[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 11, 2014
__________
Serial No. 113-77
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
Wisconsin JERROLD NADLER, New York
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT,
LAMAR SMITH, Texas Virginia
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ZOE LOFGREN, California
SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
DARRELL E. ISSA, California STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
STEVE KING, Iowa Georgia
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas JUDY CHU, California
JIM JORDAN, Ohio TED DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah KAREN BASS, California
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina SUZAN DelBENE, Washington
RAUL LABRADOR, Idaho JOE GARCIA, Florida
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York
GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia
RON DeSANTIS, Florida
JASON T. SMITH, Missouri
[Vacant]
Shelley Husband, Chief of Staff & General Counsel
Perry Apelbaum, Minority Staff Director & Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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JUNE 11, 2014
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary 1
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress
from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on
the Judiciary.................................................. 3
WITNESS
Honorable James B. Comey, Director, Federal Bureau of
Investigation
Oral Testimony................................................. 6
Prepared Statement............................................. 9
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Material submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member,
Committee on the Judiciary..................................... 61
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 2014
House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:09 a.m., in room
2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Bob
Goodlatte (Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Goodlatte, Coble, Chabot, Bachus,
Issa, King, Gohmert, Jordan, Poe, Chaffetz, Gowdy, Labrador,
Holding, DeSantis, Conyers, Nadler, Scott, Lofgren, Jackson
Lee, Cohen, Johnson, Pierluisi, Chu, Richmond, DelBene, Garcia,
Jeffries and Cicilline.
Staff Present: (Majority) Shelley Husband, Chief of Staff &
General Counsel; Branden Ritchie, Deputy Chief of Staff
Director & Chief Counsel; Allison Halataei, Parliamentarian &
General Counsel; Kelsey Deterding, Clerk; Caroline Lynch,
Counsel; Robert Parmiter, Counsel; Brian Northcutt, Counsel;
(Majority) Perry Apelbaum, Staff Director & Chief Counsel;
Danielle Brown, Parliamentarian; and Aaron Hiller, Counsel.
Mr. Goodlatte. Good morning. The Judiciary Committee will
come to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to
declare recesses of the Committee at any time. We welcome
everyone to this morning's oversight hearing of the United
States Federal Bureau of Investigation. And I will begin by
recognizing myself for an opening statement.
Welcome, Director Comey, to your first appearance before
the House Judiciary Committee since your confirmation as the
seventh Director of the FBI. We are happy to have you here with
us today, and I commend your distinguished service to our
Nation and am confident you will continue to serve honorably at
the helm of the FBI.
As we all know, last week marked the 1-year anniversary of
the first leak of classified material by Edward Snowden, a
criminal betrayal of his country and arguably the most
significant leak in U.S. activity. Over the past year, the
House Judiciary Committee conducted aggressive oversight of the
NSA bulk collection program and spearheaded House passage of
the USA FREEDOM Act. This bipartisan legislation reforms
controversial national security programs and provides expanded
oversight and transparency of America's intelligence gathering.
Although the leaks by Edward Snowden may have been the impetus
for Congressional reforms, the passage of this bipartisan
legislation in no way condones or excuses his actions. The
detrimental consequences of what he did may not yet be fully
realized.
But I want to thank Director Comey and the men and women of
the FBI for working closely with the Members of this Committee,
House Intelligence, and leadership to craft the USA FREEDOM Act
reforms in such a way as to preserve vital intelligence-
gathering capabilities while simultaneously achieving the goal
of ending bulk data collection.
Today we also note another dark day in American history.
Exactly 1 year and 9 months ago, our diplomatic mission in
Benghazi, Libya, was attacked by terrorists. Four Americans,
including our ambassador, were killed. The Obama Administration
initially attempted to blame the attack on a video critical of
Islam. We all now know that that was not the case, and that the
attack was premeditated and carried out by Islamist militants.
In August 2013, we learned that the Justice Department had
filed criminal charges against several individuals for their
alleged involvement in the attacks. However, as of today, no
one has been apprehended.
I am interested in hearing more from Director Comey about
the status of the FBI's investigation. I know you may be
reticent to comment on what is an ongoing investigation, but
the American people deserve to know whether we can expect the
FBI to bring to justice the terrorist killers who murdered four
of our citizens.
I am also interested in hearing more about the FBI's
investigation into the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of
conservative groups. Last year, your predecessor, Robert
Mueller, informed the Committee that the FBI was investigating
this matter and, in fact, was hesitant to answer questions
because there was an ongoing criminal investigation.
But, earlier this year, unnamed officials leaked to The
Wall Street Journal that no criminal charges were expected in
the IRS matter. And on Super Bowl Sunday, President Obama
stated that there was ``not even a smidgeon of corruption'' in
connection with the IRS targeting. But then on April 8th of
this year, before this Committee, Attorney General Holder
claimed that the investigation is still ongoing, an
investigation led by longtime Obama and Democratic National
Committee donors. On May 21, before the Senate Judiciary
Committee, you also declined to answer questions about the
matter, explaining that the investigation is ongoing.
Frustration is mounting over this scandal, and basic facts
are unknown or contradicted by this Administration. Is there an
investigation? Has there been any progress? What is its status?
Why do the Justice Department and FBI continue to assert that
an investigation is ongoing despite the President's assertion
that no crime was committed? Do you disagree with him?
The facts and circumstances surrounding this investigation
led the House to approve a resolution calling on the attorney
general to appoint a special counsel. How can we trust that a
dispassionate investigation is being carried out when the
President claims that no corruption occurred? I hope you will
be able to shed some light on that for us today. The American
people certainly deserve no less.
Finally, I wish to discuss General Holder's reestablishment
of the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee, or DTEC. DTEC
was first established by Attorney General Janet Reno in the
aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing to disrupt homegrown
terrorism threats. In reforming the unit, Attorney General
Holder said, ``Tragic incidents like the Boston Marathon
bombing and active-shooter situations like Fort Hood provide
clear examples that we must disrupt lone-wolf-style actors
aimed to harm our Nation.'' And that the unit was necessary to
respond to the changing terrorist threat, notably the reduced
risk posed by Al Qaeda's core leadership.
While I agree that the disruption of domestic terror
threats is a worthy goal, I take serious issue with the notion
that America faces a reduced risk from Al Qaeda. Ironically,
the incidents cited by General Holder, the Fort Hood shooting
and Boston bombing, belie the claim that Al Qaeda and other
foreign terrorist extremism is on the decline.
The question, then, is, what and whom does the Attorney
General really intend to target via the DTEC? He appears to
have answered that question in part by stating that, ``We must
also concern ourselves with the continued danger we face from
individuals within our own borders who may be motivated by a
variety of other causes, including antigovernment animus.''
Would a group advocating strenuously for smaller government
and lower taxes be included in the Attorney General's
definition of a group with antigovernment animus?
Given that the Administration appears to have used the IRS
to intimidate its political opponents, the reestablishment of
the DTEC should cause us all to sit up and take notice.
Director Comey, I look forward to hearing your answers to
these and other important topics today as well as on other
issues of significance to the FBI and the country.
And at this time it is my pleasure to recognize the Ranking
Member of the Committee, the gentleman from Michigan, Mr.
Conyers, for his opening statement.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Chairman Goodlatte. We welcome you,
Director Comey, for your first appearance before the House
Judiciary Committee since taking office on September 4th, 2013.
I have great confidence personally in your commitment to
fairness and to the rule of law. And in 1996, as assistant
United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia,
you were appointed lead prosecutor in the Khobar Towers bombing
case in Saudi Arabia.
In 2002, as United States Attorney for Southern District of
New York, you handled a wide variety of complex, high-profile
cases while helping the district return to some measure of
normalcy in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11th.
In 2004, serving as Deputy Attorney General of the United
States, you refused to certify the Bush administration's
lawless dragnet surveillance program. And then confronted
senior White House personnel at the hospital when the
Administration sought to gain approval from Mr. Ashcroft
directly.
So time and time again, you have demonstrated your basic
commitment to the rule of law, even in exigent and dramatic
circumstances.
So that is why I am pleased you are here and at the helm of
the FBI on this, the first anniversary of our public discussion
of the government's domestic surveillance programs.
Last month, the House passed H.R. 3361, the ``USA FREEDOM
Act,'' which I had a significant role in bringing forward. This
legislation designed to end domestic bulk collection across the
board. It applies to Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, the FISA
pen register authorities, and National Security Letter
statutes.
I am proud to have voted in favor of the only measure to
pass the House that rolls back any aspect of government
surveillance since the passages of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978.
But bulk collection is only one aspect of the problem with
government surveillance. Over the past few years, our early
difficulties with National Security Letters notwithstanding,
the new FBI has proven a responsible custodian of the new legal
authorities granted to the Bureau after September 11th.
For the most part, it uses the tools Congress has provided
in the manner intended for them to be used. But the FBI is an
end user of massive amounts of data acquired under FISA and
other authorities without a warrant or individualized
suspicion. This raises, of course, serious privacy and civil
liberty concerns.
Director Comey, you are a standard bearer in the struggle
to rein in unlawful surveillance. And I hope that you will
continue to work with this Committee to help us restore a
measure of public trust in this area.
Although we have spent much of the last decade focused on
counterterrorism, it is critically important that the Bureau
balance its national security function with its traditional law
enforcement mission. And in this vein, Mr. Director, I would
like to discuss with you the scourge of gun violence in this
country.
Yesterday's shooting at Reynolds High School in Oregon is
at least the 74th school shooting since the tragedy in New
Town, Connecticut in late 2012.
The FBI maintains the National Instant Background Check
System, and the Bureau is often called upon to participate in
the investigation of high profile shootings because I believe
that a more complete background check system would help stem
the tide of violence, I look forward to your views in this
matter.
And similarly, we face many threats from overseas. The FBI
plays a fundamental role in confronting extremist violence here
at home as well.
The Bureau has called the so-called sovereign citizen
movement a growing domestic threat. According to the Anti
Defamation League, between 2009 and 2013, there were 43 violent
incidents between law enforcement officials and antigovernment
extremists. Thirty police officers have been shot, 14 have been
killed. To these numbers, we must now add the two officers shot
and killed this past Sunday in Las Vegas.
These are not isolated incidents. Director Comey, Congress
has empowered the Federal Bureau of Investigation with
considerable authority, including Federal hate crimes
legislation, to root out this extremism.
I would like to hear more about how the Bureau puts these
laws and resources to use, and would like also to have you
discuss the topic of overcriminalization. The United States
represents 5 percent of the world's population, but
incarcerates more than 25 percent of the world's prisoners. The
Bureau of Prisons is strained to the breaking point. I would
like to know why then the FBI often recommends Federal
prosecutions in cases that are already being prosecuted in the
State court so that an offender faces trial on the same facts
in two separate jurisdictions.
The FBI plays a critical role in protecting our Nation's
computer networks from cyber criminals. We must do more to
prevent the infiltration of our cyber systems from economic and
financial criminals. And I would like to hear about the
challenges presented by the international aspect of these
crimes.
And finally, I applaud Deputy Attorney General Cole's
recent announcement on the recording of Federal custodial
interviews and your support of this new policy. This new
presumption--and I conclude here--that all Federal Bureau of
Investigation custodial interviews will be recorded. And it
helps all sides of the case. Prosecutors will finally be able
to share recorded confessions with the jury and suspects who
feel they have been treated unfairly will be able to fall back
on recorded evidence.
There are few exceptions to the official rule that gives me
pause, but I want to see this new policy in action. And I look
forward to learning more about the FBI priorities today.
I am going to use my communications with you after this
hearing to fill in any questions that may not be able to be
covered within the questioning period. I thank you. And I thank
the Chairman of the Committee and yield back any balance of
time.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Mr. Conyers.
And, without objection, all other Members' opening
statements will be made a part of the record.
We thank our only witness, the Director, for joining us
today. Director Comey, if you would please rise, we will begin
by swearing you in.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you very much.
And let the record reflect that Director Comey responded in
the affirmative.
On September 4, 2013, James B. Comey was sworn in as the
seventh Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Director Comey began his career in the United States Attorney's
Office for the Southern District of New York as an assistant
United States attorney. Later he became an assistant United
States attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. Director
Comey returned to New York City after the 9/11 terror attacks
and became the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New
York. In late 2003, he was appointed to be the Deputy Attorney
General under U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Director Comey is a graduate of the college of William and
Mary and the University of Chicago Law School.
Director Comey, we welcome you to your first appearance as
FBI director before the House Judiciary Committee and look
forward to your testimony. Your written statement will be
entered into the record in its entirety, and we ask that you
summarize your testimony in 5 minutes. And you may begin. Thank
you, and welcome.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE JAMES B. COMEY, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL
BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Mr. Comey. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Conyers.
It is good to be back before you after an 8-year break.
I am here representing and expressing the gratitude of the
people of the FBI. You have long supported them in a bipartisan
basis. One of the challenges I discovered when I became
Director was the impact of the so-called sequestration on my
troops. Heard about it everywhere I went. And we now have been
adequately funded, thanks to the support of the people in this
room, and we are very grateful for it because we have much to
do.
We are a national security and law enforcement
organization. I am going to say a few words about
counterterrorism, but I actually want to start and say a few
words about cyber. As Mr. Conyers and yourself, Mr. Chairman,
have mentioned, cyber touches everything the FBI is responsible
for. For reasons that make sense, cyber is not a thing, it is a
vector. We as Americans have connected our entire lives to the
Internet. It is where our children play, it is where our
healthcare information is, it is where our finances are, it is
where our social lives are, our government secrets, our
infrastructure. Almost everything that matters is connected to
the Internet. And soon our refrigerators will be and our
sneakers and the rest of our lives.
Because of that, it is where the people who would do us
harm, hurt our kids, steal our identities, steal our
information, steal our secrets or damage our infrastructure
come to do those bad things. So it touches everything the FBI
is responsible for, and in ways that are difficult to imagine.
I thought of a way to explain it to the American people
when I was in Indiana recently. And a sheriff was showing me a
bullet that had been fired from John Dillinger's Thompson
submachine gun. And it occurred to me that Dillinger and his
ilk had given birth to the modern FBI in the '20's and '30's
because they heralded the arrival of a totally new kind of
crime: The combination of asphalt and the automobile allowed
criminals to commit crimes with shocking speed all across the
country. And we needed a national force to respond to that. And
that was the FBI.
This cyber vector is that times a million. John Dillinger
could not do 1,000 robberies in the same day in all 50 states
from his pajamas in Belarus. That is the challenge we now face
with cyber. It blows away normal concepts of time and space and
venue. The criminals, the spies, the terrorists have shrunk the
world because they can move at the speed of light through the
Internet. We have to shrink that world as well.
So I know sitting here only 9 months in that my tenure of
10 years is going to be dominated by making sure we equip,
deploy, and train to respond to that threat. That we shrink the
world the way the bad guys have and respond across
counterterrorism, criminal, counterintelligence. And we are
well on the way, thanks to the work of my predecessor to do
that. I hope you saw some of the good work we have done with
respect to the Chinese, with respect to botnets and massive
criminal enterprises over the last couple weeks.
This stuff is no different than someone kicking in your
front door and stealing things that matter to you or stealing a
company's most precious property by kicking in the front door.
We have got to treat it that way and send a message that we
will find you and touch you significantly wherever you are in
the world because we are not going to put up with this just
because it happened in cyberspace.
So I thank you for your support and your attention to that
issue. It is going to dominate what I do over the next 10
years.
Briefly, counterterrorism. You, Mr. Chairman, mentioned the
threat from Al Qaeda. I do see the threat from core Al Qaeda
diminished, thanks to the good work especially of our men and
women in uniform in the AfPak region. But at the same time, I
see the progeny of Al Qaeda, these virulent franchises of Al
Qaeda thriving in the poorly-governed or ungoverned spaces
around the Gulf, in north Africa, around the Mediterranean.
This remains a huge diverse and significant threat to us.
Through Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Islamic Maghreb,
this ISIL group that has been much in the news, and many
others. We wake up every morning worrying about it, and go to
bed every night worrying about it.
I am particularly worried about the confluence of that
virulence among these progeny of Al Qaeda with Syria. Syria has
become the breeding ground, the training ground for thousands
of jihadis around the world, including dozens and dozens from
the United States. All of us who know history can draw a line
from Afghanistan in the 1980's to 9/11. We are determined not
to allow a line from today's Syria to be drawn to future 9/11s.
We are determined to anticipate the Diaspora of terrorist that
is going to happen at some point out of Syria and respond to it
aggressively in advance.
And as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, we also face a
challenge from these people we call homegrown violent
extremists. Some call them lone wolves--I don't like the term;
it conveys dignity they don't deserve. But these are people who
are not directed by Al Qaeda but are inspired and trained,
again through the information available on the Internet to then
emerge from their basement or their bedroom and do something
terrible, something we spend a great deal of time worrying
about.
And domestic terrorism, Mr. Chairman, I think, as the
Members of this Committee know, is something the FBI has long
worked. My domestic terrorism operations unit has been busy for
the last 20 years. Nothing has changed for us in that regard.
It is something we spend a lot of time worrying about, and
apply resources to make sure we anticipate and address.
As I said, we are a national security organization.
Counterterrorism is part of that, counterintelligence is a big
part of that. Something we can't talk about in open session
because most of that work is done in the shadows. But it is an
important part of our work done extremely well all around the
world by my folks.
And we are also a law enforcement organization. We are out
there every day trying to lock up violent criminals, people who
would harm your kids, corrupt public officials, and all manner
of bad guys that touch our criminal investigative
responsibilities that remain combined with our national
security responsibilities in ways that make sense to me.
And I will close just by saying, as you and Mr. Conyers
have alluded to, lots of folks are asking good questions these
days about government power, and that is a great thing. People
should be skeptical of government power. I am. I think the
country was founded by people who were very skeptical of
government power, so they divided it among three branches to
balance it. I think it is great that people ask questions.
I think one of my jobs is, to the extent I can, to answer
those questions. And I hope folks will give me the space and
time in American public life to listen to the answers. Because
there is an angel in the details of my work. There is a reason
why it matters that I be able to get lawful process to search
and get content of some bad guy who is emailing about a
terrorist plot or a criminal enterprise. There is a reason I
need to be able to track with lawful process the location
through a cell phone of someone who has kidnapped a child or is
fleeing from justice.
All those things matter a great deal. Those details matter.
And I believe those details reflect our government working as
it should. Hard for me to find that space in time in the
windstorm I live in right now.
And last, thank you, again, on behalf of the people of the
FBI. We don't have a lot of stuff. We don't have aircraft
carriers, we don't have satellites. I got amazing people. That
is the magic of the FBI. Thank you for the resources for me to
be able to hire those folks. It was a thrill for me to see new
agents at Quantico last week and new intelligence analysts.
That is the lifeblood of this great institution, and it is what
makes it a thrill and an honor for me to be the Director.
So I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Director.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Comey follows:]
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Mr. Goodlatte. We will now proceed under the 5-minute rule
with questions. And I will begin by recognizing myself for 5
minutes.
As I indicated in my opening statement, we have questions
about the IRS targeting investigation. So my first question is,
is there an ongoing investigation into the IRS targeting of
conservative groups?
Mr. Comey. Yes, sir. Very active investigation.
Mr. Goodlatte. Can you explain why there is an
investigation, given that the President said there was not even
a smidgeon of corruption?
Mr. Comey. I mean no disrespect to the President or anybody
else who has expressed a view about the matter. But I don't
care about anyone's characterization of it. I care and my
troops care only about the facts. There is an investigation
because there was a reasonable basis to believe that crimes may
have been committed. And, so we are conducting that
investigation.
Mr. Goodlatte. So he was simply wrong about that.
Mr. Comey. I don't know what he meant or in what context he
said it. And, as I said, I don't mean any disrespect to the
President of the United States. I have tremendous respect for
the person and the office. But it doesn't matter to me what
someone says about it.
Mr. Goodlatte. Can you give us any indication of the
conduct of that investigation? Who is heading it up and what we
might expect in terms of information being made available to
these groups and to the Congress and the public to assure them
that this type of activity is being addressed and that someone
will be held accountable if corruption is, indeed, found to lay
at any one person's doorstep?
Mr. Comey. I can only say a little because, as you know,
Mr. Chairman, by law and policy and long tradition, I can't
comment on an open investigation. I think for good reason. We
don't want the bad guys to know where we are going, we don't
want to smear good people that we might have to investigate. So
that is true of everything we do, not just this case.
The matter is in my Washington field office. The
accountable executive is the head of my Washington field
office, a terrific executive named Valerie Parlave. But I can
tell you it is active. It is something I get briefed on on a
regular basis. But I can't say more about where we are or what
we have done for the reasons I said.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Department of Justice Office of
Inspector General has indicated that in the beginning of 2010,
the FBI reversed course on a longstanding policy of providing,
among other things, Office of Inspector General access to grand
jury information in furtherance of their reviews.
I am aware that you were asked about this recently before
the Senate Judiciary Committee, and you pledged to avoid
stonewalling the OIG and to find out more about this.
This Committee relies heavily on the work of the office of
the inspector general in order to fulfill our oversight duties.
Can you assure us that you will resolve this dispute in an
expeditious manner and allow the OIG to effectively carry out
its mission?
Mr. Comey. I agree with you, Mr. Chairman. I think the
inspector general is essential. I have a great deal of respect
for the person who holds that office now, who I have known for
a long time as a colleague. I have told him, look, the
inspector general is a pain in the rear, but it is a vital pain
in the rear. It is kind of like the dentist: It makes me better
to have the inspector general robust and fully informed.
This is an issue that is a legal issue as to what we are
allowed to share with respect to grand jury material and what
are called Title 3 wiretaps ordered by a Federal judge. I want
to share fully and completely with him, but I also don't want
to violate the law.
So I think where we are now is we have asked the Justice
Department's Office of Legal Counsel, just tell us what we can
do. And if it is okay under the law, we will make sure we give
it to them. And if it is not, we will have to talk about
whether we should change the law.
Mr. Goodlatte. In your testimony to the Senate Judiciary
Committee, you said you would find out more about this. Have
you found out more about this since that testimony?
Mr. Comey. Yes, sir. I left that hearing and immediately
went back and talked to my new general counsel about it. And
dove into the legal issue a little bit. And found out that
there was a difference of view as to what the law permitted
here. And, as you know, at the core of our being at the FBI is
we want to follow the law. So we are going to ask for the
guidance from the Justice Department. Tell us what the law is
and we will follow it. And if it needs to be changed,
obviously, the Department will approach you.
Mr. Goodlatte. And is that something that you can share
with us as well when you receive that determination from the
Department of Justice?
Mr. Comey. Yes. Certainly.
Mr. Goodlatte. We would be very interested in knowing what
their position is on this and whether any action is necessary
on our part.
A number of companies have recently announced that they
intend to start notifying customers when law enforcement
requests data through a subpoena unless the request is
accompanied by a court-ordered gag order and despite the fact
that this disclosure is expressly prohibited on the face of the
subpoena.
Is this a change in practice? And how do you expect it to
impact your investigations?
Mr. Comey. This is a trend that I am seeing and worried
about across not just the FBI, but Federal law enforcement and
State and local law enforcement. That part of the windstorm
that we are all in with respect to government authorities is
leading more and more providers to say, where in the past they
would have just decided not to tell someone, a potential
pedophile or a drug dealer, that we had asked with lawful
process for their records, now they are inclined more and more
to tell the person. That is a real problem for reasons that are
obvious and something that we have to grapple with.
Mr. Goodlatte. And have you seen significant instances of
prominent companies actually notifying targets of
investigations like for child abuse, sexual assault, or drug
trafficking, that this information has been requested by
subpoena?
Mr. Comey. Yes. Examples have been reported to me where to
avoid letting the bad guy know, the process was withdrawn. And
then the investigators had to figure out some other way to
track this guy where we don't alert him. As I said, we also
don't want to smear the innocent by having people----
Mr. Goodlatte. So the lack of cooperation impeded the
ability to go after some suspected criminals.
Mr. Comey. That is what I have been told.
Mr. Goodlatte. We would be very interested in your
apprising us of the continued problems that this causes for the
agency, and ways you think we may be helpful in that regard as
well.
Thank you, Mr. Director.
It is now my privilege to yield to the gentleman from
Michigan, Mr. Conyers, for his questions for 5 minutes.
Mr. Conyers. Director Comey, yesterday's shooting in a high
school in Oregon is the 74th school shooting since the attack
on Sandy Hook elementary school in 2012.
Can you tell me what your agency is doing to address gun
violence and what ways can the Judiciary Committee here be of
help to you?
Mr. Comey. Thank you, Mr. Conyers. In a bunch of different
ways. First, I will mention that my behavioral analysis unit,
who are the big brains at Quantico, who think about crime every
day, made famous in the ``Silence of the Lambs'' movie, we have
a group of people there who are doing nothing but thinking
about what are the markers of this behavior, these mass
shootings, mass casualty events? What are the indicators, what
are the clues? And then pushing that information out to State
and local law enforcement to help educate folks on what they
might spot. So they are studying and looking for discriminators
that we can help people with.
We are also doing training around the country with State
and local law enforcement to help them learn to respond to
these kinds of incidents. One of the key things we have been
training on is, it is a terrible thing that we have to think
about this, but to make sure that you always leave a lane open
to the school so that an ambulance can get through all the
police cars. Because what normally happens is first responders
come up, jump out of their cars, and the way is blocked.
We had a mass stabbing event in Pittsburgh about a month
ago, and the chief had gotten that training, kept the lane
open, and kids were saved because kids were able to get out
right away and go to the hospital. So we are doing a lot of
that kind of training.
And then in terms of our work, we do a tremendous amount of
violent gang work in an effort to try and reduce violence in
cities like Detroit, Chicago, and many other places.
Mr. Conyers. Well, we have a problem, it seems to me, with
the background check requirement. Because there is general
feeling that it ought to be expanded. Do you have a view that
you can discuss with us on that this morning?
Mr. Comey. I don't in general or particular. We run the
National Instant Background Check System, as you know. One of
the key elements of that system has been mental health records
that has been much in the news, especially since Sandy Hook. I
know it is something that across the country, State governments
are trying to get better at, figuring out what records they can
push to us so that when someone is buying a weapon that that is
checked in a way that produces a result that is useful.
But beyond that, the policy questions are really for the
Department of Justice.
Mr. Conyers. Well, there are a number of people in the
legislature here that feel that the background check
requirement should be expanded and be made more exclusive. And
we are trying desperately to get that examined here in the
legislature. And we may be calling on you or someone in the FBI
to give us their considered judgment on which direction to go.
Now, it is true, we have ended bulk collection in the
general sense through the USA FREEDOM Act. But I remain
concerned about large collections. And there are some privacy
advocates that are concerned about it.
Under the law as exists today, can you describe how much
information the FBI could collect within a single Section 215
order?
Mr. Comey. I don't know that sitting here I can quantify.
The legislation that the House passed that you have mentioned
makes good sense to me and bans the use of 215 or National
Security Letters or pen registered trap and traces to collect
in bulk. And so I don't think there is a particular number
except we couldn't collect an amount of records that was
untethered to a particular selection term as defined in the
legislation.
Mr. Conyers. Now, the Section 702 of FISA is focused on
non-United States persons outside of the United States. But the
government does obtain large amounts of information about
United States persons through this authority. Does the Federal
Bureau of Investigation use information obtained under Section
702 in criminal investigations?
Mr. Goodlatte. The time of the gentleman has expired. But
Director Comey should answer the question.
Mr. Comey. Can I use 2 seconds? Because I am new, I want to
make sure I don't talk about something that is classified. Let
me just check.
The answer is we do have contact with information collected
under 702. I think to talk about the details we would need to
be in a classified setting.
Mr. Conyers. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr.
Coble, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Comey, good to have you with us. Mr. Comey, last year,
I asked your predecessor, Director Mueller, about the Benghazi
investigation. Of course, the Chairman touched on it in his
opening statement as well.
I said to him then, I say to you now, the entire scenario
continues to stick in my craw. I think it has been done very
ineptly--I am not suggesting you are guilty of this, but
someone has not done a good job, in my opinion.
Let me refer to a Huffington Post article which states that
on October 18th, 2012, New York Times reporter David
Kirkpatrick spent 2 leisurely hours with a guy named Abu
Khattala in a crowded luxury hotel sipping a strawberry frappe
on the patio was scoffing at the threats coming from American
and Libyans governments.
Do you share my frustration, Mr. Director, in that the
media can gain access to this guy and we can't lay a glove on
him?
Mr. Comey. I am not sure I would express it----
Mr. Coble. Assuming we haven't laid a glove on him is my
thinking.
Mr. Comey. I wouldn't express it as frustration because I
have been in this business a long time and I know that
sometimes journalists can get access to people that we in law
enforcement can't. And so frankly it doesn't surprise me.
Mr. Coble. I recall when Mrs. Clinton appeared before a
Senate hearing in response to one of the questions by the
Senators she said, What difference does it make?
It is my belief, Mr. Comey, that any issue, be it obscure,
indirect, or directly involved with Benghazi does indeed make
some difference. Do you concur?
Mr. Comey. I take the Benghazi matter very, very seriously.
It is one that I am very close to, briefed on on a regular
basis, one we are putting a lot of work into and that we have
made progress on. But, again, the details of which I can't talk
about for the reasons I mentioned earlier----
Mr. Coble. I can appreciate that.
Mr. Comey. But it is something I take very, very seriously.
Mr. Coble. And I can understand how you cannot go into
great detail with us. But I am glad to hear you say--I have the
fear, Mr. Comey, that with the passage of each day we are one
step further removed from resolving the Benghazi thing. And
that would not be pleasing at all to any American, I don't
think.
Mr. Comey. And to me as well, sir.
One thing you have got to know about the FBI, we never give
up. So sometimes things take longer than we would like them to,
but they never go into an inactive bin.
Mr. Coble. Well, even though I am expressing some
criticism, I am very high on the FBI. So put me down as one of
your cheerleaders.
Mr. Comey. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Coble. Let me talk about the Attorney General for a
minute. He has issued directives in the area of marijuana
enforcement, including the division on the diversion of assets
for the investigation and prosecution of persons, businesses,
and financial institutions in States where marijuana has
obtained some legal status. I presume that would include
Colorado and the State of Washington.
Does this policy affect FBI investigations involving
violent crime and drug trafficking which oftentimes spills over
State and international borders?
Mr. Comey. I don't think so. I am not familiar with the
policy sitting here, which I think means it doesn't have much
of an impact. My troops have not mentioned it to me. My answer
is I don't think so, sir.
Mr. Coble. I thank you, sir.
I yield back Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Goodlatte. Chair thanks the gentleman and recognizes
the gentleman from New York, Mr. Nadler, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Director Comey, National Security Letters permit the FBI to
obtain, among other things, basic telephone records, email
subscriber information, basically all the stuff you could get
under Section 215 order under FISA.
The President's review group on intelligence communication
technologies was unable to identify a principled reason why
NSLs should be issued by FBI officials when Section 215 orders
must be issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
and recommended that all statutes authorize the use of NSLs
should be amended to require the use of the same oversight
minimization, retention, dissemination standards that currently
govern the use of Section 215 orders.
Now we have done that in the House version of the USA
FREEDOM Act. Given the overlap with Section 215, are NSLs
necessary? And why does instances with the FBI choose to use an
NSL instead of Section 215.
Mr. Comey. Thank you, Mr. Nadler. NSLs are essential to the
basic building blocks of our national security investigation
work. Just as grand jury subpoenas are the basics building
blocks in criminal work. They are very different than 215. In
fact, they can only give us information in very limited
circumstances that you alluded to. Subscriber information, ISP
identification, no content.
Mr. Nadler. Metadata.
Mr. Comey. Credit records. Some financial records.
Mr. Nadler. Metadata.
Mr. Comey. Metadata.
Mr. Comey. Sure. Right. But not in any kind of bulk
fashion, as you said.
So, yes, there are basic building blocks of our
investigations.
I had a great discussion with the President's review group
about this. I think they are well intended but dead wrong. And
I said that to them respectfully. I don't see there is any
reason--they asked for a principled reason. I said, why on
Earth would we make it harder to get a National Security
Letter, which I need in my most important matters involving
spies and terrorists, than to get a grand jury subpoena in a
bank fraud investigation? That doesn't make any sense to me.
They need to be overseen. They are overseen by tremendous
layers within the FBI.
Mr. Nadler. So you think that the--or do you think that the
restrictions in National Security Letters in pen and trace that
were included in the USA FREEDOM Act version passed by the
House to make sure that NSLs could not be used as an end run
around our Section 215 restrictions, they are okay?
Mr. Comey. Yes. Makes total sense to me. We didn't use it
that way anyway.
Mr. Nadler. Okay. Now in the H.R. 3361, the USA FREEDOM Act
bill that the House passed, the FBI will be required to base
its use of--as will the NSA--will be required to base its use
of section 215 on a ``specific selection term.''
How does the definition of ``specific selection term''
limit the government's ability to obtain information?
Some critics, for example, have said that under the way it
is defined in the bill, you could ask for every call detail
record in a given area code, or in a given ZIP Code. Do you
regard that as true?
Mr. Comey. No. I think given the language and the clear
legislative intent that you all have demonstrated that that
would not be permitted under that. But a lot of people,
thoughtful people, have said they would like to have different
language defining selector term. I am happy to discuss it. What
I want to do is just make sure we don't accidentally, in
defining selection term, bar some of the things I think
everybody would want me to be able to do with a National
Security Letter.
Mr. Nadler. Do you think that if the Senate tightened that
definition, so long as it didn't do what you just said, that
would be okay?
Mr. Comey. Yes. So long as it didn't accidentally preclude
things that I think make total sense. If a terrorist is in a
hotel and I don't know what room he is in, I need to be able to
use lawful process to find out who is in every room so we can
figure out, okay, he is now in 712. I got to be able to do
that. So I just wouldn't want to accidentally forbid that kind
of thing. But I have no interest in using to collect in bulk.
So if there is other language, I am happy to discuss it.
Mr. Nadler. Can you give us any idea of how many NSLs are
issued in a given year? And how can we supervise them?
Mr. Comey. I think the number--it is in the thousands. I
think it is, like, 17,000 a year. Because of the basic building
blocks of nearly all of our national security investigations.
Probably not nearly as many as grand jury subpoenas are issued,
but thousands of them.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. My last question, since I see the
yellow light is on. On May 30th of this year, the House passed
an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations
Bill that would prohibit the use of funds to compel a
journalist to testify about confidential sources.
On June 2nd, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal
of James Rosen, a New York Times reporter who could face jail
time for refusing to name his confidential source.
Forty-nine States and the District of Columbia offer some
form of protection to reporters who refuse to testify about
their sources.
Can you give us your opinion of a proposed Federal shield
law? And how do we protect freedom of the press and allow
sources? I mean, much of our reporting, much of our knowledge
of what has happened in the last 40 years wouldn't be there
without confidential sources. And yet this Administration has
really clamped down on those confidential sources.
So what do you think about a Federal shield law? And how
can we assure that despite secrecy requirements we still get
the information we need?
Mr. Goodlatte. Time of the gentleman has expired. The
Director will be permitted to answer the question.
Mr. Comey. I am an enormous fan of a robust press. And I
think it is appropriate to try and balance my need to
investigate the most serious offenses in the United States and
the need to have a robust press.
I am not up to speed enough on the shield law, and it is
really not a view the FBI should offer anyway; that is for the
Department of Justice. But there has got to be a way to
accommodate that. There shouldn't be a situation where we can't
ever investigate the most important cases and touch the media.
But we have got to protect the news-gathering function. And so
other than that principle, I really don't have a view on the
law itself.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. I yield back the time that has been
seized back.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank the gentleman.
And recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Issa, for
5 minutes.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Director, as you know, in the news, there has been a lot of
coverage of the fact that the FBI had and has had since 2010 a
database of 1.1 million records or pages of records on
nonprofit organizations, and that those records were sent based
on communication that included Lois Lerner and individuals
working for you. Before we began today, I understand from you
that you said that you had returned those records?
Mr. Comey. Yes, sir.
Mr. Issa. So the FBI no longer has records?
Mr. Comey. That is correct. I understand we returned them
sometime within the last few days or a week.
Mr. Issa. Isn't it true that those records were determined
to include 6103 taxpayer ID information?
Mr. Comey. I don't know whether it was determined, but that
was an issue that I read about and have heard quite a bit
about.
Mr. Issa. The Department of Justice sent us information
asking for us to return the information that we had received
under subpoena. And said the basis was that it contained 6103
information. Do you believe that to be true?
Mr. Comey. I think that is right. Yes, sir.
Mr. Issa. For the IRS to release 6103 information to your
organization, you are not authorized to receive it as a
database to be used. So wouldn't that be a violation of the law
under 6103?
Mr. Comey. My recollection from my days, again, as a
prosecutor, is 6103 something we were very careful about to
protect private taxpayer information. And there is a number of
legal hurdles that have to be jumped over, including a judicial
order to share 6103 information.
Mr. Issa. So the fact is that under the guise of giving
information that was publicly available under GuideStar, Lois
Lerner did, in fact, send a database that included 6103
information to the FBI in 2010. Isn't that true?
Mr. Comey. I don't know who sent it.
Mr. Issa. Department of Justice gave us emails. Have you
seen the emails that were back and forth? Those emails included
Lois Lerner as an author.
Let me go through some quick questions that are important
to the FBI.
Did the FBI request this database from the IRS?
Mr. Comey. No.
Mr. Issa. Since you have returned it, does that mean that
the FBI never had a valid reason to have it and you do not have
a reason to have a database of taxpayer individual information
on non-profits?
Mr. Comey. My understanding is, again, this was 4 years
ago, is that there was a valid basis for them to send public
information.
Mr. Issa. If public information is available through the
GuideStar Web site, why would you need the database?
Mr. Comey. I don't know, sitting here.
Mr. Issa. Okay. Would you answer that one for the record? I
would appreciate it.
On what basis are internal memos available that would show
there was a reason to have in searchable format this
information rather than if it was publicly available? And
obviously the 6103 was not publicly available. But if it was
publicly available, why you would need a database, a searchable
database rather than, in fact, go to the same place the public
goes?
Do you know today of any reason that the FBI, on an ongoing
basis, would need any nonpublic information from taxpayers
including the information from non-profits or not for profits?
Mr. Comey. In that particular context, I don't. We use it
in lots and lots of investigations unrelated to that and get
court orders to get it.
Mr. Issa. Of course when you get court orders, then you
have a reason that is specifically stated in the court order.
At this time, do you have ongoing investigations that were
begun in 2009, '10, or '11, that concerned referrals from the
IRS for non-profits to the FBI?
Mr. Comey. I don't know of any from '9, '10, that period of
time. I am not saying there aren't any, I am just not aware of
any.
Mr. Issa. At this time, have you, to the best of your
knowledge, relinquished--or would I have to go to Justice, is
the obvious question--but have you relinquished, pursuant to
the subpoena, all emails and documents related to Lois Lerner
and transfers from the IRS, which was the subject of our
subpoena?
Mr. Comey. I don't know the status of it. Subpoena to the
FBI you are asking about?
I don't know the status of it. I am sure if we complied, we
did our absolute best to be fully compliant.
Mr. Issa. Do you agree that--and you mentioned the robust
oversight of not Congress, but, in fact, of the press--do you
believe that the American people should inherently be
suspicious or concerned when taxpayer-identifiable information
is transferred from the IRS to the FBI without a warrant?
Mr. Comey. American people should always want to know that
their taxpayer information, that private information is being
protected according to the law. That is why as a prosecutor, I
remember taking it so very seriously.
Mr. Issa. To your knowledge, what did the FBI do with this
database in the last more than 3 years that it had it in its
possession?
Mr. Comey. I have asked. My understanding is an analyst in
our criminal investigation division looked at an index of it to
see what it was. And then parked it to see if DOJ was going to
ask us to do anything with it, and they never did. So it sat in
her--I don't know whether her desk or her file for the last 4
years.
Mr. Issa. So in closing, Mr. Chairman, then would it be
safe to assume that if the FBI did not ask for it, had no
purpose for it, and Lois Lerner and the IRS encouraged the FBI
to take it, that it was part of a coordinated effort to try to
produce an investigation that never materialized?
Mr. Comey. I don't know enough to answer that.
Mr. Goodlatte. Time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. Issa. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Virginia, Mr. Scott, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And welcome from Richmond.
When employers try to get background information for
prospective employees, we have heard complaints that the
information is incomplete, people lose the opportunity for jobs
because the information is not complete.
What is the FBI doing to upgrade the information?
Mr. Comey. This is information in our database.
Mr. Scott. Some of it is in your database, some of it the
States. A lot of times the disposition of a case is not
included. So it looks like it may have been a conviction, but
you don't know.
If you can get back to me----
Mr. Comey. I don't know enough to answer right here.
Mr. Scott. Okay. Sex trafficking. If a 40-year-old has sex
with a 14 year old, that is rape. Is the crime diminished
because it is paid for?
Mr. Comey. Is it diminished because it is paid for?
Mr. Scott. Right.
Mr. Comey. The child is still violated.
Mr. Scott. Is the FBI now recognizing such encounters as
rape and investigating and bringing prosecutions for cases as
rape?
Mr. Comey. I think so.
Mr. Scott. Does the FBI have a process for dealing with the
child victims?
Mr. Comey. Yes, sir.
Mr. Scott. And what is that process?
Mr. Comey. Our office of victims of crime spends a great
deal of time working with our sex trafficking investigations to
make sure that the kids are treated like the victims that they
are and they are their gateway into services provided by
whatever the locality is in which we rescue the child.
Mr. Scott. Thank you. There is a term called ``organized
retail theft,'' where gangs go up and down the interstate, drop
in at a retail outlet, clean out a couple of shelves, and run.
What is the FBI doing to address organized retail theft?
Mr. Comey. I don't know enough to answer, Mr. Scott; it is
not something I am familiar with.
Mr. Scott. Individual ID theft is--we have these breaches
of data that are actually valuable because usually, if you only
steal about a couple thousand dollars from each account, nobody
investigates it.
What is the FBI doing to deal with ID theft where they grab
a credit card, your name, milk it for a couple thousand
dollars, and keep going?
Mr. Comey. Probably, it is not a focus of a lot of our work
unless it is connected to an organized criminal group. We try
to triage our resources and spend most of the resources on the
more complicated intrusions. And then offer training. That is
another big gap that we as a country have to address, offer
training to the State and local law enforcement so they can
respond to crimes that involve digital evidence or the
Internet.
Mr. Scott. A lot of the ID theft crosses State lines,
certainly jurisdictional lines, so the local police would be
virtually incapable of dealing with it. Are you making sure
that there is a national investigation when you have these
breaches and people use the credit card information?
Mr. Comey. Well, we certainly are with respect to the
large-scale intrusions and the massive identity thefts that
have been in the news a lot. With respect to the smaller,
individual cases, if we don't connect it to a more
sophisticated ring, we try to hand it to our State and local
partners and give them the training and the expertise they need
to be able to work it.
Mr. Scott. The gentleman from California and a couple of
others have asked about the targeting of conservative groups by
the Internal Revenue Service. I am aware from lawyers that some
liberal groups have also been allegedly targeted. Are you
investigating those, too?
Mr. Comey. I want to be careful what I say about the
investigation we are doing with respect to the IRS.
Mr. Scott. Well, let me just make that, just use that as a
statement and not a question.
Mr. Comey. Okay.
Mr. Scott. Medicaid and Medicare fraud, what is the FBI
doing to reduce Medicaid and Medicare fraud?
Mr. Comey. Unfortunately, it is a big part of our work
across the country, especially in pockets where we have a
significant amount of Medicaid fraud, Medicare fraud. I was
just in Tampa visiting my troops. They do a lot of that work
there. So it is a major focus of our criminal investigative
work around the country.
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
And finally, there are challenges in dealing with--you
don't like the term ``lone wolf,'' but how do you prevent
crimes from happening before they happen if there is only one
person involved?
Mr. Comey. Very difficult. And there again the very bright
people in my behavioral analysis unit are trying to push out to
local police departments markers, because as we look back at
the history of these cases, you can almost always find
something that somebody saw. Either they saw in person, or they
saw on the Internet, in social media some marker that this
person was radicalizing. So we try to alert our partners so
they can focus on that, and we try and maintain a robust
presence in the online world where some of these people will go
to try and get the training that they are looking for to do
these terrible things.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank the gentleman.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Iowa Mr. King for 5
minutes.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Director Comey, I thank you for your testimony. I would
recommend that your staff clip that 5 or 6 minutes of your
opening statement out and put that up on the Internet and
perhaps use it as a training for other members that might come
before the Judiciary Committee. That was an excellent opening
statement.
Mr. Comey. Well, thank you, sir.
Mr. King. And I recall your testimony----
Mr. Comey. I married a woman from Iowa. That made all the
difference.
Mr. King. It made a difference to me as well then.
I recall your testimony from back in 2005, and it is
received in a positive fashion, too, and I would just reiterate
some of this that I have lifted out, and it is June 8, 2005.
You say you want to catch a terrorist with his hands on the
check instead of his hands on the bomb, you want to be as many
steps ahead of the devastating event as possible through
preventative and disruptive measures, using investigative tools
to learn as much as we can as quickly as we can, and then
incapacitating the target at the right moment, and then these
salient words: Tools such as enhanced information-sharing
mechanisms and surveillance, pen registers, requests for the
production of business records, and delayed-notification search
warrants allow us to do just that.
I take it that you stand on that statement today from what
I have heard----
Mr. Comey. Yes, sir.
Mr. King [continuing]. And from the actions that you have
followed through on in that period of time. I am thinking about
the USA FREEDOM Act, and I would ask you, could you describe
whether you believe that it makes us safer, and, if so, how?
Mr. Comey. Well, as a country, in a way--well, let me stay
with your question. It doesn't make us safer, but I don't
believe it makes us any less safe, and there are corresponding
benefits to it, offering some assurance to people who have
legitimate questions about their privacy, so I think it leaves
us no less safe than we were.
Mr. King. And do you have more confidence in the private
sector holding metadata as opposed to the government?
Mr. Comey. I don't have more confidence in them if they are
holding it in bulk, but the phone companies are pretty good at
holding their records because they want to hit us all for
bills, so they are pretty good at keeping that record, so I
have confidence they will keep those in the way they always
have.
Mr. King. What would be the most dated metadata that you
know of that was used to help resolve a crime or prevent one?
Mr. Comey. That is a good question. I don't know in
particular. Under the original 215 program, data was kept for 5
years, and so the experts who know more than I said it was
useful to have that. The critical period was within 18 months.
Mr. King. So we can't quite pinpoint whether that
additional 3\1/2\ years was valuable or not?
Mr. Comey. I can't, sitting here.
Mr. King. The 18-month period of time, let me go back to
this, would you see merit to being able to negotiate with the
private sector to go into that data beyond 18 months? Can you
foresee that?
Mr. Comey. It could happen. There could be cases where it
is useful, where you discovered something that is older and you
need to go check it.
Mr. King. But the FREEDOM Act, USA FREEDOM Act, forecloses
that opportunity?
Mr. Comey. Right. For the purposes of that particular
metadata program, yes, it does.
Mr. King. And so it is possible that there is data beyond
the 18 months that could be critical to an investigation, and
it would be about things that were considered by the people you
referred to as experts who asked for 5 years of data?
Mr. Comey. It is possible, yeah.
Mr. King. Which most everything is.
The southern border, persons of interest from nations of
interest. What can you tell us about how that situation might
have changed over the last 4 or 5 years? Are we getting more or
less, and from what countries should we be most concerned
about?
Mr. Comey. I don't know enough 9 months in to give you an
assessment of the numbers. It is a big focus of ours, but I
would have to get back to you on the particulars of it.
Mr. King. Would you have a sense that those numbers are
increasing or decreasing?
Mr. Comey. I have a sense that it is increasing. It is a
particular worry for me with respect to Syria because I can no-
fly a bad guy to try and keep him from going to Syria, but he
may look to cross into Mexico to get out and then come back the
same way across the land border. That is just one of the ways
in which I worry about it.
Mr. King. And do you have a number on what percentage of
illegal drugs that are consumed in America come from or through
Mexico?
Mr. Comey. I don't. It is very high, north of 80 percent I
would estimate sitting here.
Mr. King. And when the DEA says 80 to 90 percent, that
would seem consistent with your response?
Mr. Comey. Sounds about right.
Mr. King. And do you have any data that you could share
with us that might indicate the violence in, let's say, south
of the United States, from there on down into Central America,
the violence rates within those societies and how that might
affect our society as we see the masses of people coming in
here?
Mr. Comey. I don't, other than I have a sense even after 9
months that it is a significant issue, especially in some of
the countries in Central America.
Mr. King. And Americans will become victims.
I thank you for your testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my
time.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair thanks the gentleman.
Recognize the gentlewoman from California Ms. Lofgren for 5
minutes.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Director Comey. I am heartened by your statement, and I
appreciate your service to our country and your commitment to
the rule of law. It is great to hear you.
I think, you know, we are in an interesting time where
obviously we want to pursue people who would do us harm, people
who would violate the law. At the same time in a digital age,
our expectations of privacy are shifting, and getting it right
in terms of legislation is not an easy task. So I have some
questions for you about databases.
It is my understanding, but this is a question, not a
statement, that the FBI's Next Generation Identification
database is going to include pictures for facial recognition;
is that correct?
Mr. Comey. Yes, mug shots. We are trying, piloting the use
of mug shots along with our fingerprint database to see if we
can find bad guys by matching pictures with mug shots.
Ms. Lofgren. Now, I further understand, but, again, this is
a question not a statement, that in addition to mug shots,
there would be civilian pictures as well in this database; is
that correct?
Mr. Comey. That is not my understanding. As I understand
it, what we are using is mug shots, arrest photos, another word
for mug shots.
Ms. Lofgren. So there would not be pictures included from
State DMVs in the database?
Mr. Comey. I don't think so. The NextGen identification, as
I understand it, is about mug shots. I think there is some
circumstances in which when States send us records, they will
send us pictures of people who are getting special driving
licenses to transport children or explosive materials or
something, but as I understand it, those are not part of the
searchable Next Generation Identification database, and if I am
wrong about that, someone will whisper to me, or I will fix it
later.
Ms. Lofgren. If that is not correct, please do let me know.
Mr. Comey. Okay.
Ms. Lofgren. And do we have an idea of what kind of false
positive we would have in terms of matches using this photo-
recognition technology software?
Mr. Comey. We don't yet. That is why we are piloting it, to
see how good is it and is it useful to law enforcement across
the country, but I don't know the answer to that.
Ms. Lofgren. Now, it has been reported, and again I don't
know if this is accurate, that the database when fully--I mean,
obviously there is a pilot, but there is a plan if it works to
fully expand it--that there would be approximately 52 million
faces by the year 2015 in the database. Do you know whether
that figure is accurate?
Mr. Comey. I don't.
Ms. Lofgren. Could you check and find out?
Mr. Comey. Sure.
Ms. Lofgren. Because what has been reported, and again this
is contrary to what your reporting was, that there would be
several million pictures that would not be mug shots, that
would be coming from civilian sources, which is something that
I am greatly interested in.
Mr. Comey. And I saw some of the same media, and that is
what led me to ask my folks, so what is the deal with this? And
the explanation to me was that the pilot is mug shots because
those are repeatable, that we can count on the quality of them,
and they are tied to criminal conduct clearly. And so there was
not a plan, and there isn't at present, where we are going to
add other non-mug shot photos.
Ms. Lofgren. Okay.
Mr. Comey. Again, if I have got that wrong, I will fix it
with you.
Ms. Lofgren. I appreciate that.
It is my understanding that the contractor who is building
this Next Generation Identification database is a company
called MorphoTrust, also built the State Department facial
recognition database which contains 244 million faces. Will
your Next Generation Identification system be capable of
importing the State Department records or searching the State
Department records; do you know?
Mr. Comey. I don't know. I have not heard of that as either
a current capability or an intended capability. I will get back
to you on that.
Ms. Lofgren. I would appreciate that very much. The reason
why yesterday we had a vote on the appropriations bill that
passed to prohibit the collection of and retention of drivers'
license plates on cars, and it is not--that is in plain sight,
but I think one of the issues that we need to get right, and we
would welcome your input on this, is that things that are in
plain sight that we know are not private take on a different
quality when they become part of a massive database that can be
searched. And so if you walk outside your front door, you are
in plain sight, you know your neighbor can see you, but you
don't really expect that that would be photographed and be part
of a massive database so that the government could know where
you are at any given time. And so the pictures, the identifiers
on vehicles, useful to law enforcement, but where do we draw
that line of privacy for the American people?
So I would be very interested in your thoughts on that.
Obviously we are out of time now, but if you could provide your
best judgment on where that line should be drawn, I would be
greatly appreciative.
Mr. Comey. Thank you.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Texas Mr. Gohmert for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gohmert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Director, for being here. We appreciate you taking on the job
you have taken on, which includes such unpleasant tasks as
having to come talk to us. But thank you for being here.
You had mentioned in your opening statement about Syria
being a breeding ground for terrorism. I had met with some
Libyans who had originally been rebels in the so-called Arab
Spring and they were telling me that there are terrorist camps
springing up all over eastern Libya, that that is an area that
came through to me in Egypt. Are you aware of any terrorist
training camps springing up in Libya these days?
Mr. Comey. It is not something I know a lot about, and it
is probably not something I want to talk about in open session,
even the little I do know.
Mr. Gohmert. Well, since you had mentioned Syria, I wanted
to see if you knew anything about Libya, because these are
people that they said before the radicals took so much in
charge of their rebel efforts, that they were quite active.
But, anyway, we know that on the border, particularly
Texas, with Mexico, there is this mass influx of particularly
children. And I keep hearing from people that have been there,
that have been working with them, articles that are being
published, the information is pretty basic, even though a
spokesman for the Administration says they don't know why there
is this huge influx, they keep saying that they are hearing
that amnesty is coming, they will not be sent home, and
apparently, as I am hearing from border patrolmen, they are not
being allowed to do their job and secure our border.
I got a report from some Border Patrol that from October
2008 to April of 2014, Texas identified a total of 177,588
unique criminal alien defendants booked into Texas county
jails, and that those 177,000 have been identified through the
Secure Communities Initiative with 611,234 individual criminal
charges. And so I am wondering, even though apparently, what I
am hearing from the Border Patrol, they are not being allowed
to do their job and to protect America's borders, is the FBI
stepping in and picking up the slack and at least of the tens
of thousands that are pouring in being able to check to see
their criminal backgrounds?
Mr. Comey. It is something I have read about in the media.
Given our responsibilities and authorities, it is not something
that I have focused on or that I believe we are focused on
significantly. But lots of other agencies that I think are, but
not the FBI.
Mr. Gohmert. Well, Department of Homeland Security is
supposed to be, but they are not letting the border patrolmen
do their job. They are being told with the massive numbers,
don't turn them away, let them come in. This is what I am
hearing from Border Patrol, let them come in, and then, of
course, it is in the media, they are being shipped around the
country to be cared for.
But I would suggest, Director, since you are in charge of
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and we know that this
massive hundreds of thousands of crimes have been committed by
people coming in illegally just in Texas, that it is something
the FBI has got to pick up the slack on. If the border is not
going to be protected by Homeland Security, then it is going to
fall directly on DOJ, and I know it may not be wanted, but it
is happening.
Let me ask you, shifting gears, your predecessor was not
aware that the mosque in Cambridge, Boston area, the Islamic
Society of Boston founded, signed the papers, by a guy named
Al-Almoudi, that the FBI did a great job proving up a case
where he is now doing 23 years for supporting terrorism.
Looking back on the Tsarnaev heads-up that Russia gave us, what
questions do you think would be appropriate to ask in the
mosque that FBI just never did? They went there, according to
Director Mueller, in their outreach program, but not to
question about whether or not Tsarnaev had been radicalized.
What questions do you think would be appropriate in a mosque,
if you think they are appropriate, when you get notice of
somebody being radicalized?
Mr. Comey. Well, the particular is one I don't know well
enough to answer, but in general we want to be able to ask
whatever questions are logical leads for us to follow no matter
where it is. Whether it is a mosque or a church or a grocery
store, if we have a reason to ask a question, we want to be
able to ask it.
Mr. Gohmert. Well, that mosque has ties to radicalism, and
it hasn't been followed up, I can tell you, by the FBI, and I
would urge you to do that. It is a radical hotbed.
And I appreciate your time here today, Director. Yield
back.
Mr. Goodlatte. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia Mr. Johnson
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Sir, thank you for your service to the Nation. We are
living during a time where we encounter threats to our national
security on a daily basis, and we are fortunate to have
agencies like the FBI protecting us. Recently, however, the
question has come up as to whether the relationship between the
government's interest in prosecuting the unauthorized
disclosure of classified information and the public's interest
in a free press, and that has been knocked off balance. Has the
FBI ever used journalists as a cover for their agents, and, if
so, can we get a commitment that that won't happen again?
Mr. Comey. Yeah, not to my knowledge.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you. Journalists continue to find
themselves in the crosshairs of programs ostensibly designed to
catch terrorists. What measures has the FBI taken to ensure
that journalists are not targeted and that they remain free to
do their work without fear?
Mr. Comey. Well, we have an extensive set of rules that
govern how we interact with the media during any investigation,
whether it is national security or criminal, that are contained
within our investigation and operations guide, and then we have
a set above that of Department of Justice regulations that the
Attorney General has promulgated, and so we follow that very,
very carefully.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you.
Since the Attorney General released revised guidelines
regarding the gathering of information from journalists, has
the FBI been involved in surveillance of journalists, and does
it coordinate with NSA on these issues?
Mr. Comey. To my knowledge, no, we have not been involved
in surveillance of journalists, and the same with respect to
the NSA.
Mr. Johnson. All righty.
On another note, in many reverse stings, FBI agents, using
confidential informants, decide on the amount of drugs,
including ones that trigger harsh mandatory minimum penalties.
Research demonstrates that these triggering amounts impact
minorities disproportionately. Given the possibility of that
bias, unconscious or not, whether or not it plays a role in the
decisions of what to charge a target with, isn't it prudent to
instruct your agents in terms of this issue how to avoid the
consequences of any bias in that regard?
Mr. Comey. Well, bias is something I think we have to worry
about in all human affairs, and especially when you have the
law enforcement power that we exercise, so it is something we
talk a lot about inside the FBI to make sure that our culture
is one rooted to every possible extent throughout the
organization in being blind to color, to orientation, to
origin, and following the facts.
The charging decisions in drug cases that you mentioned
aren't made by the FBI, those are made by Federal prosecutors,
so that is not something the FBI agent is going to drive.
Mr. Johnson. Well, yeah, recognizing the power of
prosecutors to decide on the charges to indict upon, if there
is still a lot of discretion with agents when it comes down to
persons whom they are investigating and decide to arrest, what
to charge them with, and those decisions need to be subject to
some care and some oversight by superiors in that department.
Mr. Comey. I agree very much.
Mr. Johnson. All right. Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair thanks the gentleman.
Recognize the gentleman from Ohio----
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Goodlatte [continuing]. Mr. Jordan for 5 minutes.
Mr. Jordan. Director, thank you for being here. Thank you
for what you do. Your opening statement is one of the best I
have heard. Appreciate what you and your agents do every single
day.
Do you believe, Director, that the Attorney General should
name a special prosecutor in the investigation of the targeting
of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service?
Mr. Comey. I don't think that is something for the FBI
Director to comment on.
Mr. Jordan. Every single Republican in the House said we
should; 26 Democrats in the House said we should, including Ms.
DelBene and Mr. Garcia. Bipartisan, overwhelming bipartisan
majority said that we, in fact, should do that based on what we
have heard and learned about this investigation over the last
year, but you don't believe we should do that?
Mr. Comey. No, I said I don't believe it is something the
FBI Director should be opining on.
Mr. Jordan. Okay. Let me go back to where Mr. Issa was just
a few minutes ago. We learned from Freedom of Information
requests from Judicial Watch that a Department of Justice
attorney Richard Pilger met with Lois Lerner back in October of
2010. We interviewed Mr. Pilger, and we discovered in that
interview that disks of information were given to the FBI from
the Internal Revenue Service. In fact, we got a letter on June
2nd, just a little over a week ago, from the Department of
Justice telling us that there were 21 disks that were provided
by the Internal Revenue Service to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation in the fall of 2010 containing 1.2 million pages
of information. Two days later we got another letter where
basically the same Mr. Kadzik of the Department of Justice
said, Oops, we forgot to tell you something, 21 disks, 1.2
million pages of information, and some of that information
included confidential information protected by Internal Revenue
Code section 6103.
So we got a database that you have had for 4 years, which--
not according to us, but according to Department of Justice
lawyer Mr. Kadzik and the IRS--contained information that is
confidential, against the law, and you have had this database,
an illegal database, for 4 years. Did you use that database
during any of that 4-year time span?
Mr. Comey. No.
Mr. Jordan. Not at all?
Mr. Comey. My understanding is the only thing that was
done, the analysts looked at the table of contents to see what
was on it.
Mr. Jordan. And you are sure about that?
Mr. Comey. As sure as I can be. I read the same thing you
read, and so I have asked----
Mr. Jordan. Remember, we got the email from Mr. Pilger to
Lois Lerner that says this: The FBI thanks Lois. The FBI says
raw format is best because they can put it into their systems
like Excel. This is direct communication from Mr. Pilger and
Lois Lerner, the lady who is at the center of this entire
scandal. So you got it in the format you wanted it in, and you
are saying you didn't use it, and you have had this for 4 years
and didn't use it?
Mr. Comey. That is my understanding, yep.
Mr. Jordan. We know things like Catherine Engelbrecht in
Texas, who had six visits from the FBI--two in person, four
over the phone--while her application for (c)(4) status was
pending, and you are telling us none of this information was
used to target people like Catherine Engelbrecht?
Mr. Comey. That is what I am telling you.
Mr. Jordan. And when did you turn this information back?
Mr. Comey. Sometime within the last few days, I think.
Mr. Jordan. When did you first learn you had this database
that was never used, that was an illegal database of 1.2
million pages 21 disks? When did you learn that you had this
information?
Mr. Comey. Me personally?
Mr. Jordan. Yes.
Mr. Comey. What is today, Wednesday? I think Monday.
Mr. Jordan. So the FBI has had this. The new Director
didn't know you had this for the last 4 years? You just learned
a week ago?
Mr. Comey. No, I don't think anything was being done with
it. It was sitting with this intelligence analyst in the
Criminal Division.
Mr. Jordan. Do you know if there was a court order used to
obtain this database which contained illegal, confidential
taxpayer information? The only way you can get personal and
confidential taxpayer information is a court order. Do you know
if a court order was used to get this?
Mr. Comey. I don't think one was. I think the disks were
sent by the IRS.
Mr. Jordan. The Justice Department would just say, IRS,
send us the information, and the IRS just sent over illegal,
confidential taxpayer information, no court order involved at
all?
Mr. Comey. My understanding is there was no court order.
They sent us the disks, which was represented to us to be
publicly available information.
Mr. Jordan. What kind of conclusion do you think the
American people are going to reach when they understand now
that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had 1.2 million pages
of information which contained confidential taxpayer
information, you have had it for 4 years, and they are supposed
to believe this was never used in any way to target people when
we have examples like Catherine Engelbrecht and True the Vote
who got 6 visits from the FBI while her application was pending
at the Internal Revenue Service, and they are supposed to
believe, you know what, we just had it, we didn't know about
it, and we gave it back; sorry, no harm no foul? That is what
they are supposed to believe?
Mr. Comey. Yes, they should believe that because I am
saying it, and because of what they know about the FBI.
Mr. Jordan. So let me go back to the first question, the
very first question. Twenty-six Democrats, every single
Republican in the House said, we need a special prosecutor. As
the Chairman said in his opening statement, your organization
on January 13--at least according to the Wall Street Journal--
your organization, the FBI, leaked to the Wall Street Journal
saying no one was going to be prosecuted. I am just saying what
the Wall Street Journal----
Mr. Comey. I don't know why they said an FBI person leaked
that.
Mr. Jordan. That is what the Wall Street Journal said.
No one is going to be prosecuted; the President says there
is no corruption, not even a smidgen; the person heading the
investigation Ms. Bosserman, the attorney heading the
investigation, is a maxed-out contributor to the President's
campaign; and now we know 1.2 million pages of confidential
taxpayer information has been in the hands of the FBI, given to
them by Lois Lerner in the format the FBI wanted, and you are
saying the FBI, the head of the FBI, the Director of the FBI
shouldn't comment on whether we need a special prosecutor or
not?
Mr. Comey. Yeah, I think that is right. I don't think the
FBI Director should be offering a view on that. What I care
about is do my folks think there is any----
Mr. Jordan. I think the American people would like a
special prosecutor, Director.
Mr. Comey. I am sorry?
Mr. Jordan. I think the American people would like a
special prosecutor as evidenced by the fact that we had 26
Democrats join every single Republican say that very thing.
Mr. Comey. Well it may be so. I am not arguing one way or
the other. I am just telling you I don't think given my role it
is something I should be offering a view on.
Mr. Goodlatte. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Puerto Rico Mr. Pierluisi for 5 minutes.
Mr. Pierluisi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Director, welcome to the Committee. I commend you on your
demeanor and responsiveness at this hearing up to now.
As I did when the DHS Secretary appeared before the
Committee last month, I would like to outline a narrative and
then ask you to comment.
Mr. Comey. Okay.
Mr. Pierluisi. Puerto Rico is home to fewer than 4 million
American citizens. In 2009, there were about 900 homicides on
the island. In 2010, there were nearly 1,000 homicides, and in
2011, there were over 1,100 homicides, an average of more than
3 a day, the most violent year in the territory's history. In
each year our homicide rate was twice as high as any State.
Most murders in Puerto Rico are linked to the drug trade.
Puerto Rico is within the U.S. customs zone and is used by
organizations transporting narcotics from South America to the
U.S. mainland.
Given the crisis, I examined the level of resources that
DOJ and DHS were dedicating to combat drug-related violence in
Puerto Rico and came away discouraged because the Federal law
enforcement footprint on the island was inadequate. I have done
everything possible to impress upon officials the need for an
improved Federal response to drug-related violence in Puerto
Rico both for its own sake and for the sake of communities in
the U.S. mainland and on the eastern border and so on.
Starting in 2012, my message finally began to register,
particularly at DHS. The agency created a task force charged
with taking steps to reduce Puerto Rico's murder rate. The
Coast Guard has substantially increased the amount of time it
ships and patrol aircraft spends conducting counterdrug
operations off Puerto Rico. Last year I surged 30 agents to the
island where they made hundreds of arrests and seized vast
quantities of drugs and firearms, and CBP, once it assumed
control of the counterdrug TARS program earlier this year,
repaired the radar in southern Puerto Rico that had been
rendered inoperable since 2011.
I know DOJ agencies have also enhanced their efforts, as
the U.S. attorney for Puerto Rico confirmed this very week when
I met with her. I have been particularly impressed with Illegal
Firearms and Violent Crime Reduction Initiative, a joint DOJ-
DHS effort now in place throughout much of Puerto Rico. I have
also been impressed by other initiatives in which the FBI plays
an important role, like the anticarjacking initiative and the
creation of seven strike forces, consisting mostly of local
vetted officers that target drug traffickers and violent
criminals in high-crime areas on the island, including public
housing.
As a result of these enhanced Federal efforts, the number
of homicides this year is on pace to be 40 percent lower than
in 2011. Nevertheless, Puerto Rico's murder rate is still the
highest in the country, averaging two homicides a day.
Now is the time for the Federal Government to build upon
its recent success to redouble its efforts and not to relent.
By the way, Congress has been clear on this point. The 2015 DOJ
funding bill directs the Attorney General to assess the
adequacy of current law enforcement personnel and resources
assigned to Puerto Rico, and to identify resources necessary to
close enforcement gaps in future subjects at budget
submissions. I am told, though, by reputable sources that while
the FBI does great work in Puerto Rico, there are not nearly
enough agents, given the severity of the public safety crisis
we are facing on the island.
Would you comment on my narrative and tell me if the FBI
will either increase or at least surge on a temporary basis the
number of agents it has in Puerto Rico?
Mr. Comey. Well, thank you, sir. My first comment is your
passion is justified.
Mr. Pierluisi. Thanks.
Mr. Comey. There is a significant problem with violent
crime, drug-related violent crime, in Puerto Rico. It was
something I didn't know much about before taking this job, and
I am worried a lot of folks don't understand the nature of the
problem.
I think it was my second day as FBI Director I went down to
our command center to watch as my hostage rescue team and a
bunch of my SWAT teams participated in a huge takedown in one
of the housing projects. As you know, the problem is centered
in the housing projects, so it is something we spend a lot of
time on.
Not knowing that you and I were going to meet today, last
week I sent a note to the whole office in San Juan thanking
them for all the work they have been doing on public
corruption, violent crime of all sorts. So it is something that
we are very focused on.
Whether we are going to put more agents there or not, I
can't tell you sitting right here, but as you know about us,
every 6 months we do a review of our threats and where our
resources are against those threats. That process is going on
right now. I don't know the answer sitting here.
Mr. Pierluisi. Thank you.
Mr. Comey. But it is something we are very focused on. We
have got some things going on right now that I can't talk about
that you will read about soon, more effort by us to try and
lock up some of these bad guys.
Mr. Pierluisi. I look forward to it.
Mr. Goodlatte. Time of the gentleman has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas Mr. Poe for 5
minutes.
Mr. Poe. Thank the Chairman.
The tenor of my questions has to do with about Federal
Government agencies' intimidation against citizens, whether it
is legal or illegal, and whether agencies working together to
intimidate citizens. And specifically I want to talk about one
of my constituents, Catherine Engelbrecht.
She and her husband run a manufacturing small business.
They started King Street Patriots and True the Vote, two
different organizations. They filed in July of 2010 with the
IRS for nonprofit status. Since they did that, and I know you
don't have this information in front of you, but let me read to
you what happened to them after that was filed.
The FBI domestic terrorism unit first inquired about the
organization. What in the world is the FBI terrorism unit? It
sounds terrible. What is that?
Mr. Comey. Well, it is not terrible. It is men and women--
--
Mr. Poe. I mean, it sounds very serious. It is not a
terrible organization.
Mr. Comey. Well, it is our domestic terrorism operations
unit, which we have had for a long time, to try and investigate
people who want to engage in acts of violence here in the
United States not connected to an Al Qaeda-type group.
Mr. Poe. And I appreciate what you said. I don't mean it is
a terrible unit. I just mean it sounds serious. They certainly
were concerned about it.
That was in 2010. 2011, they are inquired by the FBI
domestic terrorism unit again. 2011 January, personal audit of
Engelbrecht Enterprises by the IRS. March, the IRS questions
the nonprofit application. May, the FBI general inquiry, King
Street Patriots. October, True the Vote, IRS questions
nonprofit application. 2011, in June, December, but also in
November, FBI inquired three more times with King Street
Patriots. February of 2012, the IRS questions them again. 2012,
in February, King Street Patriots, the IRS questions their
application and asks them questions about where they have been,
what meetings does Catherine Engelbrecht speak at, who has she
spoken to, who is she speaking to in the future, and copies of
the speeches are requested and who attended all of these
meetings. Once again they are investigated, like I said, in
February, King Street Patriots, same situation. And then the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms investigates. They
audit Catherine Engelbrecht's business.
We filed a letter of inquiry, Freedom of Information Act,
with the Justice Department asking if they were under criminal
investigation. Quick response: No, they are not under criminal
investigation.
July, OSHA audits them. December, Texas Commission on
Environmental Quality audits them. IRS in December questions
them again. In March of 2013, IRS asked them more questions.
And then finally the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
questioned them, a second unscheduled audit.
Now, based on that information, is it illegal for different
government agencies to work together to intimidate some
individual or business?
Mr. Comey. Without legitimate investigative purpose?
Mr. Poe. Sure. And as the Justice Department said in their
letter to me that they are not under investigation.
Mr. Comey. My problem is I don't know enough about the
situation to comment. I don't know whether those dots are all
connected. I hope their encounters with my folks were pleasant
and professional. I expect that they were, but I don't know
enough to say.
Mr. Poe. I understand. But does that raise any suspicion to
you? It is interesting all these different government agencies
over a certain period of time, they all just suddenly or start
investigating an organization that Justice Department said is
not under criminal investigation. Doesn't this look a little
suspicious?
Mr. Comey. I can imagine them wondering about it, but based
on what you have said, I don't know enough about their
business----
Mr. Poe. I understand.
Mr. Comey. I just can't say.
Mr. Poe. Okay.
Mr. Comey. Yeah.
Mr. Poe. Just a general hypothetical. It just seems to me
that it looks like there might be a coordinated effort here by
different departments. If there is a coordinated effort,
hypothetical, take this case away, hypothetical, is that some
violation of Federal law for different agencies to work to
intimidate, let us say?
Mr. Comey. It was, as you said, without proper
investigative purpose, it is terrible, and I suspect it is
unlawful in some respect, but, again----
Mr. Poe. You don't know?
Mr. Comey. I don't know, but I know the FBI, and----
Mr. Poe. Yeah, I guess.
Mr. Comey. I can't comment beyond that. I can't imagine
that we would be part of some effort to try and intimidate
someone without lawful investigative purpose. I just can't see
it.
Mr. Poe. I thank the Chairman. I have other questions I
would like to submit for the record.
Mr. Goodlatte. The gentleman will be permitted to do so
under the rules of the Committee.
Mr. Poe. Thank you.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Tennessee Mr. Cohen for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all, it is very good to see you here. I was
pleased with your appointment. The last time I saw you, I
think, was when you were here concerning hearings about the
Justice Department and some unusual circumstances in which you
were heroic in your duties to the Constitution, and to your job
and to justice. So it is really commendable that you were
appointed and you are serving.
We have had the last few days in Congress moments of
silence. A moment of silence has almost become a regular ritual
for killings. We had one yesterday for the school shooting in
Oregon, we lost a child. We had one the day before for the
killing of law enforcement folks in Nevada. The student who was
killed at Seattle Pacific about 3 or 4 or 5 days earlier didn't
get a moment of silence because we weren't here, but they are
constantly happening, and I think since Newtown there have
been, I think, 74 shootings in schools.
What can Congress do to provide the FBI and law enforcement
in general tools to reduce gun violence and these type tragic
deaths? Do you have any recommendations for us of something
that we can get accomplished that law enforcement would find an
important element?
Mr. Comey. Yeah, with respect to the FBI, we are trying to
do a lot of different things, and again, as I began, I thanked
you for the budget support we have been given. We are applying
those resources to train, to try and push out clues and
indicators about what might indicate someone about to go and do
one of these things. There is a lot of different things we are
doing.
I mentioned earlier one of the challenges I am told that we
face in our national instant background check system is getting
good mental health records from the States, and the States are
working to try and get their acts together to give us. But I
can't sit here and suggest a particular legislative fix at this
point, but I agree with you, I call whenever a law enforcement
officer is killed in the line of duty in the United States. I
have been on this job 9 months; I make way too many calls. And
we lost two great people with families to a brutal execution in
Las Vegas, so I share your pain in that.
Mr. Cohen. Are there certain guns you think should not be
allowed, or cartridges, chambers, whatever, cartridges that may
be unnecessary for people to enjoy sport and shooting that
might be used more for mass killings?
Mr. Comey. You know, that is something I am not expert
enough to answer and really isn't something for the FBI to
answer.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir.
Public corruption, you have said, is your top criminal
priority. In 2010, the Supreme Court found honest services
statute unconstitutional, and the efforts to resurrect that
have stalled. I am concerned about public trust and public
authority in government. Do you have any thoughts about how we
can or should pass a new honest services statute and/or other--
would that be an important tool to you in fighting public
corruption?
Mr. Comey. It has long been an important tool, so that
would be good to see. We are still making these cases,
unfortunately and fortunately, I guess. The reason it is such a
high priority for us is it is work we are uniquely good at and
unfortunately we are uniquely needed to do everywhere in the
country.
Mr. Cohen. You haven't studied the statute per se and the
Supreme Court decision?
Mr. Comey. I remember the decision. I used to use the
statute when I was a line prosecutor in Virginia and New York,
but beyond that I don't know enough to comment on particular
legislation.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you.
You are building a new building or having a new building
built.
Mr. Comey. I hope so.
Mr. Cohen. Right. When do you expect that to be finished?
Mr. Comey. It is a GSA project. They have told me 5 to 7
years. I look at the clock and think I have 9 years and 3
months to go. I hope it will be, because we so badly need it,
but it is sometime in my tenure.
Mr. Cohen. So it is some time away, and it is during your
tenure. I would hope that you would consider recommending or
acting in such a way to name that building for somebody that
reflects the modern FBI, and somebody who the American public
would have faith and reinstill faith in the FBI because they
are a person who would be part of the new FBI and the new way
we do things and in your tradition of respecting the
Constitution and the rule of law.
Mr. Comey. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Cohen. You are welcome.
Thank you. And I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
South Carolina Mr. Gowdy for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Director, you have excellent agents in South Carolina, and
I know it would mean the world to them if you ever had a chance
to tell them that one of their fellow citizens in South
Carolina appreciates their work. There is a gentleman by the
name of Jim Lanneman in particular that really is a credit to
the Bureau.
Mr. Comey. Okay. Well, I haven't been there yet. I am
visiting all 56. By the end of this year. I will be in
Columbia, and I will find that guy and embarrass him.
Mr. Gowdy. Well, I probably just did embarrass him. Let me
know when you are visiting. I will make sure Senator Graham is
not in the State so you don't have to worry about serving any
warrants while you are there.
Jimmy Jordan asked you about the IRS targeting scandal. I
am not going to ask you about it because you can't comment, and
it is not fair for me to ask you a series of questions where
you have to say you can't comment. I just want to make an
observation to maybe try to help you understand where Jimmy is
coming from.
You used to be in a courtroom where you had challenges for
cause, and you had peremptory challenges. And I have never
argued that because a prosecutor was politically engaged and
active or maxed out to a particular political party, I have
never argued that that was a challenge for cause. Of course
that person can still be fair. But out of the universe of all
potential Federal prosecutors, why anyone would pick someone in
a sensitive investigation that involves political targeting
with that background just mystifies me.
And, again, I am not going to ask you to comment, I am just
going to ask you to think about the fact that we do have a
special prosecutor statute where there is a conflict, or where
it furthers the interest of justice, and when you have a chief
executive who put, in my judgment, the Department of Justice
and the Bureau in a very awkward position by saying there is
not a smidgen of corruption when the investigation is not over,
and when you have a prosecutor that has deep political ties, I
would just ask you in the quietness of your own soul to reflect
upon whether or not we can ever have a fact pattern that
warrants a special prosecutor if it is not this.
What, in your judgment, are the limits of prosecutorial
discretion?
Mr. Comey. Well, certainly the law is a clear limit. You
operate that discretion within the law, and then obviously you
have a sense of integrity and fair dealing that should be at
the core of all Federal prosecutors, of our culture. I am no
longer a Federal prosecutor, but you know the Federal
prosecutor culture. That is an important limit on discretion.
That is probably the short answer.
Mr. Gowdy. Do you think that there is a difference between
the exercise of prosecutorial discretion and the wholesale
failure to enforce a certain category of law?
Mr. Comey. Potentially. Yeah, I don't know what you are
referring to, but sure.
Mr. Gowdy. Well, when your agents are asked by a member of
the grand jury about drug amounts, you and I both know they are
going to tell the truth; and when they are asked by a judge
about drug amounts, they are going to tell the truth; and when
they are asked by a probation officer about drug amounts, they
are going to tell the truth. And we do have mandatory minimums.
Some people like them, some people don't, but it is still the
law. And I am troubled when any Attorney General, regardless of
political affiliation, directs a group of prosecutors to no
longer include in the charging document the drug amount.
Surely there is a limit on what prosecutorial discretion
is. And I will ask it differently. There are certain laws that
forbid conduct, a possession of child pornography; there are
certain laws that require conduct, like registering for
Selective Service; and there are certain laws that require you
to make reports to Congress. Surely prosecutorial discretion is
not available in all of those categories of law.
Mr. Comey. Well, as you know, in the Federal system there
is tremendous prosecutorial discretion. It is one of the
reasons that the sentencing guidelines and some of the
mandatory minimums may have been imposed. But I guess I don't
know with each of those categories you gave. I would imagine
there is a certain amount of discretion, a prosecutor has
discretion, as to whether to even commence a prosecution.
Mr. Gowdy. I agree with that, but if Congress said,
Director, we want you to file a report by July the 1st of each
year about how many 924(e)s you prosecuted, I don't know that
you can get away with saying, in the exercise of my discretion,
I am not going to comply with that law. And politics is one
thing, the law is something else, and when we use the word
``prosecutorial discretion'' to excuse the failure to enforce a
category of law, I think we are doing a real disservice to the
concept of prosecutorial discretion, and I think we are doing a
disservice to our Republic.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair thanks the gentleman, recognizes
the gentlewoman from California Ms. Chu for 5 minutes.
Ms. Chu. Thank you.
Director Comey, I am concerned about the individuals who
have been placed on watch lists, such as the no-fly list, and
that are placed there based on mistakes and incorrect
information. The consequences for wrongful inclusion on the no-
fly list can be devastating. People are stigmatized as
terrorists, barred from commercial flight altogether, detained,
interrogated, and subject to long-term investigation. These
people may lose the ability to obtain employment that requires
travel or because the government shares information about the
individual's inclusion on the watch list with a prospective
employer.
There have been numerous government audits which suggest
that watch list entries have a high error rate, like the DOJ's
inspector general reports. The most recent 2014 IG report
suggests that there are still concerns regarding the agency's
processes and procedures. The report found redundant and
inefficient processes that clogged the system, and says that
the FBI averages 44 business days to add suspected terror
suspects referred by other agencies, but it takes twice as
long, 78 days on the average, to remove cleared suspects,
former suspects.
Director Comey, I believe that defending our Nation against
terrorism is important, but I also think that we have to
carefully balance that with our civil rights and liberties
under the law. What specific steps is the FBI doing to ensure
that innocent Americans are not incorrectly placed on the no-
fly list, and what reforms are being made to ensure that those
who are erroneously placed on the list are quickly removed?
Mr. Comey. Thank you. First of all, I agree with you, the
premise, it is important to protect our liberties. I know we
have an extensive process that we go through before someone can
get on the list to make sure we have got it right, and as you
said, I am aware there is a process to remove someone if there
is a mistake or the matter has been closed in some fashion. I
don't know enough to respond to your concern about the time lag
or what improvements are needed.
Ms. Chu. Could you respond to us in writing?
Mr. Comey. Sure.
Ms. Chu. Well, let me then ask about hate crime tracking.
After the 9/11 attacks, hate crime and violence committed
against individuals in the Sikh, Hindu, and Arab American
communities have increased. In recent years there have been
violent anti-Sikh attacks across the country, including the
horrific massacre at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin,
that took the lives of six worshippers.
In March 2013, there were 100 Members of Congress,
including myself, that sent a letter to the FBI and Attorney
General Holder urging the FBI to include the religious groups
and Arab Americans in hate crime tracking; for instance,
tracking them as Sikh, or anti-Sikh, or anti-Hindu or anti-Arab
crimes rather than an all-encompassing category. We welcomed
the FBI's announcement last year that it will be expanding the
hate crime incident report used by law enforcement to include
crimes motivated by bias against Sikhs, Hindus, and Arab
Americans as well as other religious groups.
So, Director Comey, could you please provide us with an
update on the status of the revisions to the hate crime
tracking program and when you expect the updates to be
completed?
Mr. Comey. I will have to give you the particulars in
writing, but I am aware of the issue, and I know that we have
made progress in updating them to include the categories you
talked about, and, most importantly, to train our State and
local counterparts about this, because they are the ones who
supply the data to us about what these categories mean, why
they matter. I know there has been a tremendous amount of
training going on, but I will have to follow up to give you the
particulars on it.
Ms. Chu. Okay. We would look forward to having that in
writing, because we understand the decision has been made, but
it has not yet been implemented.
Then could I ask about this Task Force on Domestic
Terrorism? Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he would
revive it to stop violent attacks inside the U.S. motivated by
a variety of causes like antigovernment animus to racial
prejudice. I understand the FBI, DOJ, and U.S. Attorney's
office, Attorney General's office, will make up the task
force's Domestic Violence Terrorism Executive Committee. Can
you detail how the task force will expand on the FBI's efforts
to detect and prevent hate-based violence?
Mr. Comey. I don't think it is going to affect me at all
because this is something we have been doing all along and care
an awful lot about. What I think this is is an effort that came
from the U.S. attorney community and is a product of their
desire to see coordination within their community and with non-
DOJ entities to make sure everyone is meeting on a regular
basis to coordinate. Now, the fact is we do that already. I
think they are just looking to be more involved or to improve
it. But I asked my domestic terrorism guys the next morning
when I heard about this, and I don't think it is going to
change our life at all because we have been doing this, and
this is work we care a lot about.
Ms. Chu. Could you respond to that in writing as well,
though?
Mr. Comey. Sure.
Ms. Chu. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Goodlatte. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Idaho Mr. Labrador
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Labrador. Thank you. Good morning. I actually really
enjoyed your presentation and your answers. I like your
forthrightness, and I have enjoyed listening to you.
Mr. Comey. Sure. I will have to get over this.
Mr. Labrador. You will eventually. You said you still have
9 years to go, so.
As Deputy Attorney General under the Bush administration,
you refused to reauthorize the warrantless wiretapping program,
which I actually commend you. I think that was a courageous
move on your part. You stated that you were asked to be part of
something that is fundamentally wrong. My question is was it
fundamentally wrong because it wasn't authorized by Congress,
or was it fundamentally wrong because it was not
constitutional?
Mr. Comey. That situation involved programs--and I am still
going to be careful about it because I don't know what part of
it has been declassified--where I concluded there was not an
adequate legal basis under the Constitution or under a statute
or some other legal basis for continuing it.
Mr. Labrador. So in that occasion, did you have a problem
with the Constitution--even if it would have been authorized by
Congress. Because I understand the Bush administration later
sought authority from Congress, and I think mostly in part
because of your statements. If it would have been authorized by
Congress, do you still think that it would have been
constitutional, or was it just the legal authority that you
were looking for?
Mr. Comey. I am searching back in my memory now. I am not
sure I can remember well enough to answer because there were
different angles, different varieties to the issue.
Obviously, I am someone, as you all are, who devoted my
life to the rule of law, and there had to be an adequate legal
basis for something either in the Constitution or in a statute
by Congress. If Congress had acted, and the congressional
action had not been challenged on a constitutional basis or
overturned, I think that would have been an adequate footing.
Mr. Labrador. Okay. Now, severe abuses of this program have
actually come to light, including NSA analysts listening to
overseas calls of U.S. Soldiers to their girlfriends and wives
in the States. But when the wiretapping was challenged, the
Solicitor General promised the Supreme Court that if any of the
info was ever used in a court, the defendant would be notified.
But last year a Reuters report found that DOJ officials are
using NSA-gathered intelligence as leads for criminal cases
without informing the defendant of the origin of the case and
misleading Federal prosecutors about its origins. Do you
believe that such use of NSA intercepts are lawful?
Mr. Comey. That is a complicated question, one I am trying
to parse to make sure I don't talk about anything that is
classified in an open setting. I can speak for the FBI. I think
the way in which we interact with information collected by the
NSA or by the FBI is entirely lawful. And I also understand--I
don't know the history you are talking about well enough to
comment--but that it is now the practice where someone is
notified in the circumstances you talked about.
Mr. Labrador. Well, the reports are that they were supposed
to be notified, and in some cases they have not been notified.
And would you investigate any of these allegations if it is
true that some of these people were not notified?
Mr. Comey. I don't know whether it would be FBI
jurisdiction to investigate it. I suspect there is an inspector
general who would have jurisdiction to investigate it. That is
probably the most I can say based on what I know from your
question.
Mr. Labrador. Okay. Maybe we should have a conversation
about this. I think that this is an area of concern that some
of us have about the NSA. I think there have been some abuses.
And obviously, we are all concerned about Fourth Amendment
protections, and from your testimony, it sounds like you are as
well. So hopefully we can work together on this.
And I actually have no more questions, so I yield back the
balance of my time.
Mr. DeSantis. [Presiding.] Gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana Mr.
Richmond for 5 minutes.
Mr. Richmond. Thank you, Director.
Let me just say thank you for being here, and that I have
the utmost confidence in my SAC in New Orleans, Louisiana,
which is Michael Anderson, and my new U.S. attorney.
Part of what you brought out in talking about public
corruption, and in your statement you are talking about the
people's confidence in the system, more or less. Something that
erodes all of our confidence in Louisiana in the system is the
fact that every couple of months now we are getting someone
released from prison who was actually innocent because of
prosecutorial misconduct. And because public confidence is so
important, at what point does intentional acts of prosecutorial
misconduct rise to the level of public corruption?
Mr. Comey. That is a great question. I am not sure I would
call it public corruption, but willful misconduct in
prosecuting someone who you knew to be innocent or violation of
the rules of law can be criminal conduct. The label, frankly,
doesn't matter; it could be criminal conduct.
Mr. Richmond. Is it something that you would commit to
looking into? And I think it is very important for inner-city
communities to have that confidence to step up in terms of
being witnesses, to place their confidence in the system to
know that the system is on the up and up. And I think that
every day we have someone released because of an intentional
Brady violation or something of that nature, I think it is
something that I would like you all to look into. So I would
hope that you are open to doing that.
The other thing I would like to bring up is that I think
there was an article maybe a year ago that talked about whether
the FBI tracks criminal conduct by their informants. So do you
all do that?
Mr. Comey. Yes.
Mr. Richmond. Do you tolerate certain acts as acceptable as
long as it is leading to catching a bigger fish?
And I will let you know where I am going with this. Almost
like Fast and Furious that my colleagues still bring up, which
I was concerned about also, but if you look at the drug trade
in inner-city communities, even though a drug dealer becomes an
informant and helps us lead to bigger fish, he is still out
there on the street, he is still creating addicts, and he is
still creating crack babies, although my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle don't take it that far, they stop at
guns. I am also worried about that in the drug trade, and I
think that I see it in my community. And I just wanted to see
if you all have approached it like that or have conversations
about continuing to let informants roam streets and do what
they do.
Mr. Comey. Yes. It is something we worry about a great deal
in two ways. Obviously, unfortunately, the way the world works
is the best view of criminal activity is also going to come
from a criminal. So a lot of the people who are necessarily our
informants have done bad things before they became informants.
So we study that very carefully to figure out who should be an
informant.
And then obviously we are very worried about our informants
committing criminal acts after they are working with us, and
that is subject to a regime called ``otherwise criminal
activity,'' where if an informant is going to continue to be
involved in criminal activity, there are a whole bunch of
complicated layers of review to make sure that we approve that
or disapprove it, because we don't want people working for the
FBI committing crimes unless it is absolutely necessary, and it
is carefully monitored as part of trying to take down a bigger
fish.
Mr. Richmond. And I would hope you keep in mind the things
I said earlier.
The other part of my question about public corruption is
when the investigation starts to affect political elections,
and I will just give you an example I raised with the Attorney
General, which is the D.C. mayoral race, where the
investigation came out that the mayoral candidate was under
investigation, which the Attorney General defended and said it
just happened to be that time, and it came out.
But then I can point to the North Carolina mayor, who was
indicted, who Federal agents gave money to years ago, and we
allowed him to stay in office, run for mayor, get elected, then
indict him. And now it will cost the taxpayers a special
election, and who knows what he has done in the meantime.
I am worried about individual SACs or U.S. Attorneys being
able to play politics with it when, if we know someone is a bad
actor, we act on it immediately, or, if we are not going to
affect elections, let us not affect elections. So that is a big
concern of mine.
But let me just thank you for the job you do and the fact
that your agents lay their lives on the line every day.
But I am very concerned about our inner-city communities
and the fact that every day we are dealing with weapons of mass
destruction in terms of assault weapons and so forth. And as we
get the small drug dealers, let us get the big ones, too. Thank
you for what you do.
And I yield back.
Mr. Comey. Thank you.
Mr. DeSantis. Gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina
Mr. Holding for 5 minutes.
Mr. Holding. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Director Comey, I think your previous experience as a
career assistant United States attorney is going to be some of
the best experience that you have for making a successful
directorship of the FBI. I recall when you were the DAG, I was
an assistant United States attorney, and it was your previous
experience as a line assistant that made your tenure as DAG so
successful. You were certainly widely regarded as a
prosecutor's prosecutor, and you brought to bear your
experience of how things actually work in the field to make the
Department of Justice work better for the U.S. attorney's
offices. And I think you will do the same for the FBI.
So in your experience as an assistant, and certainly in
your supervisory experience as a U.S. attorney and as the
Deputy, and from what you are hearing from your troops in the
FBI, how important is cooperation in a Federal investigation of
any variety?
Mr. Comey. Critical. It is the coin of the realm in the
Federal system, as you know from your own experience.
Mr. Holding. And how important do you think minimum
mandatory sentences are in getting that cooperation from
defendants?
Mr. Comey. Significant. Been a very useful tool in
eliciting that cooperation in my career.
Mr. Holding. So when a defendant is looking at a minimum
mandatory of 5 years or 15 years or 30 years, and that
defendant's only opportunity to get out from under that minimum
mandatory sentence is to provide substantial cooperation to the
government, you think that is an inducing factor for that
defendant to cooperate?
Mr. Comey. Yes, I do. I have seen it hundreds of times.
Mr. Holding. So if assistant U.S. attorneys are deprived of
that tool in their toolbox of getting cooperation, do you think
that will have an impact on Federal law enforcement, on your
ability as a Federal law enforcement officer to get your cases
successfully completed?
Mr. Comey. Sure. If they lose the tool, yeah, sure.
Mr. Holding. Again, talking about your tenure as a line
assistant, I seem to recall that you were involved with Project
Triggerlock in Richmond, which was going after convicted felons
who are caught with a firearm or a single piece of ammunition
and using the Federal firearms laws to take these criminals,
violent felons, off the street in a wholesale fashion.
Mr. Comey. Yes.
Mr. Holding. Triggerlock was successful.
Mr. Comey. We called it in Richmond Project Exile. But it
was the same concept is trying to send a very powerful message
to criminals: You better not carry a gun.
Mr. Holding. And when you were the Deputy, you oversaw the
implementation of Project Safe Neighborhoods throughout the
U.S. attorney community, which was the same thing of going
after violent felons; just catch them with a firearm or a
single piece of ammunition, you can put them away for a minimum
of 5 years, up to life in prison, correct?
Mr. Comey. Yeah. We did that across the country.
Mr. Holding. And is it your recollection that the decline
in crime rates across the country where that program was
implemented was--the decline was related to the implementation
of Project Safe Neighborhoods?
Mr. Comey. I have always thought so. Academics tell me it
is a complicated question, but I have always thought that when
you send a message to drug dealers and felons as strong as we
sent, it changes behavior, which drives crime down.
Mr. Holding. Also in your experience as an assistant, and
as a U.S. attorney, and as the Deputy, and certainly in your
role now, is it your experience that Federal prosecutors
prosecute nonviolent drug offenders on a regular basis?
Mr. Comey. Not my experience. In fact, I don't know that I
have ever in the offices I worked done that.
Mr. Holding. If you were told that in Federal prisons, more
than 50 percent of the occupants of Federal prisons are
nonviolent drug offenders, would that surprise you?
Mr. Comey. More than 50 percent?
Mr. Holding. Yes.
Mr. Comey. I don't know the stats, but that would surprise
me.
Mr. Holding. That statistic has been alleged several times
by Members of this Committee, and I find it absolutely
unbelievable. I don't think it is accurate, because in my
experience of being in a U.S. attorney's office for 10 years as
an assistant, a first assistant, and a United States attorney,
out of the thousands of cases, I never recall us going after a
nonviolent drug offender.
Mr. Comey. Sometimes we would, to flip them into a gang, if
I was working a gang case. But, yes.
Mr. Holding. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield
back.
Mr. DeSantis. Gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from Texas for 5
minutes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I am over here.
Mr. Comey. Sorry.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me thank the Chairman and let me thank
the Ranking Member as well for the yielding of the time and
just to put on the record for my colleagues that we were in a
Homeland Security markup, and, therefore, I did not hear the--
have the wisdom of the questions asked and maybe answered by my
colleagues.
I am going to start out first to congratulate you for your
service. We on the Judiciary Committee have interacted with the
FBI over the years and many Directors, and we know how
important the responsibilities that you have are.
We also know how important it is to have an agency with
such high esteem to reflect the diversity of America. Can you
give me the outreach and the diversity numbers that you have
with respect to women, African Americans, Hispanics, and
Asians?
Mr. Comey. With respect to within our population?
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes.
Mr. Comey. Sitting here, I can't give you the exact
figures, but it is not good enough, and the representation is
below that in the workforce for similar cohorts. But I can get
you the numbers.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Would you get me the numbers?
What internal effort now is being suggested or implemented
under your leadership to answer your own question that it is
not good enough?
Mr. Comey. Well, first and foremost, the Director, me,
talking about it a lot. I sent a message to all of 36,000 of my
employees explaining why I care about diversity and why it
matters. I believe it is a matter of effectiveness and doing
the right thing. And so I sent them all that email to try and
drive my view into this great organization.
And then on a more tactical level, where the rubber hits
the road, is in our recruitment efforts at colleges of
different sorts, job fairs of different sorts. I mean, it is a
complicated answer, but there is a lot going on. We have
progress to make.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I would like to get those numbers, and I
would like to work with the FBI on its outreach approach.
Second small point that I want to make is that you have
SACs in our local areas. Let me thank you for the service of
the SAC. One of the most important aspects of their work is
letting the local community know what they do. So I encourage
you to encourage your SACs, when a Member of Congress calls for
them to join them at a town hall meeting or a university, which
is nonpartisan, let them realize that part of their work as a
SAC is to be engaged with the community. That is where they
are, and it is very important. I hope that you will view that
as an important role, not taking away from investigations, but
an important role.
Mr. Comey. I agree very much with that. I speak to all my
SACs once a week, and one of the things I have told them
repeatedly is, you are my representative in each of your
communities, so get out there, know people, speak to people.
The more you know the FBI, I think the more you like. We
just have to get out there and talk to folks.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I think you are very right.
Now I want to pose a question. I am from Texas, and we have
been dealing with a case that seems to have gotten caught in
quagmire. Alfred Wright, a 28-year-old African American male
from Jasper, Texas--and you may be familiar with Jasper, Texas,
which was the site of the James Byrd killing--whose body was
found 18 days after it was first reported in a location that
had allegedly been searched more than 17 days before by local
law enforcement. He was an honors graduate, and well liked and
beloved, from a family that was well respected in the area.
I recognize that this may be an ongoing investigation, but
what I am going to request is a general briefing on the general
parameters, because here is what I am hearing, Mr. Director,
that this has gotten caught up in a scale of injustice that is
almost unbelievable, which includes local officials. People are
suspicious and suspect of even Federal law enforcement as to
whether or not there is a too close and chummy a relationship.
And I do not make these allegations; I make this in the form of
an inquiry. So it is Alfred Wright, and I do want to get a
briefing if you have any assessment of it at this time.
The other is the Robbie Tolan case, which I believe this is
a case of a young man shot on his own front lawn, with his
parents saying that this is his house and his car, by a police
officer in Bellaire, Texas. Unfortunately, this officer, under
the State system, was acquitted. We are asking for a re-
investigation, which would include the FBI. I will pass on to
you this letter, and I am also going to ask unanimous consent
to put this letter into the record that I have sent, and also
the letter again regarding Mr. Alfred Wright.
Mr. DeSantis. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me finish my questions on two points.
What kind of work the FBI is doing on police, local police
abuse cases, and do you take those seriously?
And, secondarily, with respect to your priorities in
investigation, I think Mr. Holder made one point, I want to
make another. But in your investigation in drug cases, do you
prioritize with cartels and major actors versus the local guy
on the street with a crack-possession situation that may wind
up in the Federal system, but is not going to harm anybody but
himself?
If you could answer those two questions, I would appreciate
it.
Mr. DeSantis. Time of the gentlelady has expired, but if
you want to take those, we will certainly let you do that.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the gentleman for his courtesy.
Mr. Comey. With respect to the drug cases, you are exactly
right. Our focus is on the international groups or the gangs
that are dominating a particular community. As I said to the
earlier question, if we are working a lower-level offender, it
is in order to make the bigger case against the international
group or the street gang.
And with respect to the civil rights cases, police
brutality cases, police corruption cases are an important part
of our civil rights investigative priority. As you may have
seen, we recently indicted a bunch of people from the sheriff's
office in Los Angeles. It is work we do around the country. So
it remains, unfortunately, but it is a necessary, important
part of what we do.
Mr. DeSantis. Thank you, Director Comey.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman----
Mr. DeSantis. Gentlewoman's time has expired.
Ms. Jackson Lee. My I ask to put just a correct name. I
said the name incorrectly, and I just wanted to make sure that
I put the gentleman's name correctly in the record for this
letter. So I just ask the gentleman to yield.
The gentleman's name that I was speaking of, so the FBI
Director would have it, would be Robbie Tolan, I am so sorry,
T-o-l-a-n.
Mr. DeSantis. Without objection, name should be entered
into the record.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. DeSantis. Chair now recognizes himself for a period of
5 minutes.
Thank you, Director, for your testimony.
News reports suggest that the FBI is, in fact, probing the
scandal at the Veterans Affairs Administration. Can you confirm
those reports?
Mr. Comey. Yes. Our Phoenix office has opened a criminal
investigation.
Mr. DeSantis. I would just encourage you to probe that.
What I don't want to see happen, if there is some type of fraud
committed and these veterans died, I don't want to see these
government officials end up with a pension and the bonuses. I
want to see them be held accountable. So please do that.
In terms of the Benghazi and the perpetrators, would you
say at this point that finding the perpetrators and bringing
them to justice is purely a matter for law enforcement vice
military at this point?
Mr. Comey. I would say, as in any case, especially
terrorism cases, all instruments of U.S. power are brought to
bear.
Mr. DeSantis. But is it your understanding? Because it is
my understanding that the Administration's position is that
they do not have the legal authority to lethally engage Ansar
al-Sharia or whoever you want to say committed those attacks.
Is that your understanding?
Mr. Comey. It is not something that I am in a position to
comment on just because it is not my remit. But also I don't
want to talk about how I am approaching that investigation
because I don't want to give anything away to the bad guys.
Mr. DeSantis. No, I understand, but I think that--we run
into a problem when they are making those claims that they
don't have the authority to respond, but what happened leading
up to that was the President authorized force to overthrow
Gaddafi in Libya. There was no congressional authorization for
that for sure.
And so they said they had the authority to do that
unilaterally, but then somehow you would not have the authority
to seek a reprisal attack against somebody that massacred four
Americans, including our Ambassador. So that legal view, that
may not be something you can comment on, that does not square
with me. I mean, it seems to me that the Libya intervention was
the weaker case versus responding to the Benghazi terrorists,
especially given the 2001 AUMF.
There are reports that the FBI had noticed that we had been
starting to see Islamic militants, I guess, who are U.S.
Citizens leaving Minnesota to go wage jihad in Syria. And then
there was also the report a couple weeks ago about a U.S.
citizen suicide bomber who was from Fort Pierce, Florida, that
actually committed a suicide attack in Syria.
So you spoke about the problems that Syria could eventually
present for us, but if some of these folks are motivated to go
over there and wage jihad, how would you characterize the
threat of jihad, those types of people attacking Americans here
in the homeland?
Mr. Comey. It is a significant concern of ours, which is
why we try to identify. And if people are going to go over to
fight jihad with one of these groups, Al Qaeda-affiliated
groups, we want to find them and lock them up before they go,
because once they go and get the worst kind of training and
develop the worst kind of relationships, then they are a
particularly difficult challenge because they are Americans,
right, and they can flow back and do very bad things here.
So this Syria problem is something not just the FBI is
focused on, all parts of the U.S. Government are focused on
this.
Mr. DeSantis. What tools do you use if somebody has not
actually committed an act of violence, they are radicalized?
How would you look to kind of stop them? Would you look at
financial transactions, material support statute? Because
obviously we want to get them before they strike. But I just
want to know, do we have----
Mr. Comey. All of the above. All of the above. Typically we
charge them with either attempting to provide material support
to a designated terrorist organization or conspiring to supply
material support, or there are a number of other statutes, but
that is the core of it. Frankly, we will use anything we can to
stop these people from going over there and becoming further
radicalized.
Mr. DeSantis. My final question is there is an indictment,
now a guilty plea, of conservative filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza,
has written very critical books about President Obama; of
course, a movie. And it was for campaign finance that he had
reimbursed some donors who had given money, about $20,000, New
York Senate race, to a candidate who lost by 35 points. And I
think the conduct, he committed it, so I am not suggesting
that. But the decision to eventually charge him criminally, the
FBI had put out a statement from, I think, one of the local
offices in New York that they came across D'Souza's impropriety
through a routine review of the FEC reports.
But I think you know that if you just review an FEC report,
all you would see was the name and the amount of donation.
There would be no indication that you would have reimbursed
anybody. And so if it was just a routine review, it doesn't
seem to me that that would be sufficient to trigger that type
of an inquiry.
And so can you explain to me how a routine review of an FEC
filing would have led to a straw donor reimbursement
indictment?
Mr. Comey. I guess I don't want to talk about the
particular case, but I could imagine circumstance in which if
you saw a bunch of checks to a candidate all coming from a
similar business or seemed connected to a particular person,
that might lead to inquiry being made which would expose that
kind of straw donation scheme. But I don't know the case well
enough, and I couldn't comment on it anyway.
Mr. DeSantis. I mean, I think that has not been my
experience. I mean, there will be families who will donate,
Republicans and Democrats, and if that would be enough to
trigger it, I think you would see more. You don't see this many
cases being brought criminally. And I know that is not your
decision, but I would like to maybe explore that with you some
more some other time in private.
My time has expired, and the Chair now recognizes the
gentlelady from Washington for 5 minutes.
Ms. DelBene. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you, Director, for all of your time today and for
your service.
I, as well as my colleagues, have been deeply disturbed by
the recent revelations of egregious misconduct at VA medical
facilities. And I know that the Department of Justice continues
to consult with the Veteran Affairs Office of the Inspector
General on their review. At this point they are looking at 69
VA facilities.
I wanted to understand do you think you are going to look
more broadly, given that there are other facilities engaged
beyond the Phoenix issues? And is there a greater role you
expect the FBI to play or other resources you think that are
important as we continue this investigation?
Mr. Comey. Well, thank you for the question. It is not
something that I can answer at this point, and I don't think I
would answer anyway about a criminal investigation.
We will follow it wherever the facts take us. The Phoenix
office is where we have opened it because that was the primary
locus of the original allegations. We are working it with the
VA IG, and we will follow it wherever the facts take us.
Ms. DelBene. Thank you. This is a very, very important
issue, so thank you for your work there.
Last month the White House released the findings of its Big
Data and Privacy Working Group review, and one of the
recommendations made by the report was that Congress should
amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, what we call
ECPA, to ensure that the level of protection for online digital
content is consistent with that provided to physical materials.
But ECPA was written in a time before email and cloud computing
have changed the way we live and work, and our current law
affords more protections for a letter in a filing cabinet than
email on a server.
So I was pleased that the Administration has recognized
that this law has been very outdated, and I wanted to ask
whether you agree that we need to update ECPA and that policy.
Mr. Comey. My sense is that the Administration has
communicated that, as you said.
There is an outdated distinction. For email, over 180 days,
I think, under the 1980 statute is treated as something that
you could in theory obtain without a search warrant. We don't
treat it that way. We go get a search warrant from a Federal
judge no matter how old it is. So a change wouldn't have any
effect on our practice, but I have heard the concern, which
makes sense to me.
Ms. DelBene. I think it is very important we actually have
a bill called the Email Privacy Act, H.R. 1852, and it would
make meaningful updates to the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act to address this issue, to require law enforcement
to obtain a warrant in order to gain access to the contents of
email or documents, pictures, and other information that have
been stored in the cloud. And this bill already has 216
cosponsors, something I think very important, to keep our laws
up to date in this area.
I also wanted to echo concerns raised by my colleagues
about the Bureau's work to deal with human trafficking. These
are horrendous crimes. In Washington State, we have seen
operations cross country through the Innocence Lost Initiative
recover juveniles and young adults being victimized by
prostitution, and that is commendable work, but we haven't made
inroads yet in how to make a dent in Internet-facilitated
trafficking of children on Web sites like Backpage and others.
The prevalence is very staggering, and human costs here are
truly unspeakable when this activity is allowed to continue.
So are there tools that the FBI can use to combat online
trafficking of children? And what are the challenges that you
face in prosecuting these cases of trafficking, and what can we
do to help that?
Mr. Comey. Well, a huge part of what we do to try and
protect and rescue kids is through investigations online. So I
have got people all over the country doing that as we speak.
One of our challenges is the increased use of encryption
and anonymizers online, especially the people who would harm
children. And so sometimes folks of goodwill say, isn't it
terrible that the government wants to be able to break
encryption or find identities on the Internet? No, it is not.
With lawful authority and the involvement of a court, I need to
be able to do that. But it is a technical challenge for us that
is increasingly difficult, so that is something that we are
working on.
The Backpage issue is a challenging one because there are
certain First Amendment issues that may be implicated by some
of these publications online, but I don't want to say more
about it at this point on that.
Ms. DelBene. Thank you. And thank you for your time.
I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chabot. [Presiding.] The gentlelady yields back.
The Chair would now recognize himself for 5 minutes to ask
questions.
As my colleagues have indicated, we all appreciate you
being here, Mr. Director. And we have something in common: We
both are graduates of the College of William and Mary.
Mr. Comey. I know.
Mr. Chabot. You graduated, I believe, in 1982?
Mr. Comey. Yes.
Mr. Chabot. I graduated in 1975. So I was thinking that
perhaps at the end of this hearing, perhaps we could get a
quick shot and sent it to our alma mater.
Mr. Comey. Be great.
Mr. Chabot. See what heck they do with it. Probably not
much.
Mr. Comey. Wonder who those old guys are.
Mr. Chabot. When I was there, we were the Indians.
Mr. Comey. Me, too.
Mr. Chabot. Became politically incorrect, and we became the
Tribe. And I think we are now the Griffins, Which, whatever the
heck----
Mr. Comey. I think we are still the Tribe, but our mascot
is the griffin.
Mr. Chabot. Which is apparently a mythological figure that
is half an eagle and half lion, I believe.
Mr. Comey. So I am told.
Mr. Chabot. So there you go.
In any event, that is beside the point. We, again, welcome
you here.
I, first of all, would like to just bring up again--I had
two hearings going on here at the same time, so I have been
going back and forth--but relative to the China hacking, and
the charges recently, and the military hackers particularly
that were indicted for computer hacking and economic espionage
and other offenses aimed at U.S. nuclear power industry and
metals and solar products industries, for example. In
particular it is my understanding that Alcoa, and U.S. Steel,
and Westinghouse, and Allegheny Technologies and others were
targeted by the military hackers.
I happen to also be the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific and was just in China
about a month ago. So we have a particular interest in this.
In light of these attacks and the persistence of the threat
of cyber espionage, if you could relate briefly what the FBI is
doing about that.
And, secondly, we are going to be introducing some
legislation in the very near future which does a number of
things which are unrelated to the FBI, but one thing which is
related to the FBI would call for the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security to expand
the warnings that they are now giving to American companies on
how they are susceptible to cyber attacks and other types of
attacks, the USB drives, travel, gifts, promises of employment,
social media, and the rest.
And we would look forward to working with you and your
people on any modifications or anything that you think could be
helpful, things we should add or leave out. We would welcome
your cooperation in that effort, and just would like to see if
you have any comments on that.
Mr. Comey. Well, thank you. I look forward to working with
you on that.
As I try to explain to folks, there are only two kinds of
big companies in the United States: those who have been hacked
by the Chinese and those who don't know they have been hacked
by the Chinese. It is an enormous problem, and they are trying
to steal everything that is not nailed down, and maybe things
that are nailed down.
So we are devoting great resources to it through our
National Cyber Investigative Task Force to try and track the
intrusions and respond to them quickly. But therein lies the
challenge: We have to get better at sharing information with
the private sector at machine speed, because these bad guys are
moving at the speed of light, and we in this country have to
get better at facilitating private entities sharing information
with us, because they will see things before we see them. And
that back-and-forth is a huge part of the answer to this
threat, but it is an enormous feature of the cyber work that
the FBI does.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you. Appreciate your response.
Now, we know that China is probably the worst actor in
this. Are there a handful of other bad actors that you would
point out that we also need to be wary of?
Mr. Comey. Oh, sure. I mean, the Internet is a very
dangerous neighborhood. There is a stack of bad actors from
state-sponsored enterprises, terrorist groups, organized
criminal groups, hacktivists. As I said at the beginning,
because it is where our lives are, that is where bad people
come. So it is a very complex challenge. There are other state
actors that are significant players in this. I am not sure in
an open hearing I want to point them out at this point, but you
can guess.
Mr. Chabot. Okay. Thank you very much.
And in the 48 seconds that I have left, I would just like
to mention, and I know this has already been brought up, but
relative to the IRS targeting certain groups because of their
political leanings, Cincinnati, which I happen to represent,
the First District of Ohio, that was the location of the IRS
facility that was perhaps most directly involved. And there was
some initial talk about, well, that is just those people out in
Cincinnati; up here we don't know what is going on. Correct me
if I am wrong, but I understand that this is still under
investigation----
Mr. Comey. Yes.
Mr. Chabot [continuing]. By the FBI, but we certainly hope
and expect the FBI to give this full consideration and that we
get to the bottom of actually what happened here and prevent
something like this from ever happening again.
Mr. Comey. Yes, sir.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. My time has
expired.
The gentleman from New York Mr. Jeffries is recognized for
5 minutes.
Mr. Jeffries. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you, Director Comey, for your testimony here
today as well as for the tremendous service that you have
provided to the American people.
We have a gun violence problem in this country that really
should shock the conscience of every single American. We have
in this country 5 percent of the world's population, but 50
percent of the world's guns. It is estimated that in America
there are more than 275 million guns in circulation, some of
which are in the hands of either criminals or the mentally ill.
We also know that since the tragedy in Newtown,
Connecticut, more than 14,000 additional Americans, some of
which live in the district that I represent, have been killed
as a result of gun violence since the tragedy in Newtown,
Connecticut, and that there have been more than 70 school
shootings since December of 2012.
Given the gun violence problem that we confront in America,
is it fair to say that we need to do everything possible to
thwart this growing issue?
Mr. Comey. Thank you. As you know, I have devoted nearly my
entire Justice Department career to dealing with efforts to try
and reduce gun-related violence, so I think it is an incredibly
important topic. So I agree, whatever we can do to keep guns
out of the hands of criminals or the mentally defective is
worth doing.
Mr. Jeffries. Now, I respect the opinion that you have
articulated earlier, which is that you don't feel it is
appropriate for you in your capacity to comment on legislative
measures that this Congress can undertake to address what I
think we all acknowledge is a significant threat to this
country and to our health and our well-being. But what can you
provide to this Committee in terms of recommendations as it
relates to what Congress can do to help the FBI
programmatically deal with the issue of gun violence in a more
robust fashion?
Mr. Comey. As I said earlier, I will have to reflect on
that with respect to the FBI. You are right, it is not a policy
question, and the legislative questions are not for the FBI
Director to opine on.
One thing I can think of is we as a country have to get
better at getting the records into our background check that
would allow gun dealers to prohibit sales to people who have
significant mental health issues, which is a challenge across
the country.
Mr. Jeffries. Now, is it fair to say that currently we are
not doing everything possible in this country to prevent those
more than 275 million guns to find themselves in the hands of
individuals who would commit acts of violence or in the hands
of mentally ill individuals who might do our children or the
people of America harm?
Mr. Comey. I think that is fair.
Mr. Jeffries. Okay. Now, you are familiar, I assume, with
our Economic Espionage Act of 1996?
And it is my understanding that this statute provides a
criminal cause of action for knowing theft of trade secrets
either for the economic benefit of someone other than the owner
or by a foreign entity; is that right?
Mr. Comey. That is my understanding.
Mr. Jeffries. And the Economic Espionage Act was the
vehicle used to recently charge agents of the Chinese
Government; is that right?
Mr. Comey. Yes. In actually a bunch of different contexts,
but in the particular case I am talking about, the cyber case,
that was part of it.
Mr. Jeffries. Okay. Now, the FBI's Counterintelligence
Division is the entity that has got jurisdiction to prosecute
trade secret theft cases; is that correct?
Mr. Comey. I think we do trade secret work both in our
Counterintelligence Division and in our Criminal Division.
Mr. Jeffries. Okay. And it is my understanding that the
number of trade secret theft cases has increased, I think, by
greater than 60 percent between 2009 and 2013. And so I commend
the FBI in terms of its increased activity.
But there was also apparently a recent report of the Office
of the National Counterintelligence Executive that estimated
that annual losses to the U.S. economy from trade secret theft
approximate either tens or hundreds of billions per year. Is
that a statistic you are familiar with?
Mr. Comey. I don't know the number, but that number is--a
huge number is appropriate.
Mr. Jeffries. Now, given the massive nature of the economic
security problem posed by trade secret theft, obviously it is
important for us to make sure that your agency has all of the
resources necessary to combat this issue. But it is also my
understanding that there is no companion civil statute that
provides U.S. companies with the opportunity on a civil track
to deal with trade secret theft.
Do you think that it would be reasonable for us in Congress
to consider as an additional weapon in the toolbox to combat
trade secret theft empowering United States companies to have a
civil cause of action to help police this issue?
Mr. Chabot. The gentleman's time has expired, but you can
respond to the question.
Mr. Comey. I don't know enough to respond to the
particular, but in general the fuller the toolbox in dealing
with a threat of that size, the better.
Mr. Jeffries. Thank you.
Mr. Chabot. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from Rhode Island Mr. Cicilline is recognized
to 5 minutes, and I believe this will be our final questioner
this morning.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Director Comey, for being here and for your
testimony.
I really want to build on my friend from New York's
questions about gun violence, because I do think this is one of
the most serious issues facing our country, and, regrettably,
we seem to be working in a Congress that is committed to doing
nothing about it and despite, I think, the efforts of a lot of
us to enact sensible gun safety legislation.
But one of the things I know you know a lot about,
Director, because of your leadership of Richmond's Project
Exile, is the success of programs. I mean, that really became a
national model of investing in these efforts to reduce gun
violence. And that, of course, developed Project Safe
Neighborhoods, which was established under the Bush
administration really to build upon your work and has been
really proven to be a very effective program. Unfortunately, we
didn't provide funding for it in the bill we just passed. I
offered an amendment to restore level funding of about $8.5
million, which just barely failed.
But I would like your thoughts about whether or not our
budget should include investments for programs like Project
Safe Neighborhoods. Do you see that as an effective tool in
helping to reduce gang and gun violence?
Mr. Comey. I am not in a position to comment on a
particular budget matter, but, in general, it is hugely
important. I find in my experience that criminals can change
behavior with respect to guns.
The problem we encountered in Richmond was the criminal
gave no more thought to the gun than what pants or shoes he was
going to wear that evening, and our goal was to make that an
object of focus and stretch the link between a criminal and a
gun, because most homicides are happenstance homicides. It is
not a planned assassination, it is a disrespect or a
disagreement that would be a fist fight becomes a shooting
because the gun is in the waistband. So I think it is very
important to send those messages to change behavior.
Mr. Cicilline. Director, you have a responsibility,
obviously, as the Director of the FBI; you have jurisdiction
over a wide range of efforts to combat gun violence. In
particular, the FBI oversees the National Instant Criminal
Background Check System. And while you have said you don't
think it is appropriate to opine about policy, of course, you
have a responsibility to enact policy or support policy which
enhances public safety and the national security of the United
States.
And I assume you would agree that a background check system
for every purchase of a firearm that captured or prevented
criminals from buying guns would enhance public safety and
enhance national security of the United States.
Mr. Comey. I know from my whole life experience any time
you are able to keep a gun out of the hands of a criminal, you
have done a good thing.
Mr. Cicilline. And so it would make sense if, in fact, we
required criminal background checks for every purchase of a
firearm to achieve that objective.
Mr. Comey. That is where you cross me into. What I love
about my job is I am not a policymaker. The Attorney General
decides the policies of the Department of Justice. So I don't
want to express an opinion.
Mr. Cicilline. No, I am asking you as a chief law
enforcement official. That would enhance public safety, to
ensure that criminals don't have the ability to buy a gun.
Mr. Comey. Right. If criminals don't get guns, however you
have done it, you have enhanced public safety.
Mr. Cicilline. And similarly, you would also, I expect,
concede that preventing those who are seriously mentally ill,
such that having a firearm would pose a danger to themselves or
others ought to be prevented from buying a firearm.
Mr. Comey. Yes. That would be a good thing.
Mr. Cicilline. And the best way to do that is to be sure
that we have a robust system where accurate information is
reported into the system to prevent seriously mentally ill
individuals from purchasing a firearm.
Mr. Comey. I think that is right.
Mr. Cicilline. Recognizing, of course, the vast majority of
people who suffer from mental illness are not violent and never
have a firearm.
But talking about that category of individuals I just
described, what is the FBI doing in conjunction with State
efforts to ensure that States are, in fact, sharing that
information, that it is accurately put into the national
database, and that we are actually preventing people with
serious mental illness from purchasing firearms?
Mr. Comey. I think the answer is communicating constantly
and talking constantly to our State partners to tell them what
records we can accept, what form they should be in, what would
be useful to us.
But the job really lies with the States in getting their
acts together to figure out what records they can supply and
then supplying them. But I know there is a vibrant dialogue
between my folks at CJIS, which runs the background check
system, and the States to try and facilitate the flow of those
records.
Mr. Cicilline. Well, I look forward to continuing to work
with you on this issue. I think this is a very critical issue
for our country when you see some of the most recent examples
of terrible gun violence that has been caused by someone with a
very serious mental illness who should not have access to a
firearm. And we have got to work together in a bipartisan way
to make sure that that happens. And I thank you again for your
testimony.
And I yield back.
Mr. Chabot. The gentleman yields back.
And we have no more questioners, so that concludes today's
hearing. We thank the Director for joining us.
And, without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative
days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses
or additional materials for the record.
And if there is no further business to come before the
Committee, we are adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 12:49 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
[all]