Jamie Raskin

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, so I will not belabor the point. I like this legislation, and I am voting for it. I hope everybody does. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Today, we are considering a series of bipartisan and, one hopes, noncontroversial bills to help ensure that the U.S. Code is up-to-date and accessible to all American citizens. We do this at least once every Congress. This is the first time we are doing it in the 119th Congress, I believe, and I am very pleased to support this package. Currently consisting of 54 different titles, the U.S. Code is a compilation of the vast array of Federal laws organized by coherent subject matter areas. As new laws are passed, they get assimilated into the code, which is a painstaking process undertaken by the dedicated professionals who work in the Office of the Law Revision Counsel. As part of the office's efforts to maintain the code, they work to make it more efficient and easier to navigate and understand. This includes correcting technical errors, removing ambiguities, updating statutory cross-references, and repealing provisions that have become obsolete. The bills we are considering today are a result of this exhaustive process. It is important to note that these bills make no change to the substantive meaning or effect of any existing laws. They are purely technical in nature and will help ensure that the code is authoritative, accurate, and accessible. I thank Chairman Jordan for continuing our Judiciary Committee's long tradition of considering these bills in a bipartisan way. I thank the sponsors of each bill for bringing them forward today. The first of them is H.R. 4499, which updates cross-references and corrects related technical errors throughout the code to accommodate previous reclassification efforts in title 34. Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support the legislation, and I thank my distinguished colleague for his leadership. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers here. I urge everybody to support this important legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Krishnamoorthi), who is an original cosponsor and eloquent champion of this legislation.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of H.R. 1869, which would create a new trade crimes task force within DOJ to strengthen capacity to investigate and prosecute trade-related crimes. Trade crimes are a big problem in the U.S. Foreign hackers equip computer chips with spyware and then slip them into the bloodstream of American commerce, market opportunists use unstable materials to create counterfeit batteries that end up exploding and maiming unsuspecting e- cigarette users in our country, and handbags made with forced Uyghur labor passed off as fair trade materials deepen and perpetuate our complicity with human rights crimes. Other trade crimes may not have a clear victim or defined perpetrator, but they are equally pernicious. Cyber intrusions can risk a company's trade secrets without their knowledge. They may never become aware of the data leak, but a foreign competitor can use the intellectual property to unfairly compete with targeted U.S. companies. The deluge of counterfeits and the unique way trade crimes are perpetrated make it difficult for prosecutors at DOJ to enforce our laws. This legislation would help the government prevent trade loss by creating a task force to identify, investigate, and prosecute trade crimes that hurt Americans across the economy. We are proud the legislation has been bipartisan. I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle on the select committee on China, especially our distinguished colleague from Illinois, Raja Krishnamoorthi, the House Appropriations Committee, and the Judiciary Committee for working to carefully negotiate this legislation that, if properly funded, will help the U.S. crack down on foreign entities that circumvent U.S. trade laws. Although DOJ already has dedicated personnel to enforce laws protecting Americans against illegal products, limited funding and resources prevent prosecutors from doing enough. If we don't provide funding for this work, the bill we are voting for today has an uncertain future. The myriad investigators, prosecutors, and support staff envisioned for the task force will never be hired. You cannot increase trade crime enforcement without increasing the number of prosecutors working on the problem, and you cannot increase the number of staff handling trade crimes without more funding. Stopping and preventing counterfeits that hurt Americans, endanger national security, and lose billions in profits for U.S. companies is serious work. I am glad we can all agree that DOJ prosecutors should focus on keeping America safe rather than pursuing political rivals of the President and targeting perceived political enemies with bogus prosecutions. Mr. Speaker, I support this legislation strongly. I encourage my colleagues to do the same, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 32, which would amend title 28 to provide an additional place for holding court in the Southern District of Texas and in the Southern District of California. Under due process and equal protection, our basic access to justice rights don't change or shouldn't change depending on where we live. But in practice, that is exactly what is happening, as my distinguished colleague Mr. Schmidt just explained. When residents of the Southern District of Texas or the Southern District of California need to drive for hours to attend court or to go serve on a jury, which is a civic obligation, they have less access to justice than other citizens with easy and direct physical access to the court system. It makes no sense that just because someone lives in a more rural district they should incur dramatically increased travel time and administrative expenses just to seek justice. With the price of gasoline and diesel soaring today with inflation, that is no joke. Adding courthouses is a small step in the right direction toward making the courthouse doors accessible to all Americans, no matter where they live. The Southern District of Texas spans 43 counties, and the Southern District of California includes San Diego County, the second most populated county in California. Residents there have the same problem many people are experiencing across the country. To access both the physical and the metaphorical courthouse doors, they need to travel long distances and wait in the backlog before having their day in court. The easiest way to alleviate the burdens on the residents of these two growing districts is to add a courthouse. This change is cost free because there is an existing judicial facility available for the court to use in both of these places. Making use of this existing building would ensure that litigants, attorneys, witnesses, and other court users would have greater access to the justice that our Federal courts and our Constitution provide. The administrative body for the Federal court system, the Administrative Office of the Courts, supports this bill. They know, like we do, that our country cannot have a flourishing justice system when its buildings are falling apart, its staff are underpaid, and there is a perpetual shortage of judges to administer the laws. We have a lot to do to ensure Americans have equal access to our laws and a judiciary that they can trust to fairly hear them out and adjudicate their disputes. This bill won't fix all the problems, but it will help more than 13 million Americans who deserve equal access to justice and greater access where they live. I appreciate Representatives McCaul, Ruiz, and Issa for their bipartisan work on this issue. I want to recognize Mr. Schmidt for his distinguished stewardship of this bill. Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support this commonsense legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Some States have already moved to institute permanent, lifelong no- contact orders, but right now there is nothing at the Federal level that would allow a victim to receive a lifelong, permanent no-contact order, and that is what we are doing. There is no way of undoing a violent act like a rape that has taken place in the life of a victim, but at least we can seal off the victim's future from further harassment, taunting, leering, insulting, intimidation, and so on from someone who committed the crime. I am proud that we are moving this on a bipartisan basis, and I hope that all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will vote ``yes'' to ensure the protection, the security, and the peace of mind that will result from this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill to strengthen protection for victims and survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Kayleigh's Law Act of 2026 would require Federal courts to issue lifetime no-contact orders against defendants who are convicted of certain offenses, including child sexual exploitation, sex trafficking, stalking, and sexual abuse, upon request or consent of a victim but independent of the criminal case. Hundreds of thousands of people live under conditions of sexual violence, intimate partner violence, and other kinds of sexual abuse, and this legislation will help many of them escape that trap and turn their lives around. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, an average of 24 people every single minute become victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner. That is more than 12 million American women and men every single year. Nationwide, more than one in five women have been raped or subjected to attempted rape, and 60 percent of the rapes are committed by someone they know, a number that increases dramatically for minor victims, going up to 93 percent who actually knew their abuser. The lives of survivors of sexual and domestic violence can be radically altered even long after the abuse has ended, and many suffer from a wide range of chronic physical, mental, and professional problems. They pay a heavy price financially for medical and therapeutic treatment, lost work, and legal expenses. The weight of these burdens is even greater for survivors who have fewer resources and smaller networks to draw upon. In recent years, some States have passed laws to strengthen protections, often thanks to the advocacy of survivors themselves, like Kayleigh Kozak, who was abused by her soccer coach beginning when she was only 12 years old. Because of her undaunted advocacy in her home State of Arizona, survivors of sex crimes and other violent crimes may now petition the court in their State for a permanent order of protection against their abusers, totally separate and apart from the criminal case. Other States have enacted similar laws. I am proud to say that my State, Maryland, is one of them. These laws empower victims and survivors to feel a lot safer and to move forward with their lives. It is wonderful that we are advancing a version of the Kayleigh's Law Act that will allow Federal courts to issue no-contact orders to victims and survivors of the worst offenses. I am pleased we were able to work together in committee on a bipartisan basis to ensure that this legislation would advance and prioritize the protection and the needs of victims and survivors. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support H.R. 8481. I urge all of my colleagues to do the same, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I should note that the bill does not address staff-on- inmate sexual harassment or assaults, but the Prison Rape Elimination Act does. Yet, this administration has been actively dismantling the protections of this legislation. I hope we can work together on that as well. This bill would require the AG to adopt nationwide standards to prevent the sexual harassment and assaults of BOP staff members by inmates. It would also improve BOP's efforts to address this conduct if it takes place, and it will strengthen oversight of the Bureau of Prisons so we can improve the safety of staff working in every corner of the country. Nobody should fear harm of this kind while on the job, regardless of where they are employed in America. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their hard work on this bipartisan legislation. I encourage all of our colleagues to join us in supporting this legislation that has been broadly endorsed by organizations, including the American Correctional Association and the Fraternal Order of Police. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Prison Staff Safety Enhancement Act, which would require DOJ to improve the safety of Bureau of Prisons facilities across America. More specifically, S. 307 would make improvements to how BOP assesses and responds to sexual harassment and assault by inmates of staff members. Federal prison staff go to work every day to protect the public safety, to prepare people for successful reentry into our communities, and to keep our communities safe. Yet, they often face threats of sexual harassment and sexual assault by inmates. A 2023 report from DOJ's inspector general found that 40 percent of more than 7,000 surveyed BOP staff reported that they themselves had been sexually harassed by an inmate. The report found that reports of sexual harassment were even more prevalent among female staff members. Mr. Speaker, 69 percent of female BOP staff said they had been sexually harassed by an inmate on the job. This harassment included whistling, catcalling, genitalia exposure, sexual remarks, and sexual gestures. The inspector general also found the true scope of the problem is not really known because BOP has not adequately or consistently collected data on the problem. This has prevented BOP from taking effective action. That is why the act would require BOP to fully implement recommendations made in the 2023 IG report or explain why it cannot do so. It would also require BOP to provide updated data to the inspector general on the number and prevalence of inmate-on-staff sexual harassment and sexual assault episodes, require the IG to analyze the sufficiency of the data, and make any necessary recommendations to Congress and the Attorney General on how the Bureau of Prisons can reduce the pervasiveness of these incidents. Lastly, it would require the Attorney General to adopt nationwide standards for prevention, reduction, and punishment of sexual harassment and assault committed by incarcerated individuals against BOP employees. By requiring BOP to fully implement the recommendations of the IG report, this act would improve BOP's data collection, training, and policies on both sexual harassment and assault. It would also require BOP to conduct regular risk assessments within individual facilities and across BOP, with an emphasis on the risks for female staff. I applaud Senator Ossoff for his work on this legislation. He has worked to improve the conditions and safety of our Federal prisons for both the staff and inmates. I was proud to support passage of the Federal Prison Oversight Act, a bipartisan, bicameral bill that he led with my colleague, the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Crime, Congresswoman McBath. That bill was signed into law in 2024 and established new independent oversight of BOP. It received broad support from civil rights groups, prison employees, and criminal justice groups, but its full potential is yet to be realized. Congress should fully fund the Federal Prison Oversight Act so it can be fully implemented and add to the safety improvements in the bill before us today. We know from past failures in oversight that we must do more to make our prisons safer for inmates and staff alike. Such failures include years of systemic sexual assault of incarcerated women and whistleblower retaliation at one of the Federal woman's prisons in Dublin, California, that led to closure of the facility and criminal convictions of nine BOP officers, including the warden himself. This never should have happened. I hope we can continue to work together to make sure our prisons are safe for everybody who enters them, whether involuntarily as an inmate or voluntarily as a staff person. Our prisons are some of the most challenging and difficult work environments in America. BOP has faced longstanding staffing challenges, from poor morale to ever-declining recruitment and retention rates. By working to reduce the intolerable sexual harassment and assault of staff members, this legislation would take an important step toward improving safety across BOP facilities and the ability of staff to carry out their crucial public safety mission. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support S. 307, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, welcome back to you and to Mr. Fitzgerald. I am pleased we are working together to address a real flaw in government surveillance authorities and to safeguard Americans' privacy and civil liberties by moving the NDO Fairness Act today. Under the Stored Communications Act, prosecutors can go to a judge to get a search warrant for the content of private communications and documents that Americans send over the internet and store in the cloud. Third-party providers store our emails, our private chat messages, our work documents, and our phone records on their servers. Most of these can be searched if the government gets a warrant based on probable cause that the search will reveal evidence of criminal activity, but unlike the searches most Americans are familiar with from TV dramas where an officer shows up at a suspect's house with a warrant, the Stored Communications Act allows Federal investigators to request a nondisclosure order, also known as an NDO, from a Federal judge, preventing your service provider from ever telling you that your email account or phone records had been seized. There is no statutory time limit. NDOs can exist in perpetuity, allowing the government to forever hide their searches from the searched. There are good reasons why prosecutors might need or want a nondisclosure order, an NDO, for a brief period of time. In some cases, immediate notice might put an undercover agent in direct danger or risk the destruction of key evidence or compromise an ongoing investigation, but 40 years after passage of the Stored Communications Act, the government's use of nondisclosure orders has expanded well beyond these high exigency cases. Under current law, the request has become little more than a simple box-checking exercise. The statute allows the government to maintain these nondisclosure orders indefinitely. DOJ's current policy limits the duration of the NDOs to 3 years, and that policy is itself totally voluntary and flexible. DOJ can rescind, suspend, or even just ignore it at will. We need laws, not voluntary, dismissible DOJ policies, to protect our privacy under the Constitution. By limiting nondisclosure orders to 90 days with the possibility of renewal if there is an actual emergency still ongoing, the NDO Fairness Act ends the so-called forever NDOs where nondisclosure orders have no end date and no end in sight. By requiring prosecutors to explain the rationale for their requests, we end the so-called rubberstamp NDOs in which applications for an NDO are submitted with boilerplate language and no evidence demonstrating any true or compelling need for nondisclosure. By ensuring that judges apply the proper strict scrutiny standard to the requests, we limit nondisclosure orders to those where secrecy is actually necessary to the pursuit of the investigation. In this way, the NDO Fairness Act will protect all Americans who keep an increasingly large percentage of their information online and should expect notice if the government is rifling through their records. Most recently, we have heard about NDOs in the case of Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation into President Trump's effort to interfere with the results of the 2020 election, an effort that culminated in an attack on this building, the U.S. Capitol, on January 6, 2021. It has been well-known for years that in the days leading up to the attack and while the mob was still rampaging in the Capitol, President Trump and his enablers, like Rudy Giuliani, made a series of phone calls to Members of Congress trying to convince them not to certify the election, even as the insurrectionists were tearing through the building. As part of his investigation into that attack, Special Counsel Smith asked a Federal grand jury to subpoena the phone companies for the records associated with individual Members of Congress known to have been in contact with the White House over a 4-day period running from around January 6, 2021. The subpoena sought call records, the kind of information that is on your phone bill, not the content of any calls or text messages, but a record of who called who when. He also asked a Federal judge to issue an NDO for those subpoenas. He did so after receiving permission to do so from the Public Integrity Section and in full compliance with both existing law and DOJ policy. It is no secret that the President had made it a habit to pressure witnesses not to testify against him. In August 2023, while he was being prosecuted for these efforts to overturn the 2020 elections, he posted the message: ``If you go after me, I am coming after you.'' Senators were upset by these completely lawful subpoenas and well- justified nondisclosure orders under the law as it was understood. Their response was to pass a law giving them, and them alone, the right to collect $1 million apiece each time the government sought their communications records, in the past and in the future. Instead of acting to protect all Americans, all of us, they sought a multimillion-dollar payday for themselves as U.S. Senators. They did not even include mere lowly Members of the U.S. House of Representatives in their legislation. Fortunately, that selective, self-serving authority was short-lived, and we succeeded in overturning, I think unanimously in this body, that stunningly corrupt law. The proposal before us today addresses the problem at its root for all Americans and protects all of us, not just the 100 Americans who we get to serve with in the Chamber down the hall. Prosecutors under Presidents of both parties have routinely sought NDOs in all kinds of probes. The number of orders accompanied by NDOs that electronic communication companies receive has only increased since this legislation was first introduced over 4 years ago. This body has proudly already passed this bill twice. I am hopeful that our colleagues in the Senate may now realize and act on the fundamental importance of this legislation for everyone in America. Our laws should protect the civil liberties of all 340 million Americans just as the Equal Protection Clause demands. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Nadler for leading the NDO Fairness Act since this legislation was first developed, and I thank Mr. Fitzgerald for ably leading the charge in this Congress. I look forward to voting ``yes'' on this important legislation. Mr. Speaker, for the aforementioned reasons, I enthusiastically endorse this legislation and encourage all of my colleagues to support it. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to celebrate 2026 NBA champion Josh Hart. Josh just helped lead the New York Knicks to their first NBA championship since 1973. An outstanding shooting guard and rebounder, he is an essential force on the Knicks and, many say, the beating ``Hart'' of the team. There might not be a lot of Knicks fans in Maryland, but there are a lot of Josh Hart fans. Josh's basketball career started in Montgomery County, Maryland, at the great Wheaton High School and at Sidwell Friends in Washington, D.C. Josh excelled off the court as a passionate student and an active citizen. He promised his dad that he would become an Eagle Scout. After a lot of hard work, he did Troop 1038 in Rockville proud by earning the Eagle Scout rank. I also recognize Josh's parents, my constituents, Moses and Pat; Josh's siblings, Moses, Joseph, and Aimee; Josh's wife, Shannon; and their twin sons. From the Eagle Scouts to the NBA, Josh has made the Eighth District of Maryland proud. We are happy for New York and the Knicks, but we send special appreciation to Josh Hart from his home in Maryland. I congratulate him.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close. Mr. Speaker, my friend, the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee, flippantly says: What is another 3 weeks after we have kicked the can down the road this far? Where is the passionate, stalwart defender of American civil liberties and right to privacy we have come to admire and esteem? The Fourth Amendment protects the rights of all Americans. It does not have a ``unless it is just for another 3 weeks'' exception. Congress must act to protect the rights of Americans. We agreed to 1 week. We agreed to 45 days. Enough of this disorganization and chaos. If there is a serious proposal on the table, we are all ears. We will sit down, and we will work on this. We want to reauthorize section 702, and we want to make it safe for the constitutional rights and liberties of the people. We also know, Mr. Speaker, that section 702 explicitly allows any current authorizations to continue until their expiration dates, even if the statute sunsets. Therefore, there is no reason we cannot protect both the Fourth Amendment rights of the people and the authorities that keep us safe. If Speaker Johnson will just allow us to do so, I believe that the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees can come together and get this done. Again, Mr. Speaker, I believe there is a robust, bipartisan majority. I think it is ridiculous that we even need to say it, but I do believe there is a robust bipartisan majority that will stand with the Constitution, that will make sure we are interposing the proper independent judicial magistrate between the government and searches of the private rights and the persons and things protected by the Fourth Amendment. We need to protect the rights of the people and the Constitution. We can do that. We need to protect our national security with section 702. We can do that. We can harmonize them. All it takes is old-fashioned legislative deliberation and compromise. I am certain we can do it, but we haven't had any effort by the GOP leadership to look to this body, both Republicans and Democrats. Where do they look? They look to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But we are an Article I for a reason. We are the legislating branch, not the President. We have got the power to declare war. The President has forgotten that. We have got the power to appropriate. We have got the power to tax, and we have got the power to pass this legislation on section 702. We don't have to wait on hand and foot for the White House to tell us what to do. Let's just sit down. Let's hammer out a great legislative compromise that will take us not for another 7 days or 42 days or 45 days. How about we do it for the next 5 years? If we build a search warrant requirement into it, I bet we could do it for the next 10 years. Let's live up to our constitutional responsibilities and legislate together. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, can you tell us how much time we have remaining.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Himes), the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, when we first met on the majority's confusion and disarray over FISA at 1:30 in the morning on April 17, we pointed out that the majority's language departed so sharply from the requirements of the Fourth Amendment in the Constitution that, for the very first time, it would have authorized the government to use 702 to specifically and deliberately target and spy on the communications of American citizens. That midnight maneuver quickly collapsed as support melted away all across the body. On unanimous consent, we agreed to a 1-week extension to give the House leadership a chance to discuss and negotiate necessary reforms with their own Members who had been ignored and bypassed in the process, as well as with us. Speaker Johnson never once invited us to the table. He never got in touch with us. One week later, congressional Republicans again failed to pass their own bill. I stood in this spot, and we agreed to a one-time 45-day extension as a gesture of legislative good faith to give the leadership a chance to meet with their own members who had been bypassed and with the Democratic side of the aisle, which had been completely bypassed, and to engage in good-faith negotiations for serious FISA legislation. That means legislation that meets both the requirements of the Constitution for the privacy rights of the people and the needs of our foreign policy and national security. Again, we never heard from the Speaker. We never heard from his staff. They never came to talk to us. Now, we are here to consider a bill drafted, it looks like, at 4:33 p.m., about 1 hour ago, just to kick the can down the road one more time. For months, we have offered to work in good faith with our friends across the aisle, our colleagues in the Senate, and intelligence community to reauthorize 702 in a manner that preserves the necessary authority while protecting essential constitutional values and the privacy rights of the people. Despite this, again, Speaker Johnson has never once invited Democrats to the table. I know Speaker Johnson. We served together on the Committee on the Judiciary. We used to speak and interact freely, but he has completely vanished in this process. We have an incredible shrinking Constitution under Donald Trump, and now we have an incredibly shrinking Speaker under Donald Trump. Look, our touchstone has been a fundamental principle at the core of the Fourth Amendment. A judge must come between the Federal Government and the private communications of American citizens. That is the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The FBI has abused this powerful surveillance authority for decades. The FISA court has recently raised serious questions today about how section 702 is operating. Instead of implementing the modest self- administered guardrails Congress required as part of our 2024 reauthorization, the FBI appears to have been actively circumventing and violating those guardrails. We cannot trust Kash Patel not to violate FISA when he readily admits he queried some government databases to dig up dirt on journalists who dared to report about him and the government services he has made available to his girlfriend. Believe it or not, the administration's invitation to trust Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard, which the majority of this body was not interested in, has now gotten even less enticing. Today, President Trump just appointed Bill Pulte as Acting Director of National Intelligence, making it even more obvious that he intends to use FISA to investigate, harass, and persecute his political opponents. Director Pulte has no national security experience, zero, zilch, none. He is famous in America for only three things: One, he vowed to engage in fisticuffs with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent when he was at Donald Trump, Jr.'s club in Georgetown, the Executive Branch. Two, he brought Palantir into the Federal Housing Finance Agency, where he was director, to help him scour through American's personal financial data, looking for dirt on Trump's designated political enemies. Finally, he then used this AI-enabled technology to create personal mortgage dossiers on Adam Schiff, Leticia James, and Lisa Cook, who he then referred to the Department of Justice for felony criminal prosecutions. He engaged in criminal referrals. All three of these attempted prosecutions, fortunately, collapsed either at the Department of Justice or in Federal court because they were so flimsy. That is what he spends his time doing, trying to dig up dirt through this AI-enabled technology on American citizens, including elected officials. So if you thought our civil liberties were safe with Tulsi Gabbard as the backstop, which was the last proposal, you will love the idea of Bill Pulte being the guardian of our privacy and the protector of our civil liberties. Bill Pulte's appointment, which has been derided not just in our party but by Senators Thune, Tillis, and Cassidy, just to name a few, confirms our worst fears of the President's plans to abuse FISA section 702 for the purposes of domestic political surveillance, harassment, intimidation, and persecution. Indeed, we know the FBI is currently abusing FISA based on the FISC opinion from March that remains inexplicably classified. Instead of implementing in good faith the modest reforms we passed 2 years ago, the FBI created a system to review Americans' data in violation of the minimal, self-administered, self-policing guardrails we required. We can say with some confidence that the FBI has no idea how many U.S. person queries they ran last year, how many times they spied on the communications of American citizens, and we should be able to explain these serious deficiencies to our constituents. Mr. Speaker, if we allow the President to turn FISA into an instrument of domestic political control, we will be ignoring everything we have already learned about the long history of abuse of this program, which my friend Mr. Jordan has helped to bring to light: past improper searches swept in Members of Congress and staff of both parties, campaign activists and donors, and Black Lives Matter activists. President Trump certainly believes FISA provides the technology, methodology, and opportunity to spy on political opponents. On April 10, 2024, he posted: ``Kill FISA, it was illegally used against me, and many others. They spied on my campaign.'' ``Kill FISA,'' he said. These allegations may or may not be true, but the President is certainly right that this program has been badly abused in the past. The majority, yet, still shows no evidence of seeking to impose a judicial warrant requirement for queries of U.S. citizens. They have shown no interest in building a probable cause requirement into the statute. We have seen no evidence that they want to impose any judicial oversight at all, although that was the Framers' major commitment, that they wanted to make sure that there would be a judicial magistrate interposed between the government and the rights of the people. That is the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. We need to stand by that, and we need a real process to make sure that we come up with real legislation that honors it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I don't know what personality potshots the distinguished gentleman is referring to. Of course, that is against the rules of the House, and if you think you have an objection, you should go ahead and object based on personalities. I haven't heard a single one mentioned. In any event, when section 702 of FISA sunsets on June 12, if that is the will of the majority, the government surveillance activities will continue unchanged. Everything that has already been authorized and certified is already in motion, and current FISA authorizations will continue unaffected, at least through March 17, 2027. In any event, I know that the gentleman said that we are approaching the 250th anniversary of the country. Yes, that is something we have known about for 250 years, and the majority has known for many months about this deadline and can't seem to get it together. We don't have the opportunity to help them because they will not reach out to us and talk to us about it. I restate our commitment to try to help them get through this, but we are not going to continue to kick the can down the road with them indefinitely. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Massie), the very distinguished gentleman and a great champion of the Constitution and civil liberties.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, we thank you for your trenchant remarks, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me just say, we gave the majority an extra week. We supported that unanimous consent. Everybody Member of this body supported that. They never consulted us. They never talked to us, despite all kinds of promises to do so. I had GOP colleagues telling me, on the Judiciary Committee, they were never consulted. Nobody ever talked to them about it. Then we gave them 45 days. They said they just needed 45 days, and they would definitely talk to us. We would be able to meet. After 1\1/ 2\ months, we heard nothing from them. We have been begging them to sit down, because I believe there is a robust, bipartisan majority in this House to support the needed reforms and making sure that we interpose the voice of a judge before the personal communications of American citizens are invaded by the Government. I think that we have got a vast majority on that side, but nobody from leadership seems to be talking to anybody who is concerned about this. Now they say: Oh, well, just give us another week. No, we are not interested in that. We have given you lots of time. You are not consulting us. You are not negotiating in good faith. So maybe the threat that we are not going to support you will finally get you guys serious about it. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I can understand why our colleagues talking about deranged Trump syndrome don't want us talking about the actual President himself. He just said, ``I don't think about Americans' financial situation,'' and, ``not even a little bit.'' Well, no kidding. Our let-them-eat-crypto President, who has pocketed a cool $5 billion since he was inaugurated, spends a lot of time thinking about his own financial security and the bankrolling of his MAGA foot soldiers, whom he pardoned en masse and released from jail last year. He wants you to pay for not only a $1 billion golden ballroom because he bulldozed the White House, but a $1.776 billion political slush fund, under his exclusive control, to pay out to his favorite convicted criminals, anti-democracy rioters, and cop-beating insurrectionists, 96 of whom have already committed new crimes since he let them out of jail, including child sexual assault, domestic violence, home invasion, and first degree criminal assault. He wants to turn this street- fighting mob into a permanent private militia of MAGA millionaires. His Acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, cooked up a collusive plan with the plaintiff President to cancel out all criminal, civil, and tax liability for himself and the rest of the Trump family and their businesses for all time--in all caps, they wrote ``forever''--for any crimes they have committed up until this point. Nothing like this has ever happened before in American history. Now, they want to hand DHS another $70 billion after the $170 billion they got last year-- The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.