The Lead with Jake Tapper: Rep. Darin LaHood, (R-IL), Is Interviewed About Downed U.S. Drone, U.S. Support To Ukraine, Expiring Surveillance Law
Interview
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Well, we don't know that yet. Obviously, that's something that will anxiously await what the intelligence community gets back to the House Intelligence Committee on. But I would say this, I think we've seen more provocative moves from Russia, we've seen an aggressiveness that maybe we haven't seen before. And obviously we're going to watch and see what if anything, they recover. But I think it's been alarming what the Russians have engaged in over the last couple of days. And it's raised, you know, a new awareness in Congress.
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I don't think we know that yet, Jake. That's something we'll have to learn from the Intelligence Committee.
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Well, I think there's broad support within the Republican conference for Ukraine. But I would just -- I would also with the caveat say that it can't be a blank check. We've had two significant votes in Congress on Ukraine military support. I supported the initial tranche, roughly $25 billion. I did not support the second round in December because it was part of a $1.8 trillion omnibus package that wasn't presented the right way.
But I will say this, the military weaponry that we've given Ukraine, the HIMARS, the javelins, the stingers, the Patriot defense apparatus has been extremely successful in terms of this war with Putin in Russia. And so, I still think there's broad support, but it has to be with an appropriate audit, making sure money is spent appropriately and that is not a blank check.
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Well, we had an open hearing with the FBI director and other members of the Intelligence Committee last week, I think it's important for the public to know what FISA is Jake. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is a program put in place post 9/11 to go after bad guys overseas and many of our adversaries overseas. It's not in place to spy on American citizens. And unfortunately, we've had too many instances where civil liberties have been violated or a privacy rights have been violated.
And as we look at reauthorization of FISA, that has to be done by the end this year, which is very important to our intelligence services, what we articulated to the FBI director last week is there has to be reformed.
I'm proud to be the chair of the 702 working group as a former federal prosecutor. I understand the importance, but it is not going to be a clean reauthorization. We're going to have to have reforms, safeguards put in place to make sure civil liberties and egregious cases and violations can no longer happen to American citizens.
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Well, what we heard from Director Wray last week was a number of apologies. I think they've recognized that they've put in new measures. You know, this apparently occurred back in '17 and '18. In 2021, they put in new measures, but we're going to continue to have conversations with the FBI and others in the intelligence community to make sure that we are putting in proper safeguards for the American people.
What I tell people Jake is 85 percent of the FISA Act works well. It's the 15 percent that involves issues like what happened with the Carter Page FISA application, what happened with Russia collusion, and what's happened with other wrongful queries. We hope to clean up those type of activities when we present it to the Congress later this year.
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Thank you, Jake.
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