The House of Representatives has just voted down a bill that would have extended the intelligence community’s warrantless surveillance powers by three weeks.
The measure, which needed a two-thirds majority to pass, failed to even get a simple majority, with 198 voting in favor and 218 voting against.
The authority, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, will expire at 11:59 p.m. Friday unless Congress approves an extension. So far, lawmakers have refused to do so in protest of President Trump appointing federal housing regulator Bill Pulte acting director of national intelligence.
“There’s really not a negotiation until the president backs away from Bill Pulte,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, told Punchbowl News. “And that is a near-unanimous belief in this building. That is not a Democratic thing.”