House

Jeffries says he’s ‘deeply skeptical’ of FISA extension without new privacy protections

by Mike Lillis - 04/16/26 6:04 PM ET

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by Mike Lillis - 04/16/26 6:04 PM ET

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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) suggested on Thursday that he’s ready to oppose an extension of the government’s warrantless surveillance powers unless it contains new privacy guardrails.

Jeffries stopped short of saying he’ll oppose a clean extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which GOP leaders in Congress and the White House are scrambling to pass before the spying powers expire on April 20.

But he also hinted strongly that he won’t support the bill without new protections for Americans that are being demanded by privacy advocates on and off of Capitol Hill.

“I am deeply skeptical of a straight-forward extension, for a wide variety of reasons,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol on Thursday afternoon. He added that “a significant majority” of House Democrats share that skepticism.

The comments came amid an impasse over how to prevent the FISA powers from expiring next Monday. President Trump is demanding a clean, 18-month extension, but Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and his leadership team ran into a wall of opposition to that plan from conservatives demanding amendments, some of them entirely unrelated to the issue of surveillance.

To break the stalemate, Republicans on Thursday were eyeing a plan to shorten the length of the extension, from 18 months to one year, while including some of the reforms needed to bring more Republicans on board.

Jeffries acknowledged the divisions on the issue within his own party, which were on full display a day earlier during a closed-door meeting of House Democrats in the Capitol basement. During the gathering, Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.), the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, made the case that allowing the spying powers to expire would pose huge risks to national security.

That argument was countered by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, who is leading the charge for tougher guardrails to protect the communications of U.S. citizens from being swept up in the process.

Jeffries, a former member of the Judiciary panel, has acknowledged a tendency to side with the privacy advocates based on that background. On Thursday, he listed another reason that he’s wary of extending the surveillance powers without reforms: He simply doesn’t trust the administration not to abuse that authority.

Jeffries singled out three officials, in particular, he considers untrustworthy: President Trump, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel.

“We’re supposed to trust that Kash Patel is going to comply with the law as it’s currently written?” Jeffries said. “So there’s deep skepticism, it’s fair to say, as it relates to where I stand and where I think a significant majority of House Democrats stand.”

Still, Jeffries said the discussions between Himes and his Republican counterparts are continuing on Thursday. And he left room to change his tune and support the final product — if talks yield a compromise that includes some new privacy measures.

“We’ll see where that leads over the next few hours,” Jeffries said.

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