Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act lapsed on June 12, 2026, the first time the law has expired since it was passed in 2008. Congress had the votes to extend it. Democrats chose not to provide them. The reason: President Trump had just installed Bill Pulte, a housing official with no intelligence background and no security clearance, as the acting director of national intelligence.
It is the most significant use of Democratic leverage since the beginning of Trump’s second term, and it produced a partial result. On June 11, Trump nominated a more credible candidate for the permanent DNI post. Pulte remains in the acting role for now.
Who Bill Pulte Is
Pulte, 38, is the heir to PulteGroup, one of the largest homebuilding companies in the United States. He has a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from Northwestern. He founded a private equity firm in 2011 and a nonprofit that clears blighted homes in 2015. He has no background in intelligence, no national security experience, and, at the time of his appointment as acting DNI on June 2, no security clearance.
The law establishing the DNI position explicitly requires that anyone nominated for the job have extensive national security expertise. The acting appointment sidesteps the confirmation process, but not the law’s plain text.
What Pulte does have is a record of using his previous post, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as a weapon against Trump’s political opponents. As FHFA director, Pulte filed criminal referrals to the Justice Department alleging mortgage fraud against New York Attorney General Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, and former Rep. Eric Swalwell. All four denied wrongdoing. The Government Accountability Office opened an investigation into whether Pulte misused federal authority to pursue them. Rep. Jamie Raskin alleged in a letter to Pulte that the FHFA used Palantir’s AI tools to run what he described as deep-sea fishing expeditions of Americans’ personal financial information to deliver opposition research on people who held Trump accountable.
On June 2, Trump named Pulte acting director of national intelligence, giving him oversight of all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies. The appointment was widely seen as a reward for Pulte’s aggressive use of the FHFA.
What Section 702 Is
Section 702 authorizes the government to conduct targeted surveillance of foreign nationals located outside the United States. Intelligence agencies identify foreign targets and direct U.S. technology companies to hand over those targets’ phone calls, emails, and text messages. The law does not require a court order for individual targets, only annual approval of general surveillance procedures by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The law has broad bipartisan support as a counterterrorism and national security tool. It has also had documented abuses. The FBI used 702 data to run warrantless searches on Black Lives Matter protesters, U.S. government officials, journalists, political commentators, and 19,000 donors to a single congressional campaign. The law includes sunset provisions specifically so Congress can revisit it and impose reforms.
How the Expiration Happened
Democrats in both chambers made their position clear: no reauthorization while Pulte is running the intelligence community. On June 11, the House voted 198 to 218 on a short-term extension through July 2. Seven Democrats voted for it. Nineteen Republicans voted against it. The bill failed. The Senate blocked a separate unanimous consent attempt the same day, with Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon leading the objection.
The House then left for a scheduled weeklong recess. Trump called the Democratic strategy extortion and told Republicans to stand strong. Democrats said the extortion framing was rich coming from a president who had just handed the nation’s spy apparatus to a man currently under GAO investigation for using a housing agency to build opposition research files on the president’s critics.
The Legal Gray Area
Despite the statute lapsing, Section 702 surveillance did not stop. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved its most recent certifications for 702 in March 2026, locking in surveillance authority through March 2027. Those certifications remain valid regardless of whether the underlying statute has expired. Intelligence agencies can continue operating under them.
What the lapse does create is legal vulnerability. Defendants in national security cases may now challenge the legality of evidence gathered under 702. That could affect prosecutions and, more immediately, the intelligence that flows into the president’s daily briefing. Officials in both parties warned of those risks before the vote. Democrats said the risk of Pulte running unchecked intelligence operations was greater.
What Came Out of It
On June 11, as the expiration became unavoidable, Trump announced he would nominate Jay Clayton as the permanent director of national intelligence. Clayton is the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the current U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. He was recommended to Trump by CIA Director John Ratcliffe. The Senate Intelligence Committee scheduled his confirmation hearing for the following Wednesday. Pulte remains acting DNI until Clayton is confirmed. Democrats said Pulte never should have been named in the first place. The surveillance tool his appointment helped kill remains expired.