Rep. Collins accuses Democrats of putting national security at risk by delaying FISA reform
Republican Rep. Doug Collins says Democrats are 'playing games' with the FISA bill update on 'Fox & Friends.'
As they push to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), House Democrats won't acknowledge the abuses of the law because that would not suit their "narrative to discredit the president," Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., said Thursday.
“They wanted to play games with the FISA,” the House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member told “Fox & Friends.”
"What they don’t want to deal with is the actual FISA process and FISA court itself because they don’t want to acknowledge the Horowitz report. They don’t want to acknowledge the fact that the president said this should never happen to another president and, frankly, it should never happen to American citizens like Carter Page.”
REP. COLLINS ON PUSH FOR FISA REFORM: 'WE NEED TO RESTORE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE'S TRUST IN IT'
Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz released a report last year detailing significant inaccuracies and omissions on the part of the FBI in its FISA warrant applications, misleading the court in the process.
A major aspect of the report exposed the degree to which the FBI had relied on the unverified dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele as part of opposition research for Hillary Clinton's campaign.
"Again, you get to the very roots there and we start putting protections in this to make it do what it is supposed to do and that’s protect us from foreign terrorists, not spying on American citizens. Those are the kind of changes we need to make,” Collins added.
"The House Democrats do not like President Trump and they don’t want to acknowledge the fact that there was basically an attempted coup.”
Collins' comments came after he told Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., “is the chairman of one of the best committees in Congress, most prestigious committees, and yet he’s ruining it because we don’t actually delve into ideas.”
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The panel is set to consider reforms during a so-called “markup” this week.
“We put this off in December because [Democrats] were in the middle of the sham impeachment and they couldn’t deal with the FISA stuff that needed to be authorized,” Collins said, referencing “things that we need in our intelligence committee,” including roving wiretaps."
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