Trump Summons Fisa Holdouts To The White House

President Donald Trump is calling House Freedom Caucus members and other holdouts to the White House to twist arms over the reauthorization of a controversial government surveillance program, a senior White House official told POLITICO.

The invitation went out to around a dozen Republicans on Tuesday afternoon for a 6:30 p.m. meeting. It’s the latest example of Trump stepping in to help House leadership get legislation across the House floor with its razor-thin margin and little room for defection. CIA Director John

The president plans to urge the members to allow a clean short-term extension of 18 months for Section 702, which is part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and set to expire next week. That controversial section allows for warrantless wiretaps of non-U.S. citizens.

He is expected to convey that the reauthorization is a short 18 months, that FISA needs to get “off the plate so that we can focus on getting immigration enforcement money and ICE done” and that the program is different from the 2018 authorization because of progress on implementing privacy changes, the official said.

Trump plans to ask the holdouts to allow debate, not necessarily to give their full support to final passage of the legislation. The president earlier on Tuesdayurged Republicans to “stick together” ahead of the House Rules Committee, which was meeting Tuesday afternoon to tee up floor consideration of the extension.

“It's the hope that Republicans, including House conservatives and those in the Freedom Caucus, will allow a procedural motion to go forward to allow consideration of this clean reauthorization, which [has] united the relevant Republican officials on both sides of the Capitol,” the official said.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe is expected to come to the House GOP Conference meeting Wednesday as part of the White House's FISA pitch, per two people granted anonymity to share private scheduling plans.

More than a dozen House GOP holdouts have expressed opposition to the extension, citing concerns that the law undermines Americans’ privacy if their data is inadvertently swept up while the U.S. government is collecting text and emails of foreigners abroad. House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) has pushed for a shorter extension, along with other changes.

Speaker Mike Johnson, House Intelligence Chair Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who all support reauthorization, were also invited to the meeting.

Ratcliffe is expected to come to House GOP conference Wednesday am as part of the WH FISA pitch, per two people granted anonymity to share private scheduling plans.

The White House also deployed Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine to urge support for reauthorization,pressing Congress in a letter on Monday that Section 702 is critical to U.S. warfighters and has sufficient guardrails in place to protect Americans.

Jordain Carney and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.