Trump urges US Congress to end domestic surveillance program

By Raphael Satter, Moira Warburton and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump on Wednesday urged Congress to end a controversial U.S. domestic surveillance program, complicating prospects for a proposed overhaul that could soon come up for a vote in the House of Representatives.

The former Republican president said Congress should not renew elements of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, due to expire on April 19, that allow law enforcement to scan vast mountains of data scooped up by the U.S. intelligence apparatus without first getting approval from a judge.

Those provisions are opposed by hardline Republicans and left-leaning Democrats who say they give the government too much power to spy on its citizens. They are pressing to require court approval for access.

A U.S. court found last year that the FBI improperly searched the database 278,000 times over several years. Trump, who is running to win back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 election, said the law was illegally used to spy on his campaign, without providing evidence. "IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS," he wrote on social media.

Trump has enormous influence among his party's lawmakers. His opposition scuttled a bipartisan immigration deal earlier this year.

Officials with the FBI and the Department of Justice say the program has been crucial in drug smuggling cases, foreign cybersecurity threats and cross-border crimes.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday that officials would be "blinding ourselves" if they had to go to a judge before using the data. "I can assure you that none of our adversaries are holding back or tying their own hands," he told the American Bar Association.

The bill's proponents have responded with surface-level reforms that would leave the underlying bill largely unchanged.

Its prospects look uncertain. The revised bill has been pulled twice in the face of bipartisan opposition in the House, which Republicans control by a narrow 218-213 majority.

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However, it passed the House Rules Committee in a 9-2 vote late on Tuesday, clearing the way for a vote in the full House as soon as this week.

At a news conference on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson defended the revised version but did not say when he would bring it up for a vote.

"These reforms would actually kill the abuses that allowed President Trump's campaign to be spied on," he said.

Trump has feuded with U.S. intelligence agencies since the FBI investigated his 2016 presidential campaign for possible links to Russian intelligence. The Department of Justice concluded in 2019 that Trump's campaign did not coordinate with Russia, but also found that he ordered officials to obstruct the investigation.

(This story has been refiled to correct the date of expiry from April 15 to April 19, in paragraph 2)

(Reporting by David Morgan, Raphael Satter and Moira Warburton in Washington; additional reporting by Katharine Jackson; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone, Tomasz Janowski and Jonathan Oatis)