House GOP infighting: Stefanik accuses Johnson of killing key Defense bill provision

Elise Stefanik accused Mike Johnson of "torpedoing" the Republican agenda in Congress. The New York congresswoman took direct aim at the speaker of the House of Representatives, for allegedly lying to her while working to undermine a provision she wanted to include in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The public conflict draws attention, given that Stefanik was part of Johnson's leadership until January of this year, when she was nominated as ambassador to the United Nations. Ultimately, Donald Trump opted to keep her in the House so as not to weaken the slim Republican majority in the House.

The source of the dispute is the NDAA, which authorizes the annual budget for the Pentagon. While it does not earmark the funds, since that is set by the Appropriations Act, it does authorize how much the Defense Department can spend and in what areas.

It turns out that Stefanik wanted to include a provision that would require the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to notify Congress when it opens a counterintelligence investigation into presidential or federal nominees (e.g., Senate or House).

According to the New York Republican, this is in response to the "politicization" of the Department of Justice (DOJ) over the past few years.

However, she claimed that, thanks to an alleged agreement between the House speaker and Democrats, the provision will ultimately be left out of the bill.

"I just walked out of a briefing on this issue this morning CONFIRMING everything I posted yesterday. That yes, in fact, the Speaker is blocking my provision to root out the illegal weaponization that led to Crossfire Hurricane, Arctic Frost and more," she expressed.

At the same time, she noted that the provision had already been approved in the Intelligence Committee, so they should not have thrown it out without a vote.

A day later, Johnson's response came. The House speaker told reporters that he had written a message to Stefanik, explaining that he was unaware of the situation. At the same time, he clarified that the problem with her provision may have had to do with legislative rules.

According to the procedure for legislation such as the NDAA, the two chairmen and the two ranking members of the relevant committees must agree on what to include and what not to include. According to Johnson, the Judiciary Committee leaders, who he suspected had jurisdiction over this matter, may not have agreed on the Stefanik provision, causing it to be removed from the defense bill.

"In this case, I found out last night, this wasn't even on my radar, that that apparently didn't happen. I haven't even talked to those chairs about it at that time. But apparently those four, the two chairs and the two rankers in both chambers, did not agree, and so that provision was dropped out of the NDAA. It doesn't mean it can't become law, or even that that is a final decision," Johnson added.

It took just a few hours for Stefanik to respond to the House speaker, accusing him of lying. She claimed that being unaware of the situation is "his favorite tactic to tell members when they find him sabotaging the Republican agenda."

"It wasn’t on your radar? This is the ONLY provision in the bill to root out the deep state rot. 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 (Democratic congressman). You said you would fix it, so fix it," she posted on her X account.

Leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have been negotiating the NDAA for weeks. They are expected to release a joint package in the next few days.