❓WHAT HAPPENED: Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) criticized House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), accusing him of aligning with Democrats to block a provision aimed at preventing intelligence community weaponization.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Representative Elise Stefanik, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL).
📍WHEN & WHERE: The dispute unfolded on Tuesday, with statements made on social media and during press interactions.
💬KEY QUOTE: “You torpedoed this siding with Jamie Raskin. You said you would fix it, so fix it.” – Elise Stefanik
🎯IMPACT: The controversy threatens Republican unity on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with Stefanik and others pledging to oppose the bill without the provision’s inclusion.
Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) blasted House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Tuesday, accusing the Republican leader of siding with Democrats to protect the intelligence community from accountability. Stefanik expressed her frustration over the potential removal of a provision she supports from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which aims to prevent the illegal weaponization of federal agencies.
“The Speaker is blocking my provision to root out the illegal weaponization that led to Crossfire Hurricane, Arctic Frost, and more. He is siding with Jamie Raskin against Trump Republicans to block this provision to protect the deep state,” Rep. Stefanik wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday. “This is an easy one. This bill is DOA unless this provision gets added in as it was passed out of committee,” she warned.
The amendment seeks to mandate that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) notify Congress when investigations into presidential or other federal candidates are launched.
Stefanik’s allegations mark a rare and public challenge by a member of Speaker Johnson’s leadership team. The House Speaker quickly pushed back against the New York congresswoman’s claims. “All of that is false. I don’t exactly know why Elise won’t just call me. I texted her yesterday,” Johnson said just before noon on Tuesday. “She’s upset one of her provisions is not being made, I think, into the NDAA… As soon as I heard this yesterday, I was campaigning in Tennessee, and I wrote her and said, ‘What are you talking about?’ This hasn’t even made it to my level.”
Johnson says the provision may be passed through other legislative mechanisms, but the exact plan and details remain unclear. Despite his attempts to reassure House Republicans, opposition to the NDAA now appears to be mounting. Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) has also pledged to vote against the defense bill if Stefanik’s provision is excluded. With Johnson only able to lose a handful of votes, the path to adoption for the NDAA is increasingly precarious, and its defeat would be a significant legislative blow and political humiliation for the Speaker.
“Just more lies from the Speaker,” Stefanik wrote in reaction to Johnson’s claims. “This is not regular order. Regular order is a Members’ provision that passed out of committee should be heard on the floor and not struck down by a Democrat minority member in a closed door meeting.”
“My provision passed out of the House Intelligence Committee which is the committee of jurisdiction. You torpedoed this siding with Jamie Raskin,” she alleged, adding: “You said you would fix it, so fix it.”
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