Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, hates to say he told you so, but he sort of told you so.
What’s going on: Lee recently shared a video of multiple members of Congress praising him about how he was right about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
- The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, is a federal law that outlines procedures for collection of foreign intelligence information between foreign powers and agents of foreign powers that may be suspected of terrorism.
- Lee has been critical of FISA, saying it could be abused and used by the government to surveil the American people.
- Comments from Democrats and Republicans came after the release of a report from the Department of Justice’s Inspector General, which found no political bias in the FBI during the investigation into President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign. The report found that some agents played up aspects of the report that could hurt Trump and played down others.
What they’re saying: Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., celebrated Lee the most during hearings last week about the report.
- Sasse: “Mike Lee doesn’t drink, but if he did I’d buy him whiskey right now.”
- Sasse: “I wanted to say, I wish Mike Lee weren’t sitting here two people from me right now because, as a national security hawk, I have argued with Mike Lee, in the four-and-a-half or five years that I’ve been in the Senate, that stuff just like this couldn’t possibly happen at the FBI and at the Department of Justice.”
- Sasse: “So as someone who is embarrassed on behalf of the FBI about (the IG) report. Mike Lee has warned me for four-and-a-half years the potential for abuse in this space is terrible and I constantly defended the integrity and the professionalism of the bureau and of the department that you couldn’t have something like this happen.”
- Lee (via Facebook): “To be honest, I’d much rather be proven wrong than right about the FBI’s abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But sadly, I’m not wrong, and being proven right makes me want to start drinking.”
Bigger picture: Lee told Glenn Beck in a recent radio interview that the Department of Justice’s Inspector General report was a big win for the American people because it exposed the potential impact FISA could have on citizens, according to TheBlaze.
“What this tells us is something very significant. Basically, what the facts say in this report about the spying that occurred on the Trump campaign is ... either these FBI agents purposely abused the power of the federal government to wage a political war against a presidential candidate that they despised, or that these agents were so incompetent that they somehow allowed a two-bit foreign political operative to weaponize the FISA program into a spying operation on a rival political campaign.”