Washington– Republicans warn the White House that A Critical control authority This week will likely pass amid a bipartisan backlash against President Donald Trump Choose to drive temporarily The country’s intelligence community.
Senator Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sounded the alarm in a letter over the weekend after a procedural vote to extend the program failed.
The senators urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as the president’s national security adviser, to prepare for a “potentially significant gap in foreign intelligence collection” if his powers expire. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, set to expire on June 12, allows agencies including the CIA, NSA and FBI to collect communications from foreign targets abroad without a warrant.
In a response obtained by The Associated Press, Rubio responded to senators that he understood the “political challenges,” but said he was “deeply disappointed” that Democrats opposed the legislation.
“Allowing Section 702 to expire would have severe implications for our ability to keep the country safe,” Rubio wrote.
Efforts are being made to ensure the program is extended over the long term Already faced obstacles Because of bipartisan concerns that the program might accidentally collect Americans’ communications. Privacy advocates and some lawmakers are pushing to create a new warrant requirement before those communications can be searched.
Senate leaders from both parties appeared to be moving closer to a bipartisan agreement on a long-term extension, but the effort collapsed after Trump chose federal housing finance regulator Bill Bolt to serve as acting director of national intelligence.
Democrats and many Republicans registered their opposition to Trump’s selection of Bolte, saying the Federal Housing Finance Regulatory Authority lacks the experience needed to oversee the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies and has used his current position to investigate some of the president’s perceived political rivals.
“I’m not sure why the president would throw this live grenade to Bill Bolt 10 days before it expires,” Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told ABC’s “This Week.”
Even as they say it’s critical, Democrats have said they won’t have the votes to renew oversight authority unless Bolte’s appointment is withdrawn. Republican leaders tried to jump-start the process last week, but seven Republicans joined nearly all Democrats in blocking the long-term extension.
“The White House has a responsibility to fix this,” Warner said. “They have the ability to do it. They can do it today. Let’s see what happens.”
Trump has said Bolte will not be his permanent pick, but he has not announced a nominee to be confirmed by the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday that there are “conversations” about the White House nominating a permanent pick for the position before oversight authority expires. But he said he’s not sure what they’ll decide to do.
“We have a deadline,” Thune said. “We need Democratic votes.” “Naming Bolte to this position, although the timing was not the best, I still don’t think he should derail something so important.”
Thune also expressed concern about Bolte’s selection, saying that the country’s top intelligence position should not be “weaponized” and that the job should be filled by “professionals.” Cotton, who rarely strays from Trump’s support and is a prominent advocate of surveillance power, declined to endorse Bolte last week, saying only that he had “no comments on this issue.”
“He is not qualified for the long-term position,” Republican Senator James Lankford, another member of the Intelligence Committee, told “Fox News Sunday.” “He’s been clear about that. He has no national security background.”
Both Republican and Democratic senators skeptical of Bolte pointed to his record at the Federal Housing Finance Agency. In that position, he was linked to criminal referrals over allegations of mortgage fraud by government officials whom Trump sought to punish, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat; Senator Adam Schiff, Democrat of California; and Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Directors.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “It is clear that in order to reach good faith negotiations, efforts to promote Bill Bolt to acting Director of National Intelligence must be reversed immediately.”
The current reauthorization discussion is not the first time lawmakers have grappled with the fate of the surveillance program, especially after a wave of revelations Abuse of government From the huge amount of intelligence he collects.
The topic has in recent years blurred predictable partisan alignments, as Democratic critics of the Trump administration united with skeptics of government power on the right in voicing concerns about the renewal of Section 702.
In 2024, for example, these divisions nearly caused the program’s collapse. The Senate barely made it past a midnight deadline that year before approving legislation by a 60-34 margin to reauthorize Section 702 that then-President Joe Biden had signed.
In a post on X, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche urged Democrats to “return to the table with their Republican counterparts.”
Blanche said the agency “is one of our country’s main tools for finding and stopping foreign terrorists.”
Cotton and Grassley said they believed Democratic leaders would not support another short-term extension of oversight authority and urged Rubio to prepare contingency plans. They said Trump should consider issuing an executive order to prevent disruptions in intelligence gathering.
Democrats and Republicans said they are close to reaching a bipartisan agreement on a long-term extension and can still move quickly if there is a change before Friday. However, the bill will likely need to pass through the House of Representatives — and the two chambers have so far disagreed on a separate issue related to central bank digital currency.
Republicans are already warning of the consequences if Congress fails to act.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said: “If darkness falls, it will be a disastrous situation for the country.”
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Associated Press writer Seung-Min Kim contributed to this report.