Barr tightens policy on political surveillance
WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr imposed new rules Tuesday tightening the use of government surveillance on political candidates or their staff members.
In a pair of memos, the attorney general said that before the FBI and Justice Department seek a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to secretly monitor the communications of an elected official, a declared political candidate, or any of their staff, official advisers or informal advisers, officials must first consider warning that person that foreign governments may be targeting them, and if they choose not to give such a warning, the FBI director must spell out in writing the reasons for not doing so.
Barr’s memos speak directly to one of the biggest complaints about the FBI made by President Donald Trump and his supporters — that agents wrongly surveilled former campaign aide Carter Page in 2016.
“What happened to the Trump presidential campaign and his subsequent Administration after the President was duly elected by the American people must never happen again,” Barr said in a statement announcing the memos. Americans, he said, “must have confidence that the United States Government will exercise its surveillance authorities in a manner that protects the civil liberties of Americans, avoids interference in the political process, and complies with the Constitution and laws of the United States.”
A Justice Department inspector general report issued last year found major problems with the FBI’s justifications for surveilling Page, saying that many of the statements made by law enforcement officials to the court to support the warrant did not hold up under closer scrutiny.
But because Page had left the Trump campaign by the time the FBI obtained a warrant against him, it’s not clear that Tuesday’s memo would have precluded or altered that type of surveillance. It’s also unclear how the government will decide who fits the potentially broad category of “informal adviser” to a political candidate.
Republicans have long complained that the FBI’s concerns about Russian attempts to influence people in Trump’s orbit should have been addressed by giving the Trump campaign a briefing about individuals who might have been of concern.
Barr’s action creates a policy making it more likely that the FBI would give such a defensive briefing to politicians or their campaigns.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said Barr’s directives “will build on the FBI’s efforts to bolster its compliance program.”
Wray said the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which created the special surveillance court for national security cases involving terrorism or espionage, “is an indispensable tool that the FBI uses to protect our country from national security threats, and Americans can rest assured that the FBI remains dedicated to continuously strengthening our FISA compliance efforts and ensuring that our FISA authorities are exercised in a responsible manner.”
After the inspector general’s highly critical report of the FBI’s investigation of Page, the bureau has announced dozens of changes meant to tighten the process by which agents seek and conduct such surveillance.
Barr’s second memo creates an office to audit the FBI’s national-security work — establishing, in essence, an additional internal watchdog at the FBI.
“A separate office devoted to internal auditing and headed by a senior FBI official will ensure that rigorous and robust auditing, which is an essential ingredient to an effective compliance regime, is carried out,” Barr wrote in the memo.
After the last tumultuous presidential campaign, in which the Justice Department and FBI were sharply criticized for their handling of an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state, and a separate investigation into possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, Barr has moved to prevent the FBI from investigating presidential candidates without first getting Justice Department approval.