Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

7. Intelligence Community · Major · Needs Congress

Enact an express prohibition on politically motivated use of intelligence authorities

Not started

216 7. Intelligence Community

“An express prohibition on politically motivated use of intelligence authorities, and”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    Congress legislated on this ground without enacting the prohibition. The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 (Division F of P.L. 119-60) requires an annual intelligence-community survey of analytic objectivity covering "perceptions of the officers and employees regarding the presence of bias or politicization affecting the intelligence cycle" (§6305), stand-alone training on how to report "lack of objectivity, bias, politicization" (§6306), and congressional notice within 15 days of any FBI counterintelligence assessment or investigation of a candidate for or holder of federal office (§6521). These are survey, training and notification duties, not a prohibition: nothing in the Act bars the politically motivated use of an intelligence authority or attaches a consequence to it. Recorded as the contrary reading rather than as progress; the DOJ-accountability side of the same provisions is #573, which is `partial` because that ask is open-ended ("reforms to improve the accountability") while this one names an instrument that does not exist. Re-checked to 2026-08-27: no prohibition enacted and none passed either chamber.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Needs an act of Congress; no prohibition enacted and none passed by either chamber. Bills in Congress, from congress.gov (fetched 2026-08-26), show FISA-reform bills introduced and referred only: S. 4738 (warrantless-query protections) and S. 4739 (reverse-targeting prohibition), both 2026-06-10, Select Committee on Intelligence (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119s4738/html/BILLS-119s4738.htm, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119s4739/html/BILLS-119s4739.htm — govinfo pages load but carry only a generic title; leads). The two reform-plus-extension House bills failed: H.R. 8035 (rule failed 2026-04-17) and H.R. 9238 (suspension vote failed 198-218, 2026-06-11). The two enacted laws in this space (P.L. 119-84 and 119-87) are clean short extensions with no substantive text — see #568.
  • Executive Order 14152 (2025-01-20) recites that the Intelligence Community should not be “engaged in partisan politics” but is a clearance order, not a statutory prohibition; tracked under #561.
  • The next Intelligence Authorization Act (FY2027) carries no prohibition of this kind either and has not passed a chamber: S. 4615 reported by the Select Committee on Intelligence 2026-08-05, H.R. 9624 ordered reported 2026-07-20.
  • Searched: bills in Congress and public laws, from congress.gov, for “politiciz”, “foreign intelligence surveillance”, “section 702”, “intelligence authorization”; congress.gov actions for S. 4465 and H.R. 8322; Federal Register full text for “12333” (presidential documents); the enrolled text of P.L. 119-60 read in full for “politically motivated”, “politicization”, “political purposes”.
Action
restrict
Object
Politically motivated use of intelligence authorities
ID
572