or the investigation was to see what was going on.
What, if anything, had been exfiltrated from the DCCC and the DNC. When
documents began to be leaked, emails that were purporting to be from those
organizations, then I believe the investigation would have expanded to see what, if
anything, we could uncover about

that.

But again, that wasn't something that

I

would have discussed with Director Brennan.
MR. SCHIFF

MS. LYNCH: You know, what I would say is that with respect to the

discussions I had about the DCCC and DNC leak, those were separate from the
Trump campaign. When we discussed it at the PC, we discussed that case as
part of the efforts we were seeing, but we didn't get into specifics at the PC level
because it was being handled on the criminal

of Russia's overallefforts I would

say.

PC level.

I

side.

But it was considered as part

And that is why it was brought up at the

 I
MR. SCHIFF: The conversations you mentioned earlier with Director
Brennan, though, where he first alerted you to the Russians may be interested in
playing a role in the election, would that have taken place before or after the
attribution was rnade in terms of the DNC hack?
MS. LYNCH: I don't recall in time when it occured relative to that event.

just

don't. I do remember that it would have been a few weeks after I had been

notified of

I

I am not able to pin that down with specificity

I

40

 41

[11:17 a.m.]
MR. SCHIFF: Would you have had that conversation with Director

Brennan, though, before the Russians started to dump the documents?
MS. LYNCH: ljust cannot recallwith specificity enough to say.
MR. SCHIFF:

MS. LYNCH:

MR. SCHIFF:

MS. LYNCH:
MR. SCHIFF

MS. LYNCH:

MR. SCHIFF:

 r

42

MS. LYNCH:

MR. SCHIFF:

I
MS. LYNCH:

MR. SCHIFF: When Director Comey raised this with you, this was by way

of informing you of what the FBI had

seen. lt was not by way of seeking

authorization to open a counterintelligence investigation?
MS. LYNCH: That is correct.
MR. SCHIFF: And Director Comey testified at our open hearing in March

that he opened a counterintelligence investigation in July.
Did you have any advance knowledge that he would be opening the

investigation in

July?

Did he seek permission from you to open the

- to do the

formal opening of the counterintelligence investigation?
MS. LYNCH: No, and he ordinarily would not have had to do

I

that. lt

 I

43

would not have come to the Attorney Generalfor that.
MR. SCHIFF: Even in the case where you're talking about a campaign for
President?
MS. LYNCH:

No. And I can't recall if it was discussed or not. ljust don't

have a recollection of that in the meetings that I had with him.
MR. SCHIFF: At some point, did you become aware that he had opened

the cou nterintelligence investigation?
MS. LYNCH: Certainly it was my view that there was one, so it certainly
was not something that I viewed as unusual or even inappropriate.
thought

-

my view certainly was that it warranted

I

- the information that I had been

given warranted a counterintelligence investigation. So it did not

-

it would not

have surprised me had that been relayed to me.
I

don't have a recollection of it being relayed to me, though.

MR. SCHIFF: Were there other times, during your tenure as AG, after that

initialconversation with Director Comey, where he shared other information that

mayhavebeenuncoveredinthecounterintelligenceinvestigation,o.n"f
or other evidence that had been uncovered to keep you apprised of

developments in the case?
MS. LYNCH: I can't recallwith specificity any further updates from Director

Comey. I do know that from the discussions we were having at the PC levet, that
because

I

and I believe they may have been having discussions, but lwouldn't

have been privy to them, and so I don't have any direct knowledge of that in terms
of learning the larger scope of it.
So I don't have a specific recollection of any further briefings, but again,

I

 I

44

there -- ljust don't have a specific recollection.
MR. SCHIFF

Do you recallgetting any information from Director Brennan on the issue

Director Comey had raised, that is, information that had come to his attention
indicating a link between the Russian effort and the campaign?
MS. LYNCH:

No. ldon't

recallthal coming from Director Brennan, no.

MR. SCHIFF: You mentioned a couple of occasions where you discussed
having a defensive briefing or giving a defensive briefing at the campaign. And if

I

recallyour testimony corectly, during those discussions, there was no ultimate
decision made to provide a defensive briefing.
\Nhat was the nature of the discussion, as you recall it, in terrns of the pros
or cons of providing a briefing?

MS. LYNCH: lnitially, when I was in the room with just myself, then
Director Comey, and Deputy Director McCabe, when they first brought the matter

to my attention, we raised the possibility of a defensive briefing to campaign, and

I

don't recall the specificity of the language, but we all discussed the fact that it was
so preliminary that while that was certainly an option, we could not make that call
at that time because we didn't have much more to tell them-

And $pically, when you provide a defensive briefing, you like to provide as
much context as possible so that people can be really alerted to concerns, and
they may also be able to provide information as well.
When the issue was raised again at the PC level later in the spring and
early summer, at the time it was director -- then Director Comey briefing the group,

I

 I

45

the principals group and saying that we were still considering a defensive briefing.
I think, again, my recollection is that one of the issues that

was raised at that time

was trying to determine who would be given that kind of defensive briefing.
And my recollection is it was because at the time staffing at the Trump
campaign was changing a great deal in terms of the leadership of the campaign,
and so it was unclear who would be the person to whom you would give that
briefing, and so that was one of the issues raised, but it wouldn't have been the
only issue under consideration.
MR. SCHIFF: Was there concern, in terms of the defensive briefing, that

individuals that you might give the defensive briefing to might be implicated in the
case, for example, Mr. Manafort, who became the campaign manageP
MS. LYNCH: We did not have that specific discussion about Mr. Manafort,
but that is always a concern with defensive briefings. And so we did not have a

specific discussion along the lines of we're concerned that Mr. Manafort might not
be the

person. I don't recall that level of specificity.
But I do recall then Director Comey saying that one of the concerns was to

whom would the briefing be given, and we did not have, at the PC level, at that
time, a lot of discussion about specific people and problems they might impose,
but the c,on@rn you raise is always a concern.
MR. SCHlFF

MS. LYNCH: Not to my recollection, no.
MR. SCHIFF: The Clinton email investigation is beyond the scope of our

I

 I

46

committee, but there is one element that may or may not have been part of a
Russian active measures campaign that I wanted to ask you about.

MS. LYNCH: So I was briefed, and my recollection is this was around
August of last.year of

2016.

I received a request for a confidential meeting from

Depug Director McCabe. And he came to my office at DOJ, and which
we

- which is a SCIF, and he asked for a SCIF meeting, and he was accompanied

by one of the lawyers from the FBI general counsel's office, and he indicated he
needed to give me some information.

I

I

  

 

I I II a.
\l

I

48

And I believe he said -- he, meaning Deputy Director McCabe. I believe at
that time he indicated that they had spoken with then Deputy AAG Margolis, but

l

don't have the strongest recollection of that. But I believe they said they had
spoken with Deputy AAG Margolis, but that lhe FBI had looked at this determined

that it had no investigative value, and he repeated

that. And

he also repeated

that we're not recommending that you do anything about this either.

And so with that information,

lsaid:

Well, I appreciate the briefing. And

again, this was the gpe of defensive briefing that sometimes we would provide to
other agency heads or different people that you had intercepted information,
people were saying things about

them. And I said: But I do want to inform you

that with respect to what purports to be the substance of this, I know that you've

deternined it doesn't have any value, but I do want to assert to you that I don't

And I said: ldon't know
if that helps you in your analysis, and I've never had a

I then asked the question, again, relative to the lranslation issue and the

sourcing issue, and I said: However, as we all know, sometimes there are people
who will speak to someone in your office or someone who knows you and then
make a statement that, oh, the Attorney General will do or has said something,

I

 I

49

and they are relying on someone else.
And I asked if Deputy Director McCabe wanted to either speak to or have
anyone from the Bureau speak to my staff, and I said lwill make them available to
you up to and including myself, if that's something that you want to do.
An he

said:

No, I thank you for lhat offer, but

no.

We've determined that it

has no investigative value, and we're not going to be taking any steps with respect
to

this.

And he said: And we don't recommend that you do either.

MR. SCHIFF:

MS. LYNCH:

MR. SCHIFF

I

MS. LYNCH

r
MR. SCHIFF: So was this

I

 I

50

MS. LYNCH

MR. SCHIFF

MS. LYNCH: Uh-huh.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you ever receive any further information during your

MS. LYNCH: No, I did not receive any information about it.
MR. SCHIFF: I want to turn to the point where you and other members of

the administration began discussing what action to take in response to what the
Russians were doing.
Do you recallwhen you had the first discussions, and in what form would

that have been?
MS. LYNCH: Those first discussions would have been at the PC level, and
they would be in

thel

after we had received

- I do recall that they occurred

after we had received at least two briefings from Director Brennan, because the

first briefing from then Director Brennan was more general, and the second one
gave more specifics about the attempts that Russia was planning to start utilizing.

 I

One of the things we -- so we discussed several

51.

things. We discussed

whether or not if we saw cyber activity directed at systems within the U.S., either
political parties or campaigns, we also, as part of the briefings, received
information that cyber activity had been directed against campaigns in previous
presidential years as well, that this was sornething that the lntelligence Community
was aware of.

But we also considered how and in what format we should make

I

 I

52

information public, that the issue of whether or not and how Russia was going to
attempt to provide misinformation about Secretary Clinton was something that was
sort of endemic to the political process, that that was -- that that happened in

campaigns and might in fact -- and could come from any source, and that to focus
on that issue would not be the appropriate view of the administration, that we

should be -- we, as an administration, should be concerned about attempts to
influence the process, writ large, about attempts to influence the voting systems,
about attempts to influence the electorate. And the very fact of Russia trying to
reach in, regardless of whom they were trying to help or hurt, was a problem that
needed to be dealt with.
Ultimately, we discussed a number of options and adopted a number of

options. I would say, first and foremost, one of the first options that we adopted
and that did in fact occur was to have the President of the United States speak

directly to President Putin, confront him with knowledge that we were aware of his
efforts on a variety of fronts and that it was unacceptable, and that that discussion
took place during a pull-aside, I believe, at one of the G- either 7 or 20 meetings in
the early fall.
We also discussed -- again, Secretary Johnson is working with the States

on that process, and that continued. But we also discussed notifying the
American people and what format should that take, that the populace could take in
whatever information it took in but that this information that a foreign government
that was not our friend, not an ally, was actually seeking to influence the campaign

should be discussed.
And we talked about how to discuss that without politicizing it, which was a

challenge and a concem because we discussed the fact that we, as an

I

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53

administration, did not want to appear to be putting our thumb on the scale for
either candidate, and the concern that actions that we took could be taken in that
light and what's the best way to provide the information so people can take it into
account as objectively as possible.
We talked about, you know, essentially having some sort of document

released on behalf of the administration that would talk about Russian attempts to
influence the election. Ultimately, we did that in October.
There were a lot of discussions about how much information could be

placed in a document for the general public.

I
MR. SCHIFF: lt became pretty clear in

that the Russians

were doing this and that -- and this was being ordered by Putin.
and the October

What accounted for the delay

attribution? Why wasn't attribution made earlier, and why was a decision made to
put it in a memo rather than have the President speak to the country about it?
MS. LYNCH

But that the agency was working to find ways to -- you know, you look to

find the information in other places

I

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54

So discussions were about that, and my understanding was that they were

being had within the lntelligence Community outside of the PC meetings, because
the goalwas very much to get to a place where there could be a public discussion

about it.
But similarly, with respect to the President's role, I recalled specifically

discussions about having the President, then President Obama directly confront
President Putin.
MR. SCHIFF: Let me ask you about that first

point.

lt was fairly clear in

late July, when the documents started being dumped, that the Russians were both

involved in the hacking and that the inforrnation they had stolen was being'used to
influence the election

CrowdStrike had already done a
public analysis, and so why wasn't that addressed earlier?
MS. LYNCH: You know, my recollection was that that certainly was in the

public domain, and I think I do have a recollection that, if not CrowdStrike, that
some entity was working on that.
My recollection of the discussions in August specifically was we had more

information

- we had that information, but ! believe our view was we had more

information, and how much more could we

say. And the goalwas to try and

be

as open as possible, but again, protect the law enforcement and lntelligence

Community interests there.
And so the discussions throughout September were about what document
could we produce. Also, in August, though, with respect to public notification, and
I believe that during the -. during a PC in August, Dennis McDonough (ph.), then

I

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55

chief of staff, indicated that there was also a plan to try and get congressional
support and a congressional statement out.
Because the view was that this was certainly something worthy of the

President making an address

to.

But because it really went beyond just one

administration, just one party, that the best approach would be a bipartisan
statement about the dangers and alerting the American public.
And so I believe, over the course of one, if not two PCs that were very

-

close

these were very close together

- we had discussions about, at the time

I

believe it was going to be then Director Comey and Lisa Monaco. I don't know if
Jeh Johnson was involved, but having meetings with congressional leadership, the
so-called Gang of Eight, as has been termed, to brief them on what we knew to
date in a classified manner and to discuss

* and so these briefings were going to

be had.
And then I believe that the President was going to have a discussion with
congressional leadership and the ask was going to be a bipartisan document from
both the House and Senate to the American people raising these issues,
discussing it, saying this is a matter of grave concern, and that having it
be

-

having it come from joint leadership would help alleviate the politization that

we feared would occur.
And my recollection is that there was a schedute set

up. I was not involved

in the briefings, but it was reported to me that the briefings did take place and

that

-

this, again, would have been late August, early September, that at the time,

I believe that Leader McConnell did not want to sign onto a draft after discussions

with the briefers and the President, expressed some concerns that even that
approach was a political one coming from the administration and that the staffers

I

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56

who were talking had proposed a number of modifications to the type of document
that we thought should be generated as to render it generally too vague and not
helpful.
MR. SCHIFF: Let me ask you about that, if I could. I haven't been a

participant in that meeting. l'm very interested in what your understanding was
that was going to take place.

Was it your understanding that what the leadership was going to be asked
to do was to make its own statement of attribution about what the Russians were
doing in a bipartisan way, or was it your understanding that what the leadership
was going to be asked to do was to inform the States that they should take

advantage of the services offered by DHS to protect their computers and engage
in best practices?
MS. LYNCH: As I think back on it, I believe that the latter was part of it, but

my understanding was also that the request was for leadership to have a
statement about the importance of the process and the importance of not letting a
foreign entity gain access to that process.
But again, lwasn't involved in those briefings, and so I can't

-

I can only

report what I recall about what was briefed back to me.
MR. SCHIFF:

Okay. And the decision to have the statement be a written

statement from two agency heads as opposed to the President talking about it

directly?
MS. LYNCH: Well, I believe that

-

my understanding is that after that,

after the larger bipartisan group was not able to come to accord, I believe that two

democratic leaders did issue a statement about the importance of working with the

administration. I believe that happened first.

I

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57

And then with respect to the October statement, we discussed who should
be the source, and we felt that the lntelligence Community, you know, which

comprised a number of agencies, and then also DHS had the information and
would be seen as more objective. There was concem lhat, again, overtures
directly from -- and I don't want to say the President being him alone, but there
was a concern that

- and I believe this discussion was had at the PC level after

the briefings on the Hill and the response that came back about the view
that

-

and in conjunction with Secretary Johnson's report back to us that his desire

to designate State systems as critical infrastructure had been described as some
sort of Federal takeover of the State process.

So it was concerning. That was very concerning. And so I believe that
played into

it.

I wasn't privy to the discussions with the President about what he

would say to Vladimir Pulin or whether or not he would speak publicly, so I don't
have insight into that, beyond that.

MR. SCHIFF: Was there a discussion about whether to impose sanctions
at that time over the Russian activity or take other steps as a deterrent to further
Russian interference?
MS. LYNCH: The discussion about sanctions was an ongoing one
because in response to previous Russian cyber activi$, there were a number of
entities that we had been considering imposing sanctions on for some

time. That

discussion was primarily led by Treasury Secretary Lu and also Secretary of the
State Kerry, but I was present for some of the those discussions at earlier PCs
unrelated to this.

We did have discussions again prior to the election about whether or not
sanctions would be an appropriate response as well, and i don't recall those

I

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58

discussions with specificity. I do know that right after the election, we began to
focus primarily on what should the response be subsequent to the President
speaking to Putin and the lC issuing their statement, and sanctions were
discussed at great detailthen and ultimately proposed, I believe.
MR. SCHIFF: Was there a proposal to impose sanctions prior to the
etection, and were there reasons why that was ruled out?
MS. LYNCH: I don't

recall. I know there was discussion about it, but ljust

cannot recall with specificity whether there was an actual proposal made.
MR. SCHIFF: You mentioned the concern that the administration had

about not wanting to be perceived as putting its hand on the scale, Were there
any other considerations that stayed the administration's hand from either making
attribution earlier or the level of response that the administration would take to
what the Russians were doing?
MS. LYNCH: The primary issue with respecl to attribution was whether or
not the relevant intelligence agencies that were going to be tasked with signing off

on that all could have enough of a degree of certitude to make the assertion. And
because there was different -- and we discussed this

also.

Because there was

different sourcing of different information, different agencies would say to their
colleagues, you know, ! believe you, but the information that I have would only let
me come to a certain level of certainty, and we allwant to be at a higher level of
certainty.

So how do we provide information or have discussions that would allow us
all to have enough of a degree of certitude, I should say, to make the attribution

that it was in fact Russia.
That was a significant part of the discussions in the summer, as well,

I

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59

leading into the early fall.
MR. SCHIFF: Was there a concern that attribution itself or steps beyond
attribution would cause the Russians to escalate their actions?
MS. LYNCH: There was a discussion about

that.

But with respect to that,

that was a con@rn, but one -. but a larger concern and one that we spent a lot of

time talking about was not that it would cause Russia to accelerate its actions, but
if we revealed information or talked about the matter, would that in fact do Russia's

work for it?
You know, sometimes the view, for example, if there is some sort of
pandemic, when do you alert people to advise them but also avoid panic, that sort

of thing, by way of analogy. And so we did have a discussion, at least once,
maybe twice, about would we be actually furthering Russia's goal of sowing
distrust in the system by raising the issue.
But ultimately our view was that notifying the American public was too

important, and that we

-

that you have to trust people, that people can sift through

these things, and regardless of what conclusion they come to, they need to have
that information as part of the sifting process.
MR. SCHIFF: I'm going to turn it over to my counsel at this point.

We can go off the record. I think we are actually out of
time.

MR. SCHIFF: We

are.

Oh, okay. Would you like to take a break then

before we -MS. LYNCH: I'm

I
ma'am.

fine. Thank you. lf you all do, it's fine, but I'm fine.

Thank you, ma'am. We will now go to ls-minute rounds,

 r

50

BYI
O

Just a couple of questions, a couple of followups, ma'am. You

mentioned previously the summer of 2016 meeting where Director Brennan

A
O
A

No.

-. did Director Brennan provide you?
No, and I certainly regret any confusion. The information that Director

Brennan was providing was not about

- to my recollection,

was not about the

I don't recall Director Brennan speaking on a connection

O
A
O

Oh, that was the prior meeting, I'm sorry.
Yes.

Thank you for clarifying.

With relation to the conversation with Director Brennan, what specific
information was he providing you at that time that the Russians were looking or
have been interfering with our election?

A

I

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61

And I recallthere were some other things. ljust can't callthem to mind
right

now.

O

I'm sorry.
No, fair enough.

Was it your understanding or was it the

- Director Brennan provided you

with examples that that was occurring or how it was occurring, how the Russians
were can getting into media markets, how they were going to supposedly portray
Secretary Clinton with, as you say

or the like, was there very

specifics on that?

A

During that summer, I don't recall, in those PCs, getting specffics on

how they were going to gain access to the media markets. lt wasn't discussion

about media buys or other avenues or anything like

that.

So not to that level of

specificity.

O

Did you ever learn any specifics on

that?

Not just the media markets,

but just the whole approach of with suggesting that Secretary Clinlon might have

I

when she doesn't and things like that, did you ever learn of the specifics

of how that was executed by the Russians?

A
O

I don't recall discussions about those specifics, no.

Okay. And circling back with your clarification of your meeting then

I

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62

A
O

Well, just the information that I provided you.

A

ljust don't have that recollection right now. And its not something

Right, but nothing

-

nothing more than

that.

ls there any other

that I would have any documents or information to use to look back on, so I don't
have that recollection

O

Okay. And was there any information, albeit from Director Brennan,

Director Comey

-

then Director Comey, Depu$ Director McCabe, or any other

individuals in the lC that you spoke with that had or showed specific information
that Putin and Russia had a connection or relationship with anyone in the Trump
campaign or Trump affiliates?

A
O
A
but

Well, other than the information I provided?
Right.

You know, I don't have a recollection of that being briefed up to me,

- so I would say I don't have that recollection.

O

Fair enough. And I think, ma'am, one of the

- to sort of close the loop

on this part of the questioning. One of the things that we're charged with
investigating and trying to write a report on is whether or not there was any actual

collusion, conspiracy, or coordination between the Russian Government and the
Trump campaign or the Trump affiliates at any time, and as former prosecutors,
those words may or may not have different meanings for

you,

lf they do, please

clarify or just let me know during the following line of questioning.

I

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63

But during your time as Attorney General, did you come across any specific
information that would show that the Russian Governrnent and/or its affiliates had

any coordinated activities with any members of the Trump campaign or the Trump
campaign for President?

A

Well, certainly the information that lwas given in

was concerning to me and indicated that there was a goalto have coordinated
activity.

But I do want to be clear that there's certainly

-

my view was that that was

the beginning of the inquiry, and so I would not have been making a determination
with finality at that point in time about this is this or the other thing.
But certainly I thought that the information conveyed to me in

I

was concerning and was troubling and was leaning in that direction.

O

Sure. And so that information, you said, sort of outlined the basis that

that was a goal from the sort of

-

and correct me if I'm wrong

-

from the Russian

perspective of things?

A
0

Yes.
That their goalwas to establish a relationship with folks that may or

may not be involved directly or indirectly with the Trump campaign.

Then my followup question, ma'am,

is:

During your tenure as AG, going

through the spring and summer of
2016, all the way up until 2017, did you come across any information that would

show an actualcoordinated effort between the Russian Government and their
affiliates and the Trump campaign and his afiiliates?

A

Yeah. I don't recall anything being briefed up to me, and it's just my

recollection at this point is not.

I

 I
O

64

And the same line of questioning, ma'am, then for, you know, for

conspiracy and collusion.

A
O

For?
For conspiracy and collusion. Did you receive any information, during

your tenure as Attorney General, from anyone or anywhere that would show a
level of conspiracy between the Russian Govemment and its afliliates and the

Trump campaign or Trump campaign afiiliates for President?

A

Well, you know, lwouldn't have been drawing those legalconclusions

at that time, in any event, so regardless of what information that I gave, because
you would have to wait.

O
A

Sure.

And sort of look at a whole host of things. And again, I don't recall

that being briefed up to me, which isn't to say

O
A
O

No.

- so I can't say that it existed or not.

Just for your --

I can't give you that definitive answer.

Of course, just as far as you

knew. I mean, did you ever -- were you

ever called upon or did you ever make a determination or conclusion, based upon
all the information you did receive, that there was some level of conspiracy
between the Russian Government and its affiliates and the Trump campaign for
President?

A

I

was not called upon to give a legalopinion in the PCs as to

were not at that stage
!

yet,

But

that. We

- so I was not called upon to give that opinion, so

wouldn't have had that discussion or provided that level of analysis.

O

And then the last portion of this line of questioning as it relates to

collusion, which is a term that has been used a lot in the public as it relates to

I

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65

possible activities that may or may not have occuned between the Russians and
the Trump campaign for President.
Did you ever reccive any specific information as Attorney Generalto show

that there was a demonstrable level of collusion between the Russian Government
and its affiliates and Trurnp and frump candidacy for President?

A

You know, I think that

-

again, I was not asked to draw that

conclusion, and so I would not have done that level of analysis.

But at that time, you know, you would not have been looking to draw a legal

conclusion at that point in time because you were still seeing things happen. So
don't think that you would be able to say

-

you certainly should not

say:

I

My legal

conclusion in the middle of this is X. You certainly may have a view or a concern,
but I would not have drawn that legalconclusion because things were still
occurring.

O

And did you ever draw a legal conclusion, taking you up to January 19,

2017, on the matter?

A

Well, certainly lagreed with the lntelligence Community assessment.

Based on everything that had been presented to me, lagreed with the assessment

lhat came out in October, I agreed with the assessment that was released in
think early January. I agreed with those conclusions, and they were

I

- they were

based on things that had been presented to me in the PCs, and I thought that they

were wellfounded conclusions and concerns.

I

 I
O

Were there any portions of the lC

66

- the ICA that you did not agree

with?

A
O

No.

Okay. Fair enough.

And then, ma'am, you raised the hacks of the political organizations, the
DNC hacking and whatnot. Do you recall how that was

-

you said that

communique -- orthat information was communicated to you about the same time,
and conect me if l'm wrong, as the Russia, quote, unquote, investigation?

A

And then over time, during discussions about that case, just as part of being
briefed about the status of cybersecurity issues in genera!, being informed that the
f.orensic view was that Russia was behind that as well.

But as I mentioned, the discussions about that case, while we raised it in

the PC as an issue, we didn't go into specifics at the PC because we keep the
criminal cases separate from the lntel matters.

O

Fair enough. And what information -- when you received the

information about the DNC hack, what information was presented to you about it?

A

My recollection is that I was presented information over a series of

brief discussions that the Bureau had evidence that activity had occurred, intrusive

activity had occurred, and an investigation had begun, and they were going to be
looking to see -- looking into

it.

That's very general, and again, very preliminary.

I

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67

And then over the course of subsequent weeks, being told that the forensic
analysis indicated that it was likely a Russian actor behind lhat particular hack.
And again, that case just proceeded at pace.

O

Did the Department of Justice, after you were made aware of that

information, they ever open up a criminal investigation, a Cl investigation, or what
have you, on the DNC hack?

A
when

Well, as I mentioned, the investigation of the DNC hack was opened

- had been opened when the Bureau informed me that they were

investigating it in conjunction with the Department of Justice in the general sense.
That there had been this hack

- that there had been intrusive activity, I should

say, and that the Bureau and our cyber department were going to be conducting
an investigation. So that was presented to me

as: This is what we have begun.

So .. and then later on, again, just as a report, that the forensic analysis

had revealed Russian activity.

O

And then what did the .. I should narrow my question better for you,

ma'am. What did the Department of Justice, not the FBl, end up doing with that
information and that investigation as it relates to the DNC hack while you were
Attorney General?

A
O

What did the Department of Justice, not the FBI do?
What was the decision or the result of the investigation that was

undertaken by the Department of Justlce, once the FBI brought that information to
you, that the DNC had been hacked by Russian entities, what was the end resuh

there?

A
O

Well, the FBI is the Department of Justice.
That's what I'm trying to delineate. I know they opened the

I

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68

investigation and broughl it over to the Department of Justice. Did the
Department of Justice ever open up a criminal investigation? Were there charges

brought? Were there entities found that there were responsible directly for that
hack at the DNC?

A

Oh, you know, I don't recall if that was resolved before I left or not, with

charges. ljust don't recall.

O
A

Okay. Fair enough.
Let me just

clariff.

Are you asking did we ever charge anyone with

criminal responsibility for the DNC and DCCC hack; is that your question?

O
A
O
A

Yes, ma'am, thank you.

Okay. ljust want to be clear on that.
No.
I don't recall if we brought charges, thinking back to my time, before

I

left the Department.

O

Do you recall either you or your designees making consideration or

recommendation of charges? Was that discussion ever had at your level or
below your levelthat you're aware of?

A

Well, if - it was not had in my level. I can't say whether it was had at

the specilic case investigative level, which is where those discussions would have
begun.

O

Okay. Thank you, ma'am.
l'lltum itoverto

mycolleague,I

MR. SCHIFF: ljust had one or two more questions, and then I want to

pass it over to my staff.

-

You mentioned that Director Brennan had told you the Russians were intent

I

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69

on inserting negative information or mlsinformation about Secretary Clinton into
the political bloodstream.
At the time you were in office, were you infonned that one of the vehicles
they would use for this would be social media?
MS. LYNCH: At the time that I was in office, I don't recall social media

being part of the discussion?
MR. SCHIFF: ln January, the lntelligence Community assessment
included their use of social media, the use of their paid propaganda, RT and

Sputnik. Had come to your attention during your tenure or was not part of the
discussions that you were present for?
MS. LYNCH: I think it was part of the discussions in a general sense that
there was going to be - that as we compiled, for public consumption, this list of
means and methods, for lack of a better term, that there would be a media
component, but ljust can't recall the specifics of it, so it may have been, and ljust
don't recall
MR. SCHIFF: But at the time the campaign was ongoing, you personally

didn't become aware of the Russian, use of paid advertising and social media, or
their other tactics on social media?
MS. LYNCH: I don't have that recollection. ljust don't recall that being

the main thing. There was a lot of discussion about RT, and again ljust don't

recall. l'd have to go back and look at the lC document actually.
MR. SCHIFF:

Okay. I'll pass it off to my counsel now.
D(AMINATION:

BYI
O

Madam Attorney General, ljust have a few questions, and then I'llturn

I

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70

it over to my colleague.

On March 2 of this year
administration

- so this would be afler you left the

- Attorney General Sessions recused himself from the FBI

investigation after facing criticism for undisclosed contacts, meetings with the
Russian Ambassador during the election season.
Do you recall his recusal?

A
O

I recallthe press reports about it.

Would Senator Sessions' meetings with the Russian Ambassador

during the election amount to contacts between a senior Russian official and a

senior adviser to the Trump campaign?

A

You know, I don't have enough information to come to that conclusion

in terms of the

O

-

lf those meetings took place, would those conversations be of interest

to the FBI and their investigation?

A

Well, when you say "of interest," ! think when we look

-

when

- let me

back up a minute. I'm sorry for not giving you a complete response.

And so l'm not able to draw that -- draw a conclusion one way or the other
about the nature of those contacts to say .. to describe or characterize them in
response to your question.

I

 7t

I
O

Did you believe it appropriate for Attorney General Sessions to recuse

himself?

A

Well, lwasn't involved in the review, so I wasn't involved -- l didn't

have the information that his team reviewed. I'd have to defer to their analysis.

O

On May 9 of this year, President Trump fired Director Comey, and

then on May 17, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein announced the appointment
of former FBI director Robert Mueller to serve as special counsel. Did you believe
it appropriate to appoint someone to take over that investigation?

A

Well, again, lwasn't involved in the decisionmaking process

certainly think

there.

I

- I certainly felt it was appropriate that the continuity of the

investigation be considered and that the Department take steps to ensure that
work that had been done was not lost, that work that needed to be done could be
carried out going forward, and certainly thought that that was appropriate and
responsible for the Department to consider, but I don't have the information that
they were using when they made their decisions.

O

And if you could tell us why the independence of the FBI and also the

special counsel is important?

A

Well, as a general matter, as I noted, the FBI is part of the Department

of Justice but with a great deal of independence built

in,

There are -- as with

other law enforcement components, they do have reporting lines to the Hill, both to
this committee and its Senate counterpart, as well as Appropriations and Judiciary
and the

'

like. They do have separate budget issues that come before Congress.

And the underlying view as to why the FBI should be independent, as well

as the Department of Justice in the work that it does in every arena is that it should
be free of political influence or any type of influence that might either actually affect

 I

72

the case or give the perception that a case or investigation was impacted.
That could be political, it could be economic, it could be a perception issue
or the like, and so the independence of the entire Department, including the FBl, is

very important.

I

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73

[12:15 p.m.l

lwillturn

it over to my colleague

BY

.

O Hi. My name is

lamthe

for the

minority.

These are mostly cleanup questions just to have your views on the record.
On March 4th, 2017, President Trump issued a series of tweets claiming
that President Obama tapped his phones. On March z0th,2017, in sworn
testimony before this committee, then-FBl Director James Comey stated that
neither the FBI nor the Justice Department had information to support President

Trump's tweets. And then on September 1st, 2017, the Department of Justice
stated in a motion filed in Federal court that there was no evidence to support
President Trump's claim that President Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump

Towerduring the 2016 presidential campaign.
To your knowledge, during your time in office, are you aware of whether the

Obama administration tapped President Trump's phones during the transition or at
any other time?

A
O

To my knowledge, no such wiretapping occurred.
Thank you.

To the extent that you are able to discuss, it would be helpful for us, in our
review of allthe information that we are receiving, whether there are any lessons

leamed that you may be willing to share with the committee; in particular, given the
fact that information has come to light, both in the committee privately, but also
much of it publicly, about various developments with regard to Russia's active
measures, efforts, for example, Ranking Member Schiff mentioned the use of

I

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74

social media platforms by Russian-linked entities to affect the public debate
around the elections, the various meetings that have come to light, including

Russian-linked individuals meeting with the son of Donald Trump and high-level
campaign officials, and also another thread that we are looking into, with regard to
an effort by an individual named Peter Smith, who was trying to, based on
information reported publicly and that we are looking into, trying to identity missing
Hillary Clinton emails on the dark web.
Given the discussions you were in at the Principals Committee levelwith

your Department of Juslice and FBI colleagues, and information that has come to
light, are there any lessons learned that you think we should take into account as

we develop our report with regard to how the U.S. Government as a whole, how

the Department, or the FBI in particular, should be approaching developments of
this sort moving fonruard?

A

Well,

yes.

ln my view, and based on the discussions we had at the

Principals meeting, and based on the actions that we did take, I do think that there

are several lessons to be learned.
One of the discussions that we had at the PC level, this would have been
after the election, was whether or not to recommend a bipartlsan, 9/11-type
commission to review this issue such that there could be a full and open airing of it

to the extent that things could be discussed publicly, should we recommend that to
either Congress or the incoming administration. And I believe the consensus was
that it would be part of things we would recommend, but I did not see the final
recommendations that went over, so I don't know what happened to that.
I do think that, particularly given the sensitive nature of

the information that

supports what we know, the lntelligence Community has to be a part of it going

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fonruard, obviously, but I do think that, my view has always been that the American

people deserve information, as much as can be provided to them consistent with
law enforcement and lntelligence Community safeguards; that the view that, you
know, you don't know what people are going to do with information exists, but

does not mandate not trusting lhem with that; and you can't control how someone
is going to take or receive something, but you do have to trust that they deserve it,

that they deserve to know as much as possible about attacks on our system writ
large, whether that is from Russia or any other country, or whether it is in another
context.

To me, this is consistent with what we have done since 9/11 in trying to
advise people about terrorism; not that we would have terror alerts for Russian
interference, for example, but we talk about it, we provide information about it.

We at the Department of Justice talk about cases in a way, as you saw with
San Bernardino, for example, and Orlando, you know, providing information
beyond what we usually would do, so that people would have as much context for

things. So that

is very much my view in general.

I think that we need to think about avoiding the politicization that occurs with

that. lwould involve the States

in that process.

Based on the information I received, I am very concerned about the safety

of our State election systems both in terms of vulnerability, and just sheer age and

capacity. I think that needs national attention.
I would

stillsupport setting up some sort of commission to examine these

issues and look at them, starting in nonelection years, so that this could be part of
political discussion that exists separate and apart from the political campaign
season.

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We have to have vigorous campaigns, that is also part of our democracy,
but we do need to have some sort of independent body, and I do think it should be

bipartisan in terms of participation, but also not just people from the political arena,
we need people from the scientific arena, as wellas people who have experience
with intelligence issues to be a neutralarbiter, so to speak, and provide
information so that we can consider these issues going forward and take action.
That, to me, would be very important.

\Mth respect to things that were not discussed greatly in the PCs, but have
been of great discussion most recently, which is the use of social media, and,

again, ljust don't recallthe level of specificity about that, bul certainly there has
been a great deal of discussion about it

now.

This, to me, needs to be part of a

larger discussion of how we manage social media and privacy issues, free speech

issues and political speech issues here. These are difficult discussions, but

I

believe they have to be had as well.
We routinely provide more private infonnalion to commercialentities like
social media organizations than the government is ever able to obtain through
warrants or othenruise, and the vulnerabilities are only just now beginning to be
appreciated by individuals, but also our vulnerability to being manipulated and
influenced makes these platforms something that has to be considered as we talk
aboul how to handle political speech; not to suppress it in any way at all, I do not
believe in that, but I do think we have to have a discussion about how our social
media platforms are going to handle certain types of speech going forward,

whether the broadcast model is appropriate, or whether that model also needs to
be considered and thought through.

O

I believe the ranking member has a question.

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71

MR. SCHIFF: ljust have one other question going back to your days as a
U.S. Attomey.
One of the persons of interest to our committee is Felix

Sater. Were you

involved in your capacity as U.S. Attomey in any investigation involving Mr. Sater?
ls there anything you can tell us about him that would be pertinent to our
investigation?
MS. LYNCH: So Mr. Sater was a defendant in the Eastern District of
New York, but the investigation and conclusion of his case occurred before

I

returned to the Office as U.S. Attorney in 2010.

When I returned to the U.S. Attorney's Offtce in 2010, he had already been
sentenced pursuant to a cooperation agreement. The issues that arose about
Mr. Sater during my tenure as U.S. Attomey were about ancillary civil lawsuits, ihe

nature of which I don't really recall right now, but I was briefed on at the time, and
attempts by either him or other people to make his cooperation public.
So the litigation that we were involved in was involving the nature and

extent of public disclosure of his cooperation and documents about his

cooperation. I wasn't involved in the initial investigation about Mr. Sater, didn't
supervise it, and don't recall the specifics of that.
MR. SCHIFF: Was your office involved in any allegations concerning
Russian entities laundering money through the Trump organization?
MS. LYNCH: Not to my recollection. My former office does and did have

an active practice working with the FBI's New York office looking at Russian
organized crime and cyber entities, but I don't recall those having a connection to
the Trump organization or Trump entities.

Ithink we will pass. I yield back. Thank you

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BY

O

Attorney General Lynch, t

,rI,

a staffer for the majority.

And I certainly want to be conscious of your time, we appreciate the time you have
already spent with us, but also if I may, I wanted to follow up on several of the
topics that we have discussed today.
Also, I just want to say, to echo my colleagues, that we certainly appreciale
your long, public service and your willingness to come and sit with Congress for
several hours even after that seruice has concluded, so thank you for being here
today.

'

A
O

Thank you.
We discussed the lntelligence Community assessment that was

published in early January. Can you briefly describe what, if any, role DOJ had

wilh respect to that ICA?

A

Yes.

At the PC level, we began discussing producing a more

comprehensive document about the lntelligence Community's assessment of
activities involving Russian efforts to influence the election. Primarily, the DOJ
involvement would have been through the FBl, because for counterintelligence,

the FBI is DOJ's agency that covers those issues. So the information that came
from DOJ would have been provided by the FBI for that.

O

Once that ICA was prepared, did you or anyone within DOJ review it at

the sort of draft stage?

A

I don't recall reviewing a draft,

no.

I recall receiving the document, but

ljust don't recall reviewing the draft.

O

Do you recallwhen you received the document or what form it was in

when you received it?

I

 I
A

I believe that

79

lwould have received it in document form as noted as

opposed to electronic, for example. I believe it looked very much like the ultimate
published version, although the published version was unclassified.

O

Do you recallany differences between what you reviewed and the

version that was either published or briefed to the appropriate officials, not in terms
of classification level, but in terms of changes to the substance?

A

With the exception of the removal of certain classified materials? Do

you mean anything beyond that?

O
A

Correct.
I don't recall differences, and would have to have a comparative

review of the documents to be able to say one way or the other.

O
was

Understood. One thing that is notable about the ICA is how quickly it

- the time -

how quickly it was produced frorn when the review was publicly

announced by then-President Obama.
Did you have any role as a member of the Principals Committee in

determining the timeline for the ICA?

A

Only in general discussions about the need to move quickly, because

it was something

that-. because it was based upon information that had been

gathered and discussed and reviewed over the course of the summer, even
though information was continuing to come in, that it needed to be provided to the
American people in an expeditious way.

O

And with understanding there was a desire for sort of an accelerated

timeline, do you recall any particular discussions about the need to have this
document cornpleted prior to President Obama leaving office on January 20th?

A

Well, lwouldn't use the phrase "accelerated timeline," because that

I

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implies that there is already a timeline and we changed

it. So this was a very

unique suigeneris situation. So I wouldn't say accelerated, again, because --

O
A
O

Understood.

And ljust don't want to, you know, mischaracterize it.
So let me rephrase: With respect to the desire to produce this

document quickly, do you recall any particular discussions to have it finished prior
to January 20th?

A
or there

Not with

specifici$. I just don't recall. I can't say whether there were

weren't. Certainly for it to have been issued by the Obama

administration, it would have to be, but beyond that, I don't recall with specificity.

O

Our understanding is that the ICA was briefed personally to President

Obama on or about January 1th,2017. Were you present for that briefing?

A
O
A

No, I was not present for that.
Was DOJ represented at that briefing?
I do not

know. I just don't recalt if the FBI would have participated or

not. ljust don't have that recollection.

O

Did DOJ send any representatives to brief then-President-Elect Trump

on this document on January 6th,2017?

A
O

ljust don't have a recollection to any degree of specificity.
Understood. I wanted to follow up a little bit on Carter Page, who has

been discussed previously.
Going back to the
you

to Mr. Page

had mentioned that he was characterized as somehow being affiliated with the

Trump campaign. Do you recall, sort of precisely how he or his role, vis-i-vis the

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81

Trump campaign was described to you at that time?

A

I don't

recallthe description. I think I knew from press reports that he

was affiliated with it, but I could not tell you with specificity. I would have to defer
you to the campaign, actually.

O

But in terms of whether he was characterized as having a senior role

or a junior role or what his portfolio was, or anything along those lines, you don't
recall anything specific that was briefed to you about that?

A
O

I don't recall specifics as to that.

When Mr. Page's name came up, was there any reference made to

any past relationship that he might have had with DOJ or FBI?

A

I do not recall that being briefed up to me, and I just don't recall with

specificity. And I don't want to let, you know, subsequent press reports influence
my memory. ljust want to think about what I remember from that time period.

O

Do you recall anything specific you were briefed on relating to past FBI

interviews of Mr. Page?

A
O

Do you have any recollection of being briefed on Mr. Page's

A

I

I don't have a recollection as to that briefing, no.

just don't recall if my conversation went into that level of specificity in

the spring.

O

lf you had known

-

well, you mentioned earlier the topic or possibility

of providing a defensive briefing with respect to Mr.
been briefed that Mr.

T

Page. lf, at the time, you had

 82

A

lt is impossible to speculate, and I -. I don't speculate, so I am not able

to provide you with a response there.
I can say that all information would be relevant when you are making a

determination like that.

O

Beyond that initial briefing, what additional briefings, if any, do you

A

You know, I recall the Director briefing the principals group about the

same information he gave to me, and I just don't recallwith any specificity further
briefings that involved Mr. Page.

o

A

I don't have a recollection to that, so I am

just not able to say with

specificity.

O

Thank

you.

Changing topics, in response earlier to questions from

Ranking Member Schiff, you discussed a meeting in the summer with Deputy
Director McCabe that sort of took the nature of a defensive brieftng that you were

given. And I don't want to be redundant of those questions, but I just want to
make sure I have everything clear, since there are a lot of kind of pieces to the
potential players involved in this kind of chain of events.

I

 83

So, just so I have it straight, Deputy Director McCabe briefed you on.a

ls that

correct?
A

I would say yes, that would be accurate.

o

And he did not disclose, or you do not recall that he disclosed the
that information?

A

He did not disclose

it at

that time.

o

Did he disclose, or do you recall him disclosing that the ultimate

A

ldon't have that recollection.

O

So he just

And as far as what the
NC

Chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz and somebody

A

else.

ls that correct?

My recollection, yes, it

And since I didn't see it, I don't want to, you know, say

it

wasn't.

O

Right.

referencing a communicalion to which Debbie Wasserman Schultz was a party,
that communication to which she was a party referenced some communication
ls that

correct?

I

  

 

 

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85

information. So I can't tell you how long they had it.

O

So your response was to offer to allow the FBI to interview other

people in your office to see if they had made these representations on your behalf.
ls that correct?

A

Well, my first response was to ask further questions about what

Depu$ Director McCabe meant about sourcing issues and translation issues,
because it was unclear to me whether or not this was a totalfabrication. Although
the information was a fabrication, I did not know whether or not someone had
generated a document that purported to say

this.

I mean, did a piece of paper

literally exist that purported to say this.
I did not know who the people were

involved. The only name that was

familiar to me was Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. So I did not
know if there was -- if there was any connection to the person who purported to be
speaking to me and my office that should be of concern to me and/or the FBl.

I asked questions about the translation, and they said, because it has gone

through, again, I thought one, and possibly two translations, and then Deputy
Director McCabe repeated that they felt the document had no investigative value,
they were not going to take any steps, they did not recommend that I take any
steps.

I

 I

So I provided that information, that not only did

86

I

not know the person involved and had not made the representations, if they
wanted to speak to my staff on the off chance that Mr. Renteria knew someone in
my office that had said something that got picked up and got sent through the
system, that they could eliminate that possibility also.
Thank you.

BYI
O

Ma'am, we just have a couple queslions related to my colleague's

questions regarding this alleged document.
Did any of the communications alleged take place?

A No, none that were attributed to me.
O Have you ever
A No.
O Have you ever spoken with
A No. ldon't know
O Have you ever had conversations remotely similar to what this alleged
memo implied?

A
O

No.

Did you discuss ever the FBI investigation into Secretary Clinton's

private email use with anyone at the Democratic National Committee?

A

No.

Thank you.
MR. SCHIFF.

I think we are concluded

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87

Thank you very much, ma'am, for your time

today. I will

turn it over to my colleagues from the majority
BY

O

I have just a few further follow-up questions, but, again, recognizing

you have spent quite a bit of time with us, I want to move through them as quickly
as possible.
Can you briefly describe the DOJ's role, and particularly the AG's role, in
compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act?

A

Well, you have asked

-

do you want me to talk about DOJ's role or

specifically just the Attorney General's

O
A

role? The Department administers that.

Right.

lt is done through various offices. And, again, it does not come to the

Attorney General, you know, for the vetting and the review.

O

Understood. So the average FARA enforcement action or

investigation would not necessarily come to your attention. ls that correct?

A
O

lt would just depend upon the investigation.
Do you recall any FARA complaints or investigations that did come to

your attention during the time you served as Attorney General?

A
would

That is

*

that is very broad, and I don't want to misspeak, and so

I

- I would not be able to really give you an answer.
O Do you recalla

A

Again, it is - I would have to be shown something.

I

just -- without really seeing something, I am not able to say whether or not that

I

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88

was ever briefed up to me.

O

Turning to the briefings that you have described that you received from

then-ClA Director Brennan at the Principals Committee, you talked about Russian
sort of misinformation campaign that was sort of authorized or approved at the
highest levels

A

o

A
O

ljust can't recallwith specificity. ljust can't recallwith specificity,

no.

Understood. You did sort of specify, I think very helpfully, some very

particular areas in which,

Russia was attempting to

spread misinformation regarding Secretary Clinton, namely with

resnecf

I believe you described it.

During the course of your discussions through the summer and fall,
understanding that was the Russian intent, was the Principals Committee made

aware of actual examples of this misinformation being disseminated, or put into
the media stream, as you referred to it?

A

You know, it is

- I am not able to really answer with specificity,

because those allegations did come into the media stream, and so ljust don't --

am not able to really separate, you know, what I heard in the media from my
underlying knowledge about Russia's purposes there, and so I am not able to

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89

answer with that degree of specificity.

O

So in other words, if I understand you conectly, there were such

allegations that were made, but as far as being able to attribute that, specifically to

this Russian effort, that is not attribution that you or perhaps even you recall
Director Brennan making in your time in office. ls that correct?

A

Well, I would not be able to make the attribution, because I didn't have

access to the sourcing information, and I can't speak for Director Brennan.

O

My colleagues earlier asked aboul lessons learned, and you sort of

made reference to countertenorism and, you know, that perhaps we shouH begin
thinking about counterintelligence and some of the ways that we have begun to
think about counterterrorism after September 11th.
Are there any particular .. beyond the possibility of a commission, are there
any particular structures or protocols that we cunently employ in the
counterterrorism space that we ought to employ in the counterintelligence space?

A

You know, I don't have specifics on

that.

!

think one of the things that

we have done well in the counterterrorism world is to build structures that allow for
the sharing of information from the lntelligence Community on the terrorism issues
with the larger prosecutive community and then oftentimes with the public, and so,
I would look to those structures to see if, as we look at issues about the election,

they could be useful as well.

O

We have also talked about the investigation of the sort of cyberattack

on the Democratic Nalional Committee and the regular briefings you received.
Could you characterize, sort of, as it was briefed to you, the degree and bvel of
cooperation of the DNC with that investigation?

A

So initially when I first learned of the investigation, it was briefed up to

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90

me, as many cases are, as something that we were investigating, and the focus
was on the substance of what the investigation was finding.
Late in 2016, there were some media reports and I had been receiving

questions during press interviews about the DNC's response at the time of the
initiation of the investigation, which is not something that would ordinarily be
brought to my attention before something is involved, but I did ask for a briefing on

that, because there were numerous press reports about that.
And I did receive a briefing from the FBI that outlined their outreach to the
DNC at the time and the first outreach, the second outreach, I believe there might

have been a third outreach to the DNC, the ultimate responses and then the
information they received from the DNC about the DNC having hired their own

forensic analysis company to work with them to try and ameliorate the problem
and dealwith it.

O
A

Do you happen to recallwhen that briefing was?

The briefing would have been, I believe it was late in 2016, but I don't

have the specific

O

date. lwould

need to see something.

Either at that time or any time during your tenure, what was your

understanding as to whether the DNC had physically turned over its servers to the
FBI?

A

You know, that type of investigative technique wouldn't necessarily be

briefed to the Attorney General. I was made aware in the briefing that

ldid

receive that when the FBI initially offered an analytic review, which would require

giving access to the Bureau of the computer systems, that the DNC, like a lot of
companies, declined that, and that they did hire an outside company, but with
respect to working with them on a go-forward basis, ! wasn't briefed on the

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91

particulars of how they worked together and whether or not servers were actually
exchanged.

O

Thank

you.

The very last topic I wanted to ask about, which is within

the scope of our investigation, is purportedly sort of classified information, now,
that DOJ has a sort of mandate in investigating and, as appropriate, prosecuting
leaks of classified information. ls that correct?

A
O

Yes, it does.
Similar to the other topics we have discussed, what are the

circumstances under which those leak investigations or prosecutions would have
been sort of raised to your levelas attorney general?

A

Well, one circumstance, due to a protocolthat was put in place shortly

before I became the Attorney General, would be if a leak investigation involved a

journalist. Because of cases that had been handled, again, before I became the
Attorney General, the Department had regular discussions with a journalist
committee about educating them and also getting input from the journalism
community about how journalists would be regarded and viewed in the context of
leak investigations.
And so, part of that protocol for really almost any investigation touching on
journalistic activity would involve it being brought to, if not me, then to the Deputy
Attorney General if the Attorney General was not available, but there is a group
that looks at those matters. So that will be one way in which a leak investigation
would come to the attention of the Attorney General.
Whether they have kept that protocol, I do not know. So that would
again, that is because of the specific First Amendment issues raised there.

-

but,

 I
O

92

Understood. Sitting here today, do you recall any reported leaks of

classified information related to Russian meddling in the election that occurred
while you were Attorney General and were brought to your attention in your role as
AG?

A

ln terms of an investigation or a

case? lf you can give me a little

bit

more context.

O

Well, I guess it could have been the publication of an article that

purported to

-

contained classified information, refenal of that, or a subsequent

investigation or decision on an investigation, but related specifically to lntel on
Russian meddling in our election.

A

You know, I don't have a recollection to any degree of specificity as to

O

Do you recall any purported leaks of classified information relating to

that.

the findings of the January 2017 lntelligence Community assessment?

A

Do I recall leaks or do I recall

- again, are you - just give me a little bit

more context. I am not really sure whether you are asking me if something was
referred to me or if I heard something in general. I am not really sure of the focus

of your question.

O

Just what -- I guess the question is whether you recall being briefed or

otherwise made aware of articles or reports that purported to contain classified
information pertaining to the findings of the lCA, and then if so, whether you took
any action on that information.

A
O

Yeah. I don't recall specific briefings on that topic.
Are you aware of press reports concerning a purported late December

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93

phone call between then National Security Advisor designate Flynn and then
Ambassador to the United States from Russia Kislyak?

A
O

Yes, I was aware of those press reports.
And during your time as AG, were you made aware of information

concerning the call itself?

A

During my time as AG, toward the very end of my time as AG, lwas

made aware of more specifics about the call.

O
A

Do you happen to recall .I don't recall if there was one call or more than

one.

I don't recall.

ls it okay if lfinish on this and then turn it over?
Please, finish this.
BY

O
A

And do you happen to recallwhen that was?
Well, I recall having a discussion with Deputy AG Yates on the 19th of

January, and the issue we were discussing -- she had brought to my attention was
that she was going to be reaching out to then Director Comey and initiating a
discussion between Director Comey and I believe the depug director of the ClA,
but I don't recallwith specificity that person's name right

now. And the issue we

were discussing was, due to inforrnation that had been received in the course of
an investigative nature about these phone calls, that information conflicted
with what then Vice-President-Elect Pence reported about the calls publicly, and
the concern that we had that the incoming administration needed to be aware of
this information so that they could do what they chose with it.

O

Understood. Do you recallwhether or not you were made aware of

the calls between General Flynn and Ambassador Kislyak before or after such

I

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94

calls were referenced in a Washington Post article on or about January 12th of
2017?

A

I cannot recallwhen I learned of the calls in terms of them being

mentioned to me in my official capacity relative to that article. I recall the press
about it and I accept that that is the date, and ljust can't remember whether it was
shortly before or shortly

O

after. ljust don't have that specific a recollection of it.

And do you remember who first told you about the existence or

content of these calls?

A

I do

not.

I recallthe discussion I had with then DAG Yates on the

19th about how to handle the information subsequent to, as I mentioned,

Vice-President-Elect Pence's assertions and just how to handle that within the
lntelligence Community, you know, could the information be disclosed, or were we
ready, you know, in terms of protecting the integrity of any investigations, but
 

-

and I had heard of the information prior to that, I had received information

about it, bul I can't recallwith specificity

when. I can place it in January, but

unfortunately, I am just not able to place it with specificity around that article.

O

And do you have any idea how the author of that article, David

lgnatius (ph.), learned about these calls?

A
O

No.

And when you had this discussion with Deputy Attorney GeneralYates

and others on January 19th, and in light of the comments that Vice-President-Elect
Pence had made, I believe, a few days prior, what was your -- did you offer a
recommendation as to what action you thought should be taken?

A
O

Well, it was just myself and DAG Yates.
OkaY.

I

 I
A

95

lt wasn't myself, DAG Yates, and

others.

lt was just myself and

Depu$ AG Yates, and she said that she had been having discussions with,

I

believe, it was the deputy director of the ClA, but, again, I am not exacfly sure
whether it might have been someone else at the ClA, for example, but --

O

So deputy director of the ClA, or that person from the CIA wasn't in the

meeting. She was relaying to you ..

A That is correct.
O - discussions that she had had with a high ranking official at the CIA?
A Yes. That is correct; about the timing of being able to notifo the
incoming administration of the concerns that we had over lhe information that
Vice-President-Elect Pence had and was stating publicly and the actualfacts,
given the specific nature of this.
Because the FBI was looking into General Flynn's contacts with

Ambassador Kislyak, at that time, certainly on the 19th, my understanding was
that the investigation was not over at that

time. I do not believe that General

Flynn had been interviewed, and I believe that DAG Yates told me that had not
been interviewed and I think I knew that in general.
And she relayed to me that the FBI had expressed a concern about
essentially alerting General Flynn to the investigation prematurely. And so she
indicated that she was going to call then Director Comey and initiate discussions
about where the investigation was and essentially when could they provide the

information to the incoming administration.

O

Did you provide her any feedback or recommendations with respect to

that course of action?

A

I thought it was the appropriate course of

I

action. I felt that although

 96

we certainly couldn't say with specificity, having had the vice-President-Elect make
certain representations that we knew not to be accurate was not a situation that
we wanted to place him in, quite frankly, or the incoming administration as they
made whatever choices they made going forward, and that we should devise a

way to provide that information.
I agreed with her decision to speak out, to speak with then Director Comey.

I advised her that if she needed me to make any calls, to let me

know. I had

about 6 hours left in office at that time, but lwas working untilmidnight,
mean -- and everyone knew

that. Whether or not she -

I

you know, we thought we

could, in fact, call someone on the transition team, for example, or someone
in -- incoming in, whether we would do it that night or not, I didn't have the view

that we would tikety be making a callthat evening, it was the day before the

inauguration, but we definitely had -- she and I definitely had the view that this was
infonnation that the new administration needed soon.

O

Did you take any further action on this issue before leaving office

following that conversation?

A No. I asked her to let me know if she needed me to take any action,
and she said that she would. And so I did not hear from her before midnight.
Thank you.

BYI
O

liust

haVe one follow-up question, ma'am, in relation to a line of

questioning my colleagues from the minority asked about surveillance at Trump
Tower.
During your time as attorney general, was Paul Manaforte ever placed
under electronic surveillance while you were attomey general by the Department?

I

 I
A

I don't have any information,

97

so I am not able to answer with

specificity.

O
A

So you say you don't know if he was or wasn't?
I do not

know. I do not know. lt wouldn't necessarily have come to

my attention.

f

That is it, ma'am. I greatly appreciate your time

was a pleasure speaking with you.
MS. LYNCH: All right. Thank you all.
[Whereupon, at 1:03 p.m., the interview was concluded.]

I

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