Thread by @jseldin

Happening now: Senate Intelligence Committee considers nomination of Amb. William Burns to lead @CIA

"You deserve a well-earned retirement, but your country still needs you" Chairman @MarkWarner tells Burns as hearing gets underway...

"After four years during which the expertise & judgment of America’s civil servants were at times belittled & discounted, the next director must lead & inspire patriotic professionals w/humility and compassion...& dispassionately judge the actions of adversaries" per @MarkWarner

"I'd like to hear how you plan to reinforce the credo, no matter the political pressure, no matter what, that @CIA’s officers will always do the right thing and speak truth to power" per @MarkWarner

In opening remarks, Senate Intelligence Vice Chair @marcorubio tells Burns he wants commitment @CIA will work w/lawmakers on traumatic brain injuries, "we are applying the necessary resources to determine who is behind these things"

See: npr.org/2020/10/27/927…

"The gvt of the #UnitedStates needs to solve this problem, needs to take care of our people, but also need to forcibly respond to whoever is responsible for hurting Americans who are serving our country overseas" per @marcorubio

.@marcorubio asks how Amb. Burns will lead @CIA into the future, noting technological advances "calls into question whether the traditional constructs of espionage need to be be refashioned & redesigned"

Former Sec of State James Baker & former SecDef, @CIA Dir Leon Panetta both speaking on behalf of Amb Burns, giving him strong endorsements

"As @CIA director he will certainly speak truth to power" Panetta says of Amb Burns

"That's what Bill does, and he's done that his entire career"

"Good intelligence delivered w/honesty & integrity is America's 1st line of defense" Amb Burns tells the Senate Intelligence Committee

"Politics must stop where intelligence work begins"

Burns says that when he spoke w/@POTUS, "he said he wants the agency to give it to him straight, and I pledged to do just that, and to defend those who do the same"

"Today's landscape is increasingly complicated & competitive" per @CIA nominee Burns "It's a world where familiar threats persist, from terrorism & nuclear proliferation to an aggressive #Russia, a provocative #NorthKorea & a hostile #Iran"

"But it's also a world of new challenges in which climate change & global health insecurity are taking a heavy toll on the America ppl, in which cyber threats pose an ever greater risk to our society..." per Burns

"...& in which an adversarial, predatory #Chinese leadership poses our biggest geopolitical test" per @CIA nominee Burns

"If confirmed, 4 crucial & interrelated priorities will shape my approach to leading @CIA" per Burns "#China, technology, people & partnerships"

Burns cites @POTUS, says "competing #China will be key to our national security in the decades ahead"

"That will require a long-term, clear-eyed, bipartisan strategy underpinned by domestic renewal & solid intelligence"

"There will be areas where it will be in our mutual self interest to work w/#China, from climate change to nonproliferation" per Burns

"I am very mindful the Xi Jinping's #China is not without problems or frailties of its own" per Burns "There are however a growing number of areas in which Xi's China is a formidable authoritarian adversary..."

"...methodically strengthening its capabilities to steal intellectual property, repress its own people, bully its neighbors, expand its global reach & build influence in American society" per Burns

"For @CIA, that will mean intensified focus & urgency" per Burns

"@CIA will need to relentlessly sharpen its capabilities, to understand how rivals use cyber & other technological tools, anticipate, detect & deter their use, & keep an edge in developing them ourselves" per Burns

Burns says @CIA's greatest asset is its people

"That means working even harder to enhance diversity, equity & inclusion from entry level to senior ranks" he says "It means working even harder to retain & develop the agency's extraordinary talent"

Burns pledges to work with @ODNIgov Dir Avril Haines & with US allies & partners

In apparent response to @marcorubio, Burns says focus on workforce "means ensuring the health & well-being of colleagues & their families through this awful pandemic & wherever and whenever they face harm or risk"

Morale at @CIA?

"The most important single thing is to reinforce...that their work matters more than ever" per Burns "That their expertise, their courage, their sacrifices are respected"

"We will deliver unvarnished intelligence, the best possible intelligence we can gather, the most sophisticated all-source analysis, to deliver it policymakers without any hint of politics" per Burns "I will defend all of my colleagues who do exactly the same thing"

#HavanaSyndrome-"I will have no higher priority than taking care of people, of colleagues &their families" per Burns

"I will make it an extraordinarily high priority to get to the bottom of who's responsible..& to ensure that colleagues &their families get the care they deserve"

.@marcorubio asks abt @CarnegieEndow's ties to #China-UnitedStates Exchange Foundation

"This is a relationship that I inherited when I became president of Carnegie & that I ended not long after...bcs we were increasingly worried abt the expansion of Chinese influence" per Burns

.@marcorubio asks about @CarnegieEndow center in #Beijing & partnership w/Tshinghua University

"I was extraordinarily care to ensure that the arrangements that we had ... allowed us to continue to do independent work" per Burns

.@SenFeinstein asks about torture

"I believe waterboarding does constitute torture under the law" per Burns, who adds matter of "enhanced interrogation techniques has been a settled matter"

Burns adds he shares view of @ODNIgov Dir Haines "that we should not take actions against or prejudice the careers of officers who may have worked in those programs at a time when they were operating under Department of Justice guidelines"

.@CIA nominee Burns says enhanced interrogation techniques "certainly will not be" used if he is confirmed

#SolarWinds "That cyber attack was a very harsh wake-up call I think for all of us about the vulnerability of supply chains & critical infrastructure" per Burns

"Both the Chinese leadership & the Russian leadership have an aggressive determination to take advantage"

"It is essential for the @CIA to work even harder to develop our capabilities to help detect these kinds of attacks when they come from external players..to help attribute those" per Burns

@CIA must "continue to develop our own technological & cyber capabilities" for deterrence

"We're going to have to work even harder to be innovative" per Burns

"1 of the big challenges today in operational tradecraft is ubiquitous technical surveillance-the capacity of a number of our adversaries to make it much more complicated to conduct traditional tradecraft"

Burns says more cooperation w/ the private sector will be needed to meet the challenge

"What the #Confucius Institutes do, & I'm no expert on them, is to promote a narrative of Xi Jinping's #China which is designed to build sympathy for what is, in my view, a quite aggressive leadership" per @CIA nominee Burns

#Confucius Institutes "In that sense, that particular dimension of foreign influence operations constitutes a genuine risk" per Burns "Be very careful in engaging them"

Says if he was a college president, he would shut them down

"Good intelligence delivered w/honesty & integrity is the critical foundation for sound policy choices" per Burns, commenting on his "very positive experience" w/@CIA as a diplomat

"Analysts at @CIA are noted for their honesty, for their willingness to speak truth to power. That's why it's so essential for a director to have their backs and to defend them when they do that" Burns says

on #Russia - "Most of my white hair came from my service in Russia over the years & in particular in dealing w/Vladimir Putin's Russia" per @CIA nominee Burns

"What I've learned is its always a mistake to underestimate Putin's Russia"

"While #Russia may be in many ways a declining power, it can be at least as disruptive, under Putin's leadership, as rising powers like #China" per Burns "We have to be quite cold-eyed in our view of how threats can emerge"

"Firmness & consistency is hugely important" says Burns of dealing w/#Russia

Also critical to work w/allies - "We have more effect sometimes on #Putin's calculus when he sees firm responses coming not just from the United State but from our European allies & others as well"

#Iran nukes

@JohnCornyn: "Do you think Iran can ever be trusted w/a nuclear weapon?"

@CIA nominee Burns: "No, sir"

"It's absolutely important for the United States to do everything we can to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon"

"The United States may no longer be the singular dominant player we were when I worked for Sec. Baker 30 years ago but I would still argue we have a better hand to play than any of our major rivals" per Burns

US ability to draw on allies, partners "sets us apart from lonelier powers like #China and #Russia" per @CIA nominee Burns

"The evolution of Xi Jinping's #China over the last 6 or 7 years has been a very sharp wake-up call" per @CIA nominee Burns "It's the kind of aggressive, undisguised ambition & assertiveness that I think has made very clear the nature of the adversary & rival that we face"

"We have to buckle up for the long haul"-Burns on #China

"This is not like the competition w/the Soviet Union in the #ColdWar which was primarily on security &ideological terms. This is an adversary that is extraordinarily ambitious on technology &capable in economic terms"

#China "is the biggest geopolitical test that we face" per @CIA nominee Burns

Covert action "cannot be a substitute for sound policy choices" Burns tells @TomCottonAR

Burns says it should be "one tool in a coherent strategy on policy"

Biden administration assessment on host of #Russia issues, from #SolarWinds to #Navalny poisoning, "will not only provide the best intelligence that we're capable of on exactly what happened in those instances, but also a sense of the consequences for them as well" per Burns

"As long as Vladimir Putin is the leader of #Russia, we're going to be operating in a pretty narrow band of possibilities, from the very sharply competitive to the very nastily adversarial" per @CIA nominee Burns

Burns on 3Iran: "Even if #Iran returns to full compliance w/the comprehensive nuclear agreement & the United States does as well, as president Biden says he's prepared to do, that then needs to be a platform ..."

"... for building longer & stronger nuclear constraints & also for dealing with those other areas of threatening Iranian action" per Burns