Donald Trump has sent shockwaves through D.C. after a top House Republican charged with overseeing the CIA and FBI was dramatically replaced.
Speaker Mike Johnson stunned lawmakers Wednesday when he announced that he is replacing House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner.
Turner, 65, who served as the committee’s chair since January 2023, was accused by Trump loyalists in the House Freedom Caucus of having a ‘sycophantic’ relationship with members of the CIA and FBI.
While Johnson claimed that Trump had no direct role in Turner’s knifing, sources claimed that the president-elect personally intervened.
Trump has vowed to ‘drain the swamp’ and is expected to target the intelligence services which he believes have worked to keep him out of the White House as part of a ‘Deep State’ operation.
As part of his MAGA overhaul, Trump has tapped Tulsi Gabbard to become the new director of National Intelligence and Kash Patel to lead the FBI.
Both nominations have sparked a backlash from the establishment over comments that Gabbard and Patel have made about their opposition to the ‘Deep State.’
Patel, a former federal prosecutor who worked in Trump’s first administration, has publicly stated on numerous occasions how he wants to dismantle the ‘deep state’ and even published a book about federal corruption in 2023 titled ‘Government Gangsters.’
Gabbard has also been skeptical of the intelligence community and even displayed her defiance by visiting former Syrian leader Bashar Al Assad on her own accord in 2017 on what she deemed a ‘fact finding mission.’
They are expected to cut against the status-quo and bring in a new era of Trump-friendly sentiment to the FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., now the highest-ranking Republican on Intel who is much more MAGA-aligned than Turner, will become chair.
Turner, meanwhile, is no longer on the committee at all.
Conservative commentator Rogan O’Handley slammed Turner on X following the announcement.
‘House Intel Chairman Mike Turner has voted for every Ukraine spending bill. He voted to keep Kevin McCarthy as Speaker. He initially voted against censuring Adam Schiff. He voted to raise the debt ceiling. He’s a warmongering RINO trying to send $60B to Ukraine. He is Deep State.’
‘The GOP House Intel Chair removed by Speaker Johnson yesterday — Mike Turner — is a blind loyalist to and puppet of the US Security State, CIA and NSA,’ journalist Glenn Greenwald similarly wrote.
While chairman, Turner found himself at odds with leadership and Trump at times.
The Ohio Republican was one of the loudest advocates for Congress renewing FISA, the controversial tool that helps the FBI and CIA spy on terrorists, last year despite Trump’s demands to let the surveillance tool expire.
‘Kill FISA, it was illegally used against me, and many others. They spied on my campaign!’ Trump posted on social media in April 2024.
The House eventually authorized a modified version of FISA after multiple contentious attempts to pass a measure to extend the use of the spy tool.
That renewal came despite reports surfacing in 2023 that FISA had been used ‘improperly’ 278,000 times to keep tabs on Americans and was also used to track January 6 defendants and Black Lives Matter activists.
FISA was notoriously misused by the intelligence community to spy on Trump’s campaign aide Carter Page during the 2016 election, later setting up claims about the Republican’s ties to Russia, which Democrats used for years to bludgeon the 45th president’s credibility.
Turner also grabbed headlines last year for warning that Russia developed a new and ‘serious national security threat,’ which immediately raised alarm bells around Capitol Hill as press peppered lawmakers with questions about the scary development.
Reports at the time surfaced indicating that the threat Turner was referencing dealt with Russia’s efforts to put a nuclear weapon into space.
At the time Turner demanded that President Joe Biden declassify the ominous information so lawmakers could discuss the ramifications.
Republican Speaker Mike Johnson later had to clean up the debacle and reaffirm that ‘there’s no need for public alarm.’
‘I’m not at liberty to disclose classified information and really can’t say much of that, but we just want to assure everyone, steady hands are at the wheel, we’re working on it. There’s no need for alarm,’ Johnson said.
Turner posted a statement acknowledging the shakeup on Wednesday.
‘I’m very proud to have served on the House Intelligence Committee and as its chairman,’ Turner wrote. ‘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. As a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, I have been and will continue to be a strong advocate for the military and our national defense.’
