House Intel panel invites ex-members to talk ‘critical threats’ to US
The House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee is holding an open hearing Wednesday with former members of Congress to address “critical threats” the US is facing from China and Russia, as well as oversight of the nation’s own intelligence community, according to prepared remarks obtained by The Post.
Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) invited five former members of the committee to testify about the greatest threats to national security, with the committee pivoting back to such work on a bipartisan basis since Republicans took control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections.
Under former committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the panel had focused heavily on Donald Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 campaign, leading up to the first House impeachment of the 45th president in 2019.
Schiff relied on the now-discredited Steele dossier and lied about having personally seen “more than circumstantial evidence” that substantiated the charges.
But independent probes by special counsels Robert Mueller and John Durham, as well as Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, found no evidence of collusion.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) removed Schiff from the committee in January, saying he had lied “to the American public time and again” during his leadership.
Turner said the Durham report proved “FBI personnel repeatedly disregarded critical protections established to protect the American people from unlawful surveillance.”
“Such actions should never have occurred, and it is essential that Congress codifies clear guardrails that prevent future FBI abuses and restores the public’s trust in our law enforcement institutions,” he said in a statement on May 16.
Turner has sought to refocus the committee’s work by correcting many of the errors made by federal intelligence agencies, including unlawful surveillance conducted by the FBI through its abuse of FISA warrants.
One of the committee’s panelists, former Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, said Wednesday that the FBI abuses, especially of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, have made many lose trust in the agency.
“Perhaps the gravest damage to public confidence are the reports of government misrepresentations to the Court, with apparently little negative consequences to the government,” she said in her opening statement as prepared.
She also urged the committee to increase sanctions to curtail FISA abuse.
Democratic former California Rep. Jane Harman similarly urged “whatever reforms are needed to protect privacy rights” in her prepared remarks, while defending Section 702 of FISA, a surveillance law that Congress must reauthorize this year.
Harman, who served as ranking member on the committee from 2002 to 2006, also praised members for having selectively declassified intelligence before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, giving Kyiv the time it needed to arm itself.
“The declassification of key intelligence on Ukraine was crucial in preparing the Ukrainians for the fight, for ensuring the world recognized Russian aggression for what it was, and in making sure that Russia knew that we were staying one step ahead,” she said.
Republican former New York Rep. Peter King praised his former colleague but also urged lawmakers to not let “that necessary struggle take our allies’ attention away from the cooperative anti-terror measures put in place after 9/11.”
“Today, while ISIS, al Qaeda and their offshoots and affiliates have been in retreat, they are still a lethal force,” he said in his prepared remarks, before criticizing President Biden’s decision to pull US forces out of the region.
“The American withdrawal from Afghanistan, the breakdown in border security and instability in the Middle East add to their lethality.”
Republican former New Jersey Rep. Frank LoBiondo cautioned against a similar US lack of commitment in Africa, where he said “China is bribing its way” into “creating economic partnerships with impoverished African nations for its own global security objectives.”
“From securing leasing rights for rare earth minerals to accessing key transportation infrastructure along the Atlantic and Indian oceans, China has muscled its way into the void created by a lack of sustained US policy and engagement by numerous administrations,” he said in his remarks.
All of the former members of Congress — including Democratic former Rhode Island Rep. Jim Langevin — also congratulated Turner and the committee on a return to bipartisanship.
“Now in 2023, after years of political agendas infiltrating the national security debate, there is a confidence returning to those of us who still work in this space because of the clear and concerted efforts by Chairman Turner, Ranking Member [Jim] Himes [D-Conn.] and all of you to diligently focus on doing the nation’s work rather than scoring political points,” LoBiondo added.
