As Congress nears a vote this week on extending the deep state’s ability to spy on Americans, emails obtained by the Lever show how an influential Democratic member of Congress is whipping votes behind the scenes in President Donald Trump and his defense industry donors’ favor while claiming to the Lever that he would not support reauthorizing the surveillance bill.

In a social media response to the Lever editor in chief David Sirota on April 17, Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) posted that a five-year extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — a “war on terror”–era measure that has allowed federal law enforcement to unofficially spy on Americans’ communications — was “not acceptable.”

But emails reviewed by the Lever show Himes, the top Democratic lawmaker on the House Intelligence Committee, urged his colleagues just hours before he posted the response to support a Trump administration–backed bill that would have extended the spying powers for another five years.