House pulls surveillance bill after Trump rejection
Opposition leaves action on expired FBI tools in doubt
House Democratic leaders Thursday withdrew legislation that would revive expired FBI tools to investigate terrorism and espionage and add privacy protections for Americans subjected to wiretapping for national security purposes, after a fragile bipartisan compromise collapsed following an abrupt repudiation by President Donald Trump.
The retreat left uncertain the fate of efforts to overhaul national security surveillance while extending three partly expired tools federal law enforcement officials use in such cases. Just days ago, the bill had appeared poised to become law, after initial approval by the House and Senate.
But support for the measure among Republicans cratered after Trump intervened to urge them to reject it, and some progressives said they could not support the bill without greater privacy protections. With votes bleeding from both flanks, House leaders delayed a vote late Wednesday and then called if off altogether Thursday rather than let it fail.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had spent much of the previous 24 hours trying to salvage the measure, said the House would instead initiate negotiations with the Senate to bridge their differences before trying to clear it for Trump’s signature.
“Clearly, because House Republicans have prioritized politics over our national security, we will no longer have a bipartisan veto-proof majority,” she said in a letter to colleagues Thursday. “It will be our intention to go to conference in order to ensure that all of the views of all members of our caucus are represented in the final product.”
It is far from clear what the Trump administration wants. Trump has demonstrated little understanding of the complex details of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, and appears to be largely interested in keeping alive his grievances about the FBI investigation into whether his campaign was involved with Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election.
He tweeted Tuesday that Republicans should oppose the legislation “until such time as our Country is able to determine how and why the greatest political, criminal, and subversive scandal in USA history took place!”
On Thursday, he praised Republicans for following through with an “incredibly important blockage” of legislation that would “perpetuate the abuse.”
A small part of the Russia investigation included surveillance authorized by FISA that targeted Carter Page, a former campaign adviser with close ties to Moscow. An inspector general report later uncovered myriad errors and omissions in the applications for that wiretap, and Trump has sought to undercut the legitimacy of the broader inquiry by citing the problematic wiretapping of his former aide.
That kind of FISA surveillance, however, is unrelated to the trio of partly expired FBI tools whose proposed extension is driving the legislation. They do things like permit court orders to gather business records deemed relevant to a terrorism or espionage investigation.
Still, the bill before Congress to extend them has become a vehicle for broader FISA reforms, including in response to the problems with the Page applications. For example, it would add layers of oversight to FISA wiretap applications by instructing judges — who normally hear from only the Justice Department when weighing such requests — to appoint outsiders to critique the government’s arguments in more types of cases, including those involving political campaigns or religious organizations.
Surveillance bills in recent years have tended to pass with unusual bipartisan coalitions that must balance the interests of civil libertarians in both parties with those of more pro-law enforcement lawmakers. When the House passed an earlier version of the bill in March, 152 Democrats and 126
Republicans supported it.
“The two-thirds of the Republican Party that voted for this bill in March have indicated they are going to vote against it now,” Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the majority leader, said Thursday. “I am told they are doing so at the request of the president. “I believe this to be against the security interest of the United States and the safety of the American people.”
Republican leaders in the House quickly stepped into line behind the president and urged their colleagues to vote “no” so that lawmakers and the White House could reopen negotiations. They offered vague statements about the bill’s inadequacies.
“The president has questions, and the attorney general has questions. Let’s take a deep breath and go back and work together,” Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the minority leader, said Wednesday.