Thread by @benjaminwittes

Well, since the press is now covering the president’s perfectly idiotic tweet today about @DavidKris, I suppose I should say a few words about him.
washingtonpost.com/national-secur…

First of all, it isn’t up to the president whom the FISC hears from on a matter before it. The FISC is a court composed of Article III judges, and it is entitled to reach out and seek guidance from anyone it bloody well wants to hear from.

The question, therefore, is why would the FISC want to hear from @DavidKris? Here is the answer, in very brief summary.

David is both the leading academic authority on FISA—though he is not an academic—and one of the people in the world with the most hands on experience with the FISA process.

He has deep credibility with the FISC, having both written key briefs in the famous litigation over “the wall” after 9/11 and having led NSD at a time when a serious mess involving NSA compliance needed to be cleaned up with the court.

He wrote with Doug Wilson the leading treatise on national security investigations and prosecutions, which contains more useful analysis of FISA than does anything else out there.

And he is universally regarded as a genuinely nonpartisan authority on the subject. That the president can call him “highly controversial” suggests to me that the president had not heard of David until this morning.

On matters of national security law, nobody is less controversial or stands more for the idea of nonpartisan expertise.

It would have been very surprising to me had the court NOT sought David’s input.

And as I say, it does not need the president’s permission—thank God.

Here is David’s most recent Lawfare post on the IG report. If you take the time to read it, you will see precisely why the court wanted to hear from him.
lawfareblog.com/further-though…

So there.