UNDERMINING DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS AND SPLINTERING NATO: RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION AIMS HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION MARCH 9, 2017 Serial No. 115–7 Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 24–584PDF WASHINGTON : 2017 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:35 Apr 07, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 Z:\WORK\_FULL\030917\24584 SHIRL COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida TED POE, Texas KAREN BASS, California DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina AMI BERA, California MO BROOKS, Alabama LOIS FRANKEL, Florida PAUL COOK, California TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas RON DESANTIS, Florida ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania TED S. YOHO, Florida DINA TITUS, Nevada ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois NORMA J. TORRES, California LEE M. ZELDIN, New York BRADLEY SCOTT SCHNEIDER, Illinois DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR., New York THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York Wisconsin TED LIEU, California ANN WAGNER, Missouri BRIAN J. MAST, Florida FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida BRIAN K. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania THOMAS A. GARRETT, JR., Virginia AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director (II) VerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:35 Apr 07, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 Z:\WORK\_FULL\030917\24584 SHIRL C O N T E N T S Page WITNESSES His Excellency Toomas Hendrik Ilves (former President of the Republic of Estonia) ................................................................................................................. 5 The Honorable Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Jr., chairman emeritus and distin- guished fellow, The Stimson Center (former Assistant Secretary for Political Military Affairs, U.S. Department of State) ...................................................... 16 Mr. Peter B. Doran, executive vice president, Center for European Policy Analysis ................................................................................................................. 25 The Honorable Daniel Baer (former U.S. Representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) ........................................................... 30 LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING His Excellency Toomas Hendrik Ilves: Prepared statement ................................ 7 The Honorable Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Jr.: Prepared statement .......................... 18 Mr. Peter B. Doran: Prepared statement .............................................................. 27 The Honorable Daniel Baer: Prepared statement ................................................. 32 APPENDIX Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 92 Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 93 Mr. Peter B. Doran: Material submitted for the record ....................................... 95 The Honorable Scott Perry, a Representative in Congress from the Common- wealth of Pennsylvania: Material submitted for the record ............................. 101 The Honorable Brad Sherman, a Representative in Congress from the State of California: Material submitted for the record ............................................... 104 The Honorable Thomas A. Garrett, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Virginia: Material submitted for the record ................ 108 The Honorable David Cicilline, a Representative in Congress from the State of Rhode Island: Report entitled ‘‘Background to ‘Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections’: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attri- bution’’ ............................................................................................................... 111 Washington Post articles ..................................................................................... 114 The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Virginia: Prepared statement .............................................. 117 Written responses from the witnesses to questions submitted for the record by the Honorable Ann Wagner, a Representative in Congress from the State of Missouri .................................................................................................. 119 (III) VerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:35 Apr 07, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 Z:\WORK\_FULL\030917\24584 SHIRL VerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:35 Apr 07, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 Z:\WORK\_FULL\030917\24584 SHIRL UNDERMINING DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS AND SPLINTERING NATO: RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION AIMS THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2017 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward Royce (chair- man of the committee) presiding. Chairman ROYCE. This hearing will come to order. This morning we examine Russia’s systematic attempts to under- mine and discredit Western democratic institutions, with one goal being to splinter the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In January, the U.S. intelligence community produced a report which found that ‘‘Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an in- fluence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. Presidential election.’’ Thankfully, there is no evidence to suggest Russia interfered in our voting and tallying process. But Members of Congress rightfully have many more questions surrounding Russian meddling. So it is appropriate that the intelligence committees, on a bipartisan basis, are working to get to the bottom of this. We need answers. And we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Indeed, the intelligence community reports warn that ‘‘Moscow will apply lessons learned to future influence efforts worldwide, in- cluding against U.S. allies and their election processes.’’ Here in the U.S., our midterm elections will be here before we know it. And with elections on the horizon in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Italy, European intelligence services are sounding the alarm about Russian attempts to skew the outcome with targeted disinformation and propaganda. In France, for exam- ple, one pro-European candidate has reportedly been the subject of ‘‘hundreds and even thousands’’ of hacking attempts against his party, and outlets such as RT and Sputnik spread disinformation to undermine his candidacy. This isn’t new. The committee is joined today by Toomas Ilves, a former Estonian President—welcome, Mr. President—who led his country as Russia inflamed ethnic passions and directed disinformation and cyberattacks against Estonia. Russia’s media war against the Baltic states goes back over a decade. What is new is that Russian disinformation has been growing in sophistication, intensity, reach, and impact. According to the Cen- ter for European Policy Analysis—also represented here today— (1) VerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:35 Apr 07, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Z:\WORK\_FULL\030917\24584 SHIRL 2 ‘‘Russia’s information warfare does not crudely promote the Krem- lin’s agenda, instead it is calibrated to confuse, befuddle, and dis- tract.’’ They go on to note that ‘‘Russia aims to erode public support for Euro-Atlantic values in order to increase its own relative power.’’ Russia has deployed its arsenal of trolls, propaganda, and false information to a new level. These techniques have even be- come enshrined in official Kremlin doctrine. Moscow’s strategic objective is to break apart the NATO alliance and, thus, to boost Russian geopolitical influence in Western Eu- rope. The stakes are high: If Kremlin-backed politicians take power in France, it could potentially spell the end of the European Union. Even for those who might approve of that development, I think we can all agree the future of the EU should be left to the Euro- peans—not manipulators in Moscow. So how do we push back? Last Congress, when this committee held a hearing on Russia’s ‘‘weaponization of information,’’ U.S. international broadcasters were on the air with a near 30-minute television news program in the Russian language called Current Time. Now, 2 years later, this Russian language show is running 6 hours of live programming daily—but still cannot provide data on target audience and market penetration. In December, the Presi- dent signed legislation authored by myself and Mr. Engel—and pushed by this committee—to empower a CEO to run all U.S. international broadcasting. The CEO