The House voted on Friday to push a revised version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act re-authorization through a key procedural roadblock after failing to advance the original version earlier this week due to opposition from hardline conservatives.
House Republicans voted along party lines to advance a two-year FISA re-authorization bill after a group of Republicans joined Democrats on Wednesday to vote down a bill to re-authorize FISA for five years and reform the process. Democrats were unified in their opposition, with five Republicans and five Democrats not voting.
FISA authority is set to lapse next week if the legislation that advanced Friday morning is not finalized.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) has pushed the hardliners in his party to support FISA re-authorization and sought to address concerns over FISA section 702, a provision used by intelligence officials to spy on foreign threats to U.S. national security. As the rift between Johnson and his right flank grows, he and former president Donald Trump are set to meet at Mar-a-Lago later today. Johnson is expected to introduce legislation meant to ensure non-citizens cannot vote in U.S. elections.
Conservative hardliners sought to add a provision to FISA re-authorization requiring a warrant to spy on Americans due to concerns over intelligence officials using loopholes to monitor Americans without authorization. They were allied with progressive Democrats in their opposition to FISA re-authorization without significant reforms to the section 702 process.
Trump voiced his opposition to the FISA package ahead of the Wednesday vote and claimed it was used to spy on his campaign. He appeared to be referring to abuses of the FISA application process conducted by the FBI against former Trump advisor Carter Page.
The FBI obtained FISA warrants to spy on Page during its Crossfire Hurricane investigation of discredited Russian collusion allegations against the Trump campaign. Special counsel John Durham found the FBI received authorization to monitor Page despite the lack of evidence against him and numerous factual errors on the applications based on the debunked Steele Dossier.
However, the section of FISA deployed against Carter Page is a different aspect of FISA than section 702, which is designed for U.S. officials to spy on foreign threats outside of the country. Americans occasionally get looped into the process when they’re communicating with a foreigner who is being monitored.
FBI Director Christopher Wray testified yesterday before the House Appropriations Committee and made the case for FISA re-authorization.
“Section 702 is indispensable in keeping Americans safe from a whole barrage of fast-moving foreign threats. It is crucial to identify terrorists in the homeland working with or inspired by a rogues gallery of foreign terrorist organizations who have publicly called for attacks on our country,” Wray said. He also cited the need for section 702 to help protect dissidents from countries such as China and Iran.