It started with a cryptic message. Midday Wednesday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner released a written statement related to “a serious national security threat.”
Though the Ohio Republican didn’t go into a detail, his statement added, “I am requesting that President Biden declassify all information relating to this threat so that Congress, the Administration, and our allies can openly discuss the actions necessary to respond to this threat.”
This, not surprisingly, raised all kinds of questions about the seriousness of the threat, and how concerned Americans should be. It wasn’t long, however, before leading congressional officials — in both parties — told reporters that they were aware of what Turner was referring to, and while the matter was serious, there was no cause for public alarm.
NBC News reported soon after that the issue related to Russia developing a space-based nuclear weapon that was designed to target U.S. satellites, though the weapon isn’t yet operational and hasn’t been deployed.
A day later, the House Intelligence Committee chair faced some pointed pushback — from his own party. Roll Call reported:
Ultraconservative House members accused the chamber’s Intelligence Committee chairman on Thursday of hurting national security to advance a legislative agenda. The intra-GOP argument was the latest sign of a split among competing subsets of the party on national security issues.
Helping lead the charge was Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, who wrote a formal request to House Speaker Mike Johnson, requesting an inquiry into Turner. Ogles accused his GOP colleague of being “reckless” and showing “poor judgment.”
Around the same time, Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana also expressed public support for an investigation into his own party’s Intelligence Committee chairman. Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida added that as far he was concerned, Turner was responsible for “gaslighting” the country.
For a party that was already struggling with deep divisions and dramatic governing challenges, seeing House GOP lawmakers target one of their own only helped reinforce the conference’s broader difficulties. But let’s not brush past the details. In Ogles’ letter to the House speaker, the Tennessean wrote that Turner’s “intent was not to ensure the safety of our homeland and the American people, but rather to ensure additional funding for Ukraine and passage of an unreformed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).” In other words, as Ogles sees it, the Intelligence Committee chairman — one of the party’s more enthusiastic supporters of security aid to Ukraine — had an unstated agenda when he issued his statement on Wednesday. And because far-right members are opposed to both support for Ukraine and FISA reauthorization, they’re targeting Turner, indifferent to partisan considerations. Whether GOP leaders intend to follow through with an investigation of the Ohio congressman remains to be seen. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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