When House Speaker Mike Johnson abruptly fired House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner this week, everyone thought he was referring to Donald Trump.
In reality, it was about power. It wasn’t the president-elect’s, it was Johnson’s.
After spending more than a year tiptoeing around the Republican conference, where intervening in even the smallest sectarian disputes can jeopardize the gavel, this week’s intelligence machinations by the speaker turned into an unusual and troubling display of political power. Ta.
Mr. Turner (R-Ohio) is a brash and prickly defense hawk who was elevated by former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and criticized by many for his lackadaisical response to the intraparty debate over surveillance powers. All this was causing Mr. Johnson an internal headache.
Representative Rick Crawford (R-Arkansas) appeared. He was more of a MAGA-leaning, America-first type, and crucially had a better relationship with the far-right wing of the House Republican Party. The far-right wing of House Republicans says Johnson needs to remain complacent as he seeks passage. President Trump’s agenda for the coming months has a razor-thin majority.
In addition, a new member of Intel’s rank-and-file members has also joined. They each helped Johnson with parochial politics in the House of Commons. He rewarded Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) for helping carry out the speaker’s vote whip, and gave a consolation award to Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Missouri), who lost the Foreign Affairs Committee gavel. gave.
Problem solved. But problems also arose.
Easy-going and always smiling, Johnson quickly learns that wielding power means making enemies, especially when he botches an execution.
Mr. Johnson went into the private meeting with a number of internal reasons for firing Mr. Turner, but Mr. Turner’s decision to simply cite “concerns from Mar-a-Lago” as justification for his decision was Trump’s first. This troubled his close aides. The president-elect said he had nothing to do with the issue and accused Mr Johnson of trying to gloss over his political considerations.
Perhaps more importantly, it created a new enemy in the person of Turner, who declined to comment.
The former speaker is not necessarily a beloved figure on Capitol Hill. Some say he can be unfriendly and condescending. But he has close allies on national security issues who are now appalled by Mr. Johnson’s moves — particularly with Intel chairman brokering a deal with Democrats who reject a far-right insurrection against Mr. Johnson. After playing an important role, they say.
Many House Republicans believe they may come to regret their narrow choice of Johnson.
“Mike Turner is not going to have a gentle rest,” said one furious Republican aide, not necessarily a fan of Turner. “It’s frustrating when we have a two-seat majority and a one-seat majority, but what appears to be a minimal gain is angering and embarrassing a very volatile membership.”
From the perspective of Johnson and his allies, Johnson had good reason to release Turner. It traces back to what they describe as a pattern of bad behavior as internal debate raged over reauthorizing so-called Section 702 powers used by intelligence agencies for espionage. About Americans.
For some House conservatives, the spat with Turner was about policy. They wanted a check on power, but Mr. Turner did not do that. Mr Johnson’s concern was with the Speaker’s tactics.
He proposed a floor amendment supported by far-right pro-reform lawmakers Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) to gain votes. This was an attempt to resolve tensions within the Republican Party. But Turner refused, threatening to throw the entire bill into the water, an echo of the ultimatums often issued by ultra-conservatives.
That alone would justify the speaker expelling one of the chairs, many lawmakers say. And just hours after Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Mr Turner he had no authority to decide on the amendments, the vetoed speaker issued a cryptic warning of a “grave national security threat”. was later reported to be Russia’s space-based nuclear weapons program.
The news sent the White House and Congressional leaders into a panic and infuriated Section 702 opponents, who saw Turner’s move as a coercive bulldozing attempt.
“He declared a national security emergency to prove a point about why there shouldn’t be a vote on the floor,” said one Republican official. “It’s completely over the limit.”
Turner would later alienate fellow Republicans on the committee, the future chairman. Mr. Crawford is suffering from a mysterious illness reported by some U.S. officials abroad, as first reported by the Washington Examiner (and disputed by Mr. Turner’s allies), but by intelligence agencies. He was furious at what he believed was an attempt to suppress Mr Turner’s research into the “Havana Syndrome”, which has been dismissed by the US. .
Late last year, Mr. Crawford and fellow Intel member Trent Kelly (R-Mississippi) visited Mr. Johnson and expressed concerns about Mr. Turner’s leadership, two knowledgeable officials said. I heard from In Caesar-like fashion, they later touted Turner for promotion if he resigned, with Crawford becoming chairman and Kelly as vice-chairman. (Kelly’s office denied this, and Crawford’s office had no comment, but issued a statement praising Turner.)
A few weeks later, Johnson took action.
Now he faces major sour grapes from Mr Turner’s allies. They come from the traditional Reagan wing of the party. They argue that Turner was sacrificed to appease the hard right, even after he showed a willingness to be a team player.
Some people say Mr. Johnson has put Mr. Turner on the committee by putting two Trump allies, Rep. Ronnie Jackson (R-Texas) and Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pennsylvania), on the committee. Johnson said he wasn’t happy when he was “blindsided,” but worked hard to get him on the committee anyway. Add them to your group. When Perry asked for his support during last year’s close re-election battle, Turner responded.
What’s even more frustrating is that Mr Turner played a key role in saving Mr Johnson’s chairmanship. At last year’s Munich Security Conference, Mr Turner worked with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to broker a “signal”. If Mr. Johnson can get support for Ukraine through the House, Democrats are certain to thwart efforts by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). You won’t succeed if you eliminate him.
And last year, when reports emerged that conservatives would threaten Turner over his staunch support for aid to Ukraine, Johnson assured him: “Mike, there’s nothing to worry about.” (People familiar with Mr. Johnson’s conversations said he made no such assurances.)
All of this would culminate in the standard political debate on Capitol Hill — Johnson bringing up “Mar-a-Lago” when explaining his decision to Turner, and Turner bringing it up publicly. Until I was exposed to it.
It’s natural that Trump would want to get rid of him. During his 2019 impeachment, Turner was a vocal defender of Trump, but he was also critical at times. For example, he called the allegations of Mr. Trump’s mishandling of classified documents a “grave concern,” and slammed Mr. Trump’s baseless claims. An immigrant in his district of Springfield, Ohio.
And there is certainly some skepticism around President Trump about Turner’s ties to the intelligence community. A plan to put Mr. Turner’s aide Adam Howard in a senior position on the National Security Council is a move that conservative online platforms have branded as the “deep state,” according to three people who spoke to my colleague Robbie Grammer. It is said that the match was abandoned because the team had decided that it would be a victory. ”
But Mr. Turner has taken steps to strengthen his relationship with Mr. Trump, and the president-elect has taken notice. The president-elect sent Turner an email thanking him for cooperating with his TV appearances during the campaign, and even brought Turner a birthday cake when he was in Palm Beach. The other presidents also did so last weekend.
Put another way, either Trump insiders actually quietly backed Turner’s firing, as many Republicans now speculate, or, as many Republicans are now speculating, Johnson used “Marl” to hide the difficult decision to himself.・Either they took advantage of the “concerns at A-Lago.”
“He’s not the kind of guy who would be happy to fire someone,” one Republican told me.
Needless to say, such a step would not be acceptable to the president-elect, and after Mr Turner made this comment public, Mr Johnson immediately went into clean-up mode, telling reporters that the decision was his own. “It’s not about Donald Trump,” he said.
But damage is being done within House Republicans. Among Mr Turner’s allies – the leadership-minded executives who tend to be part of any speaker’s bulwark against the fierce demands of the far right – there are new doubts about Mr Johnson’s judgment.
“It’s unfortunate,” the Republican lawmaker said. “Politics trumps content, work ethic and experience.”
And, with common sense, another added: “You have a two-seat majority and you shot one of your members dead.”
