Johnson ousts Turner as intelligence chairman and bows to Trump

Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday removed Rep. Michael R. Turner of Ohio from the helm of the House Intelligence Committee, in a shake-up that signaled he intends to bring the key national security panel more closely aligned with President-elect Donald J. Trump.

Turner, who emerged from a meeting with the speaker Wednesday afternoon looking furious, has told people that Mr. Johnson informed him that his removal was the result of a request from Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, according to a person familiar with those conversations.

The president-elect has long been suspicious of the intelligence community, claiming its members were part of a politicized “deep state” out to get him. By rejecting a Republican seen as insufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump, then Mr. Johnson appeared to pave the way for the president-elect to gain tighter control over the committee that oversees intelligence matters.

Mr. Turner, a mainstream conservative who has represented southwest Ohio in the House for more than two decades, has at times been critical of Mr. Trump’s actions. He broke with the majority of his party on January 6, 2021, voting to confirm Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s election in 2020. He has also been a leading proponent of supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia, breaking with ” America First” attitude of the president-elect and many others in his party.

Johnson denied on Wednesday that Trump had been behind the decision to strip Mr. Turner his chairmanship, which was previously reported by Punchbowl.

“This is not a President Trump decision; this is a House decision,” Mr. Johnson told reporters on his way out of the Capitol Wednesday night, adding that he had “nothing but positive things” to say about Mr. Turner.

He said the panel “needs a fresh start and that’s what it’s about – nothing else.”

A spokesman for Mr. Johnson declined to say who he planned to name as Mr. Turner’s replacement, though the announcement could come as soon as tomorrow.

By removing him as chairman, Mr. Johnson in reality Mr. Turns out of the committee altogether, as his decade on the panel exceeds the six-year limit that applies to rank-and-file members. He became the senior Republican on the Intelligence Committee in 2022 and took over as chairman the following year after the GOP won the majority.

Mr. Johnson is now positioned to reshape the panel even more. The impending departures of Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York and Michael Waltz of Florida, who are expected to join the Trump administration, and other members who are reaching term limits will create additional vacancies.

The speaker has a track record of appointing Trump loyalists to the committee. Last year he blinded Mr. Turner by appointing Representatives Ronny Jackson of Texas, Mr. Trump’s former White House physician, and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, the former head of the House Freedom Caucus.

While both of these men have been outspoken allies of Mr. Trump, has Mr. Turner has on several occasions spoken out critically about the president-elect. He criticized Mr. Trump for a 2019 phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in which he pressed the Ukrainian leader to investigate the Biden family.

“I want to say to the president: This is not right,” said Mr. Turner during an intelligence panel hearing. “That conversation is out of order.”

He also challenged Mr. Trump’s claim that people jailed for taking part in the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol were “hostages,” though he has maintained that Mr. Trump did not direct his supporters to attack Congress. And he has said in television interviews that Mr. Trump’s decision to store classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after leaving office was “of grave concern” and “just as egregious” as the allegations about Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents.

Mr. Turner and Mr. Johnson has also clashed on various policy areas. They sharply disagreed on whether it made sense to continue sending military aid to Ukraine, something Mr. Turner pressed on and Mr. Johnson resisted.

They also appeared to be at odds over how to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which legalized a form of the warrantless surveillance program started after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The intelligence community maintains that the program has been to protect the United States from terrorist attacks, but many of Mr. Trump’s allies claim it has been misused to spy on conservatives.

Mr. Turner was highly regarded by his Democratic colleagues for reinstating a spirit of bipartisanship on the intelligence panel, something that had been decimated under Mr. Trump’s first term, when former representatives Devin Nunes, Republican of California, and Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California — and now a senator — often clashed.

Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the panel, told reporters Wednesday night that Mr. Turner’s removal “sends a shiver down my spine.”

He later said in a statement: “The removal of Chairman Turner makes our nation less safe and is a terrible sign of things to come. The Constitution requires Congress to act as a check and balance on the executive branch, not accommodate its demands .”

Carl Hulse contributed with reporting.