[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 44 (Thursday, March 5, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H1519-H1522]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. SCALISE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), who is the majority leader of the House, for the 
purpose of inquiring about the schedule for next week.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for 
morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business with votes 
postponed until 6:30 p.m.
  On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning-
hour debate and 12 p.m. for legislative business.
  On Thursday, Mr. Speaker, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for 
legislative business, with last votes of the week expected no later 
than 3 p.m.

[[Page H1520]]

  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The 
complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of 
business tomorrow.
  The House will consider H.R. 2214, the NO BAN Act. This bill would 
repeal the President's Muslim travel ban and prevent the administration 
from putting in place other discriminatory travel bans.
  In addition, the House will consider H.R. 5581, Access to Counsel 
Act. This legislation would make certain that those held or detained 
while attempting to enter the United States are guaranteed access to 
legal counsel. That legal counsel, Mr. Speaker, would not be paid for 
by the government.
  The current FISA authorization expires March 15, requiring action in 
this House. Conversations are ongoing, and I hope to bring legislation 
to the floor next week.
  Lastly, following Senate passage of Senator Kaine's bipartisan War 
Powers resolution, it is possible that the House could also consider 
the resolution as early as next week.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  In relation to the NO BAN Act, I understand there was a disagreement 
over whether or not the gentleman supported the President's ability to 
restrict travel from certain countries based, not on whether they were 
a Muslim country, but based on whether or not they were a country that 
was not in compliance with our Department of Homeland Security 
requirements and criteria to ensure that they are properly vetting 
people who come to our country for national security purposes and, 
specifically, to ensure that people who are known terrorists and people 
who have other known criminal backgrounds are not able to come into our 
country.
  Most countries around the world, including a number of Muslim 
countries, are in compliance and, in fact, have a very good cooperative 
travel agreement between the United States and those countries, but 
there were a limited number of countries back in 2017 that the 
President ultimately determined, working through the Department of 
Homeland Security, were not in compliance.
  He listed those countries. He added a few more to it later. I know a 
number of people on the majority side were in disagreement with that. 
Some took that to court. It ultimately went all the way to the U.S. 
Supreme Court. The Supreme Court upheld this travel ban.
  But I would want to point out to the gentleman that the Department of 
Homeland Security has been very clear to these countries that if they 
comply with the basic reporting requirements--again, that every other 
country in the world that has that same travel agreement with the 
United States has--if they were to come into compliance, then they 
would be removed from the list.
  In fact, Chad is one of the countries that was originally listed. 
Chad worked with us--as every country should--and said: We are going to 
comply. We want to make sure that we are properly sharing information 
so that people who are coming to the United States from Chad now are 
properly vetted for terrorism and other criminal activities.
  They got removed from the list.
  The other countries, by the way, have been invited to do that. They 
have chosen not to. Why they have chosen not to is a good question they 
should be asked. We should not criticize the President for using his 
executive authority to keep this country safe and to keep terrorists 
from coming into this country and ensuring that those nations that send 
people to the United States--as we send them to their countries--are in 
compliance with the requirements of the Department of Homeland 
Security.
  So why would a bill like that be brought up, especially at this time 
when now with this coronavirus there are a number of countries that we 
have seen, starting with China, that have a serious outbreak that we 
are trying to prevent from coming into our country?
  Under this bill that would be coming forward, not only does it limit 
the President's ability to protect us from having countries be able to 
send terrorists into our Nation, now it would limit the President's 
ability to respond to a health crisis like the coronavirus where there 
are some countries that are listed, like China and Iran, that have to 
be screened or can't send people from those countries if they have been 
in those countries in the last 14 days, it would tie the President's 
hands from even responding to that crisis.

  We have seen just today the Governor of California--probably not 
somebody who is philosophically aligned with the President too often--
just sent a cruise ship back into the Pacific Ocean and said the cruise 
ship can't come into San Francisco. And that is the Governor's power 
and authority to provide for the health and safety of his State.
  Why would we want to tie the hands of the President of the United 
States when he wants to ensure the health and safety of the people of 
this country?
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I will give a relatively short answer. First of all, there is nobody 
in this House on either side of the aisle--certainly none of the 
proponents of this legislation--who want to in any way limit the 
President's ability to protect America, whether it is from terrorists, 
whether it is from the coronavirus or some other threat that manifestly 
presents itself to the safety and well-being of the American people.

                              {time}  1145

  What the bill attempts to do is simply to preclude violating, in 
effect, the Constitution of the United States in either making a 
religious test for admission to the United States of America, which, 
very frankly, a number of statements of the President would indicate 
that, in the past, that was what he intended to do and, in fact, was 
manifest in the very broad reach, unrelated to whether somebody was a 
terrorist but related to what their religion was or some other 
distinction unrelated.
  Now, obviously, both the health and safety of the American people 
would not preclude the President from acting to protect that. I think 
we would all agree on that. But, clearly, we believe the President has, 
in fact, gone far beyond specific ways and means to protect the 
American people and simply preclude people, as I said, of a particular 
religion, a particular nationality, or some other broad base unrelated 
to the specific items to which you referred, with which I think most of 
us agree.
  Of course, we will debate that next week.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, clearly, we will debate that because the 
Supreme Court has already addressed the constitutionality upholding it, 
but it has no genesis in religious tests. It has a genesis in the 
security of this country.
  Again, if you go look at the nations that are listed in the ban, Chad 
went and did the things that the Department of Homeland Security said 
you needed to do to be in compliance, and they got removed from the 
list.
  Every other country on that list has also been invited to go and just 
do basic sharing of information to ensure that the people coming from 
those countries are not terrorists, are not criminals, are not going to 
provide a security threat to our Nation.
  It is a clear test. Every other country in the world already does it.
  Why does Libya choose not to comply? I don't know, but they haven't.
  Why does North Korea choose not to comply? I don't know, but they 
haven't.
  Like Chad, go and address these deficiencies, and then you can be 
removed from the list. Chad has already done that. Every other country 
can.
  We will debate it, but it does put additional red tape in front of 
the President that would preclude him in the health arena from 
responding to the nations that have a threat of the coronavirus, like 
the President was quickly able to do with China, quickly able to do 
with Iran. He would not be able to quickly respond in the future under 
the bill that is proposed.
  Clearly, we will heavily debate that next week.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the gentleman that it is our 
view that nothing in this legislation will preclude the President of 
the United States from acting, either on the basis of national security 
or the security of our people, either from threats of terrorism or from 
health, or

[[Page H1521]]

for some other identifiable threat to the American people.
  This simply says that he cannot act based upon the generalization 
that somebody is a Muslim, somebody is from this country, somebody is 
from a different nationality or different religion, or some other 
arbitrary distinction. He has to focus on specific reasons.
  In China's case, for instance, we know that China has a very large 
outbreak of coronavirus and that it poses a proximate threat to the 
health not only of the American people but of people around the world 
and that we need to take steps to ensure that that is contained.
  So, we will debate that next week, but we certainly don't accept the 
premise that the gentleman has just stated, that somehow we will limit 
the President from protecting the American people for legitimate and 
necessary reasons.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, clearly, we do have disagreements on that. 
Hopefully, we can work through those in the debate next week.
  There is another bill that is going to be, hopefully, coming up that 
we can get agreement on, and that deals with the renewal of components 
of the FISA law.
  I know the Committee on the Judiciary earlier this week had a markup 
that they ultimately pulled back on. There are negotiations ongoing 
between Republicans and Democrats to try to come to an agreement on not 
only how to renew the FISA law, but also how to make the reforms that 
are critical and necessary to the FISA law, to address the abuses that 
we know happen.
  I would ask the gentleman first if his side is in a position of 
identifying some of the areas we can find agreement on, on reforms, 
because I believe Ranking Member Nunes had submitted a number of 
specific reforms, and the gentleman's side is reviewing those.
  Has the gentleman had a chance to review them? Does he have an 
alternative proposal? Because the reforms are critical to the renewal.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman to answer that.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to tell the gentleman 
that, this morning or late last night, we sent a response to your 
offer, and the committees now have that in their possession. I see they 
are shaking their heads that they may not think that we did it, but we 
did. We have already sent a response to your offer, with reference to 
the reforms.
  As the gentleman knows, we have agreed on a number of items as, 
frankly, the person that dealt with the person who had your job 
previously, Roy Blunt and I, with Senator Bond, also from Missouri, as 
is now-Senator Blunt but then-Minority Whip Blunt, and Jay Rockefeller 
from West Virginia. We worked on the reauthorization of FISA in 2008, 
and we received broad bipartisan support. I am hopeful that we can do 
that.
  This bill, as the gentleman knows, the authorization for section 215 
expires on March 15. The Attorney General, as the gentleman knows, 
recommended that we pass a clean reauthorization.
  Obviously, both sides felt that there were some things they wanted to 
deal with, and we are doing that now. Hopefully, we can get this done.

  Mr. Speaker, I will assure the gentleman that, once we have 
agreement, I will bring that bill to the floor.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the gentleman talked 
about a response. I haven't seen that response yet, but I look forward 
to working with our folks who are heavily involved in these 
negotiations to see if we can reach agreement because, in the past, the 
program has had many supporters, Republican and Democrat, but clearly 
some detractors on both sides as well.
  It is a very critical tool in our national security. The FISA courts 
have been used to stop terrorist activity, to prevent other terrorist 
attacks, but there is clearly other weighing that goes back and forth 
on civil liberties and ensuring that the rights of Americans are 
protected.
  It is a balance that was tested, frankly, in 2016, when we saw clear 
abuses of the FISA court. The first time we had seen those kinds of 
identified abuses, they were limited, but they were blatant. It is a 
dangerous affront to our Nation's national security if you have people 
at intelligence agencies who abuse their power.
  In fact, the Horowitz report was very specific in outlining 17 
different exact abuses of the FISA court. Some of this is still being 
investigated through the Durham investigation, which will, hopefully, 
yield a list of specific people.
  I will just read from parts of the Horowitz report.
  ``As more fully described in Chapter 5, based upon the information 
known to the FBI in October 2016, the first application contained the 
following seven significant inaccuracies and omissions.''
  He goes on in this report: ``In addition to repeating the seven 
significant errors contained in the first FISA application and outlined 
above, we identified 10 additional significant errors and three renewal 
applications, based upon information known to the FBI after the first 
application and before the renewals,'' where abuses of this FISA law 
occurred.
  Now, I think, on both sides, we would agree that if somebody in a 
position of national security abuses their power deliberately, they 
need to be held accountable. One of the concerns we have is that the 
law does not allow strong enough penalties.
  I am hopeful that, when the Durham report comes out, the people who 
were identified as abusing their power in 2016 ought to be held 
accountable and, in fact, ought to go to jail for what they did because 
what they did not only undermined our electoral process, but it 
jeopardizes a law that has bipartisan support but has bipartisan 
opposition as well.
  If somebody abused their power to taint that process, the FISA court, 
it undermines the integrity of the FISA court. We all need to work 
together to ensure that anyone who abuses their power is held fully 
accountable, not only to hold them accountable, but to ensure it 
doesn't happen again. No Republican, no Democrat candidate for 
President ought to be concerned that people in intelligence agencies 
are abusing their power to try to undermine an election.
  If it happened, as we know it did--and the Horowitz report is very 
specific. Hopefully, the Durham investigation names names. Hopefully, 
those people are held accountable and go to jail so that nobody else 
does it again.
  But as we know, there is the possibility for that to happen under 
current law. That is why it is so important that we get this agreement 
to make necessary critical reforms, to put guardrails in place; to keep 
the process available to our national security experts so that they can 
continue to stop future terrorist attacks; but to also ensure that if 
somebody abuses the process, it makes it harder for them to do it; but 
if they still cross the line, that there are strong criminal penalties 
in place for those who would violate that law.
  I know we have laid those out. I am glad to know you have come back 
with a response. Hopefully, we can get that agreement in the next few 
days before this law expires. Clearly, there is strong support, 
hopefully, on both sides, for putting real reforms in place that fix 
and address the abuses that occurred in 2016, as identified by the 
Horowitz report.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman for anything else on that.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, somewhat like the recitation of the Mueller 
report that has been quoted--the Mueller report, of course, found 
substantial reason to believe that there was wrongdoing. It was 
projected by the Attorney General and others that the Mueller report 
was a conclusion that the President or others had not done something 
wrong. That was not the fact.
  In any event, with respect to the gentleman's comments, with respect 
to what was done by the FBI, it should not have been done, obviously.
  But the gentleman didn't read this very important sentence from the 
inspector general's report regarding the court's decision: ``We did not 
find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or 
improper motivation influenced his decision,'' meaning the court's 
decision, the judge's decision.

  The bill that we are talking about is reauthorizing section 215. None 
of this deals with section 215. It deals with metadata on which the 
parties have an

[[Page H1522]]

agreement. It also deals with business records and issues of lone 
wolves, who are not necessarily associated with a terrorist 
organization but present a danger to the United States.
  There are reforms that we can pursue to ensure that the FISA court 
gets all the information that it needs and, in fact, has a 
representative who makes sure that they get that and who is not 
associated with, necessarily, the law enforcement officers or 
intelligence officers who are presenting information to the FISA court.
  Unfortunately, and I want to say candidly, Mr. Speaker, the 
President's focus on the Page case and distracting from the issues that 
we are dealing with--Attorney General Barr recommended that we 
reauthorize the FISA section 215 as is. That is what the Attorney 
General recommended. I don't know what his present position is because 
he was criticized by the President in a tweet, so heaven knows what he 
did in response to the tweet.
  But the fact of the matter is, the issues which the gentleman raises, 
we all want appropriate, honest disclosure from individuals who present 
to the FISA court. That is not an issue, and we ought to pursue reforms 
that lead to that end. But in this case, the focus on an issue 
unrelated to section 215, which we are really talking about, is slowing 
up this process. And I would hope that in the coming days, because the 
15th is upon us, we come to an agreement.
  As I said, we sent an offer back, Mr. Whip. Hopefully, we will hear 
back from you and, hopefully, reach agreement in the near term because 
this is an important thing to pass, to reauthorize for the security of 
our people.
  The gentleman was talking about security before. We need to make sure 
that we act in a bipartisan way to ensure that the FISA process is 
working and working properly.

                              {time}  1200

  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, clearly, the gentleman from Maryland and I 
both agree that this FISA law has a strong role to play in our national 
security, but there is also acknowledgment that there were abuses that 
happened. Not only was there the Horowitz investigation, but now you do 
have the Durham investigation that will, hopefully, conclude and 
identify where those abuses took place and that those people would be 
held accountable.
  We have had talks with the Attorney General, who recognizes, yes, he 
also agrees that this FISA law is critically important, wants to have 
this section renewed, but he does recognize that reforms can be made.
  How exactly we can come to an agreement--just like with your side, we 
are having those negotiations. And so, if people do acknowledge that 
abuses occurred, I think it would be in all of our best interest, as we 
are addressing this law that has had detractors on both sides, that we 
strengthen the integrity of the law, because it has been exposed now. 
It has been exposed that there were problems that occurred.
  The other sections where those problems occurred are permanent law. 
This is not. This is coming up for renewal, but it is part of the FISA 
law. And, clearly, as we debate the FISA law, all of this becomes part 
of that debate, and, hopefully, all of it can get resolved within the 
debate on the components that expire March 15.
  I am confident we can get this done because I have seen the 
bipartisan interest. We just need to make sure that what we bring to 
the floor addresses the problems that occurred so that it, hopefully, 
never happens again.
  I will be happy to yield if the gentleman had anything else on that.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I don't have anything further to say.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to seeing the gentleman next 
week, and I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________