Washington, DC, March 15, 2024 — House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Ranking Member Jim Himes (CT-04) today delivered the following opening statement at the Committee’s annual hearing on worldwide threats:

-Remarks as Delivered-

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to our distinguished panel – and in particular to General Haugh and General Kruse, who are joining today for the first time as the new directors of NSA and DIA.

This annual hearing is a vital part of our oversight. It’s a unique chance for the public to hear directly from each of you about the IC’s assessment of a range of threats and issues—the stuff that we hear every single day behind closed doors.

The world can sometimes feel as though it’s straining under the weight of conflict: Putin’s ongoing assault in Ukraine; the People’s Republic of China saber-rattling at a democratic Taiwan, the ongoing crisis in Gaza, the deteriorating situation in Haiti; I could go on.

My point is, we need the public to see that we have a dedicated and objective Intelligence Community that can soberly present these complicated threats and challenges based on fact and rigorous analysis.

We’re fortunate in HPSCI to see this daily on a classified basis, and I know that your appearance here today will help reinforce that.

I will return to this during my questions, but we are amid another presidential election. In previous federal campaign cycles, we know that foreign powers have attempted to interfere, and the latest assessment by the IC says it’s a possibility that they may do so again.

We need to ensure, and in no way do I disagree with any of the catalog of foreign threats that the Chairman laid out—I agree with them in their entirety—but we need to ensure in particular that foreigners stay out of American elections, period.

And we need the Community to credibly collect against and warn the public when they determine that such malign activities targeting our political process are occurring. I’ll be focused on this threat in the months ahead, and I’m pleased that this Committee will have the opportunity to receive a classified update next week at the working level.

As the IC’s assessments lay out, we have seen past interference efforts by Russia, China, and Iran, amongst others of different sorts, and we have every reason to believe that some or all of them will try again.

I am particularly concerned that Putin is exploring opportunities because he has already done so, in part, and because he has a lot to gain. I hope you will give us a sense of what the Russian leader’s calculus may look like, as well as that of other potential actors.

I’ll also note that this will be the first general election in the era of generative AI, which can create realistic video, photos, audio, and text at a scale and sophistication that was unimaginable just a year ago. We need to be ready.

The IC’s job is to focus its collective powers outward to protect our nation, but I feel strongly that some of the greatest threats to our security and the world’s security, unfortunately, are homegrown.

I fear that we are slouching towards an election in which decisions will be made based on what excites us, what enrages us, what enraptures us, that we will substitute for the critical faculties that are essential for a citizen in a democracy, a self-satisfied scratching of our prior beliefs and political opinions.

I tell my constituents regularly that you will all work very hard, we will work hard, to try to take down the temperature and restore the civility and the intelligence of our politics but, at the end of the day, Americans and their decisions about how they will act as citizens of a democracy will get the democracy that they deserve.

We’re faltering with the continued failure to support Ukraine. The Russian leader has been emboldened to believe he can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Our Ukrainian partners have fought with incredible courage against the Russian war machine, and they have won victories that were beyond anyone’s expectation. It appears, however, that we have lost our nerve at the critical juncture. Director Burns, you recently returned from another visit to Kyiv, I hope you’ll share with the Committee some reflections on what’s at stake and the urgency with which we need to act.

Finally, as the Chairman said, and in the category of self-imposed crises, I am deeply concerned that Section 702 of FISA expires in just over a month unless the Congress acts. As the IC witnesses can attest, 702 is our most important intelligence authority, and we need to reauthorize it right away. I appreciate all the work that the witnesses at the table have done to help make that the case, but we are not done yet.

Before turning back to the Chairman, I would also like to touch briefly on technology adoption and innovation in the IC. I have long championed this work and authored a report on the topic several years ago. For all of China’s strengths, they cannot compete with the entrepreneurial culture and the innovation that we regularly achieve here in the United States. Getting that innovation into the IC’s mission and into the DoD’s mission is going to define our success over the next decades.

We spend a lot of time in this place debating whether capital should flow, how IP should be protected, whether we should shut down a Chinese-owned social media platform, the merits of those efforts are open to debate. But, if we continue to innovate the way we always have, we will win.So, I thank you all for being here, look forward to what will hopefully be a very valuable session for the American public, and I yield back.