House agrees to 10-day extension of contentious surveillance law after GOP leaders’ push for more collapses

By Ellis Kim, Sarah Ferris, CNN

(CNN) — The House agreed early Friday morning on a short-term extension of a critical foreign surveillance program after GOP leaders suffered a stunning middle-of-the-night defeat in their attempt to renew it on a longer term basis.

Republican leaders believed Thursday night they had struck a deal with conservative holdouts who harbor deep and longstanding concerns that a key piece of the warrantless surveillance law known as Section 702 infringes on Americans’ privacy rights.

But in a pair of after-midnight votes, more than a dozen rank-and-file Republicans rejected the long-term reauthorization plan on the floor, which was the result of days of tense negotiations among leadership, lawmakers and the White House.

The law allows authorized US officials to gather phone calls and text messages of foreign targets, but they can also incidentally collect the data of Americans in the process.

Senior national security officials have for years said the law is critical for thwarting terror attacks, stemming the flow of fentanyl into the US and stopping ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure. Civil liberties groups on the left and the right, meanwhile, argue the surveillance authority risks infringing on Americans’ privacy.

The deal in Congress would have extended the nation’s spy powers for five years with some changes to the program.

Instead, Speaker Mike Johnson and his team were forced to pivot at the last minute to a short-term patch after two embarrassing floor defeats on the long-term plan.

Rep. Andy Ogles, one of the Republicans who bucked leadership, vented as he left the floor after 1:30 a.m. ET, “Sh*t amendment. Sh*t rule.”

The measure to reauthorize FISA through April 30 now goes to the Senate for passage. The program is set to expire in three days.

Trump had pushed for clean extension

The Trump administration had all week thrown its support behind a clean extension, with President Donald Trump repeatedly imploring Republicans on social media this week to back an 18-month reauthorization.

According to a White House official, Trump held a meeting with about a dozen GOP holdouts on Tuesday. A day later, the president called on Republicans to “UNIFY” in a Truth Social post, stressing that reauthorization is needed to “protect our Troops.”

“Our Military Patriots desperately need FISA 702, and it is one of the reasons we have had such tremendous SUCCESS on the battlefield,” Trump said in the post.

But those negotiations were not enough to win over some of the GOP’s privacy hawks, several of whom demanded floor consideration for an amendment that would require the government to obtain a warrant before it can query Americans’ communications.

“Right now, I don’t know what the pitch is, other than what it always is, which is we got to have this stuff to go after bad guys. Yes, we know. We all agree,” GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said earlier this week. “We need to figure out how we’re protecting American citizens in the process.”

Ultimately, the deal leadership negotiated with holdouts failed on the floor, and 20 Republicans later helped block the 18-month clean reauthorization from advancing.

While leaving the House chamber on Friday morning, Johnson told reporters that the 10-day extension gives lawmakers more time to hammer out their differences.

“We were very close tonight,” Johnson said. “There’s some nuances with language and some questions that need to be answered, and we’ll get it done. The extension allows us the time to do that.”

The speaker called FISA a “critical national security tool” and told reporters, “What we’re trying to do is thread the needle of ensuring that we have this essential tool to keep Americans safe, but also safeguard our constitutional rights and making sure that the abuses of FISA in the past are no longer possible.”

“There are many different opinions on how to do it and it’s very difficult to make it perfect, but we’ll get it done,” Johnson said.

Meanwhile, Democrats in the Senate have also been pushing for reauthorization, warning of “serious consequences” if FISA lapses.

Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee who caucuses with the Democrats, told reporters Thursday, “FISA is the single most important national security asset we have in the intelligence field. It constitutes a very high percentage of the president’s daily brief. It’s an invaluable tool to know what our foreign adversaries are planning and plotting, and it’s a responsibility of this Congress get it passed.”

CNN previously reported, citing current and former officials, that with just days to go before the lapse, US national security officials have scrambled to prepare for potential blind spots in intelligence collection amid the US’ delicate ceasefire with Iran.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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CNN’s Kaanita Iyer contributed to this report.