Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Thursday selected Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) to chair the House Intelligence Committee, naming the veteran panel member to the role after removing Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio). the top job.
The move came as a surprise on Capitol Hill, where Turner’s ouster sparked an outcry from Democrats and some Republicans who were not informed of the move in advance – and suspected that the party’s “America First” wing had helped Turner to suppress.
But Johnson’s selection of Crawford, the highest-ranking Republican lawmaker on the panel, could lend a hand ease concerns among Republicans focused on national security.
“Our intelligence community and its oversight must maintain the highest level of trust. The House Intelligence Committee will play a critical role in this work in the new Congress, and Rick Crawford will provide principled leadership as its chairman,” Johnson said in a statement first shared with The Hill. “He has earned the respect of his colleagues through his years of loyal work on the committee and his consistent approach to the challenges facing our country.”
He also praised Turner’s leadership on the panel during the last Congress.
“He led the committee well during a very difficult time in our country’s history and was fully committed to the task,” Johnson said in a statement. “He is a valued member of our conference, and we look forward to his continued contributions to America’s security and advancing our global security, including in his important position as chairman of the U.S. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.”
In addition to Crawford’s appointment as chairman, Johnson added five novel members to the House Intelligence Committee, positions highly coveted by members: Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), who had sought the chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee; Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.), Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) and Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas).
Johnson’s announcement came less than 24 hours after it was announced that he would not reappoint Turner as chairman of the Intelligence Committee in the 119th Congress, despite complaints from hardline conservatives and Trump World about his leadership abilities, according to a Republican lawmaker.
Johnson has denied that President-elect Trump played any role in the decision, and a spokesman for Trump also indicated that he did not request the redesign. The speaker has sole authority to appoint the Intelligence Committee chairman and GOP members.
Crawford, who is in his eighth term in Congress and beginning his fifth term on the Intelligence Committee, made an unsuccessful bid to chair the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee slow last year.
In a statement, Crawford reiterated the kinds of concerns Trump had raised with the intelligence community.
“Since joining the committee in 2017, I have witnessed firsthand that abuses within our nation’s security apparatus have undermined trust in our institutions and impaired America’s ability to gather intelligence,” Crawford said in a statement. “As Chairman, I will vigorously pursue our mission to ensure credible and robust oversight of the intelligence community’s funding and activities. Without aggressive oversight and vigorous protection of Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights, the IC is prone to giving in to mission creep and circumventing U.S. laws. In all of our work, I pledge to uphold the constitutional rights of Americans, even as we work to support the IC in doing whatever is necessary to gather vital information from our foreign adversaries.”
Crawford added that “leaks and indiscretions by misguided intelligence officials can endanger Americans and impact our ability to predict and prevent attacks” and that “everyone on the committee and within the IC must be committed to the secrecy of the material we review.”
Crawford supported the renewal of a controversial law that allows the unauthorized surveillance of aliens abroad, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
The measure has drawn the ire of the MAGA wing of the party, which sees the intelligence tool as a backdoor to gain access to Americans and wants to include mandatory searches.
Turner was also a key supporter of the tool, which put him at odds with staunch Trump supporters like Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), a critic of the law and one of the few Intelligence Committee members to oppose expanding FISA 702 agreed.
Renewing FISA 702 will be a major issue this year as Congress voted to extend the measure for two years — pushing what will undoubtedly be a controversial reauthorization into the Trump presidency.
Crawford also voted against a $60.8 billion aid package for Ukraine in 2024, saying in a statement at the time: “While the entire Western world supports Ukraine’s fight to expel Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion force, “I cannot vote in good faith to send billions of dollars in non-military financial aid to Ukraine to support its economy while Americans struggle with rising costs at home.”
Turner, on the other hand, was a mighty Republican supporter of aid to Ukraine, drawing the ire of Trump-aligned “America First” conservatives.
Crawford has played a prominent role on the Intelligence Committee in recent weeks.
He chaired a subcommittee that examined the causes of abnormal health events (AHI), also known as “Havana syndrome,” that plague some in the intelligence community.
In this assessment, he differed from the intelligence leaders’ conclusion and claimed that a foreign enemy was likely behind the attack.
“I am convinced that a foreign enemy is responsible for this. …To be clear, this does not mean that all reported incidents are attributable to a foreign adversary. It just means that in many cases the evidence supports this,” Crawford told reporters last month.
“This is not speculation on my part. I want to tell you that we have collected evidence that I can say with certainty that we can attribute many of these AHI attacks to foreign adversaries.”
Crawford was extremely critical of the Biden administration and criticized the president for a problem that the district has been grappling with since 2016.
But he blamed the White House for failing to take action and suggested hushing up the issue.
“The Biden administration and the IC leadership have attempted to obstruct the subcommittee’s investigation into AHIs in order to hide the truth about AHIs from Congress and, by extension, from the American public,” he said, using an acronym for the intelligence community.
Across the aisle, Democrats wasted no time in strongly condemning Johnson’s decision to replace Turner at the helm of the Intel board, accusing the speaker of pandering to Trump’s wishes at the expense of national security.
“The Constitution requires that Congress act as a check and balance to the executive branch and not accede to its demands,” said Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.), the ranking Democrat on the committee.
Updated at 3:37 p.m
