Senate Republicans on Wednesday will get a chance to go on offense on the issue of U.S. spying and surveillance, one day before Democrats are expected to press former FBI Director James Comey on what he knows about President Trump's possible ties to Russia.
The two parties have been pursuing these two different tracks since the beginning of Trump's administration, when Democrats pointed to press leaks as evidence that Trump and Russia colluded to defeat Hillary Clinton in last year's election. Trump's camp immediately focused on the leaks as a sign of possible illegal activity from Obama administration holdovers.
Today's Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, will let Republicans explore their many complaints about how surveillance is conducted, how the information being gathered is dispersed, and the extent to which Trump might have been wronged. Democrats, meanwhile, will likely pursue new reports that say the president asked top intelligence officials to help him get then-Director Comey to back off the investigation into Trump's short-lived national security advisor Mike Flynn.
Over the last few days, Republicans have indicated there are several issues they might explore.
The four panelists, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and DNI Director Daniel Coats will almost certainly face tough questions on illegal leaks of information gathered through FISA. The most concrete evidence of that is the leaked transcript of a call between Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. That leak ultimately led to Flynn's firing by the White House.
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05.02.2024