Seven Republican senators joined Democrats early on Friday to block the extension of a powerful government surveillance program, a rebuke to Donald Trump for choosing an inexperienced ally as the country’s top intelligence official. The renewal had been in question amid bipartisan concern over the US president’s appointment of Bill Pulte, a major Republican donor and heir to a home construction fortune, to serve as acting director of national intelligence.
Pulte, who has no intelligence experience, was tapped controversially earlier this week by Trump days after Tulsi Gabbard announced her exit from the role. The Senate majority leader, John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said following the 47-52 vote that the chamber “will take another run at it” next week, but expressed little confidence the measure would pass.
Democrats, he said, had taken a “terribly irresponsible position” by opposing the extension to section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa). The program permits US intelligence agencies to collect communications of foreign targets operating outside the country without a warrant.
Critics say that a wide array of domestic communications can be also be swept up without a warrant ever being sought because they may pass through US servers or involve US contacts. The program is set to expire next week, and Friday morning’s procedural measure, if it had passed, would have set up a final Senate vote on the extension before a 12 June congressional deadline.
“The naming of Pulte to that position, although the timing arguably wasn’t the best, I still don’t think it ought to derail something that’s this important,” Thune said. He did not mention the Republican senators who crossed the aisle to join Democrats to vote against the Fisa extension pathway.