Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) says there need to be “major changes” to the Justice Department and FBI, and FISA should be allowed to expire, if Republicans win control of Congress in November.
“I think we should not even reauthorize FISA
FISA was intended to facilitate the gathering of foreign, not domestic, intelligence information. But, conservatives have become increasing concerned about abuses of the FISA process to gain authority to spy on Democrats’ political enemies.
Among the most egregious abuses were those committed in order to gain permission to spy on Trump Campaign Advisor, Carter Page, Heritage.com notes:
“[T]he very contacts that the FBI cited in the FISA application to establish that Page was really a clandestine foreign agent were known to and had been approved by another U.S. intelligence agency. The IG report also states that an FBI lawyer—reported to be Kevin Clinesmith—subsequently altered a document he received from the other agency to indicate, falsely, that Page was not a source for that other agency.”
Given that the Justice Dept. committed more than a dozen errors and omissions in its application to surveil Page, Republicans are eager to address the problems with FISA’s provision allowing for warrantless surveillance, The Washington Examiner explains:
“Allies of former President Donald Trump have demanded FISA reform after Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report in 2019 that criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA surveillance of Trump campaign associate Carter Page, a U.S. citizen who was suspected of acting on Russia's behalf but never charged with wrongdoing, and its heavy reliance on British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s salacious and unverified dossier in seeking that spy authorization from the FISA Court.
“Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are already gearing up for the renewal fight and the expectation that the GOP will win control of the lower chamber in the midterm elections, with a "working group" performing a review on FISA's Section 702, which covers the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program, ranking member Mike Turner of Ohio told the Record.”
In addition to reforming or eliminating FISA, Congress also needs to examine ways to drastically reform the Justice Department and FBI, Rep. Jordan said in his Sunday interview, when asked about the prospect of impeaching U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.
In particular, the FBI’s Washington field office has “way too much power,” which needs to be dispersed, Rep. Jordan said:
“We have to look real closely at the Justice Department. And I think we may have to do some major changes. There may need to be structural changes at the FBI. The Washington field office has way too much power. We may need to disperse power around. There needs to be process changes. One of the things that happens is, the FBI goes to interview someone.”
Rep. Jordan also cited the targeting of Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn in a case where the Justice Department eventually tried to drop the charges, but were prevented from doing so by an anti-Trump judge, prompting then-Pres. Trump to pardon him:
“When they interviewed Mike Flynn, they did a 302 (summary report) and write things down, and then they prosecuted Michael Flynn. We actually think, maybe, there should be an audio tape of that, so we can actually get the facts of what took place.
“Because we know that they went to set up Michael Flynn back in the early days of the Trump Administration. So, maybe, we need to deal with their funding.”
http://www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/rep-jordan-eyes-eliminating-fisa-major-changes-fbi-doj-if-gop-wins-control
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