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An ongoing false claim from former President Donald Trump about the Russia investigation may have had the unintended consequence of dismantling a longstanding surveillance program that was a threat to American civil liberties, analyst Hayes Brown wrote for MSNBC on Thursday.

Specifically, Trump's "Spygate" claims that his campaign was illegally snooped on by federal authorities led him to demand the expiration of the wrong statute, and now the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reauthorization is up in the air as a small group of House Republicans are joining all Democrats to oppose it.

Even a Fox News reporter called him "confused."

"'KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!!' he wrote on Truth Social, resurrecting one of his long-standing claims about the 2016 election," wrote Brown.

"And the bill being debated didn’t concern all of FISA, just Section 702. But Trump’s post was enough to bolster a revolt among conservative Republicans, 19 of whom voted with Democrats to block the reauthorization bill from coming up for debate.

"For once, though, the GOP’s disarray and obedience to Trump fortuitously may be put to good use. While Trump’s 'Spygate' narrative remains false, it may be harnessed to improve a broken part of America’s intelligence-gathering system."

The problem with Section 702, Brown explained, is a program that allows warrantless surveillance of foreigners living abroad, a once-secret program that was formally authorized in 2008. The law is not intended to apply to Americans, yet American data has been repeatedly caught up in the dragnet.

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Trump's claims that FISA was used to unlawfully spy on his campaign are false, Brown reiterated, and he has flip-flopped on the issue before, previously demanding it expire in 2018 before Republican lawmakers and his cabinet talked him out of it — but this time, things appear to be going differently.

"While Trump’s post rallied conservative opponents to the bill, it’s striking that the rule that was voted down Wednesday managed to get out of committee only because of a proposed bipartisan amendment to the reauthorization bill. The list of co-sponsors is one that you’d never expect to see grouped together, ranging from committed progressives to MAGA die-hards: Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.; Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.; Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y.; Warren Davidson, R-Ohio; Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.; and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio," wrote Brown. "Their proposed change would block 'warrantless searches of U.S. person communications in the FISA 702 database, with exceptions for imminent threats to life or bodily harm, consent searches, or known cybersecurity threat signatures.'"

Ultimately, Brown concluded, "it’s clear that Section 702 isn’t likely to be extended in full without at least some major changes" — and while "Trump’s delusions about the 'deep state' are usually best treated as the ramblings of someone upset that his authoritarian instincts are being trampled ... his ranting might legitimately help safeguard Americans’ rights" in this case.

Businessman Tim Sheehy, who is running for US Senate in Montana, has been hyping his rural connections to voters on the campaign trail. But a new report suggests Sheehy is actually a product of suburbia.

Farm life is a mainstay of Montana. US Census records show that the Big Sky State has the nation's fifth largest concentration of rural residents (behind Vermont, Maine, West Virginia and Mississippi), with 46.6% of its residents living in remote areas. Incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana), who is running for a fourth term this November, is a bona fide lifelong rancher who lost several fingers in a farming accident as a child. So Sheehy has been trying to persuade voters of his rural credentials, saying in a 2023 interview that he "grew up in an old farmstead... surrounded by farmland."

But according to the Daily Beast, Sheehy's upbringing in Minnesota was actually in "a multi-million-dollar lake house in Shoreview, Minnesota, a quiet Twin Cities suburb just north of St. Paul with a population of roughly 27,000."

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"According to a 1990 deed, Sheehy’s childhood home on Turtle Lake is 13 miles from the Minnesota State Capitol, 13 miles from the home of the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium, and just over 20 miles from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America," the Beast's Riley Rogerson wrote. "The property sits just three miles from a Trader Joe’s market—much closer than the nearest Fleet Farm, a fishing, hunting, and farm supply store popular in the state."

The Beast further reported that Sheehy claimed the Shoreview home as his residence as recently as 2016, before his parents ultimately sold it for more than $2 million the following year. Rogerson described the community as "a desirable slice of middle to upper-middle class suburbia with quiet spaces and good schools." Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, who authored The Great Gatsby, was educated at the nearby St. Paul Academy, the same exclusive private school where Sheehy graduated.

"Niche, a popular online source for school rankings and community reviews, called Shoreview 'one of the best places to live in Minnesota' and even bestowed the community with the distinction of '#1 Best Suburb to Buy a House in Minneapolis-St. Paul Area,'" Rogerson wrote, adding that residents described Shoreview as "the stereotypical suburb."

This isn't the first fib Sheehy has told about his upbringing. Last November, the GOP senate hopeful, who runs an aerial firefighting business, said on a podcast that when launching his company, he and his wife "bought our land, and we lived in a tent, literally, for months, and we built the barn that we lived in for four and a half years. And it was like bootstrap central." However, the Beast reported that his parents actually provided him with a $100,000 loan to get his business venture off the ground.

The Montana US Senate race is one of the most hotly contested elections this November, and could decide which party controls one half of the legislative branch for the next two years. Tester is the only remaining Democrat representing the Big Sky State in any statewide office, and he has amassed an impressive war chest in his bid for another six-year term. OpenSecrets reports that in the 2024 campaign cycle, Tester – who chairs the Senate Veteran Affairs Committee — has raised more than $24 million.

Sheehy also trails tester in polling. RealClearPolitics' polling average has Tester ahead by more than five points in a head-to-head matchup with Sheehy, and he has not trailed in any previous poll conducted thus far. Montana remains a GOP stronghold, however, and former President Donald Trump is heavily favored to carry the state in November, having easily won it with comfortable majorities in both 2016 and 2020.

Click here to read the Beast's full report (subscription required).