By Jonathan Landay and Patricia Zengerle
(Reuters) – U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson named Representative Rick Crawford on Thursday to chair the House intelligence committee, the latest promotion of an ally of President-elect Donald Trump to a key national security post.
The panel chairman is among eight congressional leaders, known as the Gang of Eight, briefed on the most classified U.S. intelligence matters.
“I will aggressively uphold our mandate to provide credible and robust oversight of the Intelligence Community’s funding and activities,” Crawford said in a statement.
Johnson tapped Crawford a day after removing Representative Mike Turner from the chairmanship he had held for nearly two years. The position is one of the few chosen by the House speaker at the start of a new Congress.
Trump will be sworn in for a second four-year term on Monday.
Turner, a strong backer of aid for Ukraine, announced late on Wednesday he was removed from the committee, telling CBS News that Johnson had cited “concerns from Mar-a-Lago” for the decision. Mar-a-Lago is Trump’s estate in Florida.
Turner’s office and Crawford’s office did not respond to requests for comment. Johnson denied to reporters that he was ordered to relieve Turner, saying it was a House decision.
A source familiar with the matter questioned whether an order for Turner’s ouster came from Mar-a-Lago, saying it appeared the decision was made by Johnson, who “wanted his own person” as committee chair.
The source also noted that Turner voted to certify outgoing President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 election, while Crawford joined 139 Republican House members and eight senators in voting to overturn the result, a symbolic move backing Trump’s unfounded claim of massive fraud.
“This is a pattern for Johnson,” said the source, pointing to the appointment of Brian Mast, who also opposed Biden’s victory, as the new House Foreign Relations Committee chairman to replace Mike McCaul, who voted to confirm it.
Johnson declined to approve the waiver of term limit rules that would have let McCaul remain chairman.
Those votes came late on Jan. 6, after mobs of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol building.
Democrats decried Turner’s ouster, saying it made the country less safe and weakened the function mandated in the U.S. Constitution that Congress should serve as a check and balance to the executive branch.
BIGGER ROLE FOR AMERICA FIRST PROPONENTS
The departures of both Turner and McCaul were effectively demotions of senior House Republicans whose foreign policy views have not always aligned with Trump’s “America First” priorities.
Both lawmakers are conservative Republicans who rarely break with party leaders, but are known for their willingness to seek bipartisan support on major policy issues.
They have taken foreign policy and national security positions that differ from some of Trump’s more isolationist stances.
Turner and McCaul have backed U.S. military assistance for Ukraine’s fight against Russia. Trump has criticized Biden’s aid for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and pledged during the 2024 campaign to quickly end the war.
The source said that in the Republican caucus meeting, Johnson cited as concerns with Turner his support last year for reauthorizing a warrantless foreign surveillance program that some Democrats and Republicans, including Trump, charged had been used to spy on Americans, and his support for Ukraine and NATO.
Crawford, who received a “D-” rating on Ukraine in a Republican ratings system, voted against a Ukraine aid bill in April 2024, saying he could not support a financial assistance component when Americans faced rising costs at home.
Mast comes from Trump’s home state of Florida and has opposed Ukraine aid, earning an “F” grade in the rating system.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Johnathan Landay; Additional reporting by Ismail Shakil in Ottawa; editing by Rami Ayyub, Don Durfee and Richard Chang)
