Mullin on FISA lapse: Threat level ‘highest it’s ever been’

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Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Sunday said the department is facing a threat level that’s “highest it’s ever been” with the lapse of spy powers authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

The powers expired on Friday after lawmakers chose not to extend the warrantless surveillance of individuals living abroad, following President Trump’s temporary appointment of Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte as the acting Director of National Intelligence.

During an appearance on Fox News’ “Fox News Sunday,” Mullin said the threat level is the “highest it’s ever been” amid the FIFA World Cup and Freedom 250 celebrations.

“When I say we arrest terrorists every single week, I’m not exaggerating. Those aren’t the individuals that are coming across our border, those are individuals that are still inside this country…,” Mullin said.

“We remember just with FIFA, let’s just use FIFA, we have 78 games against 11 cities in 38 days, which is essentially 78 Super Bowls. On top of that, you have Freedom 250 with all the activity that’s going on, tremendous amount of local partnership that has to take place, and not all have the resources,” he added, slamming some states for suspending their 287g federal partnerships, banning law enforcement from performing immigration enforcement functions.

Mullin told host Shannon Bream, “There’s ways that we can get to what we need to do, but it makes it significantly more difficult where we can cut through a lot of the bureaucracy with 702 and go after the terrorists that are trying to attack us every single day.”

However, the Homeland Security Secretary said that the action that would take “maybe hours” will now take “days” to complete due to the FISA lapse.

Earlier in the show, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) explained that the FISA powers are “operative” until next March.

“That’s the legislation, even though it has not been formally extended, it is still available, and we’ve had one other period recently where FISA was not authorized, but it was still available to our intelligence services. So that’s one point,” Reed said during his appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”

“The second point is the House, the Republican House, voted down FISA last Thursday, so this is not a democratic issue per se, it’s bipartisan. FISA is an important tool, but you can’t give an important tool like this to someone who is a political hatchet man for the president, and that’s what Pulte is,” he added.

Some lawmakers bucked the FISA extension in protest to Pulte’s appointment, although Trump said his interim appointment was temporary.

On Thursday, Trump nominated former Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Jay Clayton to serve as director of national intelligence.

However, Reed said that though he’s a “very accomplished lawyer,” the statute “requires someone taking this job to have significant national security experience, and that has to be measured. I don’t think he does well.”

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Bill Pulte

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Donald Trump

FISA lapse

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin

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Jay Clayton

Markwayne Mullin

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