The fight over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is continuing among Republicans as the program is set to expire April 19.
The Washington Times noted that the FBI and intelligence community have been pushing lawmakers to renew FISA without a warrant requirement.
"The same people who spied on President (Donald) Trump's campaign are now fighting against a warrant requirement in the new FISA bill, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote in a post on X. "Makes you wonder."
The Washington Times noted that former special counsel John Durham had concluded in his report last year that the FBI should never have launched its "Crossfire Hurricane" probe into purported ties between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.
Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., a member of the Intelligence Committee, told The Washington Times: "We now created six new criminal statutes in the federal judiciary and the federal criminal code. So now, if [FBI's] upper management, the special counsel, or the DOJ now has the ability under the criminal statutes to charge them. If this happened again with Crossfire Hurricane, I would predict there'd be four to five people within the FBI personnel that would be indicted by now."
The House is set to consider a bill that would reauthorize a surveillance program that U.S. officials consider vital to national security but that critics say raises privacy concerns, the Associated Press reported.
The action comes shortly before the program expires on April 19. It was up for reauthorization last year but was granted a short-term extension as part of a massive defense policy bill that passed the House in December.
Though the prospect for passage is uncertain because of scrambled political alliances and deep resistance from civil liberties advocates, senior administration officials said in a call with reporters Friday that they believed the bill preserved the most critical aspects of the spy program while also including guardrails that don't undermine its purpose and effectiveness.
In February, during an appearance on Newsmax's "Wake Up America'' Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., said: "So, we're on the eve of a vote on FISA, which is the ability for the government to spy on foreign nationals. But its been used to spy on Americans. So this is what you need to know: Your government spies on you. They can spy on you. We've had Americans that have been spied on because of their religion, because of their political party."
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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