Trump admin tells all Democrats on intelligence oversight board to resign
The Trump administration has requested all Democratic members of an independent board meant to keep tabs on U.S. government intelligence efforts to resign, three people familiar with the matter told Recorded Future News.
The demand that three panelists of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) step down comes as President Donald Trump looks to oust Biden appointees throughout the federal government. Earlier this week the acting head of the Homeland Security Department dismissed all members of its advisory committees.
A source close to the agency confirmed that the White House had requested all three Democrats to resign effective by the end of Thursday.
The oversight board is a little-known executive branch agency that is supposed to be run by a bipartisan group of five people, who are nominated by the president and confirmed to six-year terms by the Senate.
It was thrust into the spotlight in 2023 when it split along party lines over recommending that a controversial foreign spying law require court approval for searches of data belonging to U.S. persons swept up by the effort. The statute, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), was renewed without such a mandate. It is up for renewal again next year.
Right now PCLOB has four members, three of whom are Democrats.
The term for Sharon Bradford Franklin, who was the panel’s first executive director and serves as its chair, ends next week. She was filling in for the remainder of a previous chair’s term.
Edward Felten, a professor of computer science and public policy at Princeton University and a former Obama administration official, terms out on January 29, according to his PCLOB biography.
However, there is a provision on the board’s governing statute that allows members to stay on for up to a year after their term has expired in order to give the agency time to appoint a replacement.
The issue is more complicated for Travis LeBlanc, who is in his second term and is supposed to serve until 2028. It’s unclear whether LeBlanc could be fired for cause if he defies the White House’s wishes.
If all three do resign, it would leave the agency unable to perform some of its oversight functions.
"Donald Trump promised to weaponize the government against his enemies and is installing MAGA loyalists and extreme partisans at intelligence agencies and the FBI," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), a top privacy hawk. By purging the Democratic members of the PLOB "Trump is kneecapping one of the only independent watchdogs over government surveillance who could alert Congress and the public about surveillance abuses by his administration.”
By law, the board must have at least three members to hold a quorum. Without that number of panelists, PCLOB cannot open or close any existing projects, though its staff can continue to work on previously approved efforts, the source close to the agency said.
The New York Times first reported on the Trump administration’s efforts to remove PCLOB members.
The White House did not return a request for comment.
Martin Matishak
is the senior cybersecurity reporter for The Record. Prior to joining Recorded Future News in 2021, he spent more than five years at Politico, where he covered digital and national security developments across Capitol Hill, the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community. He previously was a reporter at The Hill, National Journal Group and Inside Washington Publishers.
Suzanne Smalley
is a reporter covering privacy, disinformation and cybersecurity policy for The Record. She was previously a cybersecurity reporter at CyberScoop and Reuters. Earlier in her career Suzanne covered the Boston Police Department for the Boston Globe and two presidential campaign cycles for Newsweek. She lives in Washington with her husband and three children.