Lawmakers should focus on ways to keep the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act from being abused instead of fighting for amendments to it, Sen. Marco Rubio said Wednesday.
"There have been instances when a foreign power or a terrorist organization recruits an American to be a part of their work and when that happens, there has to be a process by which we can surveil those people if they are part of a plot to harm the United States via the counterintelligence plot or a terrorism plot,” the Florida Republican said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom."
The House on Wednesday is expected to take up a Senate version of reforms that reauthorized existing provisions and revised how the Justice Department and FBI use the surveillance tools. However, the House is expected to also consider an amendment sought by Democrats to bar searches of web browsers without a warrant. The Justice Department said Wednesday it rejects the Senate version and the amendment and called on President Donald Trump to veto the legislation.
Rubio said the FISA court process was abused under the FBI's investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and with the Trump-Russia probe.
"FBI (agents) omitted exculpatory information, they lied to the court, they left things out, they in fact doctored and altered material to present to the court," said Rubio, adding that the FISA court was also misled to obtain a warrant on 2016 Trump campaign associate Carter Page.
"All processes can be abused, but the question is can we do something to tighten and prevent those abuses," said Rubio.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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