House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Michael Turner (R-Ohio) has been ousted by the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson (R-La.), reportedly at the behest of Donald Trump.
Turner pretended that it was his idea, saying he wanted to give the Committee a “fresh start” with a new Congress and a new president coming into office. Johnson claimed it was a matter for the House of Representatives and no one else.
That's not likely. Turner angered Trump supporters on several occasions. His advocacy for the surveillance bill last term that renewed Section 701 powers, making it easier to spy on Americans, as well as his unabashed support for Ukraine funding, angered many MAGA members.
Two potential replacements for Turner are Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), former Trump personal physician at the White House, and Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), former Chairman of the Freedom Caucus.
Getting Turner out of the intel chair is Trump's most significant move to date to put his stamp on Congress. It's the strongest signal yet that America's foreign policy will be undergoing significant changes in the coming four years, where friend and foe alike will be forced to adjust to the new "America First" realities.
It was also a signal sent to other Republicans that bipartisanship is out the window.
Mr. Turner was highly regarded by his Democratic colleagues for reinstituting a spirit of bipartisanship on the intelligence panel, something that had been decimated during Mr. Trump’s first term, when former Representatives Devin Nunes, Republican of California, and Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California — and now a senator — frequently clashed.
Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the panel, told reporters Wednesday evening that Mr. Turner’s removal “sends a shiver down my spine.”
Himes further said in the statement, “The removal of Chairman Turner makes our nation less secure and is a terrible portent for what’s to come. The Constitution demands that Congress function as a check and balance to the executive branch, not cater to its demands.”
Perhaps one of the reasons Turner was canned was because so many Democrats thought well of him.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was “flabbergasted” Thursday by the decision to remove Turner.
“I know it’s up to the Speaker’s decision, but Mike Turner was the kind of guy who brought the House Intelligence Committee back to the kind of bipartisan respect that I think it lost in the past,” he said. “I wish Mike well.”
“Mike Turner is a serious, thoughtful, and highly-principled leader, whose work as Chair of the House Intelligence Committee has been extremely impactful,” House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said.
It's a different world. It's now a world where America's role will be ill-defined, leaving questions for our allies and adversaries to ponder. Will it be a safer world?
Only time will tell.
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