AG Barr wants a ‘clean’ FISA reauthorization because he won’t abuse it

Let me be blunt. I am no fan of AG Barr. He doesn’t think he can do his job with Trump’s tweeting? Now he thinks we should trust him with FISA and make no changes? Keep it the same until 2022? We are suppose to have faith in him? Who is to say if he will be in that position, who says what the Congress will look like and who knows if Trump will be President.

We got to see his true colors of being a total swamp creature in an earlier post this month. Trump’s tweet, Barr’s response and failed Jessie Liu – the intersect

The long and the short of the previous post and a winding tale to be told was Barr’s support of a high level swamp creature and was her champion from day one. Barr wanted Liu for the top job at Treasury. Even though the Senate failed to confirm her earlier for a different position.

Why did Barr ever think Jessie Liu was worth promoting to a critical role in treasury? and worse to the DOJ #3 post before that. As soon as Barr was confirmed as AG he was her champion. She was involved with Mueller including the Stone and McCabe cases.

Check this:  Via NBC) […]

The former U.S. attorney whose office oversaw the Roger Stone prosecution resigned from the Trump administration Wednesday, two days after President Donald Trump abruptly withdrew her nomination for a top job at the Treasury Department.

But enough of that grade B novel. Check it out if you have the time. I digress.

Now back to the latest Barr fiasco.

In November of 2019 buried deep in the congressional budget Continuing Resolution (CR) was a short-term extension to reauthorize the FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], all parts of the Patriot Act.  As a result of the FISA CR inclusion the terminal deadline was pushed to March 15, 2020:

WASHINGTON – Attorney General William Barr told Senate Republicans on Tuesday that the Trump administration could support a clean extension of contentious surveillance laws set to expire next month. And Barr said he could make changes on his own to satisfy President Donald Trump and his allies who have railed against the use of the law to monitor his 2016 campaign, according to senators at a party briefing.

But Barr also clashed with GOP critics of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which has three key provisions set to lapse on March 15.

[…] Republicans emerged from the lunch meeting mostly supportive of a clean extension of the law to avoid a gap; doing so is a top priority of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

“The attorney general just wanted to underscore again the importance of these provisions that were enacted in the wake of the 9/11 attack. They’re still relevant to our effort to go after terrorists today like they were after 9/11,” McConnell told reporters.

But Barr also sparred with skeptics, primarily libertarian-leaning Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky, according to two people familiar with the meeting. Barr told Lee his criticisms of surveillance law are dangerous, while Paul said Americans shouldn’t be subject to secret FISA courts, one of the people said.

[…] Senate Republicans prefer kicking a broad FISA debate to as late as 2022, when other pieces of the law expire. In the interim, Barr would make administrative changes to address complaints from conservatives that surveillance authorities were abused during Trump’s campaign — something the president continues to seethe over.

“You’ve got three provisions to deal with. I think it’d be smart to keep them in place. It would give us some time to work on FISA writ large, we’ve got three years,” said Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is preparing hearings on FISA.

[…] “A lot will happen between now and March 15. We may do a placeholder and take it past March 15. We’ve got to get this right,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). “Anybody who reads the Horowitz report on misfire hurricane will understand what I’m talking about.” (read more)

Prior to the December 9, 2019, inspector general report on FISA abuse, FISA Court judges Rosemary Collyer (declassified 2017) and James Boasberg (declassified 2019) both identified issues with the NSA bulk database collection program being exploited for unauthorized reasons. For the past several years no corrective action taken by the intelligence community has improved the abuses outlined by the FISA court.

The sketchy programs, and abuse therein, has public attention yet congressional representatives are not responding to the findings.

H./T: Conservative Tree House

A pretty damning clip knowing what we know now. Of course he slid through his confirmation hearing.

Check out the earlier post Trump’s tweet, Barr’s response and failed Jessie Liu – the intersect

Other than that, all is well in the swamp.