Congressman Matt Gaetz Reintroduces Rep. Adam Schiff's 2013 Bill, Authorizing President to Appoint FISA Judges with Senate Confirmation
"If it was good enough to give President Obama these powers, it's good enough to give President Trump these powers"
Washington, D.C. — Congressman Matt Gaetz (FL-01) spoke on the floor of the House of Representatives last night, and reintroduced House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff's legislation from 2013. This bill, H.R. 5120 in the 115th Congress, amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 by granting the President the authority to pick judges for the FISA court, with the appointments subject to confirmation by the Senate. Currently, all FISA judges are picked by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, with no oversight.
The video and transcript of the floor speech can be found below.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE FLOOR SPEECH
TRANSCRIPT
In the United States of America, cash and a political party should never be convertible to a warrant to spy on American citizens. Because I expect Republicans and Democrats to both be in power at some point in the future, we should be looking for bipartisan solutions to revise the FISA process so that what happened to President Trump never happens to another American president.
So I went looking for solutions, and I found in 2013, the gentleman from California, the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, wanted to give the President of the U.S. the power to appoint FISA judges. He argued that then judges would be diverse, and come from different areas in the U.S., and would be subject to Senate confirmation. Today, I filed that legislation, and I would encourage the gentleman from California to join me as a co-sponsor to advance bipartisan legislation to improve the FISA process. If it was good enough to give President Obama these powers, it's good enough to give President Trump these powers.