Justice Department unveils new FISA rules to limit surveillance of political candidates

Attorney General William P. Barr announced new limits Tuesday on the government’s ability to conduct surveillance of political campaigns, saying something needed to be done to avoid a repeat of 2016, when the FBI broke its own rules while secretly targeting Trump campaign figures.

Under the changes, the FBI and Justice Department are supposed to brief a political candidate before seeking a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to secretly collect communications. If they decide not to brief the candidate, then the FBI director must spell out in writing the reasons for keeping the investigation secret.

Mr. Barr, in a memo, said he was addressing concerns that politicians “may become unwitting participants in an effort by a foreign power to influence an election or the policy or conduct of the United States government.”

The rules also require the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which rules on FISA warrants, to be notified if the government makes any errors in a surveillance application.

Mr. Barr also created an office of internal auditing to monitor how the FBI complies with FISA regulations.

“FISA is a critical tool to ensuring the safety and security of Americans, particularly when it comes to fighting terrorism,” Mr. Barr said in a statement.”However, the American people must have confidence that the United States government will exercise its surveillance authorities in a manner that protects the civil liberties of Americans, avoids interference in the political process, and complies with the Constitution and laws of the United States.”

Mr. Barr said he worked on the changes with FBI Director Christopher A. Wray.
The FBI’s approach to FISA has come under scrutiny over the past four years as investigations revealed how deeply the bureau bungled its attempt to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

A former FBI lawyer recently pleaded guilty to falsifying a document used to justify renewing the FISA warrant on Mr. Page, and the Justice Department inspector general found that the FBI skipped steps and had errors on other FISA applications, though the FBI said the errors weren’t significant enough to affect the validity of the warrants.

“What happened to the Trump presidential campaign and his subsequent administration after the president was duly elected by the American people must never happen again,” Mr. Barr said.

Mr. Page, though, slammed the overhauls. He said they don’t address some of the abuses that upended his life.

“As we now approach the next presidential election, these latest small steps by the DOJ and FBI have not yet sufficiently addressed the criminal acts by ruthlessly partisan political actors in the Swamp,” Mr. Page said in a statement to The Washington Times.

“The cancerous abuses by the once-respected [Justice Department] National Security Division have still not found an effective remedy following the destruction of so many loyal American citizens.”

Trump allies have long complained that the FBI gave disparate treatment to Mr. Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, particularly by not offering a “defensive briefing” about Russian attempts to link up with his campaign.

The Trump campaign was given only a generic briefing about general foreign threats to the election. FBI officials did not mention specific concerns about Mr. Page or Michael Flynn, whom they also suspected of working with Russia.

No criminal charges were ever lodged against Mr. Page, and special counsel Robert Mueller’s sprawling investigation did not uncover any evidence that he was conspiring with Russia.

Mr. Trump’s allies have accused the FBI of using the briefing as a tool to gather more intelligence for their investigation.

By contrast, FBI documents unsealed last month showed bureau leadership did seek to give Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign a defensive briefing before it pursued a FISA warrant related to a threat posed to the campaign by a foreign government.

The Justice Department inspector general last year criticized the FBI for a series of failures in its FISA applications to monitor Mr. Page. An investigation found at least 17 errors or omissions.

In a scathing report, the inspector general said the FBI’s statements left “an inaccurate impression” and withheld potentially exculpatory information.

In the wake of bungling the Page application, the FBI announced dozens of changes to the FISA process.

Mr. Wray said he already has implemented some of the changes.

“The additional reforms announced today, which we worked on closely with the attorney general’s office, will build on the FBI’s efforts to bolster its compliance program,” he said in a statement.

Among the changes announced Tuesday, the new office of internal auditing will conduct routine reviews of how the FBI is using FISA and other national security techniques. The office will impose additional oversight whenever the FBI targets a U.S. citizen under FISA.

The office will be led by an assistant FBI director chosen from the bureau’s ranks.

Mr. Barr wrote in a memo that the office will “ensure that rigorous and robust auditing, which is an essential ingredient to an effective compliance regime, is carried out.”