Johnson forced to delay House vote on controversial surveillance tool after GOP mutiny threats

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EXCLUSIVE: Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was forced to backpedal on holding a House vote on renewing and revising a key surveillance tool of the U.S. government after a bloc of GOP lawmakers threatened a mutiny, Fox News Digital has learned.

The House Rules Committee had been partially through considering a bill to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) when Johnson’s spokesperson announced that a planned House-wide vote would not happen this week as expected.

The Rules panel, which had to approve the bill before it hit the House floor, abruptly called off the rest of its session with no explanation.

But four sources told Fox News Digital that all progress on the FISA bill would be postponed until a later date because members of the House Intelligence Committee threatened to tank a procedural vote to effectively kill the legislation.

"Instead of playing the game through Rules and regular order, Intel decided to take their ball and go home, walking away from the negotiated text and amendment plan without any understanding of why," one source said.

Three more sources close to the Intelligence Committee challenged that narrative to Fox News Digital, saying the bill text was changed over the weekend without their consent or the consent of the House Judiciary Committee, which also worked on the bill.

They said the issue