White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller faced a torrent of right-wing backlash over the weekend amid his push for the federal government to obtain virtually unfettered powers to spy on Americans.
The Trump administration has been pressuring Congress to authorize a long-term extension of the spying program known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It’s a controversial program that has allowed the government to collect Americans’ communications with targeted people and entities abroad.
Multiple Republicans in Congress had already sided with Democrats in raising concerns about reauthorizing these spying powers. And Donald Trump’s nomination of Bill Pulte — a MAGA loyalist who has launched dubious probes into the president’s political opponents while leading the Federal Housing Finance Agency — has put a reauthorization of Section 702 further in doubt.
That’s the context for Miller’s post on X below, in which he peddled falsehoods about the spying program.
“FISA 702 is the authority for surveillance on foreign soil — the core of all US security,” Miller wrote. “A libertarian demand to make SecWar get approval from liberal DC judges (the ones who targeted Trump) is madness. No conservative aim is ever served through subservience to leftist DC judges.”