Breaking: Justice says it will recommend President Trump veto FISA bill

The Justice Department said on Wednesday that it opposes House-proposed changes to surveillance reform legislation and will urge President Trump to veto the bill if it reaches his desk.

The statement, from Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd, is the latest setback for the legislation, which is currently scheduled to get a vote on the House floor on Wednesday, after Trump on Tuesday night urged GOP opposition to vote against it.

The veto threat from the Justice Department is a marked shift from March, when Attorney General William Barr helped negotiate the initial version of the bill with House leadership. The bill was then approved by the House in a 278-136 vote.

The bill reauthorizes three surveillance programs and makes some changes to the court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). But the Senate, when it took up the bill earlier this month, added language to create new legal protections for some FISA warrant applications, a change that garnered pushback from the Justice Department.

Boyd said on Wednesday that the Justice Department had offered "specific fixes to the most significant problems" stemming from the changes made by the Senate but signaled that they had been ignored by House lawmakers.

Instead, the House will vote on an additional amendment to the legislation as part of its debate on Wednesday that would tighten the limits on the FBI’s ability to access Americans’ web browsing history.

Boyd warned that the Justice Department believes the proposed change from the House would "weaken national security tools while doing nothing to address the abuses identified by the DOJ Inspector General."

"The Department opposes the Senate-passed bill in its current form and also opposes the Lofgren amendment in the House," he said, referring to a sponsor of the measure, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.).

"Given the cumulative negative effect of these legislative changes on the Department’s ability to identify and track terrorists and spies, the Department must oppose the legislation now under consideration in the House. If passed, the Attorney General would recommend that the President veto the legislation," he added.

The Justice Department opposition comes as the surveillance reform bill is facing fresh opposition from both sides ahead of the House vote, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) urging Democrats to delay the vote on the bill following Trump's tweet.

In his tweet, Trump referenced what he has cast as a conspiracy against his administration by the Obama administration.

“I hope all Republican House Members vote NO on FISA 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!” Trump tweeted.

A Justice Department inspector general investigation completed last year faulted the FBI for errors and omissions in surveillance applications used to wiretap former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page as part of the bureau’s investigation into Russian interference.

The internal watchdog review did not find evidence that agents were motivated by bias in their decisions to open investigations into Trump campaign associates, however, undermining a key talking point of Trump and his GOP allies.

#50 Robert Cook. Good comments. I’m for a strong, structured Patriot Act (with needed revisions) but am leery of how the FISA was written and then misused.

The key to all of this, which should have been a role of the Congress (problem: House Intelligence Com controlled by a psychopathic liar Democrat, Schiff, and the Sen. Intell. Com. doesn’t seem strong enough under the overall leadership of Sen. Jud. Com leader Lindsay Graham (R-NC), is THAT the “mission” has not been thoroughly defined, the “threats” to our security thoroughly defined or even acknowledged (Obama’s ISIS is a JV terrorist organization), and there is a tremendous lack of understanding of what “intelligence” means as a survival technique.

Just because you don’t see a threat doesn’t mean it isn’t there or isn’t OUT THERE (like the Coronavirus COVID 19 variety). Good intelligence leaders look everywhere for real or potential threats, devise counter-measures if needed, and keep an eye on “threat theaters”.

It takes a special kind of mind/talent to be a very good intelligence officer. We can’t have just “okay intelligence officers”. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were examples of this, not to mention the early Al Qaeda ops in Kenya/Tanzania, World Trade Center I, the start of the Korean War, the Communist ideology of Castro (Castro brothers, Che, etc), and the secret rise of the Red Chinese military machine whose goal is to aid in regional, then world domination, not as trading partners.

I’ve known some of the top Intelligence (FBI/CIA/DIA) and Counter-Intelligence leaders in modern US history, as well as many from the Vietnam war. They had the “knack” to know what to look for and where (i.e. the Venona Papers, Operation Solo, the Berlin Tunnel ops against E. Germany/Soviet Union, etc), as well as how the enemy worked.

Others believed the adage “No threat from the Left” (Ted Kennedy, Chris Dodd, John Kerry, CIA Dir. Stansfield Turner, Brennan the Traitor, Clapper the Clueless, and anyone associated with Obama/Hillary in the White House/NSC etc.

You know how this worked out, don’t you.

As the X-Files’ Fox Moulder might say, “The enemy is out there. You’ve got to believe or otherwise you are going to get your ass kicked in when you are not looking or prepared”.

Moulder was a very prescient character.

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