Top Republican Warns That Under New Spending Bill "the Intelligence
Community Could Expend Funds as It Sees Fit"
Alex Emmons, Ryan Grim
January 22 2018, 5:50 p.m.
Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images
In a dramatic moment on the Senate floor Monday afternoon, as the upper
chamber rushed a spending bill through to end the government shutdown, the
top Republican and Democrat on the Intelligence Committee warned that the
bill contains language that would kneecap Congress's ability to oversee
secret covert actions and surveillance programs. Their effort to amend the
language was rebuffed.
The intelligence community, in its latest grasp, has gone too far even for
Richard Burr. The Republican chair of the Senate Intelligence committee has
long been one of the Senate's staunchest advocates for the intelligence
agencies, leading the fight to reauthorize surveillance programs and
fighting to bury the results of the Senate's five-year investigation into
CIA torture. But he took to the Senate floor Monday to warn that it would
compromise Congress's ability to oversee secret intelligence programs.
"This language could erode the powers of the authorizing committee," Burr
said. "Effectively, the intelligence community could expend funds as it sees
fit without an authorization bill in place and with no statutory direction
indicating that an authorization bill for 2018 is forthcoming."
The provision, first reported by The Intercept, appeared in the House
version of the spending bill last week and modified the 70-year-old-law that
first chartered the CIA. It removed language that requiring intelligence
agencies to spend money according to Congress's instructions, and replaced
it with a provision that allows the agencies to move money around freely and
without Congress's knowledge. Blackwater founder Erik Prince has recently
pitched the administration on a private intelligence force that would report
directly to President Donald Trump and CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
The move cuts off the Intelligence Committee's most effective means of
oversight, because it allows the intelligence community to repurpose funds
in the event that the legislature eliminates funding for a certain program,
the senators charged. "If this exemption is granted, you could potentially
have an administration, any administration, go off and take on covert
activities, for example, with no ability for our committee - which spends
the time and has the oversight - to say time out, or to say we actually
disagree with that policy," said Mark Warner, the leading Democrat on the
Senate Intelligence Committee.
Jennifer Hing, a spokesperson for the House Appropriations Committee, said
that the senators were blowing it out of proportion. "This language was
publicly requested by OMB/DoD. It is standard language CRs have carried
before," she said, referring to the spending bill, known as a continuing
resolution. (The other abbreviations stand for the Office of Management and
Budget and Department of Defense.)
Burr asked for unanimous consent to substitute replacement language into the
bill that would restore Congress's ability to dictate spending and found
himself in a jurisdictional turf war with the Appropriations Committee. "We
should have inserted this new language. But because of a fight between
Appropriations and the Intelligence Committee in the House, we weren't able
to do that. And I have a feeling that Senator Warner and I are going to find
that there is now a fight between the Intel Committees and the Appropriators
of the U.S. Senate, because I fear somebody might object to the unanimous
consent," Burr said, noticing Sen. Thad Cochran, the Republican chair of the
Senate Appropriations Committee, conspicuously present in the chamber.
Cochran did indeed object, and Burr then yielded the Senate floor with "with
great disappointment."
Cochran's entry into the debate adds another wrinkle, as the veteran
senator, at 80, has struggled cognitively in recent months. Politico
reported last year that he appeared "at times disoriented during a brief
hallway interview."
However, when queried about whether he would stay on as Appropriations
chairman, Cochran seemed confused and just repeated the question. "As
chairman of the Appropriations Committee?" Cochran asked.
Cochran had to be guided by staffers around a security checkpoint inside the
Capitol. He started to walk into a first-floor room - though the Senate
chamber is on the second floor. He was then ushered by an aide up to the
Senate.
When another reporter asked whether leadership had pressured Cochran to
return for a vote on the budget resolution - a key moment in the tax reform
debate - Cochran smiled and responded, "It's a beautiful day outside."
Cochran sat quietly in his seat during Wednesday's lengthy vote session. He
smiled and responded when a fellow senator stopped by to offer greetings,
but generally did not speak to anyone else.
