Editor's note: A previous version of this column incorrectly stated Mike Rogers was the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. It has been corrected to Mike Turner.
The DC Swamp is full of hypocrisy and double talk with little that comes out of it which doesn’t need an interpreter. Much to my surprise, on many of the media programs which I appear on regularly, that is the role which I play – Swamp Decoder.
One of the relatively under the radar issues which is currently percolating in the bowels of our Capitol is the loud complaining by the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Mike Turner over the appointment of two of his fellow Republican members, Scott Perry and Ronny Jackson, to the very Committee from which Adam Schiff pronounced lie after lie during the Russiagate scandal.
Turner's complaints are unusual for many reasons, but the most obvious is that he really serves in his Chairmanship at the pleasure of the Speaker of the House. His willingness to openly demand that he control who gets a seat on his committee is a clear demonstration of the challenges Speaker Mike Johnson faces on a daily basis. The fact is that no one fears him, because three Republicans can vote him out of office unless Democrats save him.
The most recent attempt to remove the Speaker by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, ended when Democrats voted to save the Speaker along with most Republican members including the national security/Intel wing of the GOP House led by Turner.
The result is that rather than Turner owing his job to Speaker Johnson, the dynamic is reversed. Empowering the House Intelligence Committee Chairman to vocally dispute the Speaker’s choices for the Committee.
Democrat Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries joined Turner in attacking the appointees through a separate press availability stating that he would seek to have them removed if he were Speaker.
So who are these brigands causing such gastric distress amongst the ranks of the elected defenders of the deep state?
Representative Scott Perry (R-PA) is a retired U.S. Army National Guard Brigadier General – a perfect person to add to the Intelligence Committee as someone who has had a blood stake in the decisions coming from the intelligence gathered over the past thirty plus years. But Perry was not just a weekend soldier. He flew 44 helicopter missions in Iraq and was qualified to fly every rotary aircraft in the U.S. Army. Perry is a man who understands warfare and its high costs, exactly the right choice for the Intel Committee.
One might ask, what is Perry’s offense? In the wake of January 6, the overzealous FBI confiscated his cell phone in an attempt to implicate him in the events of that day. Apart from the public embarrassment of the FBI’s very public phone theft, Perry has been a vocal and honest leader in the House Freedom Caucus using his knowledge and strong personal belief system about our Constitution and the liberties it guarantees as a guiding star as he legislates. Perry has also had the audacity to question official narratives surrounding the intelligence community’s abuse of power in their attempt to undermine President Trump’s presidency through Russiagate.
Representative Ronny Jackson (R-TX) is a former Captain in the U.S. Navy’s medical corps. He served as the official White House physician from 2013 to 2018 serving both President Obama and Trump, prior to winning a seat in Congress. The president’s physician is privy to some of the most important intelligence information of anyone on earth – the physical and mental state of the most powerful person in the world. Yet somehow the intelligence community protectorate find him unsuitable to serve on a Committee overseeing their activities.
Representatives Scott Perry and Ronny Jackson are the right Members to ask the tough questions of our nation’s leading intelligence officials behind closed doors, and Speaker Mike Johnson should be praised for appointing Members concerned about both our national security and the civil liberties which make our country unique in the world.
Contrast the reaction to Perry and Jackson to the strange case of then Speaker Nancy Pelosi ally Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA). In 2015, Swalwell was appointed to serve on this very House Intelligence committee. It turns out that Swalwell also had an uncomfortably close relationship with a Chinese spy. None of the paragons of protecting the nation complained at all about spilling the nation’s secrets to someone who hung with someone paid to get information for the enemy. When found out by the general public, Swalwell wasn’t booted from Congress. Nope, he got a minor don’t do it again from the flaccid House Ethics Committee and was appointed to get this, the Homeland Security Committee and the Judiciary Committee.
The very Committees that oversee our FBI, Justice Department and the various spying components of the Department of Homeland Security. I’m sure his former paramour, who is now back in China, was devastated to learn that she was not able to continue collecting information based upon his new responsibilities.
So in the upside down world of DC speak, some would have you believe that Brigadier General (Ret) Scott Perry and Captain Ronny Jackson are not fit to serve on the House Intelligence Committee, but no one had any problems with San Francisco lawyer and Chinese confidante Eric Swalwell getting all the secret scoops.
With all that being said, I will let the reader review the facts and decode this one for themselves. But Magic Eight Ball says, ‘something smells mighty fishy.’
The author is president of Americans for Limited Government.