Trump’s choice of acting intel chief threatens fragile surveillance-powers deal

President Donald Trump’s decision to name William Pulte as acting director of national intelligence is threatening a fragile Senate deal to extend a contentious surveillance authority.

On Tuesday, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., asked Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., to press the White House to reverse the appointment of Pulte, who has no national-security background but does have a record of targeting Trump’s political adversaries. Warner said the appointment could sink a deal to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, according to a person familiar with the matter. 

Punchbowl News first reported Warner’s request to Thune.

Section 702, which allows the NSA and other spy agencies to collect communications of foreigners abroad without a warrant, has long been controversial because Americans’ communications are sometimes swept up in the process. Although the intelligence community insists that the program is key to national security, many lawmakers remain dubious. Efforts to reauthorize the program has produced only short-term renewals, the latest of which will expire on June 12.

Warner has been one of the key Democratic negotiators in FISA talks, and was involved in a recent arrangement with Thune and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that cleared the way for a 45-day short-term extension of the authority. That deal included a commitment to declassify a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinion, a key demand of civil-liberties advocates. 

But the status of that declassification process is unclear. Last month, Wyden said the Trump administration was ignoring the request.

GOP leaders are unlikely to pass an extension alone. Several Republican senators are expected to oppose any FISA deal, meaning Thune will need Democratic votes to move the bill through the Senate. The high chamber could hold an initial procedural vote on a Section 702 extension as soon as Thursday. 

The emerging deal includes provisions meant to win over skeptical lawmakers, including a three-year ban on a central bank digital currency and language barring the FBI from using Section 702 information to prosecute U.S. persons. It stops short of including a full warrant requirement for queries of U.S. person data collected under the program, a measure long sought by the civil liberties community.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who previously served as the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told House lawmakers Wednesday that he had never heard Pulte’s name during his time on the panel. 

Thune also appeared to acknowledge broader concern about the appointment, telling reporters Tuesday that “we don’t need a weaponized DNI.” If the White House tried to nominate Pulte permanently, Thune added, he would have “a lengthy road ahead of him” to win confirmation.

Thune then referred questions about Pulte to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who told reporters he had “no observations on the matter.”

Over the last several months, the FISA fight has intersected with broader anxieties about domestic surveillance, immigration enforcement and whether emerging artificial intelligence tools could give agencies more powerful ways to analyze large amounts of sensitive personal data.

Section 702, enacted in 2008, codified parts of the once-secret Stellarwind surveillance program created under the Bush administration after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In 2013, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden disclosed documents detailing how the authority was used, fueling a global debate over privacy and mass surveillance.

The program is frequently used to track national-security threats, including hackers, terrorist groups and foreign intelligence operatives.