Pete King: Paul's Fundraising on NSA 'Absolutely Disgraceful'

Sen. Rand Paul's fight to shut down the National Security Agency's collection of telephone metadata last week was an "absolutely disgraceful" action geared to raise money for his presidential campaign, New York Rep. Pete King said Sunday.

"That went beyond the limits of intelligent debate, rational debate, and to me it violated his position as a senator," King told CNN's "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace.

The fact was, King said, "99 percent of the Senate" wanted the debate to forward, but Paul's actions shut down the NSA to "serve no purpose other than for him to use it to raise money for his presidential campaign."

King said he had no issue with debate, but Paul used his "one-person power" to stop the debate "knowing it was going to be reopened in several days. All he was doing was hurting American security at the same time he was asking people to send him contributions. That was shameful and disgraceful."

King is not the only Republican to complain about Paul,  after the Kentucky Republican and presidential candidate used his prerogative under Senate rules to delay a final vote on renewing the Patriot Act, forcing it to lapse at its midnight deadline last Sunday.

"I know what this is about — I think it's very clear – this is, to some degree, a fundraising exercise," Arizona Sen. John McCain said last week of Paul's push. "He obviously has a higher priority for his fundraising and political ambitions than for the security of the nation."

McCain pointed out that Paul had missed "a number of meetings" that Republicans have held on the Patriot Act in recent weeks.

During the arguments, Paul's campaign sent out numerous fundraising appeals focused on his opposition to the Patriot Act, with a super PAC supporting him producing a video casting the dispute as a professional wrestling-style "Brawl for Liberty" between Paul and President Barack Obama.

Also on Sunday's show, the New York Republican, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee who has said he is considering a presidential candidacy of his own, discussed last week's cyberattack on U.S. government accounts, calling for more to be done to prevent such incidences.

Congress has passed two bills in recent months, he said, but he believes the United States needs to "find a way to make effective use of all our intelligence and surveillance apparatus."

And while it hasn't been proven that China was behind the attack, King said the nation is "certain a likely suspect. We have to not be afraid to use all of our tools to try to stop this, because it could be devastating to our country if this got worse."

Watch video here.


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