House Republicans seeking to dismantle America’s spy authorizations are touting endorsements from members of the ‘Squad’ and far-left, anti-Semitic activist groups like CodePink and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), according to an internal email being circulated on Capitol Hill.
The House is expected on Tuesday to consider legislation by Rep. Andy Biggs (R., Ariz.) that would overhaul the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a tool used by America’s intelligence agencies to track terrorists and other national security threats. The FISA authorizations are set to expire at the end of this month, and House Republicans have put forth competing bills to reform the spy measure and prevent agencies like the FBI from abusing its power to spy on Americans.
While Biggs’s bill is supported by powerful GOP voices like House Judiciary chair Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), it is being countered by a more moderate FISA reform bill that has the backing of Republican establishment leaders like former secretary of state Mike Pompeo. The competing measures set up a showdown between Republican national security hawks in the House and a faction of Republicans that aims to strip America’s spy agencies of a data collection tool. It is also a test for House speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) as he tries to keep his caucus from fracturing.
Biggs is seeking to gin up support for his alternate measure by touting its embrace by Democrats like Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) and outside advocacy groups that include the far-left CodePink and anti-Israel CAIR, which is currently engulfed in controversy over its leader’s support for Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror strike on Israel. Biggs’s office touted these endorsements in an email sent across Capitol Hill on Monday and reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
The alliance is raising eyebrows with more moderate Republican offices that are supporting the competing FISA reform bill crafted by the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. That bill would reauthorize FISA and, unlike Biggs’s measure, not require the government to obtain a search warrant each time it wants to collect communications—a requirement that national security hawks worry would handicap national security agencies.
Many Democrats and groups like CAIR have long called for the government’s FISA authorities to be stripped, claiming they are wrongly used to spy on American Arabs and other communities viewed as potential terror threats. Their endorsement for Biggs’s bill is a signal to some GOP offices that his measure would radically undercut the U.S. intelligence community.
"Republicans shouldn’t be at all affiliated with radical groups like CAIR & CODEPINK," said one GOP congressional source who received the email from Biggs’s office. "Just last week the head of CAIR openly endorsed Hamas and its attacks against Israel."
A group of Republican national security leaders last week penned an open letter against Biggs’s version of FISA reform.
"As former officials who have either worked for or with the Intelligence Community, we write today with serious concerns that a critical tool to keep Americans safe will cease to be available to the men and women who protect the United States each day," former secretary of state Pompeo, former attorney general William Barr, former director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe, former White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien, and former House Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes wrote in a letter sent last week to Speaker Johnson.
While FISA should be reformed to prevent possible abuses, Congress should not include "a warrant requirement that may not achieve its intended objectives and could hinder current national security efforts," the letter said.