WASHINGTON—Senate and House Republicans appear to be at loggerheads about whether to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) before or after the controversial law at the heart of the “Spygate” scandal is reauthorized.
That delay has set up a simmering feud among congressional Republicans.
Attorney General William Barr lit the match Feb. 25 when he told Senate Republicans that he favors a “clean” FISA reauthorization that preserves key controversial surveillance provisions, including highly intrusive bulk metadata collections based on telephone records of individuals within and outside the United States.
Barr said he thinks sufficient reforms can be implemented administratively rather than going through a legislative process.
While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) supported Barr, as did most other Senate Republicans, according to media reports, two Senate GOPers—Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah—made clear they want reforms first, reauthorization later.
“At the Senate GOP lunch today, I made a long case against a simple reauthorization of the FISA program. Some are arguing the program needs no reform and that DOJ can put in place internal quality control mechanisms. That’s not good enough.”
“Former FBI officials in 2016-17 gravely abused the FISA process and lied to the FISA court 17 times Now, some members of Congress want to do a clean reauthorization of FISA anyway Totally unacceptable. Should NEVER happen.”
“Comey’s FBI misled the FISA Court 17 times. We can’t simply reauthorize the system that allowed those lies and omissions to happen. Now is our chance to fix it.”
Caught in the middle are Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has declared his intention to hold hearings on FISA reforms, and 11 other Republicans on the panel.
Asked Feb. 27 by The Epoch Times where Graham stands on the issue, Taylor Reidy, the Judiciary chairman’s spokesman, said, “He hasn’t said anything about a clean reauthorization.”
There are presently no hearings on FISA reforms on the judiciary schedule between now and March 15, but that doesn’t mean nothing is happening.
In other words, the March 15 reauthorization deadline will arrive before Graham will convene hearings on FISA reforms. Graham rarely contradicts McConnell, so it appears he would vote for a clean reauthorization. He also said Feb. 27 he would seek an extension of the March 15 deadline to allow time for FISA reform hearings and compromise.
How the other Judiciary Republicans may vote remains up in the air, based on a survey Feb. 26 by The Epoch Times. Spokesmen for the 11 other GOP members of the committee either didn’t respond to the request for comment, or said their bosses were undecided.
Meanwhile, on the House side, Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), another highly vocal Trump supporter, told political activists gathered near the nation’s capital for the Conservative Political Action Conference that he’s in no mood for delaying FISA reforms.
“We have got to look at ways to make this a process that can’t be politicized, and we’ve also got to make where it can still be used,” Collins told conference attendees.
“I’m promising you here, I’ve told our conference this, and I said this out loud yesterday when I was furious that they stopped this markup: I am not going to trade off the easy extensions for not doing anything with FISA.”
He was referring to a House Judiciary Committee markup of FISA reforms that was stopped earlier in the week by committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.).
“We have to do something with FISA, and the House needs to do it, and the Senate needs to take it up, and we need to send it to the president so we know that this will not happen again,” Collins said.
Given Trump’s opposition to a clean reauthorization now, supporters of the move are most likely to try to attach it to legislation that the president normally would be unlikely to veto.
