WASHINGTON — Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has informed Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, he will no longer be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, according to a GOP leadership source and a Republican lawmaker familiar with the matter.
The lawmaker said Turner informed him Wednesday that he would not be staying on as head of the critical committee.
The top post on the Intelligence Committee is one of the few positions directly chosen by the speaker of the House at the start of a new Congress.
Johnson’s office had no comment. A Turner spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
House Republican sources said they did not know who Johnson would choose to replace Turner.
The decision stunned lawmakers in both parties given that Turner, a defense hawk, is well-respected on both sides of the aisle.
Then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., had tapped Turner to serve as the top Republican on the panel starting in Janu 2022. After Republicans took back the majority that fall, McCarthy kept him on as chairman of the Intelligence committee for the 118th Congress, a term that started Janu 2023.
When McCarthy was ousted and Johnson succeeded him as speaker in October 2023, Johnson decided to keep Turner on as Intelligence chairman.
Now, after winning his first full term as speaker earlier this month, Johnson appears to be putting his own mark on this position and others.
Democrats on the committee said they did not get any warning that Turner was being removed.
“I’m enormously concerned because I think you’d be hard-pressed to find somebody as fair-minded,” said Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Intelligence panel.
He added that Turner “and I had our disagreements, but, you know, I had confidence in him.”
