As entertaining as the House speaker fight is, the prolonged process has and could continue to impact U.S. national security oversight.
Rep. MIKE GALLAGHER (R-Wis.), the incoming chair of the House Select China Committee, was unable to meet Gen. MARK MILLEY, the Joint Chiefs chair, in a SCIF Wednesday because he’s not yet officially a member of Congress. Yes, he’s a returning representative, but the House isn’t officially in place as the KEVIN McCARTHY battle rages, which means Gallagher doesn’t have the requisite permission to see or discuss classified materials. “Technically, I don’t have a clearance,” he told reporters yesterday.
Rep. BRAD WENSTRUP (R-Ohio), who was on the House Intel Committee in the last Congress, lamented that “the secure facility that we work in every day when we’re here, we can’t go in there right now…We’re in there all the time. And right now, we can’t be in there at all.”
All of this and more has the presumptive chairs of the Intelligence, Armed Services and Foreign Affairs panels quite worried. “The Biden administration is going unchecked and there is no oversight of the White House, State Department, Department of Defense, or the intelligence community,” Reps. MIKE TURNER (R-Ohio), MIKE ROGERS (R-Ala.) and MICHAEL McCAUL (R-Texas) said in a joint statement.
Staffers at government agencies can still brief some staffers, but for now, those staffers can’t brief their bosses on classified information.
JONATHAN LORD, who worked on the House Armed Services Committee, told NatSec Daily that further delays could imperil the long process toward the next National Defense Authorization Act. HASC needs to conduct a dozen posture hearings and a chairman’s mark before the summer, receive briefings on the Pentagon’s budget justification and review hundreds of amendments before the markup.
If much of this work isn’t done before the president’s budget drops early this year, “the committee would likely be unable to complete the process until significantly later in the calendar year,” Lord said. “A delay absolutely makes it harder for the committee to get its work done or do sufficient, regular oversight of DoD activities.”
Of course, Lord’s scenario presumes the speaker-vote tumult lasts weeks, not days. Some experts say that a few day’s delay won’t be much of a problem.
There are also some broader issues at play.
For one, the 20 or so House Republicans blocking McCarthy say his support for continued assistance to Ukraine is a major reason for their opposition. “Today the House didn’t organize. Biggest loser: Zelensky. Biggest winner: US Taxpayers,” Rep. MATT GAETZ (R-Fla.) tweeted Tuesday. It’s possible that McCarthy might promise hard-right wingers some reductions in military and economic aid to Kyiv in exchange for the speakership.
And then there’s what the congressional dysfunction looks like abroad. “[F]or US allies like Canada and others, the paralysis, instability and unpredictability this represents is a potentially vital threat,” tweeted THOMAS JUNEAU, a professor at the University of Ottawa. “Big worries for us up here.”
A Western diplomat called what’s happening a “shit show,” telling CNN’s NATASHA BERTRAND that “honest to God this is what we wrote yesterday” in a cable back to their capital.
The Inbox
UKRAINE’S SEMI-SECRET WEAPON: Ukrainian officials say they’ve shot down as many as 80 Iranian-made drones deployed by Russia since the New Year, and they have a little-known German-made weapon to thank.
The nation’s troops have been using the Gepard system, a vehicle that can send dual streams of 35mm rounds ripping into the sky, to hit the drones, Ukrainian officials and advisers to Kyiv told our own PAUL MCLEARY. Berlin has sent 30 Gepard vehicles to Ukraine over the past year, with seven more on the way this year.
The weapon, essentially an anti-aircraft gun that sits atop a tracked vehicle, provides Ukraine with a mobile air defense system that has played a key role in destroying Russian drones and missiles as the Kremlin continues to send waves of both at power stations and electrical generating plants.
TANKER SORE: The White House on Thursday announced the U.S. is sending the Army’s primary infantry fighting vehicle to Ukraine. But what Kyiv really wants is Western tanks — and it may be closer than ever to getting its wish, our own Paul and LARA SELIGMAN report.
The decision to send the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, a tracked armored combat vehicle that carries a turret-mounted machine gun, could pave the way for the U.S. and allies to begin providing more powerful Western tanks to Ukraine, something they have so far been reluctant to do, say experts and a U.S. official.
On Wednesday, France announced that it will send its AMX-10 RC armored fighting vehicles to Kyiv. The AMX-10 is a highly mobile, wheeled system built around a powerful turret-mounted GIAT 105mm gun.
Both factors could make it easier for Western nations to send modern tanks, for instance, Germany’s Leopards or even the U.S. Army’s M1 Abrams, said experts and the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about ongoing discussions.
ERDOĞAN CALLS FOR CEASEFIRE: Turkish President RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN urged Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN to declare a unilateral ceasefire to advance peace talks in Ukraine, Bloomberg’s PATRICK SYKES and FIRAT KOZOK report.
In a phone call Thursday, Erdoğan cited the “positive results” of negotiations over prisoner exchanges, efforts to protect the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and the Black Sea Grain Initiative. Turkey brokered the deal alongside the U.N. late last year to continue the shipment of grain and food stocks into world markets.
It’s the first time Erdoğan has called on the Kremlin to suspend fighting without a Ukrainian commitment to do the same.
Hours later, Putin ordered a 36-hour ceasefire in Ukraine over Orthodox Christmas beginning Friday following an appeal from the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. In response, Ukrainian presidential adviser MYKHAILO PODOLYAK tweeted that the ceasefire was a “cynical trap” and an “element of propaganda.”
BIDEN ON THE BORDER: Biden will make his first visit to the U.S.-Mexico border on Sunday since taking office, our own MYAH WARD reports.
He will visit El Paso, Texas, to “address border enforcement operations and meet with local officials,” administration officials said Thursday. The announcement follows comments the president made Wednesday, when he said he intended to visit the border before his trip to Mexico City for the “Three Amigos” summit with his Canadian and Mexican counterparts.
Biden’s plans to visit the border were revealed just before a scheduled speech to unveil a new humanitarian “parole” program for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The U.S. will accept up to 30,000 migrants per month from those nations in a border strategy that will be paired with the expanded use of Title 42 expulsions.
AUSTIN AT AIPAC: Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN will address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s Political Leadership Forum next week, the group’s spokesperson MARSHALL WITTMANN confirmed to NatSec Daily.
The news was first reported by Jewish Insider’s MARC ROD.
Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN spoke at a conference last December hosted by the left-leaning J Street, where he expressed veiled concerns about Israel’s then-incoming far-right government. It’s interesting that, with the government now in place, Austin will speak to the more right-leaning AIPAC.
A DoD official told NatSec Daily that Austin will be “speaking on Jan 10 and will reaffirm the ironclad U.S. commitment to Israel’s security and qualitative military edge.”
