A group of former national security officials is calling on Congress to investigate the FBI’s handling of security clearances after special counsel John Durham concluded that the bureau behaved recklessly in its handling of a 2016 investigation of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.
“It is crucial we address these serious concerns promptly and comprehensively to ensure individuals within the FBI who have demonstrated a lack of integrity in conduct related to these investigations—or others—do not maintain access to sensitive national security information,” the six former national security officials wrote in their letter to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).
“We urge you to hold immediate oversight hearings on the policies and criteria employed by the FBI for issuing, assessing, and revoking security clearances,” the letter continues. “Such hearings are necessary to ensure transparency, accountability, and public trust in our law enforcement agencies.”
FISA Abuses
The former national security officials also asked Jordan and Comer to investigate the frequency of disciplinary actions taken when members of the FBI improperly access a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) database.Section 702 of FISA authorizes agencies like the FBI to collect information like emails without warrants from foreigners, even if they’re in the United States, and bars intentionally targeting Americans. This warrantless collection of foreign communications can result in the incidental collection of otherwise private communications by U.S. citizens, though safeguards are supposed to be in place to preserve Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. Searches of raw unfiltered FISA data must be reasonably likely to retrieve foreign intelligence information or evidence of a crime.
In a statement following the FISC opinion last month, the FBI said: “As [FBI Director Chris Wray] has made clear, the errors described in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s opinion are completely unacceptable. As a result of the audits that revealed these instances of noncompliance, the FBI changed its querying procedures to make sure these errors do not happen again. These steps have led to significant improvement in the way we conduct queries of lawfully obtained Section 702 information. We are committed to continuing this work and providing greater transparency into the process to earn the trust of the American people and advance our mission of safeguarding both the nation’s security, and privacy and civil liberties, at the same time.”
NTD News reached out to the FBI for comment on the investigative requests in AFPI’s letter to Congress. The bureau did not respond by the time this article was published.