House Speaker Mike Johnson removed Ohio Republican Mike Turner as chairman of the powerful House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) on Wednesday in response to a direct request from President-elect Donald Trump, according to a report.
Turner himself privately told colleagues that his ousting from the panel, which oversees the FBI and CIA, came at the insistence of the incoming commander-in-chief, according to The Daily Beast, citing a senior GOP lawmaker.
“Trump personally got involved and believes that Turner is basically an intel community sycophant,” the source told the publication, implying that the president-elect considers the representative insufficiently loyal to his MAGA wing of the Republican Party to be trusted to fall in line.
“Trump making demands to fire Turner just fractured the conference,” another lawmaker told the Beast.
“It undermines his whole reconciliation agenda. Dumb move. We are a big tent or we are not. Looks like we are not.”
However, Speaker Johnson denied the claims about Turner’s ousting when asked about it by reporters at the Capitol on Wednesday.
“This is not a President Trump decision, this is a House decision and this is no slight whatsoever to our outgoing chairman, he did a great job, but we just, the intelligence community and everything related to HPSCI is… It needs a fresh start and that’s what this is about, nothing else,” the speaker said.
“I have nothing negative to say about Mike Turner at all, he’s a good man, a good colleague, I respect his work.
“He’s going to continue to be my appointee with everything regarding NATO.”
Turner is known for having an independent streak and said just last month that the Department of Justice (DOJ) committed a “grave constitutional violation” during the first Trump administration when it secretly obtained phone records and emails belonging to congressional members and staffers.
He called the DOJ’s behaviour, exposed by a report from Inspector General Michael Horowitz, “outrageous”, a stance unlikely to endear him to the president-elect.
Turner has also appeared on programs loathed by Trump like CNN’s State of the Union and CBS’s Face the Nation in the past to warn that his party had become “infected” by Russian propaganda and to “vehemently disagree” with the former and future president’s apparent eagerness to tear up the US Constitution.
Turner responded publicly to his removal from the panel on Wednesday by saying in a statement: “I’m very proud to have served on the House Intelligence Committee and as its chairman. There are great members on the committee, and I’m honored to have served with them.
“Under my leadership, we restored the integrity of the committee and returned its mission to its core focus of national security. The threat from our adversaries is real and requires serious deliberations.”
While the congressman claims to bear no grudge, were he ultimately to feel otherwise and decide to step away from Congress, Speaker Johnson would find himself managing an already razor-thin majority down one representative in a crucial swing district.
Johnson has yet to name a replacement for Turner on a committee for which the speaker is solely responsible, unlike others whose leadership is appointed by a steering committee.
