Former Attorney General Bill Barr on Wednesday denounced former President Trump’s exhortation for Congress to kill the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) as “crazy and reckless” and warned there will be “blood on people’s hands” if the intelligence community’s surveillance authority expires and there’s a terrorist attack on the United States.
Barr, who served in Trump’s Cabinet in 2019 and 2020, noted that Trump at one time supported the expanded surveillance powers authorized under Section 702 of FISA and warned that political “posturing” against extending that authority would be dangerous to national security.
“I think it’s crazy and reckless to not move forward with FISA. It’s our principal tool protecting us from terrorist attacks. We’re living through a time where those threats have never been higher, so it’s blinding us, it’s blinding our allies,” Barr told The Hill in an interview.
“I think President Trump’s opposition seems to have stemmed from personal pique rather than any logic and reason. The provision that he objects to has nothing to do with the provision that’s on the floor,” he said, referring to the legislation that would reauthorize Section 702 of FISA, which stalled in the House on Wednesday after 19 Republicans voted to defeat a rule to move it forward not long after Trump said it should be killed.
“KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media platform, shortly before the House GOP conference met to discuss the legislation.
Hours later, the House voted 193 to 228 to defeat the rule to advance the reauthorization of surveillance authority.
The House vote leaves the future of legislation extending Section 702 of FISA, which expires on April 19, unclear.
Barr argued that Trump’s statement itself is incorrect, pointing out that the wiretap of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page during the 2016 election had no connection to Section 702.
“The part of FISA that was abused during Russia-gate had to do with getting wiretaps for American citizens, and that’s not what’s being considered. This is our ability to exploit foreign communications, and there are no Fourth Amendment issues with respect to the collection of this information,” Barr said of the Section 702 surveillance authority.
“I believe this will result in attacks on the United States we’re not able to intercept,” he warned.
Barr pointed out that Trump supported extending Section 702 authority while he was president but then later waffled on the issue.
“Initially, he was willing to have it reauthorized and told me to go ahead and get it reauthorized, and then he flip-flopped around about it depending on who the last person to talk to him was,” he recalled. “As he became angrier and angrier about the left’s attacks on him over Russia-gate, he became less willing to support reauthorization.
“I think that is improper because this is protecting the national security, and the objections he has to Section 1 don’t apply here. I feel there’s a lot of political posturing here. I don’t think when it comes to something this important in protecting the country there should be,” he said.
Barr warned that allowing the intelligence community’s surveillance authority to expire could backfire in a major way on Republicans who block the reauthorization of FISA if there’s an attack on U.S. soil that could have been otherwise prevented.
“I hope for Republicans’ sake that there are no attacks, because if there are, I think there will be blood on people’s hands for doing this. It’s reckless,” he said.
And he said the future of intelligence agencies’ ability to surveil foreign threats could be significantly compromised if Trump is elected and continues to opposed Section 702 of FISA.
Asked if future surveillance authority would be jeopardized if Trump returns to the White House, Barr said: “Who knows? It would seem that way.”
Senior Senate Republicans on Wednesday echoed Barr’s concerns.
“I know he’s had bad experience with it, but I think there are a lot reasons we can’t let it go dark,” Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said about Trump’s effort to kill the FISA reauthorization.
“There are a lot of reasons why we can’t let it go dark. There are things that need to be fixed and reformed, and I think that’s what the focus should be. But it’s a tool that we really need to keep America safe,” he said.
Asked whether Trump’s opposition will cause Congress to miss the April 19 reauthorization deadline, Thune said: “We’ll see. The ball is kind of in the House’s court right now.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned that U.S. intelligence agencies could lose the ability to keep track of foreign threats.
“I get the concerns about it. People keep raising this Carter Page case. That has nothing to do with this section,” Rubio said of the Section 702 surveillance authority that would be extended by the bill that stalled Wednesday in the House.
Rubio echoed Barr’s statement that the FBI initiated the surveillance of Page under a different section of the law.
“That’s under Section 1,” he pointed out. “There was a warrant in that case. The FBI officials lied to the court.”
The Justice Department later admitted that the evidence the FBI presented to a special FISA court to initiate surveillance of Page was legally insufficient.
Rubio also noted there are reforms in place now that increase the civil and criminal penalties for lying to a court to obtain a warrant to surveil American citizens.
“The broader point is if we can’t spy on foreign terrorists and foreign spies overseas, we’re out of the intelligence business,” Rubio warned.