https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fi...gger-to-oversee-fbis-surveillance-reforms.amp I Published January 12, 2020 Last Update 4 minutes ago FISA selects former Obama admin lawyer, left-wing blogger to oversee FBI's surveillance reforms The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has stunned court-watchers by selecting David Kris -- a former Obama administration lawyer who has appeared on "The Rachel Maddow Show" and written extensively in support of the FBI's surveillance practices on the left-wing blog Lawfare -- to oversee the FBI's implementation of reforms in the wake of a damning Department of Justice Inspector general report last year. The development on Friday, first reported by independent journalist Mike Cernovich, has roiled Republicans who have demanded accountability at the FBI. House Intelligence Commitee ranking member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told The Daily Caller that Kris' appointment was "shocking" and "inexplicable." "It’s hard to imagine a worse person the FISC could have chosen outside [James] Comey, [Andy] McCabe, or [Adam] Schiff,” Nunes said. Speaking to Fox News contributor Sara Carter, Nunes added: “It’s a ridiculous choice. The FBI lied to the FISC, and to help make sure that doesn’t happen again, the FISC chose an FBI apologist who denied and defended those lies. The FISC is setting its own credibility on fire.” On Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures," Nunes reminded anchor Maria Bartiromo that Kris had panned the now-vindicated 2018 memo produced by Nunes' panel, which asserted a series of surveillance abuses by the FBI against former Trump aide Carter Page. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz later substantiated Nunes' claims, noting that the FBI had made numerous materially false representations to the FISC. "Of all the people in the swamp ... this is the guy that you come up with?" Nunes asked. "The guy that was accusing me of federal crimes? The guy that was defending the dirty cops at the FBI? ... The court must be trying to abolish itself. There is long-term damage." President Trump then referenced Nunes' interview with Bartiromo on Twitter on Sunday afternoon, calling Kris "highly controversial" and slamming the FISC's decision. President Trump then referenced Nunes' interview with Bartiromo on Twitter on Sunday afternoon, calling Kris "highly controversial" and slamming the FISC's decision. "You can't make this up!" Trump wrote. "David Kris, a highly controversial former DOJ official, was just appointed by the FISA Court to oversee reforms to the FBI's surveillance procedures. Zero credibility. THE SWAMP!" Kris argued on Lawfare in March 2018 that Nunes had "tried to deceive the American people in precisely the same way that it falsely accused the FBI of deceiving the FISA Court." Additionally, Kris claimed that "had the FBI done in its FISA applications what Nunes did in his memo, heads would have rolled on Pennsylvania Avenue." He asserted, “It’s disturbing that Page met that legal standard and that there was probable cause to conclude he was a Russian agent." "The Nunes memo was dishonest," Kris chargred. "And if it is allowed to stand, we risk significant collateral damage to essential elements of our democracy." Kris was a former assistant attorney general for national security who worked at the DOJ from 2009 to 2011, and served as an associate deputy attorney general under George W. Bush from 2000 to 2003. He later criticized Bush's justifications for warrantless wiretap surveillance. But, as the political winds changed, Kris became more of a proponent for government surveillance in other contexts. He appeared on MSNBC's left-wing "The Rachel Maddow Show" in 2018 to offer a spirited defense of the FBI's FISA practices. "FISA applications are typically quite long -- they're big enough that you don't want to drop one on your foot," Kris told Maddow. "They contain a lot of information and detail, because the statute is quite exacting in what it requires the government to establish to get the warrant granted." Commenting on whether unredacting FISA materials posed a challenge to the FBI's investigation, Kris remarked that "a lot of water [was] already under the bridge thanks to the back-and-forth precipitated" by Nunes -- knocking the key House Republican for pushing to release some of the secretive documents. Kris added: "These applications already substantially undermine the president's narrative and that of his proxies, and it seems to me very likely that if we get below the tip of the iceberg and into the submerged parts and more is revealed, it's going to get worse, not better. And it would potentially be dangerous to disclose additional information because some of this relates to ongoing investigations." On Twitter, Kris also insisted the "walls" were "closing in" on Trump -- a common refrain on liberal cable news networks during the Russia probe.