The leaders of the Justice Department and FBI jointly announced Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reforms following revelations about mistakes within and abuses of FISA during and after the 2016 presidential election.
Attorney General William Barr authored two memos, dated Tuesday, that the Justice Department said will “empower the FBI to build a more robust internal compliance program” and “will ensure, among other things, the accuracy of FISA applications, as well as the active oversight of applications targeting federal elected officials, candidates for federal elected office, and their staffs.”
The announcement of the changes comes roughly two months out from Election Day, featuring a contest for the White House between former Vice President Joe Biden and President Trump, who accuses Biden of being involved in a plot to spy on and undermine his 2016 campaign and his administration.
“FISA is a critical tool to ensuring the safety and security of Americans, particularly when it comes to fighting terrorism. However, the American people 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,” Barr said. “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.”
After conducting an audit of the FBI’s conduct during its counterintelligence investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report in December that criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and for the bureau’s reliance on British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier. Steele put his research together at the behest of Fusion GPS, which was funded by Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Declassified footnotes from Horowitz’s report indicate that the bureau became aware that Steele’s dossier may have been compromised by Russian disinformation, and FBI interviews show Steele’s primary subsource undercut the credibility of the dossier.
“Since the Inspector General’s Crossfire Hurricane report was issued last December, I have made clear that it describes conduct that was unacceptable and unrepresentative of the FBI as an organization,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement on Tuesday. “That’s why I immediately ordered more than 40 corrective actions, including foundational FISA reforms, many of which went beyond those recommended by the Inspector General. The FBI has been working diligently to implement these corrective actions.”
Barr’s first three-page memo authorized Wray “to commence the process of establishing, consistent with law and policy, the Office of Internal Auditing” and said that “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.” The Justice Department said that this would help “overcome a gap in auditing capability at the FBI and requires the development of compliance and oversight mechanisms, training, and internal controls to ensure the FBI’s compliance with applicable statutes, policies, procedures, and court orders that govern the FBI’s national security activities.”
The attorney general’s second three-page memo argued that “to protect the civil liberties of Americans, it is imperative that the Department make accurate and complete representations to judicial officers when seeking to obtain legal authority to conduct intelligence activities.” Barr said that “when those activities involve federal elected officials, federal political candidates, or their respective staff members, the Department must be especially vigilant.”
The reforms “also include oversight protocols to ensure that any use of FISA to surveil federal elected officials, candidates for federal elected office, or their advisors or staff is justified, non-partisan, and based on full and complete information,” according to the Justice Department.
Wray said he agreed with the changes being implemented by Barr.
“The additional reforms announced today, which we worked on closely with the Attorney General’s office, will build on the FBI’s efforts to bolster its compliance program,” the director said. “FISA 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.”
Ex-FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who worked on the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server as well as on the bureau’s Crossfire Hurricane inquiry and special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, pleaded guilty to a false statements charge in U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation in August. Clinesmith admitted he fraudulently changed a CIA email to state that Page was “not a source” for the CIA after being told by the agency that Page had been an operational contact for them.
