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Our live stream of the annual worldwide threats hearing here. washingtonpost.com/video/national… Top U.S. intelligence officials all testifying. Expect emphasis on threats from China and Russia. Will thread notable parts.
DNI Dan Coats says that the intel community believes foreign actors will try to use the 2020 elections "to advance their interests." Warning of a repeat of 2016, 2018 interventions.
Russia will use cyber techniques to try to influence Ukraine's upcoming elections as well, Coats says.
North Korea "will seek to retain its WMD capability and is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons production capabilities." Sobering assessment ahead of Trump/Kim summit.
Iran is not currently undertaking the activities necessary to obtain a nuclear device, but officials have threatened to push the boundaries of the multi-country nuclear deal (which U.S. abandoned), Coats says.
Interesting contrast: Intelligence officials emphasizing the non-monetary rewards of working for the U.S. government. Lawmakers bemoaning U.S. government employees and contractors not getting paid in a shut down.
Worth noting, FBI Director Chris Wray, also testifying today, made rare public remarks saying how angry he was about the shutdown. His employees took a hit.
Sen. Risch (who now chairs the Foreign Relations Committee) calls Russia's attempts to influence world affairs "ham handed." I think none of the officials testifying before him now would describe Russia's interventions that way. They've been remarkably effective.
It's stunning and rather dispiriting how officials are STILL talking about "waking up" to China's theft of intellectual property in the West. I've been writing that story for more than a decade, quoting the same types of officials.
Would be more accurate perhaps to hear the DNI/FBI say that the United States has been remarkably ineffective at preventing billions of dollars in intellectual property theft.
Sen. Heinrich, asking why the White House gave security clearances to people with problems in their background investigations, doesn't ask CIA Director Haspel about it. Missed opportunity.
Also, it's kind of nuts that we're 45 minutes into a global threats hearing, and nobody is directing the big questions to the director of the CIA.
Sen. Wyden asked about my colleague @gregpmiller's report that Trump took steps to conceal his communications with Vladimir Putin. Coats called it a "sensitive issue" that he would discuss in the closed, classified session. washingtonpost.com/world/national…
Safe and rather canned as many of these answers are, it's remarkable the variety of threats this hearing has covered. If the US is ever hit w/ another cyber attack, or North Korea launches a nuke, or Iran starts to build a bomb again, no one will be able to say we weren't warned.
Relevant to previous tweet, we're moving now into a pretty nuanced discussion of deep fakes. Something that the panel members have clearly been thinking about.
Public portion of the hearing has wrapped. After lunch, members and officials will meet behind closed doors. I'll share my report of the full hearing shortly.
