While live-tweeting Fox & Friends on Thursday morning, President Trump expressed alarm that the House of Representatives may approve a bill reauthorizing the the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — legislation that was used to surveil Trump campaign officials as part of the FBI’s investigation into possible collusion with Russia.
“House votes on controversial FISA ACT today.” This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2018
Trump’s reference to “abuse” that “the previous administration” allegedly inflicted upon him appears to be a reference to the baseless accusation he made last spring about the Obama administration “wire tapping” his phones at Trump Tower. Even well-informed Republican members of Congress and congressional officials on both sides of the aisle ultimately acknowledged that there was nothing to Trump’s allegations, but Trump kept scandal-mongering throughout the year anyway.
As noted by Matthew Gertz of Media Matters, Trump’s Thursday morning tweet appeared to be inspired by a Fox & Friends segment featuring Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano, who urged Trump not to support FISA reauthorization.
During the segment, after claiming that Trump's "woes began" with "surveillance of him," Andrew Napolitano literally turns to the camera and says, "Mr. President, this is not the way to go." pic.twitter.com/W8NrtDDP3I
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) January 11, 2018
But there’s just one problem — the Trump administration actually staunchly supports the FISA bill. In fact, on Wednesday evening, the White House Office of the Press Secretary released a statement that “urges the House to… preserve the useful role FISA’s Section 702 plays in protecting American lives.” As Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine notes, the Trump administration has also “sent its highest-ranking security officials to lobby Congress for reauthorization.”
Perhaps a White House staffer interrupted Trump’s “Executive Time” to inform him that his tweet was at odds with his administration’s official position — because just two hours after he posted his Fox & Friends-inspired tweet, the president posted another walking it back.
With that being said, I have personally directed the fix to the unmasking process since taking office and today’s vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land. We need it! Get smart!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2018
Despite Trump’s suggestion that his campaign aides were inappropriate unmasked by the FBI as part of their investigation into Russian election interference, there’s no evidence that any wrongdoing occurred.
A FISA warrant is only obtained after a judge affirms there’s probable cause to believe the target of surveillance was acting on behalf of a foreign power. According to reports, FISA warrants were granted to surveil both Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page.
Trump’s tweets on Thursday are the latest evidence that he is getting his information not from the U.S. intelligence agencies he’s been feuding with since they made public their conclusion that Russia meddled in the election on his behalf shortly before his inauguration, but from Fox News — a network that promotes disinformation and that has recently been pushing the conspiracy theory that the “deep state” is trying to destroy the Trump administration.