House Speaker Mike Johnson once wanted to add a warrant requirement to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act before switching his position — a switch this week that helped derail the renewal of the spying law.
What happened? Mr. Johnson said he got a confidential intelligence briefing when he became speaker of the House.
He wouldn’t say what exactly he learned in the classified briefings, but he said it was enough to convince him that the warrant requirement was a step too far to prevent FBI abuses.
“I encourage all the members to go to the classified briefing and hear all that and see it, so they can evaluate the situation for themselves,” the Louisiana Republican said. “I think some opinions have changed both ways, but that’s part of the process. You got to be fully informed.”
He gave that explanation after 19 Republicans and 209 Democrats on Wednesday blocked the reauthorization of FISA’s Section 702, which allows the U.S. to capture texts, cellphone calls, emails and other electronic communications of foreigners in foreign countries, though sometimes Americans’ data get scooped up when they converse with foreign targets.
The GOP opposition stemmed from unheeded calls to put more guardrails on the law, including a warrant requirement when the FBI searches for Americans’ data in the FISA database. The bill they derailed did not include a warrant requirement.
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Mr. Johnson, who is scrabbling to renew the FISA law before it expires on April 19, insisted the briefings he received as the speaker made him “understand the necessity of section 702 of FISA and how important it is for national security.”
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, where Mr. Johnson previously served when backing the warrant requirement, criticized him for his change of heart.
The Judiciary Committee has led the charge to rein in the FBI with a warrant requirement after a series of abuses including the bureau’s spying on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
“I told the speaker, my friend, that we made him speaker so that the speakership would be more like Mike Johnson. We didn’t make Mike Johnson speaker so that Mike Johnson would be more like the speakership,” Rep. Matt Gaetz, Florida Republican, said on his “Firebrand” podcast.
“We’ve been on the Judiciary Committee with Mike Johnson. He sat next to me for seven years on that committee. Frankly, Mike Johnson makes the arguments that we’ve made in this [FISA] discussion, probably better than we do,” Mr. Gaetz said. “If what he has encountered from an information standpoint, as speaker was so persuasive, that it would cause him to make a reversal, that I would think he would be obligated to convince his colleagues from the Judiciary Committee.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misattributed a quote by Rep. Matt Gaetz.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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