James Clapper

I think Secretary Tillerson is exactly right. And we need to tone down the rhetoric about regime change.

I worry about that, and what's the definition of truth? This has sort of a chilling Orwellian aspect about it with the minister of information putting out a set of facts and then -- which don't comport with ground truth.

I would be an advocate for that. I gave a speech in Seoul last month which I suggested that we give some consideration to opening up an intersection in Pyongyang.

I think what people have a tendency to forget is the tremendous threat that Russia poses to us.

There's certainly a lot of doubt about that. And what's happened most recently, I think just has the effect of casting more doubt on the credibility of what they say.

I think the Russian objective here was, one, to explore, we can -- in order to see if there was interest in having such a discussion on offering up, of course, dirt on Hillary Clinton.

My dashboard warning light was clear on and I think that was the case with all of us at the intelligence community.

The intelligence community has done a lot of things to make sure that never happens again. And so, yes, it's true that was a big mistake. But we have learned from it and inserted, the intelligence community has, I should say, and injected…

I think you compare the two that Watergate pales, really in my view, and compared to what we're confronting now.

I have and always will trust the word and the integrity of Jim Comey.

I thought Jim Comey's testimony was riveting, compelling.

There is a thin veneer there which can easily be jeopardized to the detriment of the country.

The assaults on the institutions starting with my own, the intelligence community and his characterization of us as Nazis.

So, I left it to the judgment of the FBI and that was certainly the practice I followed here.

It's not surprising or out of -- or abnormal that I would not have known about the investigation or even more importantly the content of the investigation. So I don't know if there was collusion or not. I don't know if there's evidence of…

Russia is assuming a more assertive cyber posture based on its willingness to target critical infrastructure systems and conduct espionage operations even when detected and under increased public scrutiny.

willingness to target critical infrastructure systems and conduct espionage operations even when detected.

For the part of the national security apparatus that I oversaw as DNI, there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time or as a candidate or against his campaign.

85 percent of the critical infrastructure in the United States is in the private sector.

Absolutely. That has been the pattern.

I would have like to have seen more.

I do think as well there needs to be more done in the way of sanctions to the Russians or any other government that attempts to interfere with our election process.

We need a U.S. information agency on steroids to fight this information war a lot more aggressively than we're doing right now, one that deals with the totality of the information in all forms, to include social media.

The sanctions that we have imposed particularly after Ukraine were effective.

That is an assault on our democracy by the Russians I think is profound.