Attorney General Williams Barr disagreed with President Donald Trump regarding proposals to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, ABC News is reporting.
The split came during a Tuesday meeting with Republican lawmakers to discuss FISA, sources tell the network news. The GOP lawmakers are advocating for a major overhaul of FISA.
Sources tell the network news that Barr and Republicans were engaged in a “spirited back-and-fourth” at the meeting.
Barr is supporting a “clean” reauthorization of the law. However, he did make it clear he supports some of the proposed fixes.
Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department’s internal watchdog, had told Congress in December that he was concerned that “so many basic and fundamental errors” were made by the FBI as it investigated ties between the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016.
Trump, along with many Republicans, have argued that Horowitz identified FISA problems that must be remedied before reauthorizing the surveillance law.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, was one of those who attended the meeting with Barr and Trump. In a column for Fox News this week, he said: "The FBI improperly spied on the Trump campaign in 2016. We must ensure the bureau can't do it in 2020 or ever again. Because if the FBI can unfairly target a presidential campaign, imagine what it can do to regular Americans.
But ABC News reported that current and former FBI officials are expressing concern that national security investigations could potentially be at risk if the program is not reauthorized before a March 15 deadline.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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