Trump/Putin sock puppet fires head of House Intel
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Mike Turner believes that Putin’s imperialist ambitions should not go entirely unchecked, and this is contrary to the current Republican Party line established unilaterally by Donald Trump, and so:
Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday removed Representative Michael R. Turner of Ohio from the helm of the House Intelligence Committee, in a shake-up that signaled he intends to align the pivotal national security panel more closely with President-elect Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Turner, who emerged from a meeting with the speaker on Wednesday afternoon looking furious, has told people that Mr. Johnson informed him his ouster 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 that its members were part of a politicized “deep state” that was out to get him. In jettisoning a Republican seen as insufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump, Mr. Johnson appeared to be paving the way for the president-elect to have tighter control over the committee that oversees intelligence matters.
Mr. Turner, a mainstream conservative who has represented southwestern 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 Jan. 6, 2021, and voted to certify Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 2020 election. He has also been a leading proponent of supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia, breaking with the “America First” stance of the president-elect and many others in his party.
I wouldn’t call it “America” first, but anyway.
One interesting thing here is that lacking both leverage and self-respect Johnson doesn’t even make any pretense about being anything other than Trump’s personal lackey. You would think the Speaker of the House would at least pretend that this was his idea but since everyone knows what the shot is anyway I guess why bother. This dynamic is a good illustration about why any complacency about Trump 2.0 is entirely unwarranted.
Of course, if Turner really wants to stick it to Johnson and what is about to be a 2-seat majority, I have a suggestion….