In Dead of Night, Johnson Tries—But Fails—to Ram Through Domestic Spying Bill for Trump

A dramatic series of votes in the US House of Representatives resulted in a dead-of-night extension of what critics describe as a "deceitful proposal" to continue a controversial domestic spying program, known as Section 702, that allows federal agencies to spy on the communications of Americans without a warrant.

While US President Donald Trump and his allies on the issue have pushed aggressively for a longer agreement to continue the controversial provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, most of the Democratic caucus and a band of renegade, more libertarian-leaning Republicans have resisted.

In the 228-197 final vote, a total of four Democrats—Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, and Thomas R. Suozzi of New York—joined with all but 25 Republicans who voted to pass a 10-day extension. Twenty GOP members voted against it, while five did not vote.

Ahead of the votes—including on separate versions asking for a 5-year and then 18-month extensions of Section 702—opponents of any clean extension, including Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), said anyone opposed to warrantless spying on Americans must vote no.

"They have called us back at midnight to cast a secret vote to reauthorize FISA while America sleeps," said Khanna in a late-night social media post. "A yes vote gives Trump more power to surveil Americans. Every Democrat must vote no. Everyone who loves the constitution must vote no."

The bloc of 20 Republicans who voted against the shorter extension also refused to budge on the push, despite heavy lobbying from the Trump White House and pressure from House Speaker Mike Johnson, for the 18-month and 5-year versions.

The holdouts on both sides of the aisle, meanwhile, have been demanding privacy reforms to make sure the communications of US citizens are not swept up in the surveillance of noncitizens targeted abroad by the nation's spy agencies and law enforcement.

"Let me be clear," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) explaining her no vote in a statement. "There is no new warrant requirement in tonight's amendment to FISA reauthorization. It does absolutely nothing to fix the massive loopholes in 702 collection that allow the government to spy on Americans without a warrant. It does nothing to fix the data broker loophole. And it slaps a 5-year extension on this bill so that this White House can continue to spy on Americans and violate our privacy rights for an even longer time."

Speaker Johnson, she charged, "is trying to pass it in the middle of the night—like so many of other pieces of his agenda—because he knows it is not what the American people want. Don't be fooled: this bill simply continues to the spying and surveillance of the American people."

Outside critics of the clean extension effort have criticized Democratic lawmakers, including Reps. Gregory Meeks of New York and Jim Hines of Connecticut—the latter of whom was reportedly conferring with the Republican whip team on the floor of the House late Thursday night—with sabotaging efforts to get a bill with stronger protections.

Sean Vitka, executive director of Demand Progress, which has led a bipartisan coalition against a clean extension of the FISA provision, said serious questions must be asked about the role some Democrats are playing in the current fight to win significant reforms.

“Speaker Johnson’s failure to ram through an 18-month FISA extension creates time for Congress to vote on critical privacy protections, namely closing the backdoor search and data broker loopholes," Vitka said after the short-term extension was passed overnight. "This failure of Himes and House Republican leaders is a testament to the good-faith, bipartisan movement fighting tirelessly for Americans’ privacy rights. This is a major opportunity to protect Americans’ civil liberties, and the Republicans who withstood this pressure should be celebrated for putting privacy over party.

"Extraordinarily, four Democrats chose to back Speaker Johnson over Leader Jeffries on this critical privacy vote," Vitka added. "Given that top Intelligence Democrat Jim Himes was caught speaking with Speaker Johnson before the vote, reporters should be asking whether he engineered these defections in an effort to sabotage the mere chance for the House to enact key, broadly bipartisan civil liberties protections. It would be unconscionable for someone with a critical oversight role like Himes to do so."

For his part, Khanna said the battle for meaningful reforms to the FISA law continues.

"We just defeated Johnson's efforts to sneak through a 5-year FISA authorization tonight," said Khanna. "Now, they will have to fight in daylight tomorrow!"

Vitka said that from now until the end of the month, when the short-term extension expires, lawmakers "fighting against privacy reform to face reality: the American people don’t want FISA to continue as-is and are watching like hawks."

"If you want to renew FISA," he added, "you must come to the table and agree to real privacy reforms that stop the government from bypassing the courts to collect private information on Americans.”