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‘Warrants or bust’: House hard-liners deliver ultimatum ahead of spy powers vote

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3 months ago

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Speaker Mike Johnson is staring down his right flank as he seeks to fulfill President Donald Trump’s demand to extend warrantless government surveillance powers long detested by the conservative hard-liners.

Johnson wants to put an 18-month extension of the spy law known as Section 702 on the House floor next week, seeking to advance it ahead of a two-week recess and its rapidly approaching April 20 expiration date.

He’s not planning to attach anything to the bill to bring ultraconservatives on board with the plan, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss private strategy. He’ll rely instead on the power of a White House endorsement for a “clean” extension to overcome threats from members like Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, who is renewing a long-running demand that intelligence officials seek judicial warrants before reviewing messages involving Americans.

“Warrants or bust,” Boebert said, adding that a clean bill “will not pass.”

Separately, Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna is demanding the House attach partisan elections legislation, the SAVE America Act, to the must-pass spy bill in a bid to force Senate action on it.

Johnson started making the hard sell Wednesday, inviting members to hear from CIA Director John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Kash Patel ahead of the expected floor consideration next week.

He expressed confidence in an interview Tuesday that skeptical members would come around on extending Section 702 on the White House’s terms.

“They’ll get there,” Johnson said.

But his path to doing so is far from clear. He’ll first need to unite Republicans behind a procedural measure teeing up floor consideration for the bill, and both Luna and Boebert say they will oppose that step, known as a rule.

“I’ll be a ‘no’ on the rule … and a ‘no’ on the bill if they don’t have SAVE America attached,” Luna said Tuesday. “And I’m not the only one. There’s other people.”

“There is no way a clean extension is getting through,” said another House Republican granted anonymity to speak candidly. “A rule for that will not pass next week.”

Another path for Johnson would be to try and skip the procedural vote and opt instead for a fast-track process, but that would require a critical mass of Democrats to join Republicans to get the bill past a two-thirds majority. GOP leaders are still exploring whether they can navigate the internal opposition and, if not, how many Democrats are willing to help.

The Republican hard-liners don’t think there are enough votes across the aisle to sidestep their opposition, with House Democrats split on whether to support the clean extension. Top party leaders have not yet taken sides on the matter, and members on key committees have diverged.

Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Intelligence Committee Democrat, backs the 18-month extension, but many others in the caucus say they would need serious concessions to continue the spy program under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which targets overseas actors for warrantless surveillance but often collects communications involving Americans.

“Personally, there’s no way I will support a clean FISA extension,” said Rep. Ted Lieu of California, a member of Democratic leadership and the Judiciary Committee. “There’s no way I’m going to give the Trump administration this mass surveillance authority. It’s not just a Trump administration. It’s any administration.”

One Democrat who attended Wednesday’s briefing said the biggest problem is the “character” and “lack of trust” in the Trump officials pushing for the extension — including Patel, who once complained about surveillance practices of Democratic administrations.

“It’s like the boy who cried wolf,” the lawmaker added.

Several House Republicans also raised concerns directly to Patel and Ratcliffe during the briefing about the clean extension, according to three other people in the room.

But House GOP leaders and White House officials believe the easier path is to simply convince the Republican holdouts — especially since Trump wants the clean reauthorization.

“I think I can pass the rule,” Johnson said after the briefing Wednesday.

They face a tough sell with some members, who remember how Trump urged them to “KILL FISA” in 2024 because his campaign was “spied on” by the federal government. Beyond Boebert and Luna, more than a dozen other House Republicans are objecting to continuing the program as-is.

They include GOP Reps. Chip Roy and Keith Self of Texas, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Andy Ogles of Tennessee, who want to ensure Americans are not swept up in government surveillance without a warrant.

“They’re going to have to allow amendments, because there is a lot of appetite for reform,” Davidson said, adding that he would oppose the bill if it goes unchanged.

“There are indications that the warrantless approach is still not working,” added Self in an interview this week.

Asked if Trump will need to get personally involved in the lobbying campaign, Johnson replied, “I can handle it. We’ll get it done.”

House GOP leaders are privately arguing that a straight Section 702 reauthorization is justified given the rising threats to Americans amid the widening military conflict in the Middle East, according to four people granted anonymity to describe the whip effort.

Stephen Miller, the influential senior White House domestic policy adviser, has been a leading advocate within the administration for extending the program without changes, seeing it as critical to a variety of homeland security missions.

“This is what the president has asked for, makes the case for and that’s the play we’re going to run,” House Intelligence Chair Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) said in an interview. House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, who opposed an extension in 2024, is also now supporting the straight extension.

“We did a lot of good reforms last time, so that’s a good start,” Jordan said in a recent interview.

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus also raised concerns about the White House-backed plan and suggested there will not be enough Republican support to tee up a final vote. An extension into late 2027 would be hard to swallow, he said — preferring a shorter punt just past November’s midterm election.

Despite the internal resistance, some in Johnson’s leadership circle believe they will need to attempt a vote on the straight 18-month extension next week regardless, given Trump’s backing for it.

If it does fail, Johnson & Co. will have to work on a backup plan to pass the bill once members return from recess April 14. That would leave only a few days to get the measure through the House as well as the Senate before the April 20 deadline.

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Congress

Raphael Warnock meets with Mike Johnson after questioning speaker’s Christian faith

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50 minutes ago

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June 9, 2026

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Sen. Raphael Warnock met Tuesday with Speaker Mike Johnson after the Republican leader requested the Democratic senator privately discuss comments Warnock made regarding Johnson’s faith in a recent interview.

Warnock was asked in the New York Times Q&A about Johnson praying ahead of the passage last year of the GOP megabill that included tax cuts and reductions in social-service programs and how he “understands that.”

Warnock, the pastor of a prominent Atlanta church, responded that he is a “Matthew 25 Christian,” referencing the chapter of the Gospel where Jesus describes the responsibility of the faithful to treat the hungry, sick and foreign with compassion.

“I don’t understand how you read that, say a long prayer, hold hands with your fellow legislators, and then cut a trillion dollars — $1 trillion — out of Medicaid calling it waste, fraud, and abuse,” Warnock said.

Leaving the meeting in Johnson’s office, Warnock said he raised the very same point personally to the speaker on Tuesday.

“We talked about the policy, and we agreed to disagree,” he said. “But we also talked about our faith and our upbringing, and that, for me, was important because I think just at a human level it would help around this place if we had more authentic conversations across our differences.”

“The stakes are too high for us to be engaged in political fencing around here and not have authentic conversations at a human level about why you believe what you believe,” he continued. “And so I left hopeful that we might have more of that kind of conversation.”

Johnson struck a similar note in a statement: “I was happy to meet with Senator Warnock today and have a positive, fruitful discussion about matters of faith and our different opinions regarding public policy. Such dialogue is important because it is always more productive to have these conversations face to face.”

Warnock and a spokesperson for the speaker both confirmed Johnson requested the meeting after the Times interview was published.

Warnock described the tone of the approximately 30-minute meeting as “honest, candid” and “respectful.” He said that the two men exchanged phone numbers and agreed to stay in touch.

Johnson, a devout evangelical Christian, often talks about his faith as he navigates his slim majority and near-constant GOP infighting. He often cites the Bible and advised President Donald Trump earlier this year to take down a photo from his Truth Social account that depicted Trump as Jesus.

“I think there are people gathered in this building every week who go to church on Sunday,” Warnock said after the meeting. “And I just sometimes wonder what their preacher is preaching about. The gospels that I preach center the poor.”

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Trump not expected to act on Pulte after Johnson meeting

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2 hours ago

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June 9, 2026

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A key U.S. spy law remains on track to expire at the end of the week after Speaker Mike Johnson met with President Donald Trump Tuesday about the future of a key section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Trump indicated in the private White House that he’s not inclined to appease Democrats and pave the way for a FISA extension by nominating a permanent director of national intelligence to succeed Bill Pulte, the acting director he installed last week, according to three people briefed on the conversation who were granted anonymity to describe it.

Most Democrats are refusing to move forward with any FISA extension so long as Pulte, a close political ally of the president with no national security experience, remains in the intelligence post. Some Republicans have been hoping a new Trump nomination could provide an off-ramp ahead of the quickly approaching FISA deadline.

But the people briefed on the meeting were left with the impression it didn’t go very well as Trump continues to push back on any suggestion that he needs to placate Democrats to pave the way for a FISA extension.

Johnson told reporters Tuesday the meeting went well but declined to discuss specifics. He added that “Democrats have taken a hostage” and that the Senate would need to quickly figure out a path forward.

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Congress

Longtime Epstein assistant says she set up phone calls between Epstein and Trump

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2 hours ago

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June 9, 2026

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Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime assistant Lesley Groff said in a closed-door interview Tuesday that she arranged phone calls between the late, disgraced financier and President Donald Trump, two Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee told reporters.

“I believe she referred to a time before, before Mr. Trump was president, that she did arrange for multiple phone calls between the two,” Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) said of Groff, who worked for Epstein for around 18 years beginning in 2001.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) also said that Groff told the panel that “she arranged calls for them to connect,” referring to the president and Epstein, but that those calls were not frequent.

Groff is on Capitol Hill to speak to the Oversight committee as part of its ongoing Epstein investigation. Trump has insisted he cut off ties with Epstein years before his death and has not been charged with any misconduct, but Democrats have repeatedly questioned whether the administration has worked to cover up evidence of a continued relationship.

“Just as President Trump has said, he’s been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson in a statement. “And by releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and calling for more investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, President Trump has done more for Epstein’s victims than anyone before him.”

Groff was never charged with any wrongdoing, but in a class-action lawsuit against the co-executors of Epstein’s estate, she is cited as “Epstein’s secretary who made travel arrangements for the girls, tended to their living needs, and scheduled massage sessions.” She also was named as an unindicted co-conspirator as part of Epstein’s 2008 non-prosecution agreement.

A key player in Epstein’s orbit throughout his life, Groff’s name is featured prominently in the Epstein files rolled out by the Justice Department late last year, showing her on the front lines of arranging meetings on her former boss’s behalf.

But behind closed doors Tuesday, lawmakers said Tuesday that Groff sought to distance herself from Epstein’s improprieties, telling the Oversight committee she did not see Epstein engage in misconduct.

Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) said in an interview that he did not believe it was “remotely plausible” for Groff to be oblivious to Epstein’s deeds.

“He was a registered sex offender, and she arranged young women for massages with a registered sex offender, and I just question whether, whether she can rightfully and truthfully maintain that she saw nothing improper,” said Lynch.

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) said in an interview Monday night he was eager to “get [Groff] on the record, so that when we find out later she was lying, we can arrest her.”

An attorney for Groff did not return a request for comment.

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