Seven Senate Republicans voted against a bipartisan deal to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for another three years, after Democrats tanked the plan over President Donald Trump’s pick for the director of national intelligence.
Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Rick Scott (R-FL), Rand Paul (R-KY), Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Mike Lee (R-UT), and John Kennedy (R-LA) joined all Democrats, except for Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), in voting against the measure. While Democrats voted against it in protest of Trump’s pick of Bill Pulte as acting DNI, the seven Republicans justified their vote by arguing there weren’t enough protections for citizens. The vote failed 47 to 52.
There was a flurry of Senate action Thursday night into Friday morning, with Republicans passing the $70 billion immigration funding bill after an hourslong vote-a-rama, where senators can introduce and vote on various amendments to legislation. The bill passed without the proposed ban on the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, which the Trump administration walked back its support of earlier this week. The FISA 702 vote came after the immigration fund bill passed.
“And the FISA 702 reauthorization vote just failed—because it didn’t contain a warrant to protect Americans from U.S. citizen queries, Lee said in a post on X, gloating in an attached video message that the “intel bros” lost and “we won.”
