‘All Hell Broke Loose’: How Congress Blabbed About Russia’s Space Nukes – By Ryan Lizza (Politico) / Feb 17, 2024
The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee pulls back the curtain on a wild week.
On Tuesday night, Rep. Mike Turner, the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, showed Rep. Jim Himes, the committee’s ranking Democrat, a short statement that he wanted to release.
Meeting behind closed doors, the committee had just voted to allow all House members access to a secret report that Turner (R-Ohio) found especially alarming. Now Turner wanted the public to know about it. His proposed statement described “a serious national security threat” and called on President Joe Biden to “declassify all information relating to this threat.”
Himes (D-Conn.) read Turner’s statement and told him that releasing it was a bad idea. “In the meeting, I objected to communicating this,” Himes told POLITICO. Turner held back that night, but on Wednesday morning, he hit send.
And then, of course, all hell broke loose.
