Biden official’s appointment to FISA Court exposes Republican hypocrisy
Jennifer Daskal, the Biden administration official who launched the Disinformation Governance Board and served as co-chair of the board, has been appointed to advise the powerful Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court created by the FISA Act. And while Republicans are expressing “concern” over the appointment, the simple truth is that it exposes the lying hypocrisy of the Republican Party.
Daskal also served as co-chair of the Disinformation Board — referred to at the time as the Ministry of Truth in reference to George Orwell’s 1984 — and she helped select the board’s controversial director, Nina Jankowicz, a Russian disinformation expert who is easily influenced by partisan ideology when determining the difference between fact and disinformation, making her a perfect fit at the time for Joe Biden’s self-declared war on social media.
For example, in a June 2020 op-ed for Wired.com, Jankowicz wrote that Facebook groups were destroying America because they are built for privacy. And in an interview with NPR, she had this to say about Elan Musk’s buyout of Twitter:
“I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms, what that would look like for the marginalized communities all around the world, which are already shouldering so much of this abuse, disproportionate amounts of this abuse, and retraumatizing themselves as they try to protect themselves from it, you know, reporting, blocking, et cetera. We need the platforms to do more, and we frankly need law enforcement and our legislatures to do more as well.”
According to its charter (via FreeBeacon.com), the Disinformation Board was to track and monitor “disinformation” and “misinformation” about election security, “falsehoods surrounding U.S. immigration policy,” and information about “the origins and effects of COVID-19 vaccines or the efficacy of masks.” But that prompted swift blowback from Republicans over concerns that Biden might use the board to censor opposing views about those hot-button topics.
Hmmm… Using the power of government to censor opposing views. Now where have I heard that before?
A few practitioners of Republican hypocrisy who shared their “concerns” about the FISA Court appointment currently sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee:
“The American People need to have confidence in the people tasked to serve as amici (friend of the court) before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.” ~ Sen. Chuck Grassley, committee chairman
“You ought to be ashamed of your role in this.” ~ Sen. Eric Schmitt speaking to Daskal at a May 2025 hearing
While it may appear logical for Republicans to object to Daskal’s appointment, their objections are, in fact, only being raised because of her role and that of Jankowicz in the investigation into Russian interference during Donald Trump’s first term and the Hunter Biden laptop story. Trump and the Republican Party have no problem with the FISA Court or having someone appointed to advise the court’s unconstitutional activities because they support FISA and the court — they just want to be the ones running the program and making the appointment.
The lying hypocrisy of Donald Trump the Republican Party concerning FISA and the FISA Court is also on display courtesy of Sen. Tom Cotton and his quiet push for a “clean reauthorization” of FISA 702 in order to kick the can down the road until after the 2026 midterms when Trump and the Republican Party will work on ways to make it permanent if they retain control of Washington. The program is scheduled to expire in April 2026.
FISA originated during the Cold War to gather foreign intelligence information, but the current debate over Section 702 began around 2008, when Republicans joined the Democrat majority to legalize a version of a surveillance program secretly created by the National Security Agency after 9/11. FISA Section 702 permits our government overlords to track the electronic communications of foreign terrorists, spies and hackers without obtaining a warrant.
However, as we have witnessed numerous times since the law was created, FISA 702 has enabled the government to gather communications data from an unknown number of Americans. This abuse by the NSA led to the passage of the USA Freedom Act, a law designed to reign in the government’s blatant abuse of power.
When the USA FREEDOM Act was passed in 2015, it was supposed to bring an end to bulk collection of metadata by the NSA and rein in the FISA Court, But the FREEDOM Act failed, the NSA continued spying, the FISA kept all its power when Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress approved the “periodic congressional reauthorization” of FISA Section 702 in 2018 until December 2023.
Then-Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) openly opposed the 2018 extension because it “allow[ed] the government to conduct warrantless searches on Americans and maintain massive troves of our data” — a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Fast forward to 2023 when Mike Johnson and the Republican Party — who controlled the House then as they do now — joined Joe Biden and the Democrats to reauthorize FISA 702 until April 2026, which brings us to where we are today.
When lovers of liberty opposed spying programs found within FISA and its twin sister the PATRIOT Act, they did so because the programs were clearly unconstitutional and surrendered way too much power to the government. But Trump and Trumpist Republicans supported them then as they do now because they want to keep their power, which is why they are working so hard to make sure FISA and government spying lives forever before it expires in a few months.
During confirmation hearings, Republicans grilled Pam Bondi, John Radcliffe, and Tulsi Gabbard about FISA Section 702. And while you’d think that the Republican-led Senate would be looking for people who would commit to supporting the Constitution — specifically the Fourth Amendment which requires government get a warrant before spying on any particular person and forbids warrantless mass surveillance — these “defenders of the Constitution” demanded that each of these nominees support the expansion of warrantless mass surveillance under Section 702.
Tulsi Gabbard even reversed her past opposition to mass surveillance under FISA after being pressured by Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn to support FISA; and as someone who worked in the CIA during Trump’s first term, John Radcliff was already on board with the idea.
Pam Bondi went to great lengths to assure Republicans that she considered FISA and the mass surveillance of Americans “legal” and a “very important tool” in the toolbox of the Department of Justice (via The Federalist):
“I would like to have a strategy to deal with the ISIS threat that’s beyond just the law enforcement model,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C. said to Bondi. “Does that make sense to you, that we should use every tool in the toolbox?”
Such an approach “includes wrapping in our state and local officials” and “better cooperation” across the nation and world, Bondi replied.
“Do you support reauthorizing FISA in 2025?” asked Graham.
“I believe [section] 702 is up in 2026,” Bondi said. “We will closely be looking at FISA as a very important tool.”
“Do you agree that 702 provides important intel-gathering capability to protect our nation?” Graham asked. Bondi called it “extremely important.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, also pushed Bondi on the matter. He said 60 percent of the president’s intelligence brief comes from Section 702. “It’s been called the crown jewel of U.S. intelligence,” he said. “I’d like you just confirm here on the record that you will enforce that law, and you can support the law as it is written.”
“Senator, I haven’t read the entire 702 in front of you, but I will commit to reading that and doing everything I can to keep America safe again,” Bondi replied.
Cornyn suggested concerns about Section 702 are “misinformation.” “I think there’s a lot of misinformation with regard to how Section 702 works … it is not used to spy on American people,” Cornyn said.
Cornyn referenced a memo from former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe — Trump’s pick for CIA director — allegedly saying “a warrant requirement may not achieve its intended objectives and could hinder national security efforts.” Cornyn asked Bondi if she shares that concern.
“I would read his memo, and I will speak to you after I read his memo,” Bondi said. (Emphasis mine)
The bottom line is this: Instead of playing politics with FISA Court appointments, Trump and the Republican Party should end their hypocrisy and do all they can to strike the FISA Act from the books before liberty in America is lost forever.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties. He the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty.
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