President Trump told lawmakers that he will not support a long-term extension of key intelligence programs without reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Trump held a private meeting with Attorney General William Bar, Republican members of Congress, and GOP leadership on Tuesday about extending provisions of the USA Freedom Act. The meeting was focused on discussing certain provisions of the law that expire on March 15, including surveillance of lone-wolf terrorists, roving wiretaps, and a program that permits requests for metadata from phone records.
During the meeting, Barr and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed support for the concept of a clean extension of the intelligence programs, sources told the Hill. However, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said the president didn’t agree and “pushed back very vigorously” on an extension without comprehensive FISA reforms.
“It was a spirited discussion. The president made it exceedingly clear that he will not accept a clean reauthorization … without real reform,” Paul said after the meeting. Republican aides confirmed that Trump told those at the meeting he wouldn’t support an extension without added reforms.
Earlier Tuesday, McConnell said before the huddle that he would support a short-term extension if Congress can’t find a way to pass a broader deal in Congress.
“My own preference is to extend these three or four expiring authorities … but there are differences among my members and among the Democrats on the way forward. Whether we can resolve those and pass new legislation is unclear. If we’re unable to resolve our differences, my preference would be for another extension,” he said.
The meeting comes after Congress already passed a 90-day extension to the USA Freedom Act provisions as part of a spending bill last December. With only days left before the provisions expire, neither the House or Senate has been able to move forward with a new bill to extend the intelligence programs.
One of the provisions is for roving wiretaps, which are wiretap authorizations that don’t require a new surveillance order if the phone being tapped is destroyed and replaced. Another controversial prevision among those on Capitol Hill is a phone records program that grants the government the ability to request metadata such as the dates and senders of cellular communications — but not the content of those messages.
During the meeting, a number of ideas for stop-gap extensions of various lengths of time were discussed, but Paul said the idea of a temporary extension until after the 2020 presidential election was “specifically talked about” and rejected. He also said that Trump “might” be amenable to signing a short-term extension to buy time for a broader deal that includes FISA reforms.
“I think that if there was something, if there were something very, very short term with the promise that a reform were coming,” Paul said of the possibility of a short-term extension. “But there’s not going to be a long term, and by long term, I mean anything more than a couple of weeks that the president would sign.”
Calls for FISA reform gained steam after Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a December report that found 17 “significant errors or omissions” in how the FBI obtained FISA warrants to surveil Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser. The FISA court approved four warrants targeting Page during the investigation into Russian election interference and the 2016 Trump campaign.
The FISA court and government surveillance programs have troubled some Democratic and libertarian-leaning lawmakers for years, and Horowitz’s report has increased the number of Republicans who want broader reform.
Congress has until March 15 to come up with either a temporary extension or a broader deal on extending the intelligence programs.
