Senate Republican on FISA holdup: ‘Stop playing the politics’

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.) on Sunday slammed her fellow lawmakers after both chambers of Congress failed to pass bills to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

“We — not only do we have the World Cup, we have a lot of America’s 250 celebrations that we see all across the country, and to tie our intelligence community’s hands and not allow them to collect data that we know has already disrupted terrorist attacks, here, it has saved some terrorist attacks at concerts and other venues, large venues, and we’re going to see these all across the country,” Moore Capito told NewsNation’s Chris Stirewalt on “The Hill Sunday.”

“So, stop playing the politics, confirm this Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for the next three years, with the reforms that they demanded that are in there,” she added.

On Thursday, both the House and the Senate failed to pass bills to extend Section 702 of FISA through July 2 amid Democrats’ anger over Bill Pulte being tapped to head the intelligence community.

Both chambers then left Washington, allowing the spy powers to lapse at midnight. President Trump has also considered signing an executive order to support the program, which lets the government compel communications companies to turn over the records of foreign targets without a warrant.

Democrats refused to reauthorize 702 due to objections to Pulte being tapped to head the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, pointing to Pulte’s past of using his position leading the Federal Housing Finance Agency to make criminal referrals for alleged mortgage fraud against four foes of the president.

Tags

Bill Pulte

Chris Stirewalt

Donald Trump

FISA

FISA 702

senate republicans

Shelley Moore Capito

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