WASHINGTON — Speaker Mike Johnson said he selected Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., to serve as the next chairman of the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday, one day after Johnson made the stunning decision to oust Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, from the role.
Crawford has maintained a low profile during his 14 years on Capitol Hill. In the last Congress, Crawford, a retired Army sergeant, was chairman of the Intelligence subcommittee that oversaw the Central Intelligence Agency. He was first elected in the Tea Party wave that swept Republicans into power in the House in 2010, and has been a member of the conservative Republican Study Committee.
With the retirement last year of Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, Crawford was the most senior Republican on the Intelligence Committee after Turner. Two other high-profile GOP members of the panel who could have been in contention for the job are likely heading to President-elect Donald Trump’s administration: Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., is his pick for United Nations ambassador, and Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., is his pick to be national security adviser.
Politico was first to report that Johnson was expected to name Crawford.
The top post on the Intelligence panel is one of the few positions directly chosen by the speaker of the House at the start of a new Congress. Former Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., had originally named Turner the ranking Republican on the committee in 2022, then named him chairman after the GOP took back the House majority later that fall. When Johnson succeeded McCarthy as speaker in October 2023, he kept Turner in the role.
But Johnson told Turner on Wednesday he would not continue leading the committee in the 119th Congress.
The shake-up on the Intelligence Committee infuriated some members of the more moderate GOP Main Street Caucus, of which Turner is a member. One member of the caucus told NBC News that Johnson’s decision erodes trust and could complicate negotiations within the GOP conference as Republicans try to pass Trump’s policy agenda with a razor-thin majority.
“Looks like backroom politics and backstabbing,” said one Main Street member, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.
A second GOP lawmaker who spoke to Turner spelled out how the former chairman could make life difficult for Johnson, who is under pressure to deliver for Trump. Turner did not vote Wednesday or Thursday.
“I think Turner will burn the House down,” this lawmaker said. “He will be a no vote on everything. I mean, he just got totally f—–.”
Turner, a defense hawk, is an outspoken supporter of NATO and aggressively pushed for U.S. aid for Ukraine in the last Congress — positions that were in conflict with the incoming president. Turner also clashed with some hard-right Republicans last spring when he led the charge to renew a key surveillance tool known as FISA Section 702.
Crawford voted to reauthorize Section 702. But on April 20, Crawford joined more than 100 other House Republicans in voting against roughly $60 billion in aid to help Ukraine’s war effort against Russia and its humanitarian needs. The Arkansas lawmaker voted in favor of sending aid to two other allies, Israel and Taiwan.
Addressing the shake-up Thursday, Johnson batted down speculation that Trump or his allies in Congress had pressured him to oust Turner, calling it his own “very thoughtful decision.”
With the start of the new Congress, it was time for a “reset” because of the “abuses” and concerns in the intelligence community, Johnson said, adding that he had no qualms with Turner personally.
“I have nothing but praise for Mike Turner. He did a great job as chairman under very difficult circumstances, and we’re just going to have new leadership there. And that’s what you do in these select committees,” Johnson said. “The speaker sometimes changes out leadership for a new season. It’s a new day in Washington, a new era. And I just thought that made sense. So I give nothing but praise and commendation to Chairman Turner for all the good work he did.”
Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., an Iraq war veteran who does not serve on the Intelligence Committee, said he respected Johnson’s decision to install a chairman of his choosing. And Mills said he believed the change was related to Turner’s role last year where he issued an extraordinary statement calling on the White House to declassify information about an unnamed “serious national security threat” — a move Mills suspected was designed to drum up support for 702 renewal.
Sources later described the threat as Russia’s development of a space-based nuclear weapon designed to target U.S. satellites, NBC News reported.
“Obviously, I respect his decision. I think that a lot of that was prefaced on [Turner]s] intentional leak that came out this last Congress, with regards to Sputnik 2 and the ideas of a potential violation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty,” Mills told reporters Thursday. “That was obviously … an effort to put pressure on the conference to vote for FISA 702 reauthorization, which obviously I’m vehemently against.”
In a statement Wednesday night, Turner said he was proud of the work he accomplished on the Intelligence panel and stood by his support of NATO.
“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,” Turner said in the statement.
“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,” he continued. “My work to expand missions and capabilities at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base continues. Furthermore, I look forward to welcoming the NATO Parliamentary Assembly to Dayton in the coming months.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., slammed Turner’s ouster as “shameful.”
“Mike Turner is a serious, thoughtful and highly-principled leader, whose work as Chair of the House Intelligence Committee has been extremely impactful,” Jeffries said in a statement. “Throughout his time in the House of Representatives, Chairman Turner has upheld his oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies and championed our national security interests.
“Mike Turner has robustly promoted the safety of the American people and the Free World and his unjustified ouster is likely being applauded by our adversaries in Russia and China. Shameful,” Jeffries said.
