Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Thursday said he was “flabbergasted” by the decision to remove Rep. Mike Turner (Ohio) as the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence panel.
Warner expressed his dismay over Turner’s removal from the panel, praising his “bipartisan” leadership of the committee that oversees the nation’s intelligence community.
“I don’t have the foggiest idea why he was removed. Maybe because he was such a stalwart supporter of Ukraine and be[ing] willing to push back against [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” Warner told reporters.
“I know it’s up to the Speaker’s decision but Mike Turner was the kind of guy who brought the House Intelligence Committee back to the kind of bipartisan respect that I think it lost in the past,” he said. “I wish Mike well.”
Warner said he had a “brief conversation” with Turner Wednesday night after learning he had been ousted from the Intelligence panel’s chairmanship.
“I was totally flabbergasted by this decision. It seemed to come out of nowhere,” he said.
Turner was a critic of what he called the influence of Russian propaganda over congressional Republican critics of providing military aid to Ukraine.
Turner said in April that Russian propaganda had “absolutely” seeped into the Republican conferences.
“It is absolutely true we see, directly coming from Russia, attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper at the time.Turner had been chairman of the House Intelligence panel since 2022. He was appointed to the post by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) decided not to reappoint Turner to wield the gavel, a decision that became public Wednesday.
