Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA via AP Images
Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), left, with Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), speaks to the media after a classified briefing, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, February 15, 2024.
There are growing calls on Capitol Hill for Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) to lose his chairmanship of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) for stoking fear this week about a supposed national-security threat: Russian space nukes.
Turner warned publicly on Wednesday about an unspecified imminent threat after a closed-door intelligence briefing for members of Congress, which then forced a release of the information, though much of it was already public.
It is widely understood that the stunt by Turner was intended to influence a vote scheduled for this week on whether to extend authorization of warrantless surveillance of American citizens under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which expires in April. After the theatrics of the week, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) tabled the vote indefinitely.
The White House, intelligence officials, and other congressional leaders have widely condemned Turner for whipping up public fear, forcing a release of intelligence. And congressional members pushing for FISA 702 reform have called out Turner’s ploy in numerous public statements.
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“I think he was trying to motivate the Ukraine funding and a clean FISA reauthorization,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, condemning Turner’s statement on Wednesday to reporters. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) has pushed for Turner to lose his chairmanship over the incident, and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) formally asked Johnson to open an investigation into Turner’s actions. Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) also expressed support for an inquiry.
On Friday, a group of four bipartisan organizations, including Demand Progress and FreedomWorks, sent a letter calling on Turner to resign his post. (Politico first reported on the letter.) “It appears you exploited your privileged access to intelligence to scare your colleagues in an effort to undermine reform of warrantless surveillance laws,” the letter states, “and in so doing have undermined your credibility, your committee, and national security.”
However, no such calls have been issued thus far from the Democratic side, and any statements about the events that transpired this week have been scant.
The reason appears to be that both House Democratic leadership and the White House were more deeply implicated in the scare tactics that unfurled this week than has been previously reported.
“[Intelligence Committee ranking Democrat] Jim Himes was a key accomplice in Turner’s outrageous decision to attack Americans’ privacy this week by undermining national security. Simply unconscionable,” said Sean Vitka, policy director of Demand Progress.
SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THIS CONGRESS, lawmakers have wrestled with how to deal with Section 702, which authorizes the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to conduct warrantless surveillance of emails, text messages, and phone calls of foreign suspects overseas, even if the communications of Americans are swept up in the dragnet. Congressional investigations and leaked documents have detailed abuses of the program, as the searchable database of these communications has been used illegally hundreds of thousands of times by FBI agents seeking information on investigations unrelated to foreign intelligence.
A bipartisan coalition has demanded reforms to the program, with the House and Senate Judiciary Committees taking the lead. A reform proposal in the House, which included the need for a warrant for accessing communications of U.S. persons, got overwhelming bipartisan support in the Judiciary Committee. Meanwhile, the HPSCI, which is closer to the intelligence community, has been aligned with the White House in wanting more of a clean extension of Section 702, and they passed a bill to that effect.
The dispute between Judiciary and Intelligence has been yet another headache for Johnson since he took over as Speaker. He first proposed a “Queen of the Hill” strategy, where both bills would get a floor vote and the one with the most support would become the baseline bill. But members objected to that and Johnson swerved; last December, he placed a clean extension of Section 702 in a government funding bill. That extension expires in April.
With that deadline approaching, Johnson released what he called a “compromise” bill, which would get a vote on the House floor this week along with amendments. The compromise tilted far more in the direction of the Intelligence Committee bill, to much grumbling from both parties’ FISA reform factions. Both sides sought amendments to try to fashion the bill more to their liking.
Both House Democratic leadership and the White House were more deeply implicated in the scare tactics that unfurled this week than has been previously reported.
Part of that compromise was an amendment that would be included in the final bill to end the government’s ability to pay companies or brokers for data they hold on U.S. citizens, such as cellphone location tracking, without a warrant. That specific amendment, apparently, is the reason why Turner ultimately blew up the deal this week, according to reporting from Wired.
The floor vote and amendment structure was agreed upon by both the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, as well as leadership. But then on Tuesday, HPSCI sent out a Dear Colleague memo, stating that the committee has “identified an urgent matter with regard to a destabilizing foreign military capability that should be known by all Congressional Policy Makers.”
That memo, obtained by the Prospect, was signed by not just Turner as the chair but also Himes, the Connecticut Democrat and ranking member of HPSCI who has been a consistent opponent of reforms to FISA 702.
The memo explained that the committee had voted 23-1 to make the information and accompanying intelligence documents available to all members, for the remaining days before the Section 702 vote.
The White House had already been keyed in, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was set to hold a briefing the next day. It’s no secret that the White House and Sullivan oppose any reforms to FISA 702.
“FISA Section 702 is an essential intelligence tool used to protect the nation,” Sullivan said in August and reaffirmed at a press briefing on Wednesday.
This last-minute, closed-door intelligence briefing was not an unfamiliar tactic, though a nefarious one to scare members about a supposed security risk to make the Thursday vote more favorable to the intelligence community. This past summer when reform amendments in the FISA 702 reauthorization were being considered in the NDAA, the White House released some information about the NSA’s data collection practices on citizens that posed a threat, to justify the continuation of the powers.
The expectation with these briefings is that some word will get out, but not enough to jeopardize the intelligence gathering entirely.
But what happened after the briefing is where things went wrong, according to sources on the Hill close to the reauthorization vote.
Turner’s vague, incendiary remarks the next day stepped too far over the line. They went so far that even members of the Intelligence Committee had to throw cold water on his statement, outright rejecting it.
“It’s a serious issue that [Turner] is right to focus on, but no, it’s not going to ruin your Thursday,” Himes told reporters.
But the damage had been done. The space nukes warning raised a media storm, which then forced the intelligence to be made public. It turned out, predictably, to be utterly overdramatized. In fact, after caveats were added by public statements from National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby, it’s not entirely clear any of the intelligence hadn’t already been declassified.
For example, Russia’s supposed nuclear powers in space have not been deployed and may even just refer to nuclear-powered anti-satellite capabilities, not nuclear weapons. In this case, most of the intelligence was already cited in a 2022 National Intelligence Agency report.
Both the White House and intelligence agencies were put in an awkward position. Despite the fact that they opposed stringent FISA 702 reform, they denounced Turner’s comments for forcing their hand to make it public, thus undermining U.S. intelligence gathering on the Russian space and military operations.
Turner’s remarks also obfuscated what the Intelligence Committee did in unison on Wednesday.
Both the Intelligence and Judiciary Committee members were supposed to convene at the Rules Committee hearing that day to submit their amendments and agree to ground rules for the Thursday vote. HPSCI members not only didn’t submit amendments for the hearing, their members didn’t even show up, according to Rules Committee records. According to sources, their absence at the hearing indicates that HPSCI was already prepared to hijack the vote the next day. During that hearing, Wired reports that Turner was meeting with Johnson to kill the compromise bill.
Shortly after the hearing finished, Speaker Johnson then officially tabled the vote for Thursday amid the ongoing commotion sparked by the Russian space nuke.
On Thursday, Turner and Johnson held a joint press conference, with Rep. Himes standing by his side. Turner defended his remarks, stating that “the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence worked in consultation with the Biden administration to notify Congress of this national-security threat.”
Based on the full rundown of the week's events, that might be the most truthful statement Turner has made this week.
