The FBI will soon have the power to spy on us without warrants reauthorized by Congress after House Speaker Mike Johnson decided not to hold his ground. That’s not me saying that: it’s Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), and he’s right.
The Kentucky Republican laid into the House speaker for having no backbone in the matter, which was embodied in his vote with Democrats to pass the revised FISA bill (via The Hill):
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) went after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Sunday for forcing a tie vote against an amendment to a controversial spy bill, upsetting some of the most conservative Republicans.
[…]
“Speaker Johnson was incredibly wrong,” Paul said in a “Fox News Sunday” interview. “He broke the tie. He voted with the Democrats. Here we have the leader of the Republicans in the House votes with the Democrats against a warrant requirement.”
“We also have Speaker Johnson voting for the spending package once again with a majority of the Democrats,” he continued. “As I see it now, I’m not so sure there’s a difference between Mike Johnson being in charge and the Democrats being in charge.”
[…]
“Johnson hasn’t held his ground,” Paul said. “He has power. He has a majority. Use the power of the purse. Speaker Johnson, do something to make us think you are different than the Democrats. But so far I don’t see a lot of difference.”
Mr. Johnson has been a disappointment, being that he’s pretty much acting like Kevin McCarthy would—which is what a lot of people warned could happen given the dynamics of the House. He’s facing a motion to vacate filed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), which we’ll see has any legs. Republicans are at risk of ushering in Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) as speaker, who like during McCarthy’s ouster, has zero interest in bailing Republicans out.
In the meantime, the bureau cannot be trusted to work in the dark anymore because they’ve been proven to be more worried about the activities of conservative Americans than those of radical Islamic terrorists. Pro-lifers have been visited by agents, along with persons who have posted anti-Biden memes and the like on their social media pages.
And yet, the Republican House passed a two-year reauthorization of the warrantless FISA program, which has been weaponized to go after members of the Trump campaign, namely Carter Page. Mr. Page’s warrant, signed off by the FISA court, was secured through manufactured evidence, which was revealed during the Durham investigation into the origins of the Russian collusion investigation.
Speaker Johnson was opposed to FISA reauthorization before the FBI convinced him through a classified briefing on the matter, which is Washington nonsense at its finest. The FISA bill languished in the House after three failed attempts, which came to an end last Friday (via NYT):
The bill would extend a provision known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, that is set to lapse next Friday. It was a remarkable resuscitation of the measure from a collapse just days ago on the House floor after Mr. Trump had urged lawmakers to “kill” FISA.
But House passage came after lawmakers only narrowly defeated a bipartisan effort to restrict searches of Americans’ messages swept up by the program — a major change that national security officials had warned would gut the law. The vote reflected widespread skepticism of the program.
Grasping to salvage the measure before the law expires, Speaker Mike Johnson put forward a shorter extension than its originally envisioned five years, persuading hard-right Republicans who had blocked the bill to allow it to move forward. The final vote was 273 to 147, with both parties split. One hundred and twenty-six Republicans joined 147 Democrats in favor, while 88 Republicans and 59 Democrats were opposed.
We need a new Congress and a new president.
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