At Wednesday's House Intel Committee hearing, Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL) questioned CIA Director John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Kash Patel about Section 702.
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NewsTranscript
00:00The gentleman yields and I recognize the gentleman from Illinois, the former federal prosecutor,
00:04Mr. LaHood.
00:05Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:06I want to thank all of our witnesses today for your service to our country.
00:10And I want to focus my questions this morning on FISA Section 702.
00:14And Director Radcliffe, welcome back to the committee.
00:17In your confirmation hearing before the Senate, you were asked extensively about FISA and
00:24Section 702.
00:26And I think laid out a compelling narrative on how, as you described it, quote, how indispensable
00:32it is to national security.
00:35And you were also asked about a warrant requirement on Section 702.
00:40And your answer to that was, quote, on whether a warrant makes sense on 702.
00:45Your quote was, the answer is no.
00:47We're talking about national security issues where sometimes minutes matter in the ability
00:51to disrupt or interdict the bad actors or to act upon the intelligence that you can
00:57gain from that, unquote.
00:59Director, I wanted to ask you, is that still your belief today regarding the warrant requirement?
01:05Congressman, it absolutely is.
01:10You've accurately reflected my prior testimony.
01:14It is also my testimony that 702 is indispensable to our intelligence picture.
01:23And the loss of it would be catastrophic to CIA.
01:27And the reason that I say that from this position is, not only is 50 percent of all of our critical
01:34analysis provided to the President as Commander-in-Chief in the President's daily brief 702 derived,
01:4170 percent of CIA's success with regard to advanced weapons counterproliferation is the
01:47result of 702 collected information.
01:50And finally, 90 percent of CIA's successful interdictions with regard to synthetic drugs
01:58like fentanyl are the result of 702 collection.
02:02It's absolutely indispensable to the work that CIA does.
02:08And I'm glad that you gave me the opportunity to reflect that to this committee.
02:13Thank you, Director.
02:14And just to ask a follow-up on that, as you know, in the House last year when we had our
02:20FISA reform and Section 702 reform measures put in place, you know, we had a robust debate
02:27on the House floor regarding the warrant requirement.
02:29It was a very, very close vote, 212 to 212.
02:33Mr. Ratcliffe, what can you tell our members to alleviate and reassure them on, again,
02:40the harm that a warrant requirement would do to 702?
02:44Well, Congressman, it would impose a de facto ban on lawfully querying previously collected
02:55data to find threats against U.S. persons and government officials.
03:00So that would be, again, catastrophic to our efforts to keep our community safe.
03:08And I would also point out, because I know that these are legitimate concerns with regard
03:12when we talk about FISA and 702 specifically, everyone on this committee recalls that when
03:17I was a member, I also called out FISA abuses when they occurred.
03:23And I don't want there to be any violation of Americans' civil liberties and Fourth Amendment
03:29rights, but I would point to the CIA's, frankly, impeccable record of compliance, and we can
03:37talk about that more in a closed session.
03:39Thank you, Director.
03:40Director Patel, I want to turn to you.
03:44Similar in your Senate confirmation, you were asked extensively about 702, and as you know,
03:48in our bill that we passed last year, we put lots of reforms and changes and protocols
03:52in place for the FBI, and I know that you're supportive of many of those.
03:58Specifically on the impracticalities of a warrant requirement on 702, you were quoted
04:02as saying, when you were asked about it, it is almost impossible to make that function
04:08of the warrant requirement work and to serve the national no-fail mission.
04:12Is that still your testimony here today?
04:14It's great to see you, Congressman, and yes, that's my testimony.
04:18As you know, the reforms that we put in place were significant, requiring the FBI personnel
04:22to get a supervisor or attorney approval to conduct U.S. person inquiries, requiring high-level
04:28up to the FBI deputy director level before certain queries are conducted on U.S. elected
04:33or appointed officials, candidates, or media personnel, requiring the Department of Justice
04:37to audit all U.S. person queries performed by the FBI within six months of each query,
04:45reducing the number of FBI personnel we have the ability to query.
04:49Can you talk about the current implementation of those reforms and how that's going, Director Patel?
04:54Absolutely.
04:55With probably the most recent one, in terms of 702 query reviews, we only have about 200
05:01left when it comes to U.S. persons, and we will promulgate those findings to you, but
05:05as of today, of all the U.S. persons queried in the 702 databases, there's only been one
05:11instance of negligent conduct.
05:13We have already implemented limited access to those who actually know how to use the
05:18FISA process in 702, and we have implemented a direct reporting structure to the officer
05:23director and the deputy director to make sure that anyone, whether it's intentional
05:28or unintentional, abuses the 702 query system is brought to our attention immediately, and
05:33we will take that on for action directly.
05:35And in terms of piggybacking off Director Ratcliffe, the public defender in me realizes
05:42the importance of constitutional due process more than anyone.
05:44The staffer in me from the House Intelligence Committee may be the only person who has worked
05:48more on FISA reform and exposing FISA abuse in modern congressional history, and the
05:53terrorism prosecutor in me and the JSOC civilian in me tells me that we cannot do away with
05:57702 or FISA Title I and Title III, but we can work with you and your committee to make
06:03it better.
06:04I don't know all those ideas.
06:05I don't have all those answers, but you have my commitment that we will use it appropriately
06:09going forward.
06:10Thank you, Director.
06:11I yield back.
06:12The gentleman yields.