From Julian Sanchez:
You couldn’t ask for a clearer illustration of the Trump administration’s incoherent stance on intelligence surveillance. Late Wednesday night, the White House released a statement urging the House to reauthorize the FISA Amendments Act, the controversial law authorizing warrantless electronic surveillance of foreigners’ communications, and opposing an amendment co-sponsored by Reps. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) that would require FBI agents to obtain a warrant before searching for Americans’ messages in the vast database created under the authority.
Just hours later, apparently reacting to a segment on Fox News, however, Donald Trump appeared to condemn the very legislation his administration had just endorsed:
“House votes on controversial FISA ACT today.” This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2018
About 90 minutes later—presumably following frantic appeals from staffers and Hill allies—Trump reversed his seeming reversal:
With that being said, I have personally directed the fix to the unmasking process since taking office and today’s vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land. We need it! Get smart!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2018
It’s worth pausing for a moment to note that nearly everything in both of these tweets is wrong.