House Speaker Mike Johnson has removed House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner from his position overseeing the FBI and CIA, the UK Daily Mail reported. President-elect Donald Trump supposedly had no part in the drastic decision as critics believe otherwise.
The Ohio Republican, who has been chairman since January 2023, has been accused by some Trump allies of having a cozy relationship with the agencies. This is problematic as Trump has promised to "drain the swamp" again, especially in the FBI and CIA.
Notably, Trump believes it was the intelligence community that was part of the "Deep State" effort to keep him from becoming president again. He has gone with other picks, such as Kash Patel for FBI head and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be National Intelligence Director, who are not insiders.
"Trump personally got involved and believes that Turner is basically an intel community sycophant," an anonymous source told the publication. Turner is not only out as chairman, he's completely off the committee.
According to The Hill, Johnson, who has complete discretion over the chairman position, has selected Rep. Rick Crawford (R-AK) to take Turner's place. Johnson denied that Trump had anything to do with the choice and shared his reasons in a statement to the publication.
“Our intelligence community and its oversight must maintain the highest levels of trust. The House Intel Committee will play a pivotal role in this work in the new Congress, and Rick Crawford will provide principled leadership as its chairman," Johnson wrote.
"He has earned the respect of his colleagues through his years of faithful service on the committee and his steady approach to the challenges facing our country," the House Speaker added. Johnson also gave due credit to Turner.
"He led the committee well during a very challenging period of our nation’s history and was fully dedicated to the task. He is a highly valued member of our Conference, and we look forward to his continued contributions to keeping America safe and expanding our global security, including in his important position as the Chair of the U.S. Delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly," Johnson added.
For his part, Crawford has promised to "aggressively uphold our mandate to provide credible and robust oversight of the Intelligence Community’s funding and activities." Many in the "America First" crowd are hoping he can rein in the intelligence agencies' overreach.
Trump is right to be wary of the FBI, considering that they launched a years-long investigation and spied on his campaign based on the fake Steele dossier, according to the New York Post. Even after the probe proved bogus, they didn't leave him alone.
In August 2022, the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago residence for classified documents he allegedly mishandled. Trump was rightfully outraged over the unprecedented move and railed against the FBI in an email from his Save America political action committee.
"These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, was raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents," Trump said. He pointed out that they had been after him since he announced his presidential run in 2015 and throughout his presidency.
"I stood up to the Radical Left’s corruption. I restored power to the people and truly delivered for our Country like we have never seen before. The establishment hated it," Trump added.
Now is definitely the time to clean house with a clear mandate from the people. Trump has four years to clean up the Washington, D.C., bureaucracy, and it looks like Johnson is helping move that objective along.
