L EXECUTIVE SESSION PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. INTERVIEW OF: ANDREW MCCABE Tuesday, December 19, 2017 Washington, D.C. The interview in the above matter was held in Room HVC-304, the Capitol, commencing a|2.43 p.m. Present: Conaway, King, LoBiondo, Rooney, Ros-Lehtinen, Turner, Stewart, Crawford, Gowdy, Hurd, Schiff, Himes, Speier, Quigley, Swalwell, Castro, 2 and Heck. I 3 Aooearances: For the PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE: For the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION JAMES A. BAKER GENERAL COUNSEL GREGORY A. BROWER ASSISTANT DIREGTOR OFFICE OF CONGRESSIONAL AFFAIRS OFFICE OF GENERAL COUNSEL I I 4 For the U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE: SCOTT N. SCHOOLS ASSOCIATE DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL I I 5 Good afternoon all. This is a transcribed interview of Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Thanks for being with us today. For the record, l'm senior counsel here at the House Permanent Select Committee on intelligence for the majority. There are other members and staff present, and they will introduce themselves as these proceedings get underway. But before we begin, I wanted to state a few things forthe record, rules of lhe road. The questioning will be conducted by members and staff present. During the course of this interview members and staff may ask questions during their allotted time period. Some questions may seem basic. That is because we need to clearly establish facts and understand the situation. Please do not assurne we know any other facts you have previously disclosed as part of any other investigation or review. And this interview will be conducted at the Top SecreUSCl level. We ask that you give complete and fulsome replies to questions based on your best recollections. lf a question is unclear or you are uncertain in your response, please let us know. And if you do not know the answer to a question or cannot remember, simply say so. You are entitled to have counsel present for you during this interview. I see that a number of folks have joined you today Deputy Director. lf at this time those individuals could state their names for the record. MR. BAKER: James A. Baker, general counsel, FBl. MR. BROWER: Gregory A. Brower, assistant director for the Office of I I 6 Congressional Affa irs. MR. SCHOOLS. Scott Schools, associate deputy attorney general , Office of General Counsel, FBI MR. CONAWAY: Let me interject here. One or more of the lawyers with Mr. McCabe may, in fact, be a fact witness that we will call perhaps at some later date. So ljust want to get that in the record, that we reserve the right to call them, one or more of them, at a future date. I rhankyou. The interview will be transcribed, There is a reporter making a record of these proceedings so we can easily consult the written compilation of your answers at a later date. Because the reporter cannot record gestures, we ask that you answer verbally to all questions. lf you forget to do this, you might be reminded to do so. You may also be asked to spell certain terms or unusual phrases. Consistent with the committee's rules of procedure, you and your counsel, upon request, will have a reasonable opportunity to inspect the transcript of this interview in order to determine whether your answers were correctly transcribed. The transcript will remain in the committee's custody. And the committee also reserves the right to request your return for additionalquestions should the need arise. The process for the interview will be as follows, sir. The majority will be given 45 minutes to ask questions, and the minori$ will be given 45 minutes to ask questions, after which time we will take a break, if you so desire. After which period, the majority will be given 15 minutes to ask questions, and the minority will be given 15 minutes to ask guestions. These 15-minute alternating rounds will I I 7 continue until questioning has been completed by both sides. Time will be kept for each portion of the interview, and warnings will be given at the 5- and 1-minute marks, respectively. To ensure confidentiality, we ask that you do not discuss the interview with anyone other than your attorneys. You are reminded that it is unlawfulto deliberately provide false information to Members of Congress or staff. And lastly, the record will reflect that you are voluntarily participating in this interview, which willbe under oath. Mr. Deputy Director, could you raise your right hand to be sworn? Do you swear or affirm the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? MR. MCCABE: I do. Thank you, sir Mr. Chairman, over to you for opening remarks. MR. CONAWAY: Mr. McCabe, thank you for being here this afternoon. We will have a vote series 4:30-ish,4 to 4:30-ish. We will need to break, because I think our members will like to do the questioning. So we willjust take a quick break to go vote and then we willcome back. MR. MCCABE: That's perfectly fine. MR. CONAWAY: Mr. Schiff, anything? MR. SCHIFF: ljust want to welcome you, Mr. McCabe, and also tellyou how much we appreciate the work of the FBl. I know it is not an easy time for the Bureau, But there are a great many of us, I hope you will communicate back, that have tremendous respect for what they do every day and we are grateful. I I 8 MR. MCCABE: I will. Thank you, sir. MR. SCHIFF: Thank you. MR. MCCABE: lf I could say just one quick thing before we begin -- MR. CONAWAY: ls your mike on? lf you could just push the button on the microphone so the green light's on, sir. MR. MCCABE: Yes, sir. So I just wanted to say very briefly, first, my apologies for the confusion over the scheduling last week. I can tell you that in all of my conversations with my staff over the last severalweeks anticipating this appearance, I have been told the 19th, the 19th each time. I don't know how we got that wrong with your folks, but if we did, I apologize for that miscommunication. I'd also like to say that this is actually the first time I have ever been asked to come up to the Hillto discuss these matters. l'm looking forward to the opportunity. I am here to provide you whatever information I possibly can about anything that is within the scope of your investigation. I will stay here for as long as it takes to give you the opportunity to ask whatever questions you have, and I willgive you the best answers I possibly can. MR, CONAWAY: Well, thank you for that introduction. And with that, I will turn to Mr. Gowdy for 45 minutes. MR. GOWDY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. SpecialAgent McCabe, thank you for coming, and I appreciate your service to our country. The committee is looking at four different pillars or areas of jurisdiction. What did Russia do with respect to the 2016 election cycle? With whom, if r I 9 anyone, did they do it? The third tranche or pillar of jurisdiction would be the U.S. Governmenfs response. And then fourth would be the issue of masking, unmasking, the dissemination of classified material. So that's kind of -- those are the foundations of our inquiry. There are 1,000 different ways to start because you are a central person for all four of those. You would have information that crossed all four of those boundaries. So take nothing from where I start, and I don't think the other part of it is important. I'm going to be here as long as you are here, so we will get it all covered. MR. MCCABE: Rogerthat. MR. GOWDY: I think the committee is trying to understand how, if at all, the Bureau relied on the research of Christopher Steele, particularly as it relates to court filings. So did the Bureau rely on what has come to be known as a dossier in any form, and if so, how? MR. MCCABE: So very generally, sir, we did not rely on the Steele reporting for the opening of the investigation into possible Russian influence on the 2016 election, but we did rely on that reporting in the FISA application MR. GOWDY: When did the investigation begin? And if il were not the dossier, what prompted it? MR. MCCABE: The investigation began -- it was officially initiated on I What prompted the initiation of the investigation was information came to us through -- from the State Department to our and then eventually came into headquarters at the end of !. And the information that came to us was - had been provided to the State Department by That had met inI I I 10 with the individual - with George Papadopoulos And this related that in a meeting they had with George Papadopoulos back in I, that Mr. Papadopoulos had made comments to them along the lines that he was quite confident that - that then-candidate Trump would win the election. He was confident because, as he stated, the Clintons had a lot of baggage and that the Trump campaign had a fair amount of information about the Clintons. MR. GOWDY: That initialconversation between a I and --ora somehow captured a conversation between George Papadopoulos and whom? MR. MCCABE: So that actually met with George Papadopoulos in MR. GOWDY: Okay. MR. MCCABE: They did not convey the substance of that meeting to the State Department until MR.