Trump Risks Key Surveillance Authority Over ‘Unqualified’ Spy-Chief Pick
A sweeping warrantless surveillance authority remains on track to expire Friday, with no clear path to a deal, after President Donald Trump refused this week to abandon his pick of housing official Bill Pulte to temporarily lead the US intelligence community—even tasking Pulte with gutting the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in a DOGE-style “downsizing“ before a permanent director is named.In a Truth Social post after his second White House meeting in two days with House speaker Mike Johnson, Trump called Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act “very important to our military, and keeping the American people safe” and asked Congress for a short-term extension to give him time to find a permanent director of national intelligence.Section 702 lets the government collect the communications of foreign targets abroad without a warrant, sweeping in an unknown volume of Americans’ messages that the FBI can later search. It faces a first-ever lapse in its legal authorization if Congress does not act by the end of Friday, June 12. Any renewal needs 60 votes in a Senate where Republicans hold 53 seats.The director of national intelligence oversees the program, and Pulte’s appointment as acting DNI has become the major sticking point. Reauthorization had been on a workable path until Trump named him as Tulsi Gabbard’s replacement early last week. Senate leaders then could not muster enough votes to pass even a motion to begin debate on the program, with seven Republicans breaking from the party to join Democrats. The Republican holdouts want a warrant requirement to query Americans’ data, which the administration rejects; Democrats refuse to advance the bill while Pulte is in line for the job.As head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Pulte has sent the Justice Department criminal referrals alleging mortgage fraud by Trump critics including New York attorney general Letitia James, Senator Adam Schiff, and Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook—nearly identical allegations, which all have denied, against three of Trump's highest-profile critics. He has no intelligence background, despite a post-9/11 statute requiring the director to have “extensive national security expertise.” Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee and a coauthor of last week’s stalled bipartisan compromise, said someone with a history of weaponizing confidential information should not be handed the role.House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries has drawn a hard line over the appointment. Negotiations were “already in a very sensitive place,“ he told reporters Monday, when “Donald Trump, as he often does, tosses a hand grenade” by elevating Pulte. In a separate interview, Jeffries called Pulte “deeply unqualified” and “deeply dangerous,” with no national security, military, or law enforcement background and a demonstrated willingness to “weaponize the federal government against Donald Trump’s perceived adversaries.”Withdrawing the appointment, he said, was a necessary but not sufficient condition for a deal: “That’s a starting point, not an ending point,” he said. “And then we can see if we can responsibly get to a place where there are enough reforms built into the law to provide guardrails and protect the American people.”GOP leaders have pressed the White House for an off-ramp. Senate majority leader John Thune said the administration was “weighing seriously“ naming a permanent, Senate-confirmed director, while claiming the program is essential heading into the World Cup and the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations—framing the president echoed on Truth Social on Wednesday. Senator John Cornyn was more direct: “I’m still seeking any evidence of qualifications. And Democrats are not going to vote to pass 702 until he’s withdrawn.”Cornyn said materials from Section 702 generate roughly 60 percent of the President’s Daily Brief, a figure Senate Judiciary chairman Chuck Grassley has also cited.Some Republicans d
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