For the first time in its nearly 18-year history, a key U.S. surveillance authority is headed for a lapse in authorization, after Democrats refused to back an extension unless President Donald Trump abandoned his plan to install Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence.

Both the House and Senate rejected a three-week extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on Thursday, with lawmakers leaving Washington after the failed votes and all but ensuring the authority will expire at midnight Friday.

The unsuccessful votes marked the culmination of a remarkable standoff in which Democrats drew a hard line against extending one of the government’s most important intelligence tools unless Trump reversed course on Pulte.

For days, Democrats have raised concerns with Pulte’s appointment, citing his lack of intelligence experience, pointing to the mortgage fraud referrals he brought against the president’s opponents, and openly worrying that he may use sensitive intelligence for political purposes.

The depth of that opposition became clear Thursday when top Democrats brushed aside Trump’s decision to nominate Jay Clayton — the current U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York — to serve as director of national intelligence.

Despite that apparent olive branch from the White House, Democrats insisted they wouldn’t support a FISA extension unless Trump formally withdraws Pulte’s appointment.

“Pulte has got to go,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters shortly after the Clayton announcement. “The DNI role is too important. He cannot be there, no ifs ands or buts.”

Asked what he thought of Clayton, Schumer said it was irrelevant.

“Doesn’t matter what else they do,” he said. “Pulte’s got to be gone. He’s still in that role.”

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, struck a similar tone. In a statement, Warner called Clayton “a capable public servant” but said until the Pulte matter is taken care of, he’ll withhold his vote for FISA.

“While I am glad to see the president finally come to his senses, before the Senate can take up a FISA extension there needs to be a clear guarantee that Mr. Pulte will not serve as acting DNI,” the Virginia Democrat wrote.

Part of the problem, Democrats argued, is that even with Clayton’s appointment, Pulte could still have time to misuse his perch as the director of national intelligence. Clayton would need to be confirmed by the Senate before assuming the position, which could take weeks — or longer.

Clayton is scheduled to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee for a confirmation hearing on June 17 at 2 p.m. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Thursday he expects to move through the process quickly.

Meanwhile, Pulte is set to assume the acting director of national intelligence job on June 19, according to Trump, which means that if Clayton isn’t confirmed in a speedy fashion, Pulte could spend some time at the helm of the intelligence community. It’s clearly a concern for Democrats.

“Trump’s choice of Jay Clayton for Director of National Intelligence does not resolve the President’s Pulte problem,” said Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who sat on the Intelligence Committee when he served in the House.

“Bill Pulte cannot be allowed to weaponize the intelligence community, misuse it for purposes of election interference, politicize the conclusion of analysts to suit the President’s false narratives, or rifle through the private data of the America people,” Schiff said.

In the interim, Democrats have raised a number of potential off-ramps, including having the current director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard — who many dislike — remain in the role, or giving the job to principal deputy director of national intelligence, Aaron Lukas, in the meantime.

Trump, for his part, is continuing to push for Pulte.

“He’s only there for a little while,” Trump said of Pulte. “He’s running it for a short while.”

The impasse is now poised to push Section 702 into its first-ever expiration, alarming national security hawks in both parties.

On Thursday, all but seven House Democrats voted against the three-week patch, leaving the vote at 198-218 — far short of the two-thirds threshold needed to pass the bill under the fast-track suspension of the rules process. 

Across the Capitol, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., objected to a unanimous consent request to extend FISA to July 2.

After the House vote, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., called the outcome “shameful.”

“It is detestable, it is dangerous, it is going to jeopardize the safety and security of the American people,” he said, pointing to the start of the World Cup in the U.S. and upcoming “America 250” events scheduled across the country.

“Those things are in jeopardy right now, because the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is exactly what the name implies, it is how we monitor terrorists who are plotting and planning dangerous events in the country, in our homeland,” Johnson added.

FISA section 702 allows the U.S. to spy on foreigners located outside the country, a key national security tool established in 2008 that advocates say has thwarted attacks in the past. According to the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, information gathered through the program contributed to 63% of the articles included in the president’s daily brief.

If Congress blows past Friday’s deadline, the future of FISA is up for debate — in large part because an expiration is unprecedented.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court recertified FISA for a year in March. But without congressional authorization, some lawmakers and experts say the program enters a legal gray area — a fact that is fueling concerns about a lapse in the authority.

Some Democrats have argued the immediate consequences may be limited because existing investigations can continue.

“My understanding is that investigations can continue under the authority that has existed before now, and there need be no total shutdown,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Thursday. “It’s a matter of authority, not funding, and ongoing investigations or imminent threats can be investigated.”

But the situation seems open to interpretation. Some lawmakers fear that the tech providers who turn over data to the government may not cooperate with warrants if the authority has expired.

When Warner was asked Thursday about what would happen, his response was: “We don’t know the answer to that.”

“It is obviously a high-risk proposition,” he said.

Kevin Frey contributed to this repor

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After House Republicans initially showed opposition to President Donald Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund, the House passed the GOP’s immigration enforcement reconciliation bill on Tuesday without any legislative restrictions on the proposed $1.776 billion pot of money. 

The bill — which funds Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol for three years — passed on a party-line 214-212 vote.

The outcome reflects both the political and procedural realities facing Republicans in Washington, as they navigate razor-thin majorities, unified control of government and the ever-present risk of Trump’s wrath.

Procedurally, House Republicans had virtually no opportunity to offer amendments restricting the fund, a consequence of the chamber’s leadership-driven process. In the Senate, meanwhile, the parliamentarian ruled that most fund-related amendments would require 60 votes — a threshold supporters just didn’t meet.

Ultimately, all but one Republican senator — Sen. Susan Collins of Maine — voted for the bill, a remarkable reversal for several lawmakers who had previously said they couldn’t support the package without language blocking the fund. The White House had also signaled that Trump could veto the legislation if it included restrictions on the program.

Politically, many Republicans concluded that sinking the party’s signature immigration bill wasn’t a tenable outcome, particularly given Trump’s recent penchant for retribution against Republican naysayers.

In the end, GOP lawmakers opted to fight another day.

“A lot of us would like to see the weaponization fund be killed and buried forever,” a moderate House Republican told MS NOW, requesting anonymity to discuss the internal sentiments.

But, this lawmaker added, “not funding border patrol and ICE is, I think, unhelpful.”

“Holding something hostage for something on weaponization, I think, would be difficult to achieve, especially since the Senate’s already passed it,” this Republican said.

A number of Republicans toyed with opposing the reconciliation bill. 

Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., caused some drama on the floor after he unexpectedly voted no. (After a lengthy discussion with House GOP leaders, he ultimately switched his vote.)

Of course, more moderate House Republicans could have withheld their support until GOP leaders added language prohibiting Trump’s compensation fund — as some Senate Republicans wanted. And about a dozen conservative Republicans initially held out on supporting a rule to set up debate of the bill on Tuesday, arguing that GOP leaders should add language from another hardline immigration bill — H.R. 2, a sweeping measure to install more restrictive asylum rules, require businesses to use the federal “E-verify” system for worker authorization, and remove certain protections unaccompanied children.

In the end, every Republican voted for the bill and every Democrat voted against it. The only lawmaker to technically cross party lines was Independent Rep. Kevin Kiley of California — who was a Republican up until March and usually sides with the GOP.

Not every Republican was thrilled with that outcome. 

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who’s retiring at the end of this year, unleashed on his GOP colleagues in a lengthy email on Tuesday, slamming them for voting down his amendment that would have blocked the fund.

The result, he argued, will come back to bite Republicans during the November midterm elections.

“I’m sure most of you would prefer to move forward, but I believe we will look back at this experience as yet another reason why we will have historic headwinds against us in November,” Tillis wrote in the email, which was obtained by MS NOW.

“We missed an opportunity to remove a political albatross (the 1776 Fund) from around the necks of our colleagues who are in cycle,” Tillis said. “Instead, we added weight to that albatross by having 41 members vote to protect the program.”

Tillis’ amendment overwhelmingly failed in a 15-84 vote, with just 12 Republicans and three Democrats voting in support. Hours later, Tillis voted for the reconciliation bill after clearly saying he’d be a “no” without language pushing back on the anti-weaponization fund.

With the immigration enforcement package now in the rearview mirror, some House Republicans are setting their sights on a new strategy to block the anti-weaponization fund: A standalone bill sponsored by Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., to prevent federal funds from being used to pay claims submitted to the fund.

The push for the bill comes after Trump over the weekend said he still thinks the weaponization fund is “a great idea.”

“And so do many other Republicans,” Trump said. 

“If they get it approved, that’s great,” he said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “If they don’t get it approved, I’d be disappointed.”

The comments flew in the face of remarks made by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who told lawmakers last week that the administration is “not moving forward with the fund. Period.”

Blanche’s comments seemed to calm the nerves of some lawmakers and clear the way for passage of the reconciliation bill without any legislative restrictions.

Fitzpatrick and Suozzi are planning to file a discharge petition to force a vote on the measure this week, a source familiar with the matter told MS NOW, a posture that is already prompting consternation in the Republican ranks.

During a closed-door House GOP conference meeting on Tuesday, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., urged members not to sign discharge petitions, according to a source in the room, as top lawmakers try to beat-back at a process that circumvents leadership’s wishes.

Fitzpatrick is firing back. 

In a post on X, he said discharge petitions wouldn’t be needed if the House floor “was managed properly.”

“A successful discharge petition is clear and direct evidence of a poorly managed House Floor—because it demonstrates that the will of the majority of the People is being thwarted by the privileged few,” he wrote. “Leadership of both parties have been guilty of this for years.”

He added that the rise of discharge petitions in this Congress was just “further evidence of the brokenness of the two-party system—and the rise of Independent voters is a direct manifestation of this.”

But the limits of that strategy are hard to ignore. As forcefully as Fitzpatrick opposed the anti-weaponization fund, he ultimately gave up his most powerful bargaining chip. By backing the reconciliation bill without restrictions on the program, he helped clear the path for legislation that is almost certain to become law, while pinning his hopes on a standalone measure that’s almost certain to never become law.

Passage of the ICE and border patrol bill puts a bookend on a months-long fight over the administration’s immigration crackdown. That battle began in January, following the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis, which prompted Democrats to demand immigration reforms in exchange for additional funding and contributed to a shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security.

The dispute escalated in March, when Republicans agreed to separate ICE and Border Patrol funding from the broader DHS appropriations process.

But the disagreement reached its peak last month, when the administration blindsided many Republican lawmakers with the anti-weaponization fund — a proposal that exposed rare divisions within the GOP and continues to generate resistance even after Congress delivered Trump a major legislative victory.

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Lesley Groff, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime assistant, denied knowledge of her former boss’s crimes in her transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday, the latest witness to testify in the panel’s sprawling Epstein investigation.

“I believe that my testimony will dispel the false notions that because of my employment with Epstein I must have knowingly enabled or conspired with him to commit his evil acts,” she said, according to a copy of her opening statement obtained by MS NOW. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Groff, who worked for Epstein for 18 years until he was arrested in 2019 on sex trafficking charges, told lawmakers in her opening statement that she never socialized with Epstein or his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell. She described Epstein as “a master manipulator and deceiver who separated his legitimate life from his secret life as an abuser and made sure that as his secretary, those two worlds did not collide.”

Several Democrats on the committee have said that Groff’s testimony was not credible.

“Leslie Groff maintained today that she never once even had a suspicion that perhaps he was abusing women and girls; I find it unbelievable — absolutely unbelievable, not remotely credible,” Rep. James Walkinshaw, D-Va., told MS NOW’s “The Weeknight.”

Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., told reporters earlier Tuesday during a break in the interview that Groff’s characterization of their relationship was “highly inconsistent.”

“He was a registered sex offender, and she arranged young women for massages with a registered sex offender, and I just question whether … she can rightfully and truthfully maintain that she saw nothing improper in that,” he said.

According to her opening statement, Groff told lawmakers she made massage appointments for Epstein almost daily. She said she never met any of the masseuses, and none of them told her that they were minors or that they were being sexually abused. “Nothing I heard or saw led me to believe otherwise,” she said in her statement.

Groff also said she arranged phone calls between Epstein and Donald Trump, according to Lynch. Groff did not say what year that happened, but it was before Trump became president, Lynch said. (Trump has said he cut ties with Epstein in the 2000s, and he has not been charged or officially accused in court of crimes related to the Epstein files.)

Groff’s name appears more than 160,000 times in the Epstein files released by the Justice Department. She was one of the most present people in Epstein’s orbit, arranging his meetings with prominent figures and setting up massages for him with women.

Marina Lacerda, who was abused by Epstein as a minor, said at a news conference in September 2025 that Groff “would call me and tell me that I needed to be at the house so often that I ended up dropping out of high school before ninth grade.”

Notably, House Chaplain Margaret Grun Kibben was also in attendance for the first nearly 1.5 hours of Groff’s interview. The chaplain has not been seen at the committee’s previous hearings on Epstein.

When asked why she was there, Kibben told MS NOW: “Pastoral care is confidential.”

Groff does not face any criminal charges related to the late financier. Her attorney, Michael Bachner, previously said in a statement that “she had no criminal involvement with Epstein.”

“Lesley is simply disgusted by Epstein’s conduct and is heartbroken by what his victims endured,” Bachner said.

Groff is the latest Epstein witness to appear before the panel as part of its investigation into the late sex offender, with billionaire Bill Gates scheduled to testify before the committee on Wednesday. Like the other interviews, Groff’s will be transcribed and made public at a later date.

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