Thiessen rips Obama administration over FISA debacle: FBI abuses have 'damaged a vital institution'

Fox News contributor and Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen said Wednesday that the Obama administration's abuse of law enforcement surveillance tools to undermine President Trump have hurt a "vital institution we need to keep this country safe."

"The FISA court is vital to our national security because this is the court we go to, to get warrants to surveil terrorists who are planning attacks on the United States plus other foreign adversaries in this country," Thiessen said on the "Special Report" All-Star panel. "So this is a critical institution. It's a very damaged institution."

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House Democrats, lead by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., planned to forge ahead with a vote Wednesday to reauthorize surveillance tools used by law enforcement despite abrupt GOP opposition to the plan, as President Trump threatened to veto the bill if passed.

In March, the House passed a reauthorization of the surveillance measures as well as an addition of privacy protections to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by a 278-136 bipartisan vote. The Senate then passed its version of a FISA reform bill by a 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 was slated to pass the Senate version and to send the FISA bill to Trump's desk. However, Trump tweeted Tuesday night 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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Trump was referring to his longstanding belief that the intelligence community improperly used FISA authorities to surveil his presidential campaign for political reasons and launch the Russia probe.

Thiessen called the developments a "huge setback" and blamed the Obama administration, saying that FBI abuses have undercut the FISA reform bill.

"This is an example of, you know, people always say Donald Trump is undermining our institutions. Well this is the example where the people going after Donald Trump have undermined a critical institution," Thiessen said. "The Obama FBI lied to the FISA court, falsified information, left out exculpatory information and abused the process to spy on the Trump campaign.

"And as a result, Americans have lost confidence in the FISA process. It used to be that the way the FISA [reauthorization] bill passed was ... a lot of Democrats would vote against it, led by people like Senator Ron Wyden [of Oregon], who's a FISA critic, [and] a handful of libertarian Republicans like Rand Paul. But the Republicans would vote pretty much in unison to reauthorize the FISA bill.

"Now, because of the FBI abuses, that Republican support has evaporated ...," Thiessen said. "The abuses of this process to go after Donald Trump have now damaged a vital institution we need to keep this country safe."

Fox News' Marisa Schultz contributed to this report.