By Nolan D. McCaskill and Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON, June 5 (Reuters) – Seven Republicans in the U.S. Senate on Friday joined Democrats to block debate on reauthorization of an expiring foreign surveillance law.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will expire on June 12 without congressional action. But a vote to begin debate failed early Friday, 47-52. Only one Democrat, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, voted in favor of it.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune lamented that nearly every Democrat opposed the procedural vote. But the vote nonetheless represented a significant setback for Republicans, who narrowly control both the Senate and House of Representatives.
Democrats have taken issue with President Donald Trump’s appointment of Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence, despite his lack of national security experience.
Thune said the Trump administration will have to consider whether Pulte’s role is an impediment to extending the warrantless domestic surveillance powers measure, which Congress voted to extend for 45 days on April 30.
“Next week, it gets real,” Thune told reporters. “A few days from now … the program goes dark. I just think that would be a dangerous mistake for the country. Hopefully, responsible folks will come to the table and at least help us figure this out.”
While the timing of Pulte’s appointment “arguably wasn’t the best,” Thune said, “I still don’t think it ought to derail something that’s this important.”
The setback marked one more development that saw some Senate Republicans balking at a range of Trump initiatives, including his push for $1 billion in funding to help him build a 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom and establish a $1.776 billion fund that he could use to funnel money to his political allies who claim they have been mistreated by the government.
Polls show a lack of public support at a time when voters want Washington to do something to ease a rising rate of inflation that is partially the result of the United States’ war with Iran that has hampered the international movement of oil.
(Reporting by Nolan D. McCaskill. Editing by Michael Learmonth and Chizu Nomiyama )
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