Marco Rubio on fixing FISA: 'The process was abused'
Senator Marco Rubio reacts to President Trump urging the GOP to vote against a bill to renew federal surveillance powers
With the debate about amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act underway, Sen. Marco Rubio said Wednesday that instead of changes to the process, lawmakers should focus on ways to prevent it from being abused.
“The FISA and the process exist for the following reason. ... There have been instances when a foreign power or a terrorist organization recruits an American to be a part of their work and when that happens, there has to be a process by which we can surveil those people if they are part of a plot to harm the United States via the counterintelligence plot or a terrorism plot,” Rubio, R-Fla., told “America’s Newsroom.”
TRUMP URGES GOP TO OPPOSE FISA BILL
Rubio's comments came after the Justice Department on Wednesday urged President Trump to veto legislation to reauthorize surveillance authorities used by the FBI just hours before a scheduled vote in the House, marking the latest curveball that puts the legislation in limbo.
The Justice Department issued a statement Wednesday saying the legislation set to reauthorize and reform national security authorities in the U.S.A. Freedom Act goes too far and would weaken national security tools.
"If passed, the Attorney General [William Barr] would recommend that the President veto the legislation," the statement from Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyd said.
The legislation was already in jeopardy when Trump tweeted Tuesday night that he's urging all Republicans to vote no on the FISA legislation "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 issued the warning on Twitter, referring to his longstanding belief that the intelligence community improperly used FISA authorities to surveil his presidential campaign for political reasons.
By Wednesday morning, House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif, asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to pull the legislation from the floor. In an interview with "Fox & Friends," McCarthy cited several reasons that Democrats should delay the legislation, including new developments surrounding Obama administration officials using FISA authorities to launch the Russia probe into Trump campaign officials and associates.
Rubio explained how the FISA court process had been abused during the Trump-Russia investigation undertaken by the FBI under then-Director James Comey.
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“We now know that FBI [agents] ... omitted exculpatory information, they lied to the court, they left things out, they in fact doctored and altered material to present to the court. They misled the FISA court in order to get their hands on a warrant,” Rubio said, referring to the process by which the FBI surveilled former Trump campaign associate Carter Page.
“So the issue here is not the process, but the way the process was abused. All processes can be abused, but the question is can we do something to tighten and prevent those abuses.”
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