A bill to reauthorize the government’s top power was blocked from reaching a floor vote on Wednesday by a group of Republicans who wanted more restrictions placed on the FBI.
The uprising against the bill came hours after former President Donald Trump called upon House Republicans to “KILL FISA” because the FBI used it to spy on his 2016 presidential campaign.
It was too soon to tell if they killed the legislation to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s spying program known as Section 702. But 19 Republicans and 209 Democrats maimed it by voting against a measure that would have set up a vote on the bill.
Time is running out to settle the dispute as the legislation expires on April 19.
The bill, dubbed the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, was intended to reauthorize and overhaul Section 702, which allows the government to collect troves of data — emails, texts and phone calls — from foreigners living abroad and Americans’ communications sometimes get scooped up too.
The fight over the bill pits national security hawks who defend the anti-terrorism tool and privacy hawks who want to prevent FBI abuses of the spy power.
The privacy hawks — Democrats and Republicans who don’t trust federal law enforcement — demand that the law include a new warrant requirement for when the FBI searches for Americans’ data in the FISA database. The law only allows the government to target foreigners abroad but sometimes Americans’ data is inadvertently captured when they communicate with a foreign target.
The current version of the bill, written by House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence lawmakers, does not include the warrant requirement.
The program has been controversial from its start in 2007 and Congress required it to be renewed every five years or so as a way of forcing a recurring debate on how it is working.
This time around that debate has been shaped by the FBI’s use of FISA to target the Trump campaign in 2016.
Mr. Trump drove home the point in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday morning.
“KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS,” he wrote. “THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!!”
A 2019 report by the Justice Department inspector general found at least 17 bungles by the FBI in its application under FISA to conduct surveillance on Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to the 2016 Trump campaign, over purported ties to Russia.
Among those bungles was an FBI lawyer altering an email to conceal the fact that Mr. Page had served as a source for the CIA. That information could have cut against the government’s case that he deserved to be probed.
The court that oversees FISA, in two opinions unsealed last year, also said Section 702 had been used to vet some would-be immigrants and probe Black Lives Matter activists, political donors and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray has told lawmakers he’s cleaned things up. He said the court has found 98% compliance with the reforms the FBI has already put in place.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who supported the legislation as is, has labored to bring Mr. Trump and GOP lawmakers critical of the bill to his side.
“Here’s the thing about FISA, he’s not wrong. Of course, they abused FISA, the whole Carter Page investigation, that whole fiasco was built on a false premise — the fake Russian dossier and all the other things,” Mr. Johnson said before the bill was derailed. “But these reforms would actually kill the abuses that allow President Trump‘s campaign to be spied on.”
Mr. Johnson could bring FISA back to the floor under rules that require a two-thirds majority to pass rather than a simple majority vote.
Republicans who voted against the rule pushed back on Mr. Johnson, including veiled threats to toss him out of the speaker post just like his predecessor, Rep. Kevin McCarthy.
“If Speaker Johnson is unwilling to fix FISA Section 702, we are left wondering what he is indeed willing to fix. We didn’t fix the budget or the border,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who led the eight Republicans who helped eject Mr. McCarthy in October.
“Now, the very authorities that we saw weaponized against President Trump and the American people are poised to get enhancements under this reauthorization, rather than any of the reforms that are so desperately needed.”
Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, who spearheaded the push to further rein in FBI powers, said he spent three hours with Mr. Johnson at a briefing by intelligence officials about the vital role FISA plays in fighting terrorism and international crime such as drug smuggling.
“Nothing in there changed my perspective on wanting to require a warrant,” said Mr. Jordan, Ohio Republican.
The FISA fight also split former Trump administration officials.
The Intelligence Committee’s bill garnered endorsements by former Trump administration officials, including former Attorney General William P. Barr and Mike Pompeo, who served as CIA director and secretary of state.
“This legislation directly addresses FISA abuses by reducing the number of FBI personnel who can authorize a U.S. person query by more than 90%,” they wrote in a recent op-ed for Fox News. “Furthermore, it statutorily ties FBI leadership’s querying compliance directly to their compensation and assesses escalating penalties for an FBI agent’s subsequent abuses.”
However, other former Trump administration officials, acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell and National Security Council official Kash Patel called for a warrant requirement.
“Remember, the F in FISA is ‘Foreign.’ Absent a dramatic reform of FISA 702, we call upon Congress to let it lapse — better to have no authority for 7 days or so than another 365 days of spying on Trump and his supporters,” they said in a joint statement.
“President Trump has been 100% right on this issue — stop spying on Americans and get a warrant.”
Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified Rep. Jim Jordan’s vote on advancing the FISA bill to the floor. Mr. Jordan voted for the measure.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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