Legislative Program
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
In relation to the NO BAN Act, I understand there was a disagreement over whether or not the gentleman supported the President's ability to restrict travel from certain countries based, not on whether they were a Muslim country, but based on whether or not they were a country that was not in compliance with our Department of Homeland Security requirements and criteria to ensure that they are properly vetting people who come to our country for national security purposes and, specifically, to ensure that people who are known terrorists and people who have other known criminal backgrounds are not able to come into our country.
Most countries around the world, including a number of Muslim countries, are in compliance and, in fact, have a very good cooperative travel agreement between the United States and those countries, but there were a limited number of countries back in 2017 that the President ultimately determined, working through the Department of Homeland Security, were not in compliance.
He listed those countries. He added a few more to it later. I know a number of people on the majority side were in disagreement with that. Some took that to court. It ultimately went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court upheld this travel ban.
But I would want to point out to the gentleman that the Department of Homeland Security has been very clear to these countries that if they comply with the basic reporting requirements--again, that every other country in the world that has that same travel agreement with the United States has--if they were to come into compliance, then they would be removed from the list.
In fact, Chad is one of the countries that was originally listed. Chad worked with us--as every country should--and said: We are going to comply. We want to make sure that we are properly sharing information so that people who are coming to the United States from Chad now are properly vetted for terrorism and other criminal activities.
They got removed from the list.
The other countries, by the way, have been invited to do that. They have chosen not to. Why they have chosen not to is a good question they should be asked. We should not criticize the President for using his executive authority to keep this country safe and to keep terrorists from coming into this country and ensuring that those nations that send people to the United States--as we send them to their countries--are in compliance with the requirements of the Department of Homeland Security.
So why would a bill like that be brought up, especially at this time when now with this coronavirus there are a number of countries that we have seen, starting with China, that have a serious outbreak that we are trying to prevent from coming into our country?
Under this bill that would be coming forward, not only does it limit the President's ability to protect us from having countries be able to send terrorists into our Nation, now it would limit the President's ability to respond to a health crisis like the coronavirus where there are some countries that are listed, like China and Iran, that have to be screened or can't send people from those countries if they have been in those countries in the last 14 days, it would tie the President's hands from even responding to that crisis.
We have seen just today the Governor of California--probably not somebody who is philosophically aligned with the President too often-- just sent a cruise ship back into the Pacific Ocean and said the cruise ship can't come into San Francisco. And that is the Governor's power and authority to provide for the health and safety of his State.
Why would we want to tie the hands of the President of the United States when he wants to ensure the health and safety of the people of this country?
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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, clearly, we will debate that because the Supreme Court has already addressed the constitutionality upholding it, but it has no genesis in religious tests. It has a genesis in the security of this country.
Again, if you go look at the nations that are listed in the ban, Chad went and did the things that the Department of Homeland Security said you needed to do to be in compliance, and they got removed from the list.
Every other country on that list has also been invited to go and just do basic sharing of information to ensure that the people coming from those countries are not terrorists, are not criminals, are not going to provide a security threat to our Nation.
It is a clear test. Every other country in the world already does it.
Why does Libya choose not to comply? I don't know, but they haven't.
Why does North Korea choose not to comply? I don't know, but they haven't.
Like Chad, go and address these deficiencies, and then you can be removed from the list. Chad has already done that. Every other country can.
We will debate it, but it does put additional red tape in front of the President that would preclude him in the health arena from responding to the nations that have a threat of the coronavirus, like the President was quickly able to do with China, quickly able to do with Iran. He would not be able to quickly respond in the future under the bill that is proposed.
Clearly, we will heavily debate that next week.
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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, clearly, we do have disagreements on that. Hopefully, we can work through those in the debate next week.
There is another bill that is going to be, hopefully, coming up that we can get agreement on, and that deals with the renewal of components of the FISA law.
I know the Committee on the Judiciary earlier this week had a markup that they ultimately pulled back on. There are negotiations ongoing between Republicans and Democrats to try to come to an agreement on not only how to renew the FISA law, but also how to make the reforms that are critical and necessary to the FISA law, to address the abuses that we know happen.
I would ask the gentleman first if his side is in a position of identifying some of the areas we can find agreement on, on reforms, because I believe Ranking Member Nunes had submitted a number of specific reforms, and the gentleman's side is reviewing those.
Has the gentleman had a chance to review them? Does he have an alternative proposal? Because the reforms are critical to the renewal.
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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the gentleman talked about a response. I haven't seen that response yet, but I look forward to working with our folks who are heavily involved in these negotiations to see if we can reach agreement because, in the past, the program has had many supporters, Republican and Democrat, but clearly some detractors on both sides as well.
It is a very critical tool in our national security. The FISA courts have been used to stop terrorist activity, to prevent other terrorist attacks, but there is clearly other weighing that goes back and forth on civil liberties and ensuring that the rights of Americans are protected.
It is a balance that was tested, frankly, in 2016, when we saw clear abuses of the FISA court. The first time we had seen those kinds of identified abuses, they were limited, but they were blatant. It is a dangerous affront to our Nation's national security if you have people at intelligence agencies who abuse their power.
In fact, the Horowitz report was very specific in outlining 17 different exact abuses of the FISA court. Some of this is still being investigated through the Durham investigation, which will, hopefully, yield a list of specific people.
I will just read from parts of the Horowitz report.
``As more fully described in Chapter 5, based upon the information known to the FBI in October 2016, the first application contained the following seven significant inaccuracies and omissions.''
He goes on in this report: ``In addition to repeating the seven significant errors contained in the first FISA application and outlined above, we identified 10 additional significant errors and three renewal applications, based upon information known to the FBI after the first application and before the renewals,'' where abuses of this FISA law occurred.
Now, I think, on both sides, we would agree that if somebody in a position of national security abuses their power deliberately, they need to be held accountable. One of the concerns we have is that the law does not allow strong enough penalties.
I am hopeful that, when the Durham report comes out, the people who were identified as abusing their power in 2016 ought to be held accountable and, in fact, ought to go to jail for what they did because what they did not only undermined our electoral process, but it jeopardizes a law that has bipartisan support but has bipartisan opposition as well.
If somebody abused their power to taint that process, the FISA court, it undermines the integrity of the FISA court. We all need to work together to ensure that anyone who abuses their power is held fully accountable, not only to hold them accountable, but to ensure it doesn't happen again. No Republican, no Democrat candidate for President ought to be concerned that people in intelligence agencies are abusing their power to try to undermine an election.
If it happened, as we know it did--and the Horowitz report is very specific. Hopefully, the Durham investigation names names. Hopefully, those people are held accountable and go to jail so that nobody else does it again.
But as we know, there is the possibility for that to happen under current law. That is why it is so important that we get this agreement to make necessary critical reforms, to put guardrails in place; to keep the process available to our national security experts so that they can continue to stop future terrorist attacks; but to also ensure that if somebody abuses the process, it makes it harder for them to do it; but if they still cross the line, that there are strong criminal penalties in place for those who would violate that law.
I know we have laid those out. I am glad to know you have come back with a response. Hopefully, we can get that agreement in the next few days before this law expires. Clearly, there is strong support, hopefully, on both sides, for putting real reforms in place that fix and address the abuses that occurred in 2016, as identified by the Horowitz report.
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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, clearly, the gentleman from Maryland and I both agree that this FISA law has a strong role to play in our national security, but there is also acknowledgment that there were abuses that happened. Not only was there the Horowitz investigation, but now you do have the Durham investigation that will, hopefully, conclude and identify where those abuses took place and that those people would be held accountable.
We have had talks with the Attorney General, who recognizes, yes, he also agrees that this FISA law is critically important, wants to have this section renewed, but he does recognize that reforms can be made.
How exactly we can come to an agreement--just like with your side, we are having those negotiations. And so, if people do acknowledge that abuses occurred, I think it would be in all of our best interest, as we are addressing this law that has had detractors on both sides, that we strengthen the integrity of the law, because it has been exposed now. It has been exposed that there were problems that occurred.
The other sections where those problems occurred are permanent law. This is not. This is coming up for renewal, but it is part of the FISA law. And, clearly, as we debate the FISA law, all of this becomes part of that debate, and, hopefully, all of it can get resolved within the debate on the components that expire March 15.
I am confident we can get this done because I have seen the bipartisan interest. We just need to make sure that what we bring to the floor addresses the problems that occurred so that it, hopefully, never happens again.
I will be happy to yield if the gentleman had anything else on that.
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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to seeing the gentleman next week, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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