The Democrat-led Senate Judiciary Committee held an oversight hearing Tuesday morning to examine Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and related government surveillance authorities. The provision will expire at the end of the year and a number of key Republicans have stated that they believe it should be allowed to expire.
Members from both parties have accused the government of abusing FISA and believe that the reauthorization of Section 702 is an opportunity to make changes.
A recently-unsealed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court document found that the FBI misused Section 702 of FISA more than 278,000 times in 2020 and early 2021, “including against crime victims, January 6 riot suspects, and people arrested at protests in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.” In one particularly egregious case, they reportedly relied on Section 702 to spy on 19,000 donors to a congressional candidate.
The panel of witnesses was made up of top officials in the intelligence community: David Cohen, Deputy Director Central Intelligence Agency; George Barnes, Deputy Director National Security Agency; Chris Fonzone, General Counsel Office of the Director of National Intelligence; Paul Abbate, Deputy Director Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Matt Olsen, Assistant Attorney General National Security Division, Department of Justice.
Cruz said that every day, he hears from Texans who are “deeply dismayed about the growing politicization and weaponization of the FBI and DOJ.” He added: “This is profoundly damaging to the rule of law in our nation.”
The Texas Senator tried without success to shake loose some more information about the FBI-generated FD-1023 form detailing an arrangement between the Biden clan and former Burisma Holdings owner Mykola Zlochevsky involving millions of dollars in bribes for policy decisions while Joe Biden was vice president.
“Deputy Director Abbate, is it true that the FBI has a report making those allegations?” Cruz asked.
“I’m not going to comment on that, Senator,” Abbate answered.
“And why is that?” demanded Cruz.
“I’m just not going to comment on information we’ve received, investigations, or other matters,” Abbate replied curtly.
“You don’t owe the American people an obligation to be candid about evidence of corruption by the President of the United States?” Cruz pressed.
“This is an area that I’m not going to get into with you, Senator,” the G-man insisted.
“Well I understand you don’t want to, and that’s why people are mad at the FBI. Because you are stonewalling and covering up serious allegations of evidence of corruption from the President!” Cruz exclaimed.
The Bureau has had Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop in its possession since December of 2019, and rather than investigate its contents, the FBI conducted a multi-faceted influence operation targeting multiple social media platforms and major corporate media outlets to discredit accurate reports on a major scandal that...
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