Congress failed to extend a key surveillance law Thursday, effectively ensuring it will expire Friday night over warnings from Republican lawmakers and national security officials.
The House rejected a proposal on a 218-198 vote that would have extended Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act through July 2. It would have been the latest in a series of punts Congress has passed in recent months.
Hours later, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon blocked a pair of proposed extensions in the other chamber — for three weeks and one week – on behalf of fellow Democrats who have been in an uproar over President Donald Trump’s decision to tap political ally Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence.
The extension was put on the House floor under a fast-track method requiring a two-thirds-majority vote, but it failed to garner even a simple majority, winning the support of only seven Democrats.
Nineteen House Republicans also voted to reject a punt of Section 702, which allows U.S. intelligence agencies to spy on targets abroad without a warrant. Surveillance under the program also sometimes captures communications with Americans, and some lawmakers in both parties want to put safeguards on how that material is searched.
The House is not expected to vote again until June 23, effectively ensuring Section 702 will expire for the first time since it was enacted in 2008. The Senate will return to town Monday, but with the House gone, the program will be stuck in limbo on Capitol Hill.
Speaker Mike Johnson blamed Democrats for the impending lapse in comments to reporters after the vote, calling their decision to oppose the temporary patch “shameful.” Senate Majority Leader John Thune later fumed on the Senate floor, calling Democrats’ decision to block a short-term “untenable” and “irresponsible.”
After most lawmakers left the Capitol for the weekend, Trump announced he would nominate Jay Clayton, the top federal prosecutor in New York City, for the permanent DNI job. But he did not back off Pulte assuming the job on an acting basis, leaving it unlikely the Section 702 impasse could be quickly broken.
“It doesn’t matter what else they do — Pulte has got to be gone,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters.
Many Hill Republicans believe, despite the congressional failure, the Trump administration can and will continue to operate the program for at least some period of time, possibly under a forthcoming executive order. But tech providers could mount legal challenges to the program if it expires, and national security officials fear that could temporarily limit visibility into surveillance targets under the law.
Asked if an executive order would be enough to keep Americans safe in the interim, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in an interview, “Hopefully it is.”
“Anybody who votes ‘no’ is casting a dangerous vote to put American lives at risk,” Scalise said, adding that Trump and his national security deputies are “going to do what they have to do to keep the country safe.”
Scalise said the burden for finding a solution lies with the Senate “to figure out some kind of path.” A procedural vote in the other chamber that would have set up passage of an extension failed last week.
Negotiators there had been circling on a deal allowing for a three-year extension of Section 702 authorities, but those talks collapsed after Trump announced his intention to appoint Pulte, a housing official with no national security experience.
“There’s really not a negotiation until the president backs away from Bill Pulte — and that is a near-unanimous belief in this building, that is not a Democratic thing,” said Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top House Intelligence Democrat. “Bill Pulte needs to leave the stage, and then we’ll go right back to where we were a week ago and get something done.”
He compared the appointment to Trump’s prior nomination of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as FBI director last year, sparking a bipartisan uproar: “Eventually the president realized that was a nonstarter, and I just hope that happens sooner rather than later.”
House Democratic leaders encouraged members to vote against the reauthorization Thursday, arguing “meaningful reforms” are necessary.
“Section 702 is a critical foreign intelligence authority, but we cannot in good conscience vote for reauthorization without significant reforms to protect both national security and the constitutional privacy rights of Americans,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other leaders said in a joint statement.
Kelsey Brugger and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.