Last Tuesday (July 28), the Senate confirmed Jay Clayton to be the new director of national intelligence (DNI). Yet Clayton was not sworn in until today, with William Pulte continuing to purportedly serve as the acting director of national intelligence for all of last week. Bizarrely, both men attended the cabinet meeting on Friday at Camp David. But while the administration was within its rights to delay Clayton’s swearing in as long as it wished, it could not extend Pulte’s acting service. Under the plain language of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, Pulte’s time limit as acting DNI expired the moment the Senate confirmed Clayton. Everything Pulte has done as acting DNI since that moment has been legally illegitimate and is vulnerable to a court challenge.

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On his first day in office for his second term as president, Donald Trump issued a slew of executive orders and proclamations. One proclamation declared a “national emergency” on the US-Mexico border. In that proclamation, Trump directed the Defense Department to “support the activities of the Secretary of Homeland Security in obtaining complete operational control of the southern border of the United States.” He also directed that within 90 days of the proclamation (April 20, 2025), the Defense and Homeland Security departments were to “submit a joint report to the President about the conditions at the southern border of the United States and any recommendations regarding additional actions that may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807.”

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Number 28 in our series of occasional roundups on election law and policy:

• “When more than a third of the [House] seats see no competition at all, polarization and gerrymandering can explain some of the problem, but not all,” said [Olson]. And none of the other likely explanations “are exactly good signs for democracy.” [Eric Boehm, Reason] 
• Did the Chinese collection of American voting data constitute a huge security breach? States say federal authorities never notified them about it [Washington Post via ELB] Hard to discern any new resultant chill on relations with China [Phelim Kine, Politico] or with Russia, for that matter [Alan Feuer and Dustin Volz, New York Times] 
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This blog was updated on July 31, 2026.

When Appellant Shakira Leslie declined an offer of water seven hours after being arrested, jail officers insisted that “it would be some time before she had another opportunity to drink.” She took a sip from the disposable cup, then officers told her to “keep drinking.” They pulled her DNA from that cup, developed a profile from the sample, and entered it into New York City’s “Suspect Index.”

Leslie is far from the only person on it. For more than a decade, New York City has been amassing the DNA samples of New Yorkers without their consent or any court involvement as a routine matter, specifically for inclusion in its “Suspect Index,” a rogue database not authorized by law. Defendants regularly include samples from people who, as in this case, have been expressly excluded as suspects in a crime, suspects who have never been charged with a crime, arrestees who have never been convicted of a crime, and exonerated or acquitted individuals.

In 2022, Lloyd Muldrow, a Marine veteran and self-defense instructor, stopped an attack by an armed assailant in a Baltimore bar. For his heroism, he would later receive the Carnegie Medal, which recognizes those who perform extraordinary acts of heroism in civilian life. But before that recognition, he suffered the humiliation of arrest and prosecution solely because he carried a firearm in Maryland with a Virginia carry permit, which Maryland refused to honor. As reported, “Police thanked him—and then they arrested him.” 

Mr. Muldrow would eventually receive probation for his “crime.” His experience underscores that the issue of interstate carry rights is not limited to this case. Rather, it threatens responsible, licensed carriers nationwide.

The Constitution’s treaty ratification process, which requires the consent of two-thirds of the Senate, covers a shrinking share of the promises the United States makes to other countries. The rest are concluded as executive agreements under varying degrees of congressional authorization. For decades, the Case–Zablocki Act’s (Case Act) reporting requirements have been Congress’ main window into the executive branch’s growing practice of striking international deals outside the treaty process. But it’s a poor substitute for affirmative consent, and as a recent US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report makes clear, administrations routinely flout even those modest obligations, resulting in Congress learning about US commitments sometimes months after they’ve been finalized.