Sally Yates testifies before the Senate about Michael Flynn and Russia

Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper were interviewed by the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on crime and terrorism on Monday about Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

The subcommittee's chairman, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, said in his opening statement that "when one party is attacked, all of us should feel attacked ... when a foreign power interferes in our election, it doesn't matter who they targeted. We're all in the same boat."

Graham added that he is confident it was the Russians, and not "some 400-pound guy sitting on his bed," who hacked the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, during the election.

Graham said he wants to learn more about the "unmasking" of US citizens like former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who may have been caught up, incidentally, in surveillance of monitored non-US persons believed to be foreign agents.  

Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence, described in his opening remarks the process by which the intelligence community concluded in January that "the Russian government pursued a multi-faceted influence campaign in the run-up to the election, including aggressive use of cyber capabilities."

"The Intelligence Community Assessment concluded, first, that President Putin directed an influence campaign to erode the faith and confidence of the American people in our presidential election process. Second, that he did so to demean Secretary Clinton. And, third, that he sought to advantage Mr. Trump," Clapper said.

"The conclusions and confidence levels reached at the time still stand," he added. 

Clapper confirmed, moreover, that European intelligence agencies had passed along information to the US intelligence community about conversations they had picked up between Trump associates and Russians during the election. He added that the intelligence was "quite sensitive," however, so could not discuss it further. 

He also addressed the issue of the "unmasking" of US persons caught up in surveillance of monitored foreign agents — the process by which it was revealed that former national security adviser Michael Flynn had been speaking with Russia's ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, during the presidential transition period.

"On several occasions during my six-and-a-half years as DNI, I requested the identity of U.S. persons to be revealed," Clapper said. "In each such instance, I made these requests so I could fully understand the context of the communication and the potential threat being posed. At no time did I ever submit a request for personal or political purposes, or to voyeuristically look at raw intelligence, nor am I aware of any instance of such abuse by anyone else."

He added, however, that leaks of this kind of information "is an unauthorized disclosure" that is "improper under any circumstance."

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley asked Clapper later if he had ever requested that Trump or his associates be "unmasked" in intelligence reports. Clapper replied that he had, "once," but could not provide details. 

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