Combined dispatches from
The Washington Examiner and The Hill
President Trump shot down a maneuver to couple the secret surveillance court with the national coronavirus response, according to published reports.
Trump told a group of Republicans that he will not support extending soon-to-expire intelligence programs without changes to the surveillance court.
Trump's position clashed with that of two key Senate supporters, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Both McConnell, R-Ky., and Graham, R-S.C., favored a no-change surveillance bill.
Trump met with Attorney General William Barr and a group of GOP lawmakers, including McConnell of Kentucky and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, in an effort to break a deadlock over how to deal with expiring provisions of the USA Freedom Act.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told reporters that Trump "pushed back very vigorously" on a plan pitched by Barr to pass a clean extension of the expiring intelligence programs plan while using his own rule-making authority to make changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court.
"It was a spirited discussion," said Paul, an outspoken defender of the Bill of Rights. "The President made it exceedingly clear that he will not accept a clean reauthorization...without real reform," Paul told reporters Tuesday.
Trump's stance means that the proposal to force a no-change reauthorization by hitching it to the coronavirus bill has become moot. The idea of linking the two bills was to make it difficult politically to vote against the combined measure. No senator would like to be accused of voting against a coronavirus response even though he or she was really opposing the intelligence bill.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who attended the meeting, noted in a FaceBook post that lawmakers made the pitch to Trump that the surveillance court needs to be reformed as part of the reauthorization, and that Trump agreed with them.
"I've proposed a series of amendments to FISA and explained that I'm willing to vote to reauthorize the expiring provisions but only if we pass some of these reforms, only if we make it more difficult for the government to use these things against American citizens," Lee added in a video posted to Facebook.
Congress has until March 15 to extend the three USA Freedom Act provisions that deal with roving wiretaps, lone wolf surveillance and a controversial phone records program that allows the government to request metadata.
Barr and McConnell pitched the idea of a clean extension of the provisions during the meeting, sources told The Hill.
McConnell made a similar pitch during a press conference earlier Tuesday, while telling reporters he would support a short-term extension if Congress couldn't reach a larger deal by the deadline.
"My own preference is to extend these three or four expiring authorities ... but there are differences among my members and among the Democrats on the way forward. Whether we can resolve those and pass new legislation is unclear. If we're unable to resolve our differences, my preference would be for another extension," McConnell said.
Congress previously passed a 90-day extension of the programs in a December spending bill. Paul, on Tuesday night, wouldn't rule out that Trump could support a weeks-long stopgap to buy more time to craft a deal on larger surveillance reforms.
Lawmakers have floated extensions ranging from two months to after the November election and potentially to 2022. Paul noted an idea "specifically talked about," and rejected during the White House meeting, was kicking it until after the November election.
"I think that if there was something, if there were something very, very short-term with the promise that a reform were coming, the President might" sign that, Paul said. "But there's not going to be a long term, and by long term I mean anything more than a couple of weeks that the president would sign."
Neither chamber has been able to move a bill to reauthorize the USA Freedom Act provisions despite having only eight working days before the deadline. There is no sense among lawmakers that they are on the precipice of an agreement, though supporters of reform believe they have momentum.
A growing number of lawmakers are supporting FISA court reforms after Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz found 17 "significant inaccuracies and omissions" in the FISA warrants related to Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Trump did not directly mention Page by name during the meeting, though lawmakers brought him up as an example of abuse of the surveillance court.
Paul told reporters last week that Trump was supportive of his proposal to block FISA warrants from being used against Americans and to block FISA Court information from being used against Americans in domestic courts. Other potential changes pitched by lawmakers include increased legal representation for individuals targeted for surveillance and built in penalties for those who abuse the surveillance court.
Progressives and libertarians have raised concerns for years that there was not enough transparency or privacy protections provided for those targeted by the surveillance court. Those concerns for abuse have found a broader audience with Republicans in the wake of Horowitz's findings.
The House had to pull its bill last week that would have extended most of the expiring provisions, while ending the call records program, after Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Cal, threatened to force votes on several broader FISA-related amendments.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Cal., told The Hill that he and his staff have been working with the House Judiciary Committee as well as Lofgren and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash, to try to find a deal ahead of the March 15 deadline.
"We're looking at expanding the amicus provisions," Schiff said. "We are looking at limiting the period of attention to business records, what the business records provision can be used for, making sure that you can't use the business records to get things you would need a court order for in the criminal context, limiting the use of geolocation data or their usage of location information."
Discussions are continuing between McCarthy and House Democratic leadership to try to find an agreement by the deadline.
"I've talked to Mr. McCarthy about it," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters Tuesday. "We all want to get this done. And so, we'll see if we can reach agreement. But we haven't reached agreement yet."
Meanwhile, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., criticized the suggestion that the FISA reauthorization be linked to the coronavirus bill.
Cruz, a member of the judiciary and commerce panels, cast such "rumors" as an indicator that Congress is on its way to renewing key parts of the surveillance law without sufficient consideration for reform, highlighting a split between the GOP and Attorney General William Barr, who has asked for a clean reauthorization.
“Hearing rumors that the Swamp is trying to tie long-term FISA reauthorization to emergency funding to fight the #CoronaVirus,” the Texas Republican tweeted Monday night. “This should not happen. FISA process was abused to spy on @realDonaldTrump. We need real reform, not political games.”
Republican allies of Trump have demanded FISA reform after IG Horowitz released a report in December that criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA surveillance of Page, a U.S. citizen who was never charged with wrongdoing, and its heavy reliance on British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s salacious and unverified dossier.
With FISA authorities, including roving wiretap powers, the business records provision, and the "lone wolf" amendment, set to expire March 15 if not reauthorized, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are considering reforms to the law that determines the procedures for electronic and physical surveillance for counterintelligence or anti-terrorism investigations.
At a private meeting with Senate Republicans, Barr pushed a no-change reauthorization of surveillance law provisions and time to implement his own internal reforms aimed at stopping surveillance abuses against American citizens. Barr said his desire for a “clean” reauthorization was supported by the intelligence community, the National Security Council and the FBI, though the White House Domestic Policy Council was reportedly not on board.
“The attorney general just wanted to underscore the importance of these provisions that were enacted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks,” McConnell said after the meeting. “They are still relevant to our efforts to go after terrorists today, just like they were after 9/11.”
Graham said Barr “made a commitment to make sure that what happened in 2016 — that internally he's going to clean up that mess.” The South Carolina Republican added: “You’ve got three provisions to deal with. I think it’d be smart to keep them in place. It would give us some time to work on FISA writ large.”
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ga., suggested on Monday that he was not against the idea of linking secret surveillance to the coronavirus bill. “It’s not a poison pill if it moves," the Alabama Republican said.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the committee’s ranking member, said, “Oh, God, no!” to the idea. Leahy said he wanted the coronavirus legislation to be “clean” and “the people who want to do FISA could have finished it last year.”
Trump’s new nominee for director of national intelligence, Rep. John Ratcliffe, weighed in last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference, noting that “there was illegal surveillance” of Trump. Even so, the Texas Republican defended the surveillance law as a valuable tool rooting out terrorists and spies.
Ratcliffe said the current law "serves our country well and saves lives" while arguing that fixes are necessary. He said it wasn't enough to defend the Justice Department and FBI: "You have to defend the values behind the institutions.”
Other Republicans in the House said FISA reform was imperative.
“We are right in the middle of reauthorizing the FISA process,” North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows said. “Shame on any member of Congress or senator, including Republicans, if we reauthorize it without reforming it.”
Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., the ranking member of the judiciary panel, said he was "not going to approve anything unless we get some FISA changes.”
The Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee struck a similar tone.
“Nope, I don’t want to do it — not without major reforms," New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler told CNN when asked if he would support a short-term FISA reauthorization.
The House Judiciary Committee suspended a markup session for FISA reform legislation last week after Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren offered five amendments that her Democratic colleagues considered to be "poison pills" that would hinder negotiations.
“If we don’t take this opportunity to reform the FISA process, we are missing an opportunity,” the California Democrat said, according to Politico.
Although the deadline is March 15, because it is a Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said FISA reauthorization needs to happen by March 12, before Congress leaves town.
Trump told a group of Republicans that he will not support extending soon-to-expire intelligence programs without changes to the surveillance court.
Trump's position clashed with that of two key Senate supporters, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Both McConnell, R-Ky., and Graham, R-S.C., favored a no-change surveillance bill.
Trump met with Attorney General William Barr and a group of GOP lawmakers, including McConnell of Kentucky and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, in an effort to break a deadlock over how to deal with expiring provisions of the USA Freedom Act.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told reporters that Trump "pushed back very vigorously" on a plan pitched by Barr to pass a clean extension of the expiring intelligence programs plan while using his own rule-making authority to make changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court.
"It was a spirited discussion," said Paul, an outspoken defender of the Bill of Rights. "The President made it exceedingly clear that he will not accept a clean reauthorization...without real reform," Paul told reporters Tuesday.
Trump's stance means that the proposal to force a no-change reauthorization by hitching it to the coronavirus bill has become moot. The idea of linking the two bills was to make it difficult politically to vote against the combined measure. No senator would like to be accused of voting against a coronavirus response even though he or she was really opposing the intelligence bill.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who attended the meeting, noted in a FaceBook post that lawmakers made the pitch to Trump that the surveillance court needs to be reformed as part of the reauthorization, and that Trump agreed with them.
"I've proposed a series of amendments to FISA and explained that I'm willing to vote to reauthorize the expiring provisions but only if we pass some of these reforms, only if we make it more difficult for the government to use these things against American citizens," Lee added in a video posted to Facebook.
Congress has until March 15 to extend the three USA Freedom Act provisions that deal with roving wiretaps, lone wolf surveillance and a controversial phone records program that allows the government to request metadata.
Barr and McConnell pitched the idea of a clean extension of the provisions during the meeting, sources told The Hill.
McConnell made a similar pitch during a press conference earlier Tuesday, while telling reporters he would support a short-term extension if Congress couldn't reach a larger deal by the deadline.
"My own preference is to extend these three or four expiring authorities ... but there are differences among my members and among the Democrats on the way forward. Whether we can resolve those and pass new legislation is unclear. If we're unable to resolve our differences, my preference would be for another extension," McConnell said.
Congress previously passed a 90-day extension of the programs in a December spending bill. Paul, on Tuesday night, wouldn't rule out that Trump could support a weeks-long stopgap to buy more time to craft a deal on larger surveillance reforms.
Lawmakers have floated extensions ranging from two months to after the November election and potentially to 2022. Paul noted an idea "specifically talked about," and rejected during the White House meeting, was kicking it until after the November election.
"I think that if there was something, if there were something very, very short-term with the promise that a reform were coming, the President might" sign that, Paul said. "But there's not going to be a long term, and by long term I mean anything more than a couple of weeks that the president would sign."
Neither chamber has been able to move a bill to reauthorize the USA Freedom Act provisions despite having only eight working days before the deadline. There is no sense among lawmakers that they are on the precipice of an agreement, though supporters of reform believe they have momentum.
A growing number of lawmakers are supporting FISA court reforms after Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz found 17 "significant inaccuracies and omissions" in the FISA warrants related to Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Trump did not directly mention Page by name during the meeting, though lawmakers brought him up as an example of abuse of the surveillance court.
Paul told reporters last week that Trump was supportive of his proposal to block FISA warrants from being used against Americans and to block FISA Court information from being used against Americans in domestic courts. Other potential changes pitched by lawmakers include increased legal representation for individuals targeted for surveillance and built in penalties for those who abuse the surveillance court.
Progressives and libertarians have raised concerns for years that there was not enough transparency or privacy protections provided for those targeted by the surveillance court. Those concerns for abuse have found a broader audience with Republicans in the wake of Horowitz's findings.
The House had to pull its bill last week that would have extended most of the expiring provisions, while ending the call records program, after Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Cal, threatened to force votes on several broader FISA-related amendments.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Cal., told The Hill that he and his staff have been working with the House Judiciary Committee as well as Lofgren and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash, to try to find a deal ahead of the March 15 deadline.
"We're looking at expanding the amicus provisions," Schiff said. "We are looking at limiting the period of attention to business records, what the business records provision can be used for, making sure that you can't use the business records to get things you would need a court order for in the criminal context, limiting the use of geolocation data or their usage of location information."
Discussions are continuing between McCarthy and House Democratic leadership to try to find an agreement by the deadline.
"I've talked to Mr. McCarthy about it," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters Tuesday. "We all want to get this done. And so, we'll see if we can reach agreement. But we haven't reached agreement yet."
Meanwhile, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., criticized the suggestion that the FISA reauthorization be linked to the coronavirus bill.
Cruz, a member of the judiciary and commerce panels, cast such "rumors" as an indicator that Congress is on its way to renewing key parts of the surveillance law without sufficient consideration for reform, highlighting a split between the GOP and Attorney General William Barr, who has asked for a clean reauthorization.
“Hearing rumors that the Swamp is trying to tie long-term FISA reauthorization to emergency funding to fight the #CoronaVirus,” the Texas Republican tweeted Monday night. “This should not happen. FISA process was abused to spy on @realDonaldTrump. We need real reform, not political games.”
Republican allies of Trump have demanded FISA reform after IG Horowitz released a report in December that criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA surveillance of Page, a U.S. citizen who was never charged with wrongdoing, and its heavy reliance on British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s salacious and unverified dossier.
With FISA authorities, including roving wiretap powers, the business records provision, and the "lone wolf" amendment, set to expire March 15 if not reauthorized, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are considering reforms to the law that determines the procedures for electronic and physical surveillance for counterintelligence or anti-terrorism investigations.
At a private meeting with Senate Republicans, Barr pushed a no-change reauthorization of surveillance law provisions and time to implement his own internal reforms aimed at stopping surveillance abuses against American citizens. Barr said his desire for a “clean” reauthorization was supported by the intelligence community, the National Security Council and the FBI, though the White House Domestic Policy Council was reportedly not on board.
“The attorney general just wanted to underscore the importance of these provisions that were enacted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks,” McConnell said after the meeting. “They are still relevant to our efforts to go after terrorists today, just like they were after 9/11.”
Graham said Barr “made a commitment to make sure that what happened in 2016 — that internally he's going to clean up that mess.” The South Carolina Republican added: “You’ve got three provisions to deal with. I think it’d be smart to keep them in place. It would give us some time to work on FISA writ large.”
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ga., suggested on Monday that he was not against the idea of linking secret surveillance to the coronavirus bill. “It’s not a poison pill if it moves," the Alabama Republican said.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the committee’s ranking member, said, “Oh, God, no!” to the idea. Leahy said he wanted the coronavirus legislation to be “clean” and “the people who want to do FISA could have finished it last year.”
Trump’s new nominee for director of national intelligence, Rep. John Ratcliffe, weighed in last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference, noting that “there was illegal surveillance” of Trump. Even so, the Texas Republican defended the surveillance law as a valuable tool rooting out terrorists and spies.
Ratcliffe said the current law "serves our country well and saves lives" while arguing that fixes are necessary. He said it wasn't enough to defend the Justice Department and FBI: "You have to defend the values behind the institutions.”
Other Republicans in the House said FISA reform was imperative.
“We are right in the middle of reauthorizing the FISA process,” North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows said. “Shame on any member of Congress or senator, including Republicans, if we reauthorize it without reforming it.”
Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., the ranking member of the judiciary panel, said he was "not going to approve anything unless we get some FISA changes.”
The Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee struck a similar tone.
“Nope, I don’t want to do it — not without major reforms," New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler told CNN when asked if he would support a short-term FISA reauthorization.
The House Judiciary Committee suspended a markup session for FISA reform legislation last week after Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren offered five amendments that her Democratic colleagues considered to be "poison pills" that would hinder negotiations.
“If we don’t take this opportunity to reform the FISA process, we are missing an opportunity,” the California Democrat said, according to Politico.
Although the deadline is March 15, because it is a Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said FISA reauthorization needs to happen by March 12, before Congress leaves town.
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