Pelosi again cancels FISA bill vote, after Trump vows veto

For the second day in a row, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has canceled a vote to reauthorize lapsed foreign intelligence surveillance authorities.

Pelosi's decision to cancel Thursday's vote was announced Wednesday by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who acknowledged that the bill apparently no longer has enough support to pass in the lower chamber.

"Two-thirds of the Republican Party that voted for the bill in March have indicated they are going to vote against it now," Hoyer said in a statement. "I am told they are doing so at the request of the president." 

The bill, if passed, would reauthorize lapsed sections of the USA Freedom Act and a 2015 surveillance law that slightly alters court provisions in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

On Tuesday night, President Trump urged fellow Republicans to vote no on the bill, citing Obama administration abuse of the surveillance system to spy on his 2016 presidential campaign. He later said that he would veto the bill, should it pass. 

"There are still so many questions that need to be answered about real abuses that happened in the FISA system," said House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.).

The FISA bill has already lived many lives in both the House and Senate, initially having been passed in March by the House, and sent through a round of edits in the Senate, which also ultimately passed the measure on a vote of 80-16.

However, the changes made by the legislative bodies did not sit well with the Justice Department, which now opposes the legislation in its new form. 

Pelosi and her team will need to wrangle the newly withdrawn support of some Republicans as well as members of the progressive caucus before the bill can pass the House again.