1821. it was basically the same building as this. but much simpler. rachel died in 1828. in the years following her death, the house was expanded. at one point the house burned and it was rebuilt into the mansion that we know today. the original plan of the house, the middle part, is called a center hall or georgian plan house. where there's center hall on both floors and four rooms. two on each side of the hallway. and a stairway in the, in the center hall. again, behind me you see the curved flying stairway that we have today. that was constructed while jackson was here. the intention was that when you walk through the front door were you supposed to go wow. or whatever the 1838 version of "wow" was. but the intention was to impress. the height of the ceiling. >> we'll leave the segment to go life to capitol hill as the senate banking committee is

convening hearing on the effectiveness of u.s. sanctions against russia. this hearing just getting under way. >> include russia's standing military incursions in ukraine. abetting assad's atrocities in syria. conducting cyber-enabled information warfare activities and cyberattacks against the united states' critical infrastructure. including its malicious meddling in u.s. elections. and a host of other malign russian activities. the banking committee plays a leading role in developing any legislation that proposes the use of sanctions and financial pressure. more especially those measures involving financial institutions, sovereign debt and other financial instruments to address serious threats to the national security of the united states. just about one year on august 2, the president signed into law the countering america's adversaries through sanctions act of 2017. known as catsa.

which is a authority for strengthening sanctions against russia and brand new authorities for secondary sanctions. it was this committee that put together the foundation for those sanctions and financial measures on russia and worked with the committee on foreign relations to expand them as a part of catsa. catsa was truly a four-square effort. it was not only strongly bipartisan. but also bicameral. it passed the house bay vote of 419-3. and two days later, by the senate on a vote of 98-2. it's not often that congress acts together in such a strong manner. as marked by near unanimous votes. but then russia is a menace on so many different levels today that congress can be compelled to act with a single voice. to find solutions that will protect america and democratic values across the world. to its credit, the administration in the years

since catsa has imposed some of the toughest sanctions on russia in years, particularly with regard to those imposed in april on russia's oligarchs and their business associations. the bulk of sanctions imposed against russia pertain to its unlawful invasion and annexation of crimea. these were strengthened by congress in catsa and as in any other change in putin's behavior will likely remain in place until he is no longer in power and crimea is returned. in all, over the last year, the administration has sanctioned over 200 targeted russian individuals and entities for either its cyberattacks or ukraine behavior. either pursuant to congressional sanctions or under its own executive authority. i hope to receive an update today from our witnesses on how the sanctions against russia are being implemented and enforced. it was a positive step when two weeks ago in response to russia's use of a nerve agent in britain, against one of its

former spies and his daughter. the state department showed its resolve against moscow while it took a stand with our british allies by imposing a set of escalatory sanctions under the chemical and biological weapons control and warfare elimination act of 1991. the administration is taking some important steps against putin, his cronies and the industrial apparatus they control. but can congress expect more from the administration? and when? congress itself is positioned to do more. there are bills in this committee and in the foreign relations committee which seek to escalate economic pain through russia's banking and energy sectors and sovereign debt markets. as we all, and that includes the administration, consider next steps to further constrain putin, including sanctions and other diplomatic initiatives, two questions come to mind. what degree of success have the existing evolutions of sanctions, which work to constrain the russian economy

and derail the activities of those individuals closest to putin, had on putin's behavior at home and abroad. and second what is the most effective way to coordinate and strengthen sanctions with our european allies. and other partners? we will obviously have many more questions, but i'm finished with that at this point. senator brown? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm really glad you're holding this hearing. thank you to our witnesses for your serving in our government. this is the first in the coming weeks on sanctions and other measures to more forcefully counter russia's continuing efforts to attack the united states and our allies. while sanctions have had some effect on russia's economy, it's less clear what effect they've had on its malign activities around the world. russia remains in korea. its proxies are still in eastern ukraine. it serves as an arsenal for assad and it continues to attack

our elections and other critical infrastructure. earlier this morning microsoft outlined a report outlining russian attacks on the u.s. senate and on think tanks, mostly anti-russia or anti-trump think tanks. one hopes an important plu tockcy targeting oligarchs close to putin. putin denied involvement, that's nonsense. the president should call it that and forcefully respond. our government, we and the president must send a more powerful and direct message to putin and those within his circles. we know what you're doing, it must stop. and if it continues, if you continue, you and your government will pay a dear price. so far, the president has basically been awol. modestly even undercutting, undercutting even modest efforts of professionals in treasury and state and dhs and the intelligence community. over a year ago, congress gave the president as the chairman just said the authority to use more assertive sanctions against

russia. my colleagues and i pressed for nearly a year for stronger catsa implementation. after months of waiting, we requested assessments by the inspectors general of the intelligence community, state and treasury departments. these hearings, these i.g. audits are not simply a reaction to the president's startling, startling performance in helsinki, which was widely panned on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the atlantic. there's a deeper problem with the few exceptions, the president has refused to force entry use the new authorities under catsa. let me give one example, administration officials identified russians responsible for supplying chemical weapon components for use in syria. the ones that killed and maimed men, women and children. our u.n. ambassador announced the imminent imposition of sanctions, the next day they were withdrawn. reportedly on orders from the

president. instead, the administration requested that a broad waiver to section 231 be included in the defense bill, basically because the president could not certify the key condition of the existing waiver that russia was reducing its cyberattacks against the united states. i think it was a bad idea to use the recent defense bill to relax waiver authorities and russia intelligence sector sanctions instead of strengthening sanctions we've gone in the opposite direction. that's why the administration continues to face fierce bipartisan criticism from this committ committee, from this body on its russia policy. why a new round of oversight hearings is being convened. and i give the chairman credit for that why members of both sides are proposing new sanctions. in addition to urging the administration to use catsa more aggressively, i think most of us agree congress should also do more to increase pressure. congress crafted tough russia sanctions enacted last august by overwhelming majority in both chambers, we should build on

that. we should focus on the facts and broader strategic questions, what is russia's government still doing in syria and ukraine? what active cyberattacks are they directing against our elections and critical infrastructure. what powerful economic trade, financial diplomatic and political tools can we deploy now to deter those attacks. russia's election interference confirmed unanimously by u.s. intelligence earlier this year, and reaffirmed again today, poses a problem that goes far beyond foreign policy. and strikes at the core of our democracy. in no way is this a partisan issue. we're 77 days away from another election. the director of national intelligence, microsoft and others have been sounding the alarms that the warning lights are flashing red again. and while some efforts are being made to bowlster state election security measures, and otherwise contain these threats it appears little is being done to address their source. russia's government. i know my constituents are clear-eyed about these threats,

the ukrainian community in ohio and around the world knows firsthand like our nato allies, in latvia and lithuania, the dangers of unchecked russian aggression. we should implement current russian sanctions and strengthen our response. these hearings are a critical next step. thank you for the three of you for joining us today, i'm interested to hear where we are. what effects if any the sanctions regime is having on russia's economy and more importantly on its behavior and your ideas on how we will more forcefully confront these threats in the months to come. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator brown. >> today we will hear testimony from three administration official who is deal firsthand with confronting the russia threat. we will first hear testimony from ms. sigal mandelker. the acting deputy secretary and current undersecretary of treasury for terrorism and financial crimes. who is the country's chief sanctions architect.

next we will hear from mr. christopher krebs, the undersecretary of homeland security at the national protection and programs drr doctorate. threats from our nation's cyberand our communications infrastructure. and finally we will hear from dr. christopher port. the assistant secretary of state responsible for the bureau of international security and nonproliferation at the state department. who can provide us with some valuable insight on challenges with russia. as you can see, members of the panel we have a very good attendance and a number of those who aren't here are at a different hearing on russia in the foreign relations committee. because of that i thank you first of all for your written testimony. it's extremely helpful to us. i ask you to remember the five-minute rule for your oral testimony so we can get through the questioning period from our senators and i also remind our senators that we have a

five-minute rule and we will try today to stick very closely to that. with that, ms. mandelker? >> thank you. chairman crepo, ranking member brown and distinguished members of the committee. thank you for inviting me here today to speak on behalf of the treasury department and provide an update on our comprehensive efforts to counter russia's malign activities. our efforts taken together with our partners across the u.s. government and around the world, are guided by a clear understanding of the threat russia poses to the united states and to our friends and allies. as this committee is well aware, russia seeks to challenge the united states and its allies in a variety of ways. they're continuing their occupation of crimea and ongoing aggression against ukraine. they're attempting to subvert western democracies, including our own through election interference.

they have used chemical weapons in an attempt to assassinate a british citizen in this daughter in the united kingdom. they are perpetrating malicious cyberattacks and they're facilitating sanctions on asia and other illicit activity across the globe. the breadth and brazenness of russia's malign conduct demands a firm and vigorous response. precisely for this reason, treasuries, russia sanctions program is among our most active and impactful. since january 2017, this administration has sanctioned 229 russian-related individuals and entities for a broad range of activities, 212 of which were sanctioned by treasury's office of foreign assets control. including a number this morning. indeed, we have issued russia-related measures in seven of the last nine months. in a number of different

actions. in doing so, we have targeted a veritable who's who of russia's most prominent companies. these include russia's primary state-owned weapons trading company. one of the largest independent power companies in russia. and a major russian oil company. our targets also include the heads of major state-owned banks and energy firms, such as dtb bank and gazprom. as well as some of putin's closest associates. these figures include putin affiliates oleg daraposta and viktor vekselberg, as well as putin's son-in-law. those who deal with such persons risk being targeted by our powerful secondary sanctions authorities under catsa. sanctioning these russian individuals and entities have

made them radioactive. we have made clear to the world that those who choose to continue to do business with them do so at their own peril. that catsa was passed bay near unanimous vote demonstrated great resolve by congress to counter russia's malign activity and we share that resolve. as companies across the globe work to distance themselves from sanctioned russian persons, our actions are imposing an unprecedented level of financial pressure on those supporting the kremlin's malign agenda and on key sectors of the russian economy. as the impacts of our russia-related actions are felt far and wide. indeed, treasuries actions have extensively impacted the financial interests of targeted individuals and entities. our oligarch sanctions alone have substantially reduced the net worth of those individuals

and their companies. similarly, other companies designated for their links to crimea have been forced to cut production and have lost business relationships with foreign commercial partners. in addition, we have cut off malicious cyberactors from the u.s. financial system and beyond, including those providing offensive cybercapabilities to the russian intelligence services and covertly working on behalf of the kremlin to interfere with the 2016 u.s. elections. in addition to sanctions, we are also strategically and smartly deploying treasury's other economic authorities to disrupt russia's illicit financial conduct and harden the international financial system against its predation. and we regularly engage our foreign allies and partners, especially those in europe to coordinate these efforts and augment the impact of our

sanctions. and our other actions. by strategically leveraging all of our complementary authorities, we are increasing financial pressure on russia to advance our national security priorities while simultaneously mitigating collateral impacts on the united states, our european allies and the global economy. there is no question that we have imposed major costs on russia. yet, the significance of our actions and our other financial measures must ultimately be measured in terms of their strategic impact. though russia's malign activities continue, its adventurism undoubt lid has been checked by the knowledge that we can bring even more economic pain to bear, using our powerful range of authorities and that we will not hesitate to do so if its conduct does not demonstrably and significantly change. thank you.

>> thank you. mr. krebs? >> chairman crepo, ranking member brown, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the department of homeland security's ongoing effort to mitigate cybersecurity risks to our nation's infrastructure. safe guarding cyberand securing cyberspace is a core mission that i have an honor to lead for dhs. malicious cyberoperations remain one of the most strategic threats to united states, holding our national security, economic prosperity, the integrity of our democracy and public health and safety at risk. over the past several years, network defenders in both government and industry have seen the threat landscape grow more crowded, active and dangerous. in fact, 2017 was one of the most costly and active in terms of global cybersecurity incidents, including the wanna cry ransom ware incident attributed to north korea. dhs and our agency partners

worked with industry to identify an alert on russian government efforts to infiltrate domestic energy infrastructure. adversary actions did not begin or end in 2017. russia's attempts to interfere in the 2016 u.s. presidential election are well and widely known. as are their activities to interfere in other elections in western europe. with the 2018 mid term just around the corner we're working aggressively to support state and local efforts to secure elections. this partnership with election officials is representative of one of two core anchors of the u.s. detergent strategy. those two anchors are defense in-depth to minimize or eliminate adversary success and impose costs with strong consequences for malicious behavior. my partner agencies at the hearing have equities in both denial and consequences, but my organization, the national protection programs directate is almost had exclusively focused on defense. through protection of critical infrastructure. our approach is one of

collective defense. emphasizing the shared responsibility of cybersecurity across industry and government. we work through partnerships that identify stakeholder requirements, align unique capabilities to gaps and add value and enable more effective security and risk management outcomes. we're focused on sharing information related to the threat and potential mitigation measures to improve defenses, leading integrated, coordinated industry and government planning to address systemic risks and conducting incident response to limit harm and informed defensive measures we manage these activities within operational centers that prioritize collaboration across the full range of stakeholders, industry or government. our national cybersecurity communications integration center or nkic operates at the intersection of private state and local agencies, international partners, law enforcement, intelligence and defense communities, the operational focus of the nkic is

near-term day-to-day cybersecurity risk management. providing stakeholders with a steady state capability to address today's cybersecurity challenges. we work with stakeholders to develop information-sharing venues for affinity groups. working with election officials, we established the election infrastructure information sharing and analysis center or ei-isac. all 50 states participating in the fastest growing isac. the nationally anonsed risk center provide as forum for understanding risk and developing solutions for reducing cyberin other systemic risks to national and economic security. the operational focus of the national risk management center is longer-term strategic risk. providing a cross-government and industry capability to address tomorrow's challenges. through the nrmc, we will partner with innovative industry

coalitions like the financial systemic anat sis and resilience center, in the council to secure the defend the digital ecosystem. aiming to break down sector hadden based silos to craft a more holistic understanding of international risk and the strategies to drive down that risk. our mission at dhs is to insure that our stakeholders have the necessary tools and support to understand and act on risk. in the face of increasingly sophisticated threats, dhs is stepping up our efforts to defend the nation's critical infrastructure from malicious cyberactivity. we're working to better evolve our protection of critical functions from nation state and other ma ligs alicious activiti. i would like to thank congress for the progress thus far in strengthening dh s's cybersecurity authority. we must move to the next step to create the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency or cisa at dhs which would eour

organization renamed and established as a new agency, an operational agency. establishing this agency would enhance dh s's ongoing efforts as the focal point for private-sector and government stakeholders in support of our nation's security. we support this much-needed effort and urge quick action by the senate to pass this into law. thank you. >> thank you, mr. port? >> thank you chairman crapo, ranking member brown and senators, in light of the role of this committee in particular as you outlined in international sanctions, i thought i would try to contribute today by explaining a bit of how we are employing the tools that congress has given us vis-a-vis russia in order to push back against the various malign activities of the putin regime. section 231 of catsa, that's fallen to my bureau, the bureau of international security and nonproliferation to implement. in passing catsa last year,

congress may very clear its intention was to pressure russia to change its behavior with respect to a a very wide variety of malign acts vgts including in response to putin's effort to interfere in our own presidential election. we've heard that message from congress loud and clear. i want to stress that these sanctions tools have value in a broader arena of great power competition and geopolitical competitive strategy. this is an important theme for our administration. the new national security strategy calls out the contest for power as a central continuity in history and warns about challengers, the revisionist powers of china and russia. the rogue states of iran and north korea and the transnational threat organizations that are as it describes, actively competing against the united states and our allies. similarly, the national defense strategy observes that the central challenge to u.s. prosperity and security today is the reemergence of long-term

strategic competition. it is increasingly clear that the defense strategy says, that china and russia want to shape a world consist wnt their authoritarian model. gaining veto authority over other nation's, economic diplomatic security decisions. the national defense strategy notes that revisionist powers and rogue regimes are competing with us all across all dimensions of power this mindset is one that we bring to approaching catsa. with respect to russia. russia has undertaken a campaign of malign activities in its attempt to compete with us, our allies and our partners and catsa 231 gives us more tools with which to respond. focusing particularly on transactions with the russian arms industry for multiple reasons. first of all these are often the same arms that russia uses, continues to use for aggression against ukraine for example. the world should shun transactions of that sort. second, as willie sutton is reported to have said when asked

why he robs banks -- that is where the money is. high technology military equipment is one of the only competitive sectors of the russian economy these days and moscow makes a good deal of money by selling arms. these funds fuel russia's malign activities and support russia's development of newer and deadlier weapons so we use sanctions tools to go after those revenues. russia continues to use its arms transactions as a tool of geopolitical influence. for russia it isn't just about the money, but about the relationships that its arms trade creates. scaling back and shutting down russia's arms deals and deterring such transactions in the future strike directly at the kremlin's malign activities and influence and that's the philosophy that we bring to implementing section 231. we seek to cooperate with russia wherever we can on issues of shared interest, because that is important to the security of the world. but where we need to push back, we do so. and we do so hard. and we've had real successes in using the availability of catsa sanctions and the threat of such

penalties in deterring and dissuading transactions with the russian arms business. there are billions of dollars in transactions that have not occurred and will not occur thanks to the tools that congress has given us and our ability to use those to provide diplomatic leverage. that's billions of dollars that putin's war machine will not get and through which the kremlin's malign influence will not spread and a slew of relationships between the kremlin and its would-be arms clients that will not occur or broaden or deepen. so we've not yet had in fact the opportunity, the need to actually impose catsa sanctions yet in part because we're in the business of trying to make sure that those dogs do not in fact bark. we want these things to be conspicuous by their absence and we're making good progress in dissuading and deterring transactions from occurring. we're not reluctant to do this and if circumstances warrant we can, we will certainly be forthright and vigorous in applying the full breadth of the availability penalties, i want to stress how important our stre

consists are to date indiana suring that billions of dollars of transaction does not occur. in our written remarks, i outline a series of principles through which we approach implementation of section 231, i'd be delighted to talk about any or all of those. but let me simply conclude by making the point that we're applying these as a vigorous tool of competitive strategy to make sure that we do as much as we can with those tools. to undermine russia's ability and willingness to use its malign behavior as a way to accrue its own strategic advantage around the world. we're starting to have significant successes here and i'll be happy to talk about these and take any other questions that the committee would like in the as the time goes forward. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. portu. i'll start with you, ms. mandelker. a number of you have said and we've said in our introductory remarks, there have been a number of sanctions imposed against tputin, his hiss cronie and the industrial apparatus

they control. what type of sanctions have had the most impact on putin and what is the best strategy to change his behavior on either the ukraine and cyberintrusions? >> thank you, chairman crapo for that question. we've had as i mentioned, well over 220 sanctions across the interagency since the beginning of this administration. and the impacts of our sanctions have been felt in a number of very significant ways. i would point as an example to the designations that we had in april against russian owiligarc and close associates to putin, as well as a number of senior foreign officials. in addition to the oligarch sanctions we designated entities that were 50% controlled, owned or controlled by those that we designated. and as a result of those designations, we have seen a number of very significant impacts. as we've sent the clear message to those that surround themselves with putin -- that there are very grave

consequences for their involvement with him in malign activities around the world. as we saw in those oligarch sanctions, the net worth of the individuals who we designated as well as the network of a number of other russian oligarchs decreased substantially the companies that they own or control, similarly suffered great consequences. we continue to see the impact of those designations in a number of different ways. similarly, we've had very substantial designations against russia's largest weapons trading company, against a very significant power company, energy company. our sectoral sanctions not only remain in place since the beginning of the administration, but thanks to catsa we have tightened the directives that govern those sectoral sanctions and likewise we're seeing a significant impact on the russian economy, on their energy projects and the like.

can congress expect more designations from the administration? and when? >> absolutely, senator. this morning we issued designations both russia-related te testician nass with our north korea program where we designated shipping companies and owners, as well as russian vessels. we designated entities and individuals that have been involved in sanctions of asian by entity an entity that we recently designated in connection with their work with russia's intelligence sector. so you'll without a doubt continue to see more from this administration. >> thank you. again i do want to, i might have to come back and get my questions for mr. krebs and mr. port. ms. mandelker. firms subject to restrictions,

the russian government can still sell bonds to u.s. investors and use the proceeds to russian firms under sanction. those ability to invest in russian sovereign debt undercut the intent and effectiveness of existing u.s. sanctions? >> senator, we pursuant to catsa the treasury department issued a report on russian sovereign debt this year. i know that secretary mnuchin has commented on that report. i know there continues to be concern about ongoing investment with russia which as a general matter very significantly declined since the beginning of this russia program. >> thank you. mr. krebs, the united states is currently in i had primary and special election season. the 2018 mid term elections are 11 weeks away. you mentioned as a result of assessing activity in the 2016 election, dhs sin creasing

awareness of potential vults and providing capabilities to enhance u.s. and allied election infrastructure. what authority or other help does dhs and its stakeholders need to better secure the u.s. election infrastructure? >> thank you for the question. i certainly think that since 2016 we've made significant progress in terms of securing america's election infrastructure. as i mentioned in my opening statement, i think the one piece of legislation that i need within my organization is the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency act. that will streamline my organization, make us more effective in terms of engaging our stakeholders. my authorities are almost entirely voluntarily. and so what i have to be able to do is clearly articulate who i am, what it is i do and how i can help and right now the national protection and programs directorate doesn't provide me that platform to describe those efforts. thank you. senator brown?

>> ms. mandelker. help syria make and deploy chemical weapons would be sanctioned on the sunday shows she said that secretary mnuchin quote will be announcing those monday. if he hasn't already unquote. and they will go directly to the sort of companies that we're dealing with equipment-related to assad and chemical weapons use. the next day, those sanctions were pulled back, reportedly on orders from the president. my question is when she spoke, the had chemicals been clired through the interagency process? >> i'm not going to get into interagency discussions as you may be aware, in april we did designate our export in connection with our syria authorities. and we have designated subsidiary bank. we designated other entities -- >> i'm sorry. the sanctions were pulled back. that she announced, correct?

>> senator i'm not going to get into -- >> i know you won't, but the answer is yes or no? >> i'm not going to get into interagency discussion. >> it's not an interagency discussion, the sanctions are wr were pulled back. i'm not asking did president trump do it personally. i'm asking the sanctions were pulled back, correct, that she announced? >> we did not announce on that monday additional syria-related designations but we have subsequently announced a a number of hard sanctions. >> i don't understand why you can't tell me what happened. you don't want to go in interagency discussions but you can't tell me what happened. choose your own verb. then you may not want to talk about what happened in the interagency discussions, but facts are facts. even today. in this country. >> you're asking me to comment on what happened within the interagency. >> no, i'm not asking you for discussions within the interagency. i'm asking you did the

interagency actually identified and cleared them and then what happened between her announcement and the inaction taken. but apparently you're not going to answer that. let me ask a question for you and start with mr. ford and powerful sanctions authorities congress gave you last year at least as applied so far haven't worked to compel russia to scale back its aggressive behavior. all three of you spoke to that there's still a lot of room for the administration to use powerful authorities provided in catsa that this body gave you when corrupt oligarchs and defense and intelligence sector most responsible for any of the cyberattacks. if would you spell out, mr. port, what's your plan to ratchet up pressure on the kremlin in the short term prior to the elections to deter future attacks, going after the personal assets of putin and his cronies, sanctioning state-owned entities. is it sanctioning russia's sovereign wealth fund?

what steps? >> with respect to influencing russia's behavior. there are obviously several ways that we try to approach this i mention one trying to cut back specifically their arms transactions. more broadly i like to make the point also that this is only in part, obviously the objective is to change russia's behavior. even were russia's behavior not to improve as fast as we wish it would, we hope these approaches we're taking in having an impact on other's behavior towards russia in a way that will leave russia less able to engage in malign activities. it won't have as many resources and partners to work. if we stigmatize dealings with russia, they will be less able to exercise the influence, even in ways they wish to engage in it that's part of the chilling effect we seek to achieve by economic sanctions and part of the effect we're trying to achieve across the board here as well. it's not just about influencing russia directly. it's about having an influence

upon the net impact of russian behavior in the aggregate across the international community. with that as a predicate i'm not in a position to forecast what steps we will take. we're as a matter of high priority putting a lot of emphasis with our partners in conjunction with our partners and directly to the russians on the importance of them understanding that we are firmly of the view that this kind of malign activities, and further activity of the sort to which you're referring, sir, were it to occur, we would continue to confront russia with painful, sharp and stern consequences. >> is especially important to announce bluntly hand aggressively ahead of time what price putin will pay if he engages in attacks in our elections? >> we're making it very clear, senator that there will be of course consequences and painful ones if they engage in additional unacceptable conduct. we think it's important not to

be to specific about that. it's not a game of forecasting and trying to encourage the kremlin to study to test. but it's a game in which we're making it clear that the behavior is not acceptable and will not be tolerated. we're trying to do that mindful of all of the things in which we agree with congress. it's clear in talking about catsa legislation that there's a powerful desire here in congress which we share, to signal that russia's malign activities are unacceptable and to try to deter them in the future we understand and agree with what appears to be congress's clear view that it's important to do that in ways that do not have grave and unforeseen consequences for other aspects of our u.s. interests, whether that is issues of u.s. jobs and the economy and competitiveness. or the relationships that we need to maintain with allies and partners and friends around the world. including that are important to us with respect to russia policy. we're trying to find the sweet spot between all of these various competing approaches. we're grateful to the tools that congress has given us to provide leverage to that effect. >> senator kennedy?

>> thank you, mr. chairman. want to thank my colleagues for letting me jump the line here. ms. mandelker am i pronouncing your name right? >> yes, senator. >> does mr. putin personally own assets in the united states? >> i would defer to my colleagues in the intelligence community i would be happy to talk to them about providing you a briefing on that subject. >> well, they're not here. but you are. so let me ask you again. does mr. putin personally own assets in the united states? >> again, senator, that's not something that we can discuss in an open or public setting. but we'd be happy to sit down with you and provide a classified briefing with our intelligence community colleagues. >> mr. krebs, do you have

anything to add to that? >> no, sir. >> how about you, doc? >> no, senator. >> okay. >> if he did personally own assets, in the united states, why would we not as a sanction, consider seizing them? hypothetically? >> hypothetically, senator, if any russian oligarch or senior lead her assets in the united states, of course that's an action that we would consider undertaking, assuming it's within our legal authorities to do so. >> this is just my opinion. but here's what i think. i think mr. putin does own assets in the united states. and i think that treasury knows what those assets are.

and whether we do it in a, in a classified or unclassified setting that's above my pay grade. but i would like us to have a frank and honest discussion about the ramifications of seizing those assets. would you object to that? >> not at all, senator. >> okay. >> last question. dr. ford, let's suppose the president ust states came to you and said look, i've had enough. crimea, ukraine, syria, chemical weapons. meddling in american elections. i hate to do it i want to bring the russian economy to its knees. >> i'm afraid i'm not enough of an economist to have a real

crisp, off-the-cuff answer for you. i would hope and expect that we would approach any challenge the president gives us with the -- >> excuse me for interrupting. it sounds like you're not going to answer so no offense. i'm going to keep moving flxt krebs? >> ms. mandelker? >> senator, were we to have any conversation along those lines, we would want to consider what the global ramifications would be of taking those kinds of actions. so as i've already mentioned -- >> let's put the global ramifications to the side for a moment. though, you're chore, then we can talk about the ramifications. your task is to bring the economy to its knees. how would you do that? >> again senator, i don't think can you have a discussion about how to bring russia's economy to

its knees without having a full understanding of what the global consequences would be of taking certain kinds of actions. we have taken -- >> how about telling me what you would do and then telling me the consequences? so we don't get the two mixed up. >> we have taken a number of, of very aggressive actions targeting the russian economy. >> i know that. but they're not -- >> but the -- >> but the economy hasn't been brought to its knees. i don't want to use my time. you're not going to answer the question, just tell me. >> we'd be happy to have a conversation with you about that. but i think it's important that in any conversation, we're talking about very significant actions. we also have an understanding of what the global consequences would be. i think that's the response. >> i just asked me you to tell me those. i'm out of time. sorry, mr. chairman. sorry, guys, i couldn't do any better. i tried. to get answers. >> senator mendez.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. i just came back from a senate foreign relations committee which is is also having a hearing. and while that committee obviously deals with foreign policy. this committee's jurisdiction over economic tools is incredibly important. i appreciate today's hearing. let me ask you all, notwithstanding what the congress has passed into law. or what the administration has enforced through. >> that it's fair to say that russia has not deterred, been deterred in its actions and malign activities, is that a fair statement? >> i think senator we are seeing a number of consequences as a result of an impact, as a result of the actions that we've taken. there's no question that we continue to see russian malign activity and russian malign -- >> today microsoft announced that their attacks on the united states senate and on some

venerable conservative institutions, that's a continuing action. as far as i know, russia is still an annexing crimea and engage with regular forces in eastern ukraine. as far as i know, russia is propping up assad and syria and i could go down 32 through a list so for the most part i think it would be fair to say that russia has not been deterred in terms of its activities. i think it's fair to say that russia is continuing to engage in a wide range of malign activity that causes us grave concern. >> on that we are agreed. with that as something that is a reality. obviously what we are doing, notwithstanding all the efforts of congress and the administration today has not deterred them in these malign activities in a way we would lie to see, which is the purpose of sanctions in the first place. so i know that senator gram and i have legislation called defending the american security from kremlin aggression. i know that my colleague on the

committee with senator rubio also has the deter act. i'm sure there are other nish i haves, maybe the chairman is thinking of some with senator corker. the bottom line is, instead of telling us what's wrong with these ideas and pieces of legislation, why don't you tell us what in fact we can do to turn up the pressure on moscow that we are not? senator, in the last year if you have seen, we have taken a number of very aggressive actions in connection with the russia sanctions program. >> madam secretary, i don't need you to regurgitate and eat up my time by telling me what you've done. what you've done we've agreed has not moved the ball in the way we'd like to see. so what i'm saying, it's not confrontational question. it's a question of, congress is going to act. you might as well know that i've been through administrations both democratic and republican. who didn't want to see sanctions electric legislation, at the end of the day congress acted and

many of them learned what what we did was the best tools that they had to try to move foreign policy. so it's going to act. i'd rather it act in a way that has your insight about what would be helpful. buthelpful, but if you fail to provide insights, then we will provide you with a law that ultimately will take place without your insights. so that's all i'm seeking here. and the question is collective. there's nothing more than we can do than what we're doing. if that's the answer, that means that russia will continue to do all the things i said before, nothing more than that we can do than what we're doing is going to change the course, and that's a sad day of events for not only our country but the world, is that what you're telling me? >> senator, we'll work with you on any piece of legislation. but we have been currently actively -- >> with all due respect, i have heard you say this. you're very good at repeating the same thing that doesn't help me.

let me ask you this, the expectation among senators that you could continue to impose sanctions and oligarchs, but it seems to some of us that you have decided to diminish pressure. you have not designated any oligarchs since april 6th. you have listed astonian banks. what kind of signal does that send to the kremlin? we are told to judge the administration by the actions and not the president's words, but these actions so em to be more -- seem to be more in line with the president's disturbing rhetoric than a tougher approach to the kremlin. so why haven't you listed any oligarchs since april 6? or why are you just listing the other entities? >> senator, we have designated a number of additional russian-related entities since april 6th. it's a very active program for us, including the -- >> i mentioned oligarchs, not entities. >> i'm not going to preview what our plans are uh, but we continue to look very carefully at the oligarch report. and it continues to inform our actions. >> secretary ford, let me -- the

answers haven't listed anybody else and you're delisting people. secretary ford, i understand you implemented section 241. convince me that your leverage to convince individuals to not hurt this russian defense equipment has somehow been strengthened by the new waiver provinevension provision -- you haven't posted one sanction under 231, why? >> well, senator, what we have been stressing to our diploma c diplomatic -- under the statute there has to be a significant transaction. >> clearly there have been both. >> there's no determination of significance yet, sir. it is important to stress that our focus has been, as i indicated earlier, upon making sure as best we can that transactions don't occur. obviously if they do, we will

evaluate and reach a determination as quickly as the democratic process admits. it is important how we approach this to make sure they understand that what we are trying to do is, in fact, implement our own priorities and congress' priorities upon doing two things simultaneously. one, of course, we need and it is imperative to do so. we need to make sure that russia feels pressure from this. the objective is to change russia's behavior and therefore pain needs to be felt. and the point is to bring that pain, but the pain is against russia, not against our friends and allies. and we understand congress is very clear in passing this. also it needs to be done in a way that is mindful of the importance of protecting the relationships that we have and that we need in our diplomacy and our formulations and national security affairs around the world, which people -- who may have had engagement with the russian arms business, but whom we don't want to simply throw away our relationship with. so we are trying the two things

at the same time, sir. >> senator scott. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to the panel for being here this morning. and i certainly want to echo the comments of the ranking member, the chairman and many of the senators as reflects the importance of finding a way to russian aggression, especially as it relates to our country. and it seems to many of us that the efforts have not been effective enough. if you look at from 2014 and forward, the sanctions, we have sanctioned hundreds of russian entities in response to the annexation of crimea, the human rights abuses, there are cyber attacks, there's support of the assad regime, weapons proliferation, the list continues to go on and on to the russian aggression, and yet there's so little that we can show for our efforts of sanctions of russia. i have two questions, one is about understanding the certain sections of catsa yet to be

implemented and what steps to be made to achieve the desired outcome is the first question. the second question is while we're looking at the implementation of the sections of catsa, how do we relate it from the negative impact that will come from it? i understand that you all are in an incredibly sensitive position trying to do two things that are actually not mutually exclusive but really weigh heavily on one another. the challenge of senator kennedy's question that it's really a simple answer, frankly, is 70% of russia's exports or in the energy sector, it seems to me that the clear simple answer is that if you wanted to have the most impact and it has the ability to cripple the economy, that the answer is in the energy sector. perhaps the challenge is that the energy sector represents the

sector that many of our allies in europe depend heavily on. so it does make your task challenging but the fact of the matter is that there is a very simple clear, concise answer to senator kennedy's question, which is that 70% of the russian economy, perhaps not 70%, maybe 68%, flows through the energy sector, the answer is simple. i'm not quite sure why we are having such a difficult time answering simple questions. we seem to be more evasive than helpful in our desire to appreciate the magnitude of our actions on the russian economy. and when there are sections beyond section 224 that deal specifically with crude oil exports, there's section 226 and section 227 and 228, bob mentioned 231 and 232 and 233 and 234, the answers are all the same and we have not done much

in those sections. i have come back to my original question, and that is as we look at catsa, how can we do more? it seems like i've given you a list of options to do more, and why aren't we? and the answer to my second question is that the impact on our businesses is creating headwinds on our ability to impose more sanctions and do more damage to the russian economy, because we're afraid of what it does to our businesses and to our allies. >> thank you for your question, senator. so just with respect to the very specific provisions of catsa arksz y, as you may be aware, we have individuals and authorities under a specific provision of catsa or executive orders codified by catsa. so our desire to implement and our execution of the implementation of catsa is very strong. very specifically in the energy sector, not only have we designated entities under the

energy authorities, but russia's energy sector is subject to two directives, directive two and four that were started in the obama administration with which we have tightened in this administration. and we have seen significant impact as a result of those designations. you asked about u.s. businesses, well, exxon announced earlier this year they were withdrawing from joint venture projects in russia with rostneft. it was announced that rostneft was unable to finish projects in the black sea because they were unable to get the kind of equipment and technology they needed in order to do so. >> because i have 25 seconds and the chairman called one member for going over time, so i don't want to go over the time by that much, but i will just say that perhaps -- perhaps we would invest all of our time more wisely if we talked about the

interconnectedness of the global economy and how at times if russia is working with saudi arabia on the output in order for us to have a more positive input on iran through our withdrawing from the jjcpo, we would have a more global perspective on the challenges and the consequences and the complexities of the task at hand. and we would have a more productive time in understanding and appreciating the channels that you face. and, at the same time, be able to talk to our constituents about the challenges that we face, especially as "the wall street journal" today reported that russian hackers targeted conservative groups in widening cyber attacks, which only suggests whatever we're doing is not enough. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator tester. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you all for being here. i appreciate your testimony, although it would be nice to get answers to the questions.

i'm as frustrated as the folks who have come before me. so let me ask you this, and i don't know the answer to it, say i have a $10 million ranch and i sell it to somebody who wants to lander money for $20 million. and they turn around and sell it for $15 million. is that money then laundered? >> depending on the facts and circumstances, but it sounds like a situation where money was laundered. >> okay. and is that legal? >> it's here in the united states that could potentially be a violation of the money laundering laws. >> and so is that something that we do? we go after folks trying to launder money? is that something the treasury department does? >> absolutely, senator. >> it does? >> well, again, the criminal authorities or the justice department's authorities, but we go after elicit activity, money laundering all over the world in a variety of different ways. >> can you tell me or give back

to me how many money laundering episodes in the last five years have occurred? and how many of them have actually been prosecuted? >> in terms of the prosecutions -- >> determined and turned over the department of justice, how about that way? >> i'm sorry. >> determined that it was a money laundering situation and turned over to the want the of justice -- turned over to the department of justice and will deal with the prosecution later. can you give me an example of how many have been brought forth in the last five years? how many have been brought forth in the last five years by the department of treasury? >> i can't give you a number. >> can you go back to my office if you go back to your office and send it to my officer? >> it would depend on the specifics of your question. we work very closely with the justice department. >> we had one of these hearings in a classified session that was worthless. and it wasn't worthless because the chairman and ranking member was worthless, but because you have filibuster down to an art. i just want to know the answer

to the question. do you have the number, yes or no? >> you do not have the number. >> i want to make sure that i understand you. >> i want to know the number of money laundering episodes the department of treasury has turned over to the department of justice in the last five years. not ten, not 20, not 30, five years, that's it. >> again, senator, as you may be aware -- >> i am not aware. i just want to know how many. >> i would have to go back to my -- >> go back to your office and give me that information? >> i want to be clear about what it is that we do. we follow, we trace, we track money laundering all over the world. we are also -- >> i just want to know about the stuff that happens in the united states, that's easier yet. >> let me go back and see what we can do to answer your question. >> i appreciate that very, very much. mr. krebs, you said in an answer to chairman's question that you have made significant progress since the 2016 election. can you give me a list of the things you have do ento make our election more secure this cycle? >> yes, sir.

governance and technical response and technical training. >> have you done that in every training of the union? >> we work with all 50 states. we provide cyber scanning remotely to 26 states. >> can you go back to your office and give me a list of things you're doing specifically? >> just give me a piece of paper, i don't need a briefing. the things you have do ento help montana have a more election cycle. >> we can follow-up, yes, sir. >> and do it for every senator that is here, that would be a good thing. donnelly is nodding his head, do that for indiana. >> we do need to -- there's a certain degree of confidentiality on these. >> come on. if they are screwing with voter rules, tell us how you fix it. if you're screwing with the voter machine, tell us how you fix it. this is about confidence in the election system. putin spent less money on doing

what he did last cycle to promote communism and destroy democracy, i think the united states senate needs to know this stuff. >> i agree. >> just give me the information. >> we can follow-up, yes, sir. >> okay. can anybody tell me why putin's ownership of anything in this country isn't public information? >> again, senator, as i mentioned before, we would be happy to sit down and have a conversation with you about that. >> just tell me, why? what national security risk is that? >> again, senator, any discussion about where assets are in the united states or elsewhere are either classified or not something we would discuss in any kind of an open session. >> you do know that you can go down to the courthouse to find out how much land i own? you know that. so why is putin different? >> again, senator, i don't want to talk publicly about where assets are here or anywhere in the world. there are a number of different reasons for that, but -- >> a yes or no doesn't dictate

township and range. a yes or no just says, yeah, he owns property here. >> senator, i'm not aware of any title or deed that would have mr. putin's name on it here in the united states. >> thank you very much. okay, thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator cotton. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you all for appearing here. i hope it is clear from the questions so far that we have bipartisan agreement about the threat that russia poses to our democracy. it is good to to have that agreement which we have lacked for many years. in the last administration, even as russia was surging troops into syria to back up bashar al assad and crimea and waging war in ukraine and beating the united states diplomat on the doorstep of the embassy in russia and flagrantry violating the open skies treaty and flagrantly violating the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty. and a whole host of other

maligned activities, that we heard a lot today that russia is still not deterred from those things. i would agree to that. we need to take additional action. but we have not heard much about the relative impact of the steps that this administration has taken versus the last administrati administration, in particular, after the 2016 election. now, some members of the last administration said that they didn't want to take provocative steps in the fall of 2016 because they feared that vladimir putin and russia's intelligence services may take additional steps to undermine voter registration systems or vote tabulation systems. but after the election, the administration kicked out a few russian diplomats, it might not surprise you to know that those were perhaps russian spies, closed two russian vacation homes and posed sanctions on two russian intelligence services.

how much money did the united states government get from those two intelligent services? >> senator, i'm not aware of assets that were blocked as a result of those. >> is that because the russian intelligence services do not keep money in the united states banking system? >> that's not something i would discuss publicly, but rest assured the designations we have had in this administration have had farther and wide ranging impacts in a variety of different ways. >> to say nothing of nonsanctioned activities, for instance, like encouraging our nato partners to spend more money on their fence, expanding our nuclear arsenal, spending more money on ballistic missile defenses, providing the anti-javelin missiles that ukraine begged for so long to receive, the congress is also learning over the last 18 months that there was a serious inner agency conversation in november and december of 2016 about imposing tougher sanctions on russia. in fact, i understand that the

professional staff at the treasury department worked up a whole host of secondtorial sanctions and specific sanctions against russian companies like spursky labs, but those were strongly opposed by jack lieu, national security adviser rice and abrel haines. can you discuss why secretary lew opposed this after the election, not before the election, after the election? >> senator, i was not in the administration, of course, at that -- >> there you are representative of the treasury department, so it surely has continuity files. >> what i can tell you, senator, is that as i've already made clear today, we have gone after very significant and impactful designations in connection with russia's election interference, in connection with the cyber attacks, in connection with the ongoing occupation of crimea and the like. and we have seen those designations result in very

impactful actions against, again, some of putin's closest allies and partners. his senior foreign officials in his administration. we have seen companies who have tried to get into crimea and have a very heavy cost imposed upon them when we have sanctioned them. they have cut off their -- they have cut off their ability to do business elsewhere in the world. so what i can do is speak to the very cost and heavy impact of the designations we have had. they have been quite substantial and far more substantial than those that were issued immediately after the november -- >> it would be nice to know why secretary lew believed that and president obama believed that opinion. we'll talk about the russian oligarch who our government has sanctioned. you have also sanctioned numerous companies that were under head like basic element and others. we now know, in fact, we have

e-mails right here that have been released by the congress between christopher steele who compiled what jim comey called a salacious and unverified dossier and bruce orr with christopher steele was talking about the united states. in a public hearing of the intelligence committee earlier this year, we talked about whether christopher steele was working for him at the time. by all appearances, he is working for him. is christopher steele and his business a sanctioned russian oligarch that you have the authority to sanction under catsa? >> i'm not going to talk to any particular individual, but it has been designated and the designation is subject to secondary sanctions. so what we have seen as a result of the sanctions against the

oligarchs is that they have become radioactive a as the world understands. that any entities they face will see severe consequences. >> yes or no. it's a question about legal principle. do you have the authority under katsa or other law to sanction russian oligarchs, lawyers, lobbyists, financial advisers and so forth? >> we would likely have that authority, senator. >> thank you. >> senator warner. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i appreciate the witness' testimony. i think the indication from microsoft today of the ongoing russian targeting of our elections and our systems is showing that this is not something that is in the rear-view mirror. the truth is, ma nnipulating social media is truthful and effective. and putin and his cronies know that. and if there's one message to be

taken out of this hearing is that we all need to stay focused. and that focus aught to extend, and i have some sympathy for you, mr. krebs n terms of trying to make sure the state and local election partners take this message seriously and recognize this is not all in the rear-view mirror. not all the activities stopped in 2016. they are ongoing and this is an ongoing threat. and i'm particularly concerned about the last mile issued of even if we notify will we then take action. as i indicated to you beforehand, and one of the things that our intel committee investigation is looking back into in terms of russian activities, we need your assistance. so i need your public commitment today that the outstanding document requests that we have will be met in a timely manner. >> yes, senator. as you know, we have produced thousands of documents. >> but not all the documents have been committed. will you meet the bipartisan

request for the documents. >> absolutely. >> and they decided some of the documents won't be turned over to the committee. we refute that story and say that all documents of the committee's request will be turned over to the committee. >> i'm not aware of that story, but i can assure you that we'll continue to produce documents. >> in a timely manner within the next 30 days, within the next 60 days? >> i have to con subject with those reviewing -- >> many of these have been requested literally for months. >> we commit that we'll continue to produce the documents -- >> in a timely process to that we cannot -- we are seven to eight months behind on the document requests. >> we'll absolutely provide them. >> and one of the things made of a formal request in the past to reiterate in the forum, because of the nature of some of these documents that are fatherly complicated, we need your office's technical assistance in terms of interpretation of the documents. will you provide that assistance? >> senator, let me at to my last

response, i'm told we have a document production to be providing today and before the hearing i said we're happy to provide that assistance. >> i appreciate that. mr. krebs, i mentioned and you indicated that you've got only voluntary ability to work with those on the front line, one of the things i have grave concerns about in a normal white house, when our country has been attacked, as it has been in this bipartisan consensus, there would be someone designated in the white house as election securities or someone designated on the national security council as making this a top priority. one of the things that has been extraordinary to me is that we have had repeatedly top intelligence officials that indicate to us that they have not been told that the election security aught to be a top priority. and that raises huge concerns to me, recognizing that you're

trying to do your best at dhs, one of the series of questions i have for you here, recognize i have a short amount of time, is there any intention -- we have sanctioned the i.r.a. officers that indicated by the mueller indictments, is there any effort to indicate the or to sanction the 12 officers that were also designated in the mueller indictments? >> senator, as you are aware, we have sanctioned a number of individuals connected to the gru and the fsb. in fact, some of the sanctions we issued this morning were specifically in connection to the relationship to the fsb. we did designate the -- >> the ira but not some of the 12 gou. >> we are very closely looking at that indictment. i can't preview what our plans are, but rest assured -- >> all i will say is it will help the american public as we sanction the bad actors and the bad actors' identities in case that was built against them by the workings of the special

prosecutor. it would do a great deal to the american public in terms of the serious threat in the president wouldn't on a daily basis denigrate the mueller hunt and call it a witch hunt, an investigation that has created 30-plus indictments and guilty pleas and has been a very valuable tool in identifying the bad actors who in the past and in the ongoing basis try to interfere in our election activities. mr. krebs, do you have indication of who attacked senator mccaskill's activities before the election, other election officials and what level of confidence do you have in terms of overall russian activities towards current sitting elected officials and our elections that are coming up in a few months? >> so to the second question, certainly, target performed in the intelligence collection based on your role and policy formation, there are general

espionage and foreign intelligence collections with or without a midterm election coming up across the horizon. due to the microsoft news and mccaskill's recent announcements, they have been in contact with the doj and with microsoft to get a better understanding of what they saw that enabled them to take action in terms of the formal attribution from the government. i have to defer to the intelligence committee on that, but rest assured, we are engaging on a day-to-day basis with the house cio, with the senate cio, with the committees, and i would encourage you staff to work with the department of homeland security. more important to that when you go back to your district or home state, please encourage your officials to work with the department of homeland security on the election security matters. >> i think it is important to make sure that as you contact states, that you indicate that this is an ongoing threat. it did not happen in 2016.

within the last week or so, they have not had that kind of clarity. >> i look forward to tomorrow's closed session. >> mr. chairman, if i could, i just want to reinforce senator warren with the importance of the senator warner's admonition and question how important the documents are to be turned over in a timely manner. thank you. >> we appreciate that, senator. and we're dropping off another production today. we have a staff who have been working to get the requests out quickly. >> chairman, thank you very much. first we'll direct this question to in and all. can you identify changes in russian behavior that have occurred since the summit between president trump and president putin in helsinki? this is before the summit? >> i don't have anything to add. >> senator, i would ask that any

kind of question like that be addressed in a closed session. >> the senator from montana said getting answers in a closed session is no easier than getting answers in an open session. your unwillingness to answer the session, one of the things coming from this hearing is a set of recommendations on what congress may do and consider legislatively for additional sanctions. i have not reached a conclusion that any additional sanctions are beneficial. i don't know the answer to that question, but i would have thought that you could have been able to give us ideas of what we might look at or pursue in cooperation with you and the administration. am i to take from your unwillingness to answer that kind of question that there is an opposition by the administration to additional sanctions? or what is a better explanation? >> senator, absolutely not. there's no opposition to sanctions.

as i have already mentioned, we have designated over 200 individuals and companies in connection -- >> i'm talking about additional sanctions, something we're looking at in this committee. >> including additional sanctions just issued this morning. in terms of what additional authorities we may need, we already have through catsa and executive orders brought authority to target big sectors of the russian economy to go after the russian oligarchs, to go after russia's malicious cyber activities. and the number of other areas. in fact, as i have already mentioned, we have targeted not only a number of very significant russian companies. we have targeted the chairs of those companies making it much more difficult for them to operate in the world. so we would be happy to sit down and talk to congress about any proposed legislation. but we do have significant and substantial authorities already on the book. >> and maybe that's the answer to the question, it's not what

you have been able to do, but the question is what more do you need. nothing is known at the moment that you consult with congress, we come up with the ideas and might take away from your testimony. i think i generally agree with senator cotton that we aught to be looking at other issues, in addition to the sanctions, certainly our relationship with nato, economic alliances around the globe, resolving our trade differences with other countries so that we're unified. i think the list is longer than the sanctions. we generally are focused on sanctions in this committee. but i take it from your answer that today you believe that they have the necessary authority to combat what we're trying to combat with russian behavior. is that a fair assessment? >> yes, senator, but we're happy to talk to additional authorities. i agree with you whole heartedly, it is the whole government, sanctions alone won't solve the problem. and this administration has activities with the russian

threat. >> thank you very much. the administration, i think i don't know who this is for, but the complete cutoff of the iranian patrol imports by november. that seems to be just in time before winter. does that stand to reason that that will push europe and others to be more dependent upon russian oil and natural gas? and is there coordination on the sanctions that were proposing with iran and sanctions that we have in place with russia or proposing with russia? >> absolutely, senator. there's an extensive inner agency on the sanctions with the state department, with the department of energy, and of course with our closest allies and partners. >> mr. krebs, your testimony, you note, leadership role, the department plays in conducting elections, coordinating efforts to assess vulnerabilities and mitigate risk. within this structure, dhs also plays an important role in sharing information with election officials.

i have visited with county clerk and officers in kansas with personnel within our secretary of state's office that conducts oversight on management of elections in our state. what steps as dhs taken to ensure that information intelligence is shared with local officials? my general impression is that while there's concern by election officials, they don't know the direct nature of any threat. >> so we have prioritized security clearances for state and local election officials, i think right now we're up to 92, and that includes every single state. but most importantly -- >> is that election officials somebody at the state level or -- >> yes, somebody at the secretary of state or chief level of every state and working their way down to the level. our imperative here is to bring information out of the classified space as rapidly as possible and share actionable

information. so it doesn't matter what county or locality there. and that they have information from dhs that is pulled generally from the intelligence community that they can act on. and our mission is to shorten that time period. so we are working on clearances, but more importantly, we're trying to convene information sharing for, we have all 50 states and are pushing 1,000 local jurisdictions. the challenge here is that there are close to 10,000 election jurisdictions nationwide. so while we have the -- what is probably the fastest growing most successful isec, we have a pretty big gap to fill. what was mentioned earlier by senator warner in the last mile, we have the initiative to develop tailored guidance to every single county if they would like it across this country. and that will include how to sign up for the isec. how to participate in the

response in the tabletop exercise. >> what is the timeframe for that? >> if they -- we are marketing this aggressively now. we have gotten four through the shoot. we have 22 more states in the works right now. we have the capacity by the midterm if every single state asks for a last mile and it's a poster that we can share with them tomorrow in the closed session, it's an unclassified document. we can do all 50 states if asked by the midterm. >> thank you. >> senator donnelly. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you to the witnesses. mr. krebs, have you reviewed the security of the elections in indiana specifically? >> i personally have not but we do work with the state of indiana, yes, sir. >> and do you know if there are any reports in regards to your department and what has been done in terms of hardening and securing indiana's election for

the upcoming election? >> we certainly have a profile on the state and the record of engagements and how we have engaged with the state. >> would that be direct contacts between your state and the state of indiana? >> i'm sorry, repeat the question. >> would that direct the contacts you have had back and forth. >> yes, sir, we track the head person in engagement. >> what i would like to do is get a copy of all of that so that we know on the state's end that we can be helpful to our state to make sure that they are getting everything they need, the last mileprogram, all these things put in place. so that we have the most secure possible election. and not -- obviously, my state, but also that across -- >> we can certainly engage and provide you an update on what we're doing particularly nationwide. but i do need to reinforce the fact that there is a level of confidentiality. because i'm involuntary, i'm an entirely dependent position upon a state or local jurisdiction to come to me and to bring

information to ask for help. if i'm in a position where i'm posting or sharing what is confidential information, this is just like attorney/client privilege. i'm the attorney, they are the client, they own the privilege. so it is up to the partner -- >> in your best judgment, we would like to see what has been done to make sure that we're taking as many steps as possible in our state to secure the election. >> thank you, yes, sir. >> at the helsinki summit, do you know if the subject of sanctions was discussed between president trump and vladimir putin? >> senator, i am not aware whether or not the subject of sanctions was discussed in that very specific meeting between the two of them, but i believe that the president has addressed his -- >> i'm not asking about the president, i'm asking you. do you have any knowledge of what was discussed in that summit between the president and vladimir putin since you are the

one who implements the very sanctions that might have been discussed? >> senator, i know that the path has -- >> i'm asking, were you given a briefing to what was discussed regarding sanctions in that summit meeting? >> senator, we have had inner agency discussions following the helsinki -- >> were you told what was discussed between the president and between vladimir putin regarding sanctions? were you given a reading as to everything that was discussed since you are the one who enforces sanctions? >> senator, we have had discussions following the helsinki summit about what was addressed in the summit. and my mandate has been the same since the summit, which is to continue to deploy impactful sanctions. >> were you told whether or not the president and vladimir putin discussed sanctions? >> again, senator, we have had -- >> that's a simple question. yes or no. either you were told or you weren't. >> again -- >> do you know if that subject was discussed? >> again, senator, secretary

pompeo addressed what was discussed in helsinki. i was not there. we have had inner agency discussions about the helsinki summit. >> this is about as simple as it gets. you can go, did you tie your shoe or not? yes or no? did you hear whether or not sanctions were discussed in this meeting? yes or no? do you know if they were disc s discussed or not? >> i don't know the specifics of whether they discussed sanctions at the meeting, but i think the president publicly discussed his conversations with mr. putin. >> but you are in charge of implementing these things. >> what i can tell you is that following the helsinki summit, my mandate remains the same, which is to continue to impose sanctions to counter russia's maligned behavior. and we have done that in full force. >> the fact is, russia is still in syria. they have not changed their behavior. they are still in ukraine. they're still using cyber attacks. they're still meddling in

elections. they're preparing to meddle in the upcoming elections. they're still violating the imf treaty. this is all taking place while we have sanctions in place, which apparently have had no effect on this. as you look at this, what sanction would have the most effect to start to turn this behavior around? and let me ask you one other question, i'm running out of time here, i know we're trying to run it tight. who do you need to get approval from to take for the sanction steps? >> senator -- >> there's got to be somebody. >> yes, sure. determinations about most sanctions which are subject to executive order or statute are made typically by the secretary of the treasury and consultation with the secretary of state. >> has the secretary of treasury approved you to take further sanctions actions you deem necessary? >> absolutely. in fact, we issued sanctions just this morning in connection with russia. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

>> senator purdue. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your patience and forebearance this morning, guys. i want to talk about the closed briefing we had on july 31st. i must have attended a different meeting, mr. chairman, but i got a lot out of that meeting. those today have said we got no answers, but i think we addressed one thing in the closed briefing and i would like to touch on today knowing that we are in the open environment. secretary mendoker, let me clarify a couple things, are you familiar with the russian primary reserve fund that we have just closed down? >> generally, senator, but not -- >> they just closed down the primary reserve fund and are now using the welfare reserve fund for any profits as you say above $70 a barrel, i would like to say, on the oil sector. so we're beginning to have some impact, but it hasn't changed behavior yet. and here's my question, would the inner connectivity of the

global economy, if we put sanctions on russia, there's a trading partner that gets hit by that as well. we have the world economy that says about 40% of the did detriment of the sanction is brought about by countries with russia. number one in russia, we're going to continue to do this. and with trading partners of russia, we're going to continue to do this. is that true? >> i can't verify the statistics, but there's no question when you impose sanctions and have particular types of entities in russia, there are those impacts that are felt elsewhere. and that is because of the fact that russia is part of the -- >> right, it's a global economy. then the question is, is it u.s. companies or europeans? europeans are saying they are bearing more of the brunt because they have hired the trade with russia and i agree

with that subjectively. but from a quantitative point of view, with catsa, you have authority to do more than we are doing today. is that true? >> senator, as i have already mentioned, we have issued a wide swath of designations under catsa and the executive orders. we can always do more. >> that's the question. let me go right there, without getting into the classified issues here, there are more things that you can do. but there is a governor that is being used right now by someone in the administration that says that the impact on the negative side here, the short-term impact, we're not willing to bear that. is that true or not? >> i wouldn't say that is true, senator. with respect to any particular designation that we issue, of course, we very closely study the impact. we want to know what the impact is to u.s. businesses, to u.s. jobs, what the impact is to our closest allies and partners. we also engaged in a number of discussions with the allies and partners. we study those carefully and look to see how we mitigate

those kind of consequences and we make our decisions about that. >> you would agree on the larger economy, it is about a trillion and a half economy, it is an entirely different equation than trying to deal with a $400 billion economy like iran or north korea. that's a fact. >> i agree those are different complex problems. >> and that the sanctioning regime is not an end-all. you have already said it has to be a whole government. we have talked a whole lot about that today. are you integrated with other facets of the administration for the ultimate outcome here, and that is a change in behavior in russia. >> absolutely, senator. so what other agencies do you guys integrate with in terms of trying to change behavior in russia? >> we work closely with the state department, we work closely with the intelligence community, we work closely with the department of homeland security and others. >> so secretary ford, so with -- russia has now $190 billion in u.s. treasuries. they are doing other things to prepare for the sanction regime

efforts that we might make. what efforts are you aware of that russia is trying to do to prepare and are there other things to counter that prior to issuing of any further sanctions? >> thank you for the question, senator. i think in an open session it is probably wise not to get into too many specifics about that. but it is safe to assume that the kremlin is preparing for potential future sanctions because they know full well what they intend to do and therefore i assume they can also anticipate that if they continue to do the kinds of things they have done that draw sanctions in the past, that we will continue to react to that. >> and are we in the state department dealing with our european allies who i think are bearing a higher degree of impact to this, are we in a comfortable position that they are going to stay with us, particularly when we talk about nordstream 2, are we going to preclude that? are the russian allies hanging in there with us right now? and how do you project that

further into the sanctioning effort? >> that's an ongoing piece of the diplomatic challenge. we, of course, hope the people hang with us in this. we think we have been doing a pretty good job of keeping the team together so far. one example of that is the ongoing engagement with the friends with respect to the rollover sanctions in russia for crimea. this is the kind of thing which we spend a lot of time doing. you mentioned the issue of mate grating upon the u.s. economy, for example. one of the things we did a couple weeks ago, we issued sanctions against russia for its chemical weapons attack in the u.k. we had a series of -- the most significant piece is a presumption of denial from the united states. one of the carveouts we had from that is an effort to take into consideration the kind of concerns you identified sir is a carve out for a national security export to the u.s. companies operating in russia.

so that we're not hurting our people operating in russia. and we had to carve out for the russians employed by the u.s. companies in the united states, for example. we are always mindful of those kinds of effects and we try to mitt grate them as best we can. >> thank you, mr. chairman. senator jones. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to just real quick see something that i have been concerned with here in the classified meetings and here today. and i see all the issues going and the sanctions that have been imposed and the financial impact and everything, yet we're not hearing as much of a deterrent, the impact and the effectiveness of the deterrent. and i'm curious as to if you can, has the president's comments about all this being a hoax in anything like that, is that undermining your efforts? is putin trying to wait it out in hoping the president will have his way? is that undermining your efforts? >> i think to the contrary, senator, you look at the wide range of activities that this administration has undertaken

under the direction of the president, including the very significant sanctions that we have been able to launch, including the expulsion of 60 russians out of our country, including the closing of russian entities in the united states. what russia sees is a very united states that is very aggressive. >> but with the president standing right next to mr. putin and he's talking about hoaxes on twitter, it just seems to undermine that. but that's okay. i understand. i understand the response. mr. krebs, i would like to ask you briefly, i know in my election in december, dhs had officials on the ground in case there was some problems. we had seen some issues with bots and other things coming up, but apparently there was not a lot of activity that day, at least as far as the russians were concerned. my -- i want to kind of follow-up on what senator tester was asking.

and are you going to be able to provide that kind of support this coming november for 50 states. and what kind of support would that look like? are you focusing on specific response threats. what are we going to see from dhs on election day in november of this year? >> thank you for the question. so absolutely, across the 50 states, if requested, we will deploy our personnel or field personn personnel, we have cyber security advisers across the country. they will be in the incident response cells for the state cios and will also sit alongside the homeland security advisers. and we will deploy that again come midterms. we just actually ran through this process last week. we had tabletopped the vote, which was a nationwide tabletop exercise, three-day exercise, 44 states plus the district of columbia. ran through scenarios both technical and infrastructure as well as foreign information

operations. and a couple takeaways from that, just again, to reinforce when you go home, please encourage your state and local officials to work with us, but there is a need as i mentioned in our dependent position, we need more information as soon as it comes up. this is -- if you see something, say something montra applies here as well. we do really need state and locals to alert us as quickly and as early as possible to stitch together the national picture. so a few other things will be standing up, our national cyber security communications integration center will be in a kind of warroom posture that day. but we'll also have a national situation awareness room where state and local officials can get on to a basically a web chat, something like that, and they can share information across the country. if they see anything, they can put it up in the situation awareness room and can share information visibility in the

common operating picture of our election security posture on midterms. >> i want to follow-up real quick with that, because you first said that if the state requested, i'm assuming leading up to election day, there's going to be a considerable amount of information being shared. and if you're seeing something, you're going to be encouraging those states to request that information or try to do that. i mean, some states, you know, look, a lot of states are reluctant to get the feds involved. alabama is probably one of them. you know, for a lot of reasons. but i assume there's going to be a lot of information sharing leading up to that. so you can help identify, not just relying on the states, but you can help identify where there is a particular vulnerability. >> yes, sir, absolutely. we have every single day steady engagement with all 50 states and local jurisdictions. secretary merrill has been a partner and we look forward to work with him. we're not just waiting for election day, we are -- the amount of progress that we have made in the last year alone is

quite substantial. and we will continue pushing, pushing, pushing through the midterm. and then we'll do a hot wash. we'll figure out where we need to get better and make that run up to the 2020 presidential. >> great. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator till list. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you all for being here and the good work you're doing. mr. ford, this may be in your lane, but one of the things that have been helpful to the committee that could either be provided in a classified setting or ideally in the open setting so we can cut through some of the stuff that we heard today, are trim lines. i'm very curious to see what -- let's say that there is foreign investment into russia. if you apply it over a period of time, if you look at exits,

exxon was mentioned here. i think jd started in the 2013/'14 timeframe. probably months before crimea was invaded. and that yet for the entire period of time under the prior administration, there was not enough action to make exxon take pause as to whether or not it made sense to do that. this administration has. so i think if we look at some of the economic fundamentals movement in the gdp, the sorts of foreign direct engagement, those will be very helpful for us to have and kind of map that to actions that you all have taken. you may not be able to drive direct causation, but that would be helpful to show. and i think we're seeing trends move in the right direction. i don't know if you have information you can provide with that or whether or not that would be provided publicly at some point. >> senator, we would be happy to provide that publicly. there's no, or to you personally, there's no question to see the kind of trim lines. there's no question that the

sanctions are -- or the fact that we have actually gone after some of these very significant entities, oligarchs -- >> i would like to hit that, because i would like to drill it down so that when you hear no action is being taken, no repercussions are being experienced, that seems to suggest or to defy any logic with anybody that follows the russian economy. mr. ford, do you have anything to add to that? >> nothing to add, senator, except that i would agree completely russia has been feeling pain from this. i don't have specific figures in front of me, but of course things like direct investment are clearly down after we sanctioned them for the proliferation effect. >> i would like to point to it. and we can talk more in this session tomorrow. mr. krebs, do you believe that russia started meddling in elections just in 2016? in the united states? >> without speaking to any classified specifics, i find it hard to believe that

intelligence service has not been trying to collect information on policymakers influence. >> do you believe it's fair to say without sharing anything in the classified nature here that prior administrations would have been aware of this? >> well, certainly the last administration was aware. and i think before that -- >> do you see any evidence that internally there was any aggressive action being taken as a matter of policy or request for congress to act providing additional tools in that timeframe? >> so as the other secretary mentioned, i also was not there at that time, but there's continuity record. we have seen is tdiscussions. there were actions taken and there was perhaps a lack of appreciation at the full-time of the scope of the efforts. >> it's easy to lay your hands on some of that. that could be helpful in the closed session tomorrow but that's not a formal question. if you can get it and it is easy, be prepared for what you intend to talk about tomorrow. you know, the other point in relation to some questions here about burning down the russian

economy, i think that it sounds good. it may be a good sound bite. i think it isn't good as a matter of strategic precise policy where you're trying to ratchet things up without having the unintended consequences. i think secretary mendoker, that's what you were trying to get to. so i think in tomorrow's session, if we could talk more about some of the matters that may not be appropriate for this setting, i would appreciate getting into that. and mr. krebs, in my remaining time, you mentioned that there are 22 states currently engaged that are getting into the last mile program, do you know whether or not or can you say whether or not north carolina is one of them? >> sir, i would have to circle back on that, but again, we tend to not talk about specific state engagement. >> i think the other thing that is very important, i think i heard you right by saying they've got to come and request your support. >> yes, sir.

>> so it would also probably be helpful for those of us in the senate who want to make sure that the state is availing themselves these resources that we as members of the senate communicate to the secretary of state or election officials that this is a resource they should take advantage of. i would like to get your advice on how to communicate that. thank you, mr. chair. >> absolutely. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. krebs, i don't know if you are familiar with the story that was just out or a letter from the primary source of a young 17-year-old. >> yes, ma'am. i did see that this morning. >> that's very interesting reading, actually. attending a conference where a programming conference where they were asked to try to hack into state databases and change numbers. but he decided he would do something different and he ended up in five minutes without really knowing a lot about it crashing the system. you know, anyone who reads this has no confidence at all that we're headed in the right

direction. and that we're taking the right kind of prophylactic measures. and one of the things we have to do is to have paper ballots. so how many states have a system where they don't require paper ballots right now? >> five states are entirely electronic. 14 states have non-paper ballots. >> this is very problematic. >> yes, ma'am. >> and i can't say enough about the need to be very vocal in those states where they don't have paper ballots. >> as far as i've seen, every single state that does not have paper ballots is on track towards whether at the legislative level -- >> will they be on track for the '18 election? >> i don't believe so, but i think every single one is aiming for 2020. >> this is a real problem. and i'm not -- i wasn't there in the exercise, maybe in closed session we could talk a little bit about whether this experience at this young 17-year-old had is consistent with your concerns, but, you

know, obviously very, very concerning. and a wake-up call for all of us. >> if i can comment on that article, i -- i try to look at that glass as half full side of this, with the defcon conference, what we're seeing is the importance in cyber security in election security. that is happening. no one is laying, is sitting back and taking this on the chin. we are stepping forward, we're making progress. i would also say that when you have -- i think that individual has been in computer science for five or six years, that is also one of the greatest gaps we have has a nation is cyber security workforce, but also stem education in our k-12 and higher education. so when i read that article, i have some doubts. >> he professed that he didn't have a level of skillsets that would in any way match a russian

database or bank of hackers. >> but he's in the game, and i tell you what, that 17-year-old and the other 11-year-old they were talking about, i want their resumés in five years. we need more of that. >> well, i'm telling you, it's wake-up call. ms. mandelker, you know, i'm just going to say that i want to, and we can look at all the metrics that senator tillis was talking about and gdp and all that, but let's look at a micro level. i've been watching your work regarding rusaw. it seems pretty simple. when they draw a waiver, the waiver is withdrawn from their tariffs. how does it benefit if we say

we're going to give you extensions so you can get rid of the oligarch and you can continue to function? that sounds schizophrenic to me. >> i can't comment on the tariffs. we were clear when we investigated his companies, we were investigating those companies because they were 50% or more owner controlled by mr. garipaska. the same was true of the other oligarchs we investigated. >> but you let him take his money out of the company before you then said we'll lift the sanctions? >> we haven't lifted any sanctions on rusaw. at the same time we lifted those designations, we appreciated that those designations can have wide-range -- >> isn't that the purpose of these, to have wide-ranging effects of economic issues that

would lead to sanctions? that's true in any global economy. no one cares that soybean farmers are collateral damage, so why do we care if other people use aluminum or collateral damage on sanctions? >> rusaw is one of the biggest aluminum companies in the world. they have operations all over europe. we've been in close discussions with our close partners and allies. we wanted to make sure that the impact of the designation was felt -- >> i'm out of time, but my only point on this is there is an approach avoidance on what you guys do, and it just seems to me that when you have your boot on the neck of a bad actor, you should keep it there. >> senator van holland. >> thank you, mr. chairman. th thank all of you for your testimony today, and mr. krebs, you've been clear that the department of homeland security focuses on defense, trying to harden our infrastructure, including when it comes to our

elections and election infrastructure. i think we would all agree that even as we need to harden our defense, the best defense would be if we could deter the actions ahead of time regardless of what they may be. mr. krebs, you've talked about some of the positive sides you've seen with respect to the sanctions, and you talk primarily about other countries not engaging with the russians when it comes to harm. you described it as the dog that didn't bark, right? i'm sorry, mr. ford did that. but when it comes to interference in our elections, the dogs are barking really loudly, right? i mean, we have the director of national intelligence, dan coates, saying the lights are flashing red. we had all of the president's top national security advisers a few weeks ago say that the russians are planning to interfere -- already interfering in 2018 elections. we got the microsoft story

today, we have the facebook story from a couple weeks ago. my question to you as an experienced diplomat, who is putin listening to? is he listening to dan coates or is he listening to what the president said at the rally after they met and said this is a russian hoax. who is president putin listening to? >> i guess i'll venture and take that one, senator. >> mr. ford, for you. >> i'm not in position to describe in any detail to whom president putin is listening. i certainly hope someone does that, but i don't know myself. i can say that my own impression from these issues has been that the russians are very well aware of what -- in the soviet era they used to call it the coalition of forces. they understand what it means to feel pain and what it means for economic and other factors to play together in a country's national power.

what we are trying to do, putting aside whatever it is -- i understand your question, but i think from a russian perspective, my guess would be that they are very attuned to the net impact we are having on their ability to project power -- >> mr. ford, i'm asking about the elections. we have evidence, including this morning, that clearly haven't gotten the message with respect to interfering in our politics and our elections. you said earlier that the obvious objective is to influence russian behavior. that's the obvious objective of sanctions. you also said we need to make it clear that there will be a painful result if the russians engage in maligned behavior. here's what secretary pompeo said in response to senator rubio. we have introduced the deter act which would establish very clear certain penalties of russian behavior if we catch them again interfering in our elections.

senator pompeo said, senator, i completely agree with you that there is a cost benefit allocation undertaken before the russians act, so it follows necessarily that putting them on notice with an essential fail-safe about the things that will follow as the likelihood of being successful in raising the terms of how he calculates risks associated with a wide range of actions. do you agree with the secretary of state? >> i clearly agree with secretary pompeo. i think it's important, as i was explaining earlier, to protect and advance things here. we need to influence russian behavior. we need to protect -- in the sanctions context, we need to protect the economic and potential interests and job interests that we have. we don't have, to my knowledge, an infiltrating position on that piece of legislature at this time. i believe it will have challenges to the degree to

which it is possible to have a national security waiver. >> i'm sorry, my time is running out and we can work on issues regarding -- >> we'll be happy to keep you updated on all these issues. >> i worry about the fact under the deter act there is no way of getting out of penalties. you have clear, harsh penalties. these are contingent penalties. we haven't talked about whether we should increase sanctions on russia today. on this piece of legislation, if they get caught interfering in our elections after 2018, there would be harsh sanctions. do you agree that would be the way to continue this? >> we would certainly plan and would expect to make russia regret any step of that sort.

we would be happy to work with you and your staff to provide input to make sure that this legislation, if it moves forward, is as well impacted as it should be to make sure this is more of a rheostat we can use as a tool of diplomacy to make sure russia acts better. >> thank you. that was a lot of adjectives, but the point today we know they are not getting the message. we know that, right? you don't have to answer. the director of national intelligence and everybody has told us that they clearly are not getting the message today, despite what you and everybody else have been saying. so we've got about 80 days, less than that, to go, and my goodness, if we can't come up with a way to safeguard the integrity of our democracy in the next 80 days, shame on us. >> senator cortez-mazdel. >> thank you.

let me try from a different tactic. i want to ask the three of you if you can help me understand the administration's strategy toward russia's election interference. what theory of behavioral change is the administration pursuing that entails treasury designating a series of russian entities and individuals on the one hand, and has president trump standing next to putin and saying russia is not targeting u.s. elections on the other? what's the thinking that links those two actions? can any of you answer that? >> senator, i think the president later corrected what he had said during that press conference, but the bottom line is that we have been -- >> and are you getting clear direction from the president in addressing the concern that i'm hearing from all of my colleagues in a bipartisan manner to address what russia is doing in interfering with our election process? >> absolutely, senator.

>> so what additional sanctions can treasury impose? >> again, this morning we imposed additional sanctions. it's a very active program for us, as i've already mentioned. we have designated some of the biggest companies in russia, we've designated some of putin's closest allies who have an enormous amount of wealth which was seriously impacted by our sanctions. the impact of our sanctions has also had a worldwide impact for russia as it has had a chilling effect on individuals and companies and countries who are considering doing business with russia, because they understand that -- >> ms. mandelker, i don't have much time. i appreciate that and we've had this conversation in a confidential briefing as well, which i was not impressed with. there is evidence through the panama papers or russian forbes suggesting that president putin's men have come into strong windfalls that raise

questions about russia. experts have suggested it should be designated under caatsa authority. do they have the ability to put them under caatsa authority? >> i believe they do. >> so you're not familiar with what i'm talking about? >> senator, as you're aware, we have conducted with the inner agency a very detailed report of officials that are close to putin. we have a great deal of information about those individuals, and we have and will have designated a number of them. >> my colleague just referred to the deter act. do you support it? >> senator, i know the administration is happy to work with the senate on the deter act or any other particular -- >> is there any language in the deter act that you have concerns about? >> we're happy to sit down and provide that kind of guidance. i think those discussions have already been well underway.

>> mr. krebs, you identified there were five states without paper ballots. are you currently working with those states to shorten the integrity of the election? >> yes, ma'am, we work with all 50 states. >> and you're currently working with those five? >> yes, ma'am. >> is there anything we can do in congress to continue to support the election integrity in those five states and what you're doing to work with them? >> certainly. when you go back to your district, please encourage your state officials to work with us. we hit them up every day, but i think the more voices they hear, we do have -- i don't want to undersell the level of work and partnership we're seeing, but we can always do more. >> so there was an opportunity to supply $250 million to the states in addition, on top of the 380 million that the states have utilized. are you hearing from those states of the additional dollars, that 250 million would have been helpful to shore up the integrity of the election process? >> as i understand it, they are

in the process of implementing that $380 million which was a much needed infusion. going forward, there will be a requirement for additional funding. what we are trying to help states with is refine what the ask is and get to the bottom of what is it that they need and how are they going to use it. there have been investments at the state level, because ultimately this is a state and local responsibility to administer federal elections. we are in a supporting role. the question going forward is, is there money needed? how much? where is it going to come from? and if it is a federal spend, how are we going to ensure the appropriate risk-based security outcome? >> besides paper ballots, is there anything else that can be -- >> audit ability, yes, ma'am. audit ability. >> thank you. my time is running out. thank you very much. >> thank you. senator warren. >> thank you, mr. chairman. sanctions usually involve an effort to follow the money, and russians close to putin are using every opportunity they can to make it harder for the united states to follow the money.

the recent defense bill requires treasury to brief congress on the assets owned by vladimir putin and his cronies, including the location, value, size and contents of their bank accounts, real estate holdings and all other financial assets, and the shell companies they use to hide those assets. that bill has now been signed into law. undersecretary mandelker, when can we expect you to provide this briefing? >> we would be willing to work with your staff on that briefing -- >> this isn't about working with my staff. you're supposed to give a brief to all congress. i just want to know when it will be ready. >> i can't give you a date, but i'll be happy to give you that. >> weeks, months? >> i believe that requirement was that we conduct that briefing with the secretary -- >> have you started that? >> we have a number of efforts underway -- >> is that a yes or no? >> we have a number of efforts

underway to follow the money. we just provided an extensive report to congress pursuant to caatsa. >> i'm just asking about one thing, about a report you're supposed to produce, and i just want to know when you're going to produce the report. i ask this question because frankly i am not convinced that treasury is doing everything possible to hold putin accountable for using cyberattacks to interfere in our elections and those of our allies for illegally occupying ukraine, for propping up the syrian dictator assad. congress required treasury to provide a report on the net worth and income sources of senior russians close to putin. and instead i saw what you did. you copied and pasted the forbes billionaires list. thank you, but we already have that. the senate intelligence committee asked treasury to help follow the trail of dirty russian money to investigate russia's interference in our election, and you are reportedly dragging your feet on that. it's been over a year since congress overwhelmingly passed

sanctions on russia. you still have not implemented seven mandatory provisions of that law. it is not hard to see why putin thinks he can still interfere in our elections and get away with it. the american people and the world deserve to know how putin makes his money. and if we want to squeeze putin and his cronies, we need to follow the money and expose those assets so that these corrupt individuals have fewer ways to ignore the sanctions. so i want to ask you another question following up on what senator heitkamp asked. last month just days after president trump met with president putin in finland, rusal, the sanctioned russian aluminum company sanctioned by a putin crony, received a sanction by the policy department. they reportedly signed off on this exemption. i sent a letter to the commerce

department asking questions about the decision and one day later the administration reversed its tariff exemption. i was very glad to see that. but can you tell me -- i still have a simple question. how did treasury allow a tariff exemption for the subsidiary of a sanctioned russian company in the first place given that the tariff was meant to protect american suppliers? >> senator, that was a decision by the department of commerce, not a decision by the treasury department. >> so the information that you signed off on that reversed positions is not accurate? >> that's right rgs senat, sena. >> okay, you're saying, that's not accurate, it didn't happen. meanwhile the treasury is reportedly considering lifting sanctions on rusal which is sanctions of its financial ties to a corruption oligarch which contributed to putin's election to ukraine. putin recently said he was concerned, quote, about the

hardworking people of rusal. so let me ask, has putin withdrawn from the illegal occupation from ukraine, stopped cyberattacks and disinformation or halted efforts to stop spreading corruption? >> senator, i just want to correct one point from your earlier question. >> yes. >> the oligarch report, the classified oligarch report, as we said repeatedly, was a very extensive piece of work. it involved over 2500 hours of work within the inner agency. as far as following the money, we've undertaken -- >> i know we're out of time, but let me just say on this, we just passed a law about this. i just asked you about asking for a report, and it was signed into law, and all i ask you is when are you going to follow that and you tell me we already have. if we thought you had already done it, we wouldn't have passed another law asking for this report. i think it's perfectly fair to ask you when you are going to comply with the law that president trump recently signed

in effect. >> and senator, i made clear that that law requires we provide a briefing. we're happy to do that. we just provided -- >> when? that was my question? >> -- covering elicit finance of money -- >> and when will you conduct that briefing? that was my question. that was the whole question. it was a short question. >> we're happy to get back to you. that's a briefing that we would do with the director of national intelligence and the state department. i'm not prepared to give you a date today, but we will give you a date. >> or even a ballpark. thank you. >> senator reid. >> thank you, mr. chairman. let me ask if anybody would disagree with the statement that we have ir reputable, uncontradicted evidence that president putin interfered in the 2016 election to interrupt the candidacy of president trump and secretary clinton, that they

continued to engage in activity to undermine our election process throughout the united states. would anyone disagree with that? >> sir, i think that tracks with the intelligence community. that's a fact. >> so why does the president seem unwilling to accept this fact? as recently as yesterday, he suggested that it may or may not be the russians. why doesn't he accept what is the fact? >> sir, i believe he has supported the intelligence committee. he supports the intelligence community. undersecretary mandelker confirmed this. they were very supportive about the intelligence community and supporting our integrity. >> so why is it just yesterday he asked about the mueller

investigation in support of the russians, if it was the russians? >> i'm not aware of a report. the president has been clear he's for the intelligence community. i have all the guidance, the direction and the authorities that i need to help state and local election officials. >> would it help your effort if the president of the united states, your efforts both nationally and internationally, if the president of the united states made a statement to the american people that essentially reaffirmed the statement i just made, i.e., we were attacked by the russians at the direction of putin. it was designed to affect the election in 2016. they are continuing to attack us. would that help your efforts in terms of bolstering election security if the president actually said that directly rather than every other da

day equivocate? >> again, the president supports the intelligence community. >> then why does he sit around and say i support the intelligence community assessment, but just yesterday said, maybe the russians, maybe not. how does that support the intelligence community assessment when the intelligence community assessment, as you all conceded, is actually conclusive as the involvement of russia, involvement of putin, and they continue to interfere in the united states. this is as if the president said, we were attacked but it could have been that guy or somebody else. i don't think that's the way our previous presidents have acted. i don't think you have an answer. >> sir, i have the guidance i need to go and engage. >> but what about engaging the american people and the international community? they're looking at , as my

colleague suggested, questions of, well, the president doesn't really believe that. one of the issues that's coming up shortly is that the european union every six months has to renew sanctions. that expires january 30th, 2019. is there a chance -- and it has to be unanimous -- one of the countries could say, this is no big deal with the president. we don't have to do that. >> senator, we engage very extensively with the european colleagues precisely on those sanctions. they just issued additional sanctions at the end of last month that followed sanctions we had previously designated. we're going to continue to work with our colleagues in the eu to have them continue to ratchet up the pressure that we've already been placing on the russian economy. those discussions have been quite productive. >> have you or any of your paying colleagues suggested to you that they're confused about

the president's statements? >> no, senator. >> so they're completely -- as completely assured of his situation as we are, and frankly, you know, you can't explain the questioning. neither can i. why would one question if the russians were involved in the election as recently as yesterday if, in fact, you do support the intelligence community? thank you. >> thank you, senator reed, and that concludes the questioning. questions submitted by senators will be due by next tuesday, and i ask all of our witnesses to respond promptly to those questions if they are submitted to them. and with that, this hearing is concluded. thank you again for your attendance and willingness to share your expertise with us here today. thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

>> announcer: this-span. where history unfolds daily. in 1969, cspan was created by a public service for american television companies. today we continue to bring you unfiltered hearings of congress, the white house, the supreme court and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. cspan is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. you're watching american history tv, normally seen only on the weekends here on cspa-sp, but the house is on break, so we're using this opportunity to expand into weekdays. we focus on the seventh u.s. president, andrew jackson. ko coming up, the rise of andrew jackson in his presidency. coming up, jacksonian democracy,

and then we take you to the tour of the jackson home in washington, d.c. called the "hermitage." join us this evening on cspan-3 for andrew jackson's presidency. arizona state university professor jonathan barth leads the conversation and answers your questions. watch lectures in history tonight on cspan-3. if you miss any of this week's american history tv programs, you can find them anytime on line at cspan's video library. american history tv weekdays continues until labor day. on wednesday, historical interpretations of reconstruction after the civil war. thursday the history of the vietnam war and operation rolling thunder, which is the same name as the current annual veterans memorial day motorcycle

ride. and friday, civil rights from the zoot suit riots to the women's movement. on lectures in history. arizona state university professor jonathan barth teaches a class about the rise of andrew jackson and his presidency. he fouke ucuses on jackson's cl with people such as andrew webster in the banks of the '30s. his lecture is about 30 minutes. >> well, good morning, everybody, and welcome to american history. my name is jonathan barth. you all know me as professor barth. and i am a history professor at arizona state university in conjunction with two very stellar world class programs, and there they are on