| WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford (AR-01) delivered the following opening statement in a hearing with Intelligence Community leadership to examine the annual assessment of worldwide threats to the national security of the United States. Watch the full committee hearing here. As prepared for delivery: Good morning, everyone. I call the committee to order. Without objection, the Chair may declare the committee in recess at any time. Before we begin today’s hearing, I would like to provide a few important reminders. First, today’s open portion is being broadcast live on C-SPAN and streamed on the Committee’s YouTube channel. This open portion of the hearing will be conducted entirely on an unclassified basis. All participants are reminded to refrain from discussing classified or other sensitive information protected from public disclosure. I will adjourn this open session following completion of one round of questions, and we will then move into a closed session where such questions can be asked. Second, I want to inform the audience that while I fully support constitutionally-protected rights of speech and protest, this is not the time or place. Any would-be disruptors in the audience who interfere with the Committee’s business will not be tolerated. For this event, Members will have five minutes with the witnesses. I would ask each of my colleagues to keep both your questions, and complete answers from the witnesses, within those allotted five minutes. Any last questions or responses that can’t be completed in time will be submitted for the record. We do expect a vote series at 10:00 this morning. The vote will be held open, so we do not plan to recess. Additionally, in the same manner in which the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has conducted itself in recent Worldwide Threats hearings, I expect that we will continue to act in a bipartisan and respectful manner during today’s event. I am confident all members can treat each of our witnesses today with due respect—consistent with past practice. This Worldwide Threats hearing provides the American people the opportunity to hear directly from our Intelligence Community leadership on the threats that face our nation. It is my pleasure to welcome our witnesses to today’s hearing: – Director of National Intelligence, the Honorable Tulsi Gabbard – Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Honorable John Ratcliffe – Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Honorable Kash Patel – Acting Director of the National Security Agency, Lieutenant General William J. Hartman – Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General James H. Adams, III It is a gross understatement to say that a lot has occurred since we met at this hearing last year. Before I address the issues I had planned, I want to address Iran. Once it was clear that diplomacy would not stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon or holding the world under threat through ballistic missiles and terrorist networks, President Trump took decisive action to eliminate the threat. Make no mistake. Iran is committed to acquiring nuclear weapons. It has been their policy and is their intent. Anyone who thinks we weren’t on borrowed time is refusing to acknowledge the failure of prior policies. It is a simple fact that consecutive Administrations had exhausted all other options to end this threat. Our witnesses here are tasked with providing intelligence to inform decision makers. But there is only one person in America who has the responsibility, and obligation, to act when he believes a clear danger to our safety exists. The Commander-in-Chief has that duty – and I commend his decisiveness in this most difficult of decisions. I have been in briefings that the Administration provided to all Members, to this committee, and to the Gang of Eight. The classified case is clear, even if it can’t be fully discussed in the open. The President made a difficult, but necessary, decision. My Democrat colleagues have made it clear that they don’t agree. What we shouldn’t disagree on is that the United States has effectively been at war with the Iranian regime for the last 47 years. “Death to America” is not just a slogan on a t-shirt that you buy at Tehran International Airport or at the campus bookstore at Columbia University. It is their ethos and their policy. They are responsible for the deaths of countless Americans. I want to thank the many service members and intelligence officers involved in Operation Epic Fury for their selfless service. For those who have lost loved ones in this fight, please know that you are in our prayers – most sincerely. Your loved ones died in service to the United States of America. We honor them, and you, for their service. Freedom-loving people everywhere are thankful for their sacrifice. That said, there are a few other topics it is important for me to address. First, after four years of Biden’s wide-open borders and anemic foreign policy, in just one short year, the Trump Administration has secured our borders and reasserted America as a decisive leader that commands respect on the world stage. This Administration has secured a stunning number of wins for the United States, including: – Reasserting the importance of the Western Hemisphere and disrupting China’s predatory Belt and Road activities in our neighborhood – Negotiating a ceasefire in Gaza resulting in the freeing of the hostages held by the bloodthirsty HAMAS terrorists, and – Working with our NATO partners to more than double their defense spending against pressing threats from the CCP and Russia. I thank each of the witnesses here today for their parts in this reassertion of American leadership. Second, our role here is to both authorize your authorities and resources and oversee their implementation. One of those authorities is FISA 702, which expires in just over a month. The President is seeking an 18-month clean extension to provide more time to assess the implementation of the 56 reform measures included in the last authorization. I am working with the Ranking Member, House Leadership, and Judiciary Chairman Jordan to support this request. We look forward to an update from the panel today on compliance efforts, RISSA implementation, and mission value. Third, last year, I made clear my expectation that we would work together to end the weaponization of the intelligence community, improve analytic integrity, and fix our broken counterintelligence enterprise. Many in Congress and across our nation have lost trust in the intelligence community. While we have made progress, there is much work that remains to be done. I hope to continue working with each of you to do the hard things necessary to protect American citizens while regaining their trust. I also remain committed to tackling the issues that allow hostile foreign powers to operate so effectively against us, including within the United States. Specifically, foreign intelligence threats targeting the United States now surpass levels seen at the height of the Cold War in both scale and complexity. These threats include cyber penetrations of critical infrastructure, U.S. government systems, and private-sector innovators, as well as surveillance near sensitive military installations and intelligence collection against foreign dissidents living in the U.S. Like in the Cold War, where conflict often gave way to irregular operations below the level of traditional warfare, today’s adversary tactics have made the homeland a contested environment. We must properly resource and reform our nation’s counterintelligence enterprise to meet this threat. We must transform our approaches in order to confront adversarial intelligence services at scale, driving back operational activities in the homeland, and forcing our adversaries to rethink their risk calculus for operating in the U.S. Unfortunately, in recent years, the counterintelligence enterprise lost a significant amount of credibility with the American people due to the actions of those involved in cases like Crossfire Hurricane and Arctic Frost. For our Intelligence Community to best serve America, the CI community, and larger IC, must stay out of domestic policy debates and focus on unrelenting, aggressive mission execution. Director Gabbard, I want to particularly commend your efforts in this space. Specifically, I want to thank you and President Trump for working with us to declassify the HPSCI majority staff report on the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian Plans and Intentions in the 2016 election. The majority staff report, which had been kept from the American people for eight years, proves that the 2017 ICA—the public genesis of the Russia Collusion Hoax—was a politicized document. Its key assessment on Putin’s hopes for the 2016 election was built on, at best, abysmal analytic tradecraft, and at worst, willful, politically charged intentions. This was a necessary act of transparency to begin the process of rebuilding trust between the American people and the IC. But please know, the challenges facing each one of you testifying here today are not lost on us. Getting a large ship back on the right course is never easy. The task can certainly be challenged by unforeseen obstacles and obstructions. You know you are doing something right when all the weapons in the media’s arsenal are pointed directly at you. Thank you all for pressing forward. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. We must have our IC as aggressive as ever in pursuing its mission, while holding those accountable who participated in its misuse. I thank each of you for doing this and encourage you all to keep moving on both fronts. Finally, I now want to speak to our remarkable IC workforce: I am immensely proud of the incredible work you do, especially over the last year, to support critical military, intelligence, and law enforcement operations. From Operations Midnight Hammer, Absolute Resolve, Southern Spear, and Epic Fury, to the many other operations you have conducted in the shadows with no fanfare, Americans will never be able to fully appreciate all you do to protect this nation. I think I can speak for the entire Committee when I say, we extend to you our deepest gratitude. America truly has the best of the best in our ranks. It is for that primary reason I would like to address the House Intelligence Committee’s ongoing investigation into the Intelligence Community’s mishandling of Anomalous Health Incidents, also known as Havana Syndrome, and the mistreatment of AHI survivors. I am aware of the drastic increase in media reporting around this issue and would like to first reiterate the Committee’s commitment to releasing additional unclassified information. Our team has worked diligently to conduct this investigation with the utmost integrity, and we cannot be driven by outside timelines. I commit to the workforce to release additional reports, as appropriate. Put simply, it is my clear opinion that individuals in the intelligence community were involved in a cover-up, manipulating intelligence processes in a breach of Intelligence Community Directive 203 to provide a desired outcome, rather than a forthright analysis to inform decision makers. Our investigation, the vast majority of which remains appropriately classified, continues to show that the intelligence community assessment was constructed upon flawed analytic tradecraft. This includes the use of study results from the National Institutes of Health that were manufactured through highly unethical means and in collaboration with individuals working for the CIA. ICAs carry a great deal of weight. While typically classified, the impact is increased exponentially when declassified and released as part of a public messaging effort, as was done with the AHI ICA. As I have repeatedly stated since December 2024, the AHI ICA and its follow-on updates caused real, serious harm to some of our nation’s bravest. Last month, I called for its immediate recall, and I reiterate my position today. According to recent media reporting, Director Gabbard, your office has said your review of this ICA will be, quote, “comprehensive and complete,” end quote, and that you remain committed to sharing findings from your review with the American people. Separately, Director Ratcliffe, your team is also quoted in recent media reporting saying that you support the ODNI review and look forward to the report. I thank both of you for your commitment to this review’s completion and publishing. This issue is complex, and the underlying facts are not as simple as often portrayed in the public. No fully informed analysis will make everyone happy. That said, today, I call for this review to be provided to the committee and strongly urge you to release to the public whatever portion of this review can be made unclassified. This is vital to rebuilding trust and moving forward. Thank you again to our witnesses for being here today. With that, I would like to yield to the distinguished Ranking Member, Mr. Himes, for his opening statement. ### |
