House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Turner (R-OH) said that he issued the statement urging information regarding “a serious national security threat” be released on Wednesday because he felt the White House was “sleepwalking into an international crisis.”
The threat, which is that Russia is allegedly developing a nuclear-armed anti-satellite weapon, was of concern to Turner due to previous inaction by President Joe Biden‘s administration on matters like the Chinese spy balloon incident last year, he explained on NBC News’s Meet the Press.
“What I have called for is for the administration to declassify this, and my concern is that this is kind of like the Chinese spy balloon and the administration is kind of hiding perhaps, you know, some inaction,” Turner said in an interview that aired on Sunday.
He said that since he sounded the alarm over the threat, he has been assured by the White House, specifically national security adviser Jake Sullivan, over how they plan to address the threat.
“I am very glad that the administration is beginning to take action. We met with Jake Sullivan, and he began to lay out a plan that hopefully would begin to address this,” Turner said.
Turner also said he was assured by a New York Times report that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken with Chinese and Indian officials regarding the threat at the Munich Security Conference this weekend.
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The statement from Turner on Wednesday caused congressional leaders and the White House to urge the public that the threat was longstanding, with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) saying there was “no need for public alarm.”
Turner also got blowback from within the GOP House conference over his decision to release the statement.
