James Comey Testimony Hearing: What Security Experts Hope To Learn About Russian Hacking From His Remarks

Former FBI Director James Comey will testify before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Thursday, in what will be his first public appearance since being fired by President Donald Trump on May 9.

The anticipated testimony, and the questions that will follow from the 13 members of the bipartisan committee, is already being played up as political theater—a chance for the agency head supposedly ousted for lack of loyalty to the President to present his side of the story.

Read: What Happened With James Comey? Timeline Of Events That Led To FBI Director’s Firing

While much of the public will tune into the hearing for the drama, security experts will be watching Comey’s appearance with the hope the former FBI director may provide insight into the FBI’s investigations into ties between members of the Trump campaign and the Russian government, as well as reveal details about the alleged Russian hacking and meddling in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.

Robert L. Deitz, who served as senior counselor to the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and general counsel at the National Security Agency prior to that, told International Business Times he believes many in the security community would like to gain insights into specifics about the Russian interference on the U.S. election.

“They would probably like to know the techniques the Russians used to hack into U.S. systems.” The information has two values, according to Deitz: “Closing defensive weaknesses and identifying patches.” He said cybersecurity experts would also like to learn about the signatures of the Russian hackers, which may help in the difficult task of attributing attacks to a particular source.

The issue is likely particularly pressing in the wake of the publishing of a leaked NSA document that details cyberattacks carried out by the Russian military against U.S. voting software companies and local government officials.

However, Deitz was not optimistic about the likelihood of any of that information actually being revealed over the course of Comey’s testimony. “I doubt whether Comey’s testimony will get into the weeds," he said. “I expect that stuff will be classified Top Secret, and most senators couldn’t care less about techniques.”

Hank Thomas, the cofounder and chief operating officer of Strategic Cyber Ventures, told IBT he hopes Comey’s appearance will answer questions about the content of conversations between Trump surrogates and Russian officials during and after the campaign.

“We know that Mike Flynn was in communications with the Russians, what was said? Was it appropriate, borderline, or criminal?" Thomas said.

Thomas, a former executive at defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, said he hopes Comey will report on the supposed backchannel established between the Trump campaign and Russian diplomats so the public may learn if it was “designed to simply be a backchannel, or a covert communications channel?”

The backchannel, reported last month by the Washington Post, was supposedly sought by Trump’s son-in-law and confidant Jared Kushner. According to the report, he approached Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities for communications in an apparent attempt to shield discussions from monitoring by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Read: What James Comey Will Say At Hearing About Trump, Russia And Mike Flynn

Like Thomas, University of New Haven professor and national security expert Jeff Beatty told IBT the main question he hopes to see answers is “was there any criminal activity?”

Beatty—who has served as in the Delta Force, FBI and CIA—noted that question itself has many component questions within it, but at the heart of it all is the possibility that something criminal took place.

Glenn Carle, a national security expert and Associate Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, told IBT he didn’t expect the topic of Russia to arise much in Comey’s testimony. Instead, he said he expects Comey to focus on his interactions with the President.

“The critical question is the independence of the FBI and the FBI director from the executive branch,” Carle said. “Comey’s description of the nature of the interactions that Trump had with him and to what extent he found them appropriate or inappropriate, that’s the key thing.”

While Carle said he doesn’t expect Comey to explicitly say whether the President attempted to obstruct justice by interfering with FBI investigations—specifically the agency’s probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn—but to provide information that may allow the committee to make such a determination.

Most experts seemed to share in Deitz’s somewhat gloomy outlook for the hearing.

“I think we are likely to hear commentary on policy and politics which may or may not have anything to do with criminal activity,” Beatty said.

Carle said the anticipation for Comey's testimony has been "like the build up to the Super Bowl" because of the broad expectations for what the former FBI director may talk about, but expects the hearing itself will be much more narrowly focused than some seem to expect.

"I can't imagine he'll give details [into investigations]," Carle said, noting that while Comey may comment on how serious the investigation is, he expects he will defer most questions regarding investigations to Robert Mueller, the special counsel overseeing the investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

Thomas, on the other hand, said he expects the hearing would produce rather definitive answers by the time it is said and done.

“I suspect the conclusion will be that there is no doubt that the Russian security services are actively trying to divide the west and influence decisions that are beneficial to the growth of Russia’s global standing and power,” he said.

Thomas also said he anticipates the public will learn that members of the of the Trump team participated—willingly or unwillingly—in Russian influence operations including hacking efforts in order to gain an advantage in the 2016 Presidential election.