House Speaker Mike Johnson wants to tell former President Donald Trump why GOP leadership wants to reauthorize the government’s chief spying tool.
Mr. Johnson talked up the bill that keeps in place Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Mr. Trump wants killed because the FBI used it to spy on his 2016 campaign.
“I look forward to talking with him about it. 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 Wednesday. “But these reforms would actually kill the abuses that allow President Trump’s campaign to be spied on.”
The reauthorization of the act, which expires April 19, has privacy hawks and national security hawks debating the inclusion of a warrant requirement to search the FISA database.
The legislation lets the government collect tranches of digital information — emails, texts and phone calls — from foreigners living abroad. Americans’ communications can get ensnared, and that’s the focus of legislation to overhaul how intel and law enforcement officials can search the FISA database.
Former special counsel John Durham last year concluded in his report that the FBI shouldn’t have launched its Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the phony ties between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.
Mr. Johnson noted that the new FISA legislation includes criminal and civil penalties for using opposition research to leak FISA applications or illegal spying.
“If an FBI agent or an attorney is involved in something like that, under these reforms in this reform package, they could get 10 years of jail time if they commit those abuses again,” the speaker said. “President Trump can use the intel from this program to kill terrorists. And we have to kill the abuses so that we can do both of those things.”
Mr. Johnson has faced backlash from members of the Judiciary Committee, a panel he previously served on before he was elected speaker. They slam the bill’s lack of a warrant requirement and Fourth Amendment protection that would prohibit the government from purchasing Americans’ information from data brokers.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, Florida Republican, said he was “incredibly disappointed” that the speaker did a 180 regarding his views on FISA related to requiring a warrant.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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