Trump puts Obamagate theory centre stage in chaos over FISA reauthorisation

House Democratic leaders are in scramble mode to patch up a deal by the end of the day Wednesday to reauthorise crucial US surveillance authorities that lapsed some three months ago, as Donald Trump and stakeholders from both parties this week criticised current proposals on how to move forward.

Mr Trump has threatened to hold up the process while Senate Republicans investigate his unsubstantiated "Obamagate" theory, which maintains that the former president and his intelligence brass sought in 2016 and 2017 to undermine Mr Trump's incoming administration with sham investigations into Russian election interference and possible ties between the country and Mr Trump's 2016 campaign.

House Republicans ought to "vote NO on FISA," the president tweeted on Tuesday, "until such time as our Country is able to determine how and why the greatest political, criminal, and subversive scandal in USA history took place!"

FISA is shorthand for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that governs many covert surveillance authorities in the US.

House Republicans have since signalled they will side with the president against the current package of legislation and amendments.

Mr Trump and his staunchest defenders in Congress have highlighted a 2019 Justice Department inspector general report that found multiple errors in the FBI's applications for FISA court warrants to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. While Mr Page no longer worked for the Trump campaign by the time the courts approved the warrant to monitor his communications, Republicans have argued that such abuse of the FISA system warrants considerable reform.

The president's key allies in the House on such matters — ex-House Judiciary ranking member Doug Collins, current House Judiciary ranking member Jim Jordan, and others — reached a deal with Democrats months ago on a package to reauthorise FISA with certain reforms, civil protections, and legal reviews.

That bill bounced back to the House after the Senate passed it last week with an amendment providing even more protections against legal malfeasance.

The president's new threat to tank the legislation over his Obamagate theory is hardly the first time he has weaponised politically sensitive legislation to promote one of his central campaign pieces.

Remember, Mr Trump presided over two government shutdowns in three years by holding annual congressional spending bills hostage to push immigration and border security reform.

Holding up legislation as leverage for other policy priorities is common executive branch practice that long predates Mr Trump's term. It's Negotiating 101.

But Mr Trump's threat to hold up the FISA legislation — which most lawmakers ostensibly agree addresses the shortcomings of the old FISA system — due to Senate GOP oversight investigations into the president's presumptive 2020 election opponent, Joe Biden, is puzzling in that those investigations are already underway. And passing FISA reforms into law would not alter their course.

To be certain, the politics of FISA authorities are all over the place, and Mr Trump is not the only one opposed to the current plans to reauthorise them.

Attorney General William Barr, House Republicans, and even a key Senate Democrat have all signalled their opposition to the House's plan to vote on legislation it had previously agreed to along with a new Senate-passed amendment providing more civil protections and a proposed House amendment that was aimed at curbing US intelligence officials' access to citizens' Internet search history.

Mr Barr's Justice Department opposes both amendments, saying they will "weaken national security tools" while failing to address the systemic concerns over the FISA process that have held up reauthorisation.

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, who is considered something of a dean among Senate Democrats on matters of privacy and government surveillance, says the House's new amendment would not go far enough to protect US citizens from having their Internet search histories obtained by intelligence officials without a warrant. A more airtight version of that amendment offered by Mr Wyden and Montana Republican Senator Steve Daines fell one vote short of passage in the Senate last week.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi abandoned a planned vote on Wednesday on the House amendment curtailing US intelligence officials' access to people's internet search history.

But even if a bill reauthorising the critical FISA elements does finally pass Congress after months of political ping-pong between the House and Senate, Mr Trump could always snatch the ball and crush it between his fingers with a veto.

If he does so, he will continue to have cover from House Republicans, if House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's comments to Fox and Friends on Wednesday about the president's Obamagate concerns are any indication.

"We need to ... get to the bottom of that, and make sure the FISA court is protecting the liberties of Americans before we move another bill forward," Mr McCarthy said.

But it might be "months" before Trump administration officials do. Mr Barr ordered US Attorney John Durham to look into the origins of the Obama administration-ordered Russia meddling investigation, but has said Mr Durham will not have findings for a few more months. And there's no guarantee Mr Durham's report will satisfy the president, who has given every indication Obamagate is something of a re-election campaign backup plan if the economy continues to sink. So what Democrats initially dismissed as a baseless conspiracy theory has become a very real legislative roadblock.