The House of Representatives adjourned late Wednesday without voting on whether to once again authorize advanced surveillance tools used by the law enforcement — a measure that had wide bipartisan support back in March, but which has drawn sudden GOP opposition amid news of apparent FBI misconduct, Fox News informed.
President Donald Trump threatened to veto the legislation if adopted earlier on Wednesday, and House Democrats delayed a vote three times throughout the day. Democrats can only lose 17 votes, and their failure to forge ahead indicated that they hadn’t yet whipped that minimum number.
The House is set to reconvene Thursday at 9 a.m. ET. Fox News is told that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., still wants the House to pass the bill, align it with the Senate’s version, and dare the President to veto it.
“If the FISA Bill is passed tonight on the House floor, I will quickly VETO it,” Trump tweeted ahead of the vote. “Our Country has just suffered through the greatest political crime in its history. The massive abuse of FISA was a big part of it!”
Earlier, Pelosi and Democratic leadership marched forward with the scheduled vote to authorize Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) provisions and said it will be up to Trump to decide whether he wants to undo the carefully drafted bipartisan effort.
“I don’t know what the president will do. This is not the first time he’s tweeted against a bill and then the next day comes out and says he would support it,” said House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., of the Trump’s Tuesday tweet urging Republicans to oppose the FISA plan. “It will be in his hands.”
“Late night tweets are not a way to govern,” McGovern added.
The House in March passed with broad bipartisan support a reauthorization of the surveillance measures plus new privacy protections to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by a 278-136 vote. The Senate then passed its version of reforms with another strong bipartisan vote of 80-16 to reauthorize expiring provisions and revise how the Justice Department and FBI use the tools designed to fight terrorism.
The House Wednesday had been slated to pass the Senate version and to send the FISA bill to Trump’s desk.
But Trump put a wrench in the plan when he tweeted Tuesday night that he’s urging all Republicans to vote no on the FISA legislation “until such time as our Country is able to determine how and why the greatest political, criminal, and subversive scandal in USA history took place!”
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