Washington scrambled this week to make sense of a social media post by intelligence committee chairman Mike Turner about an urgently scheduled National Security Council briefing to House leadership.
Earlier this week – in a step that he noted was “highly unusual” – Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan asked to bring leaders from the House and Senate, along with the heads of their respective intelligence committees, up to speed on an unspecified classified matter.
Rather than simply take the briefing behind closed doors, Turner went out publicly on X to disclose “a serious national security threat," and asked Biden to “declassify all information relating to this threat so that Congress, the Administration, and our allies can openly discuss the actions necessary to respond to [it.]”
As anyone would expect, a statement from one of the country's highest intelligence overseers involving an unspecified “serious national security threat” sent the media and the public into full question-mark mode, and took over in real time a regular White House briefing with reporters asking Sullivan if there was reason for nationwide panic:
"REPORTER: In the simplest of terms, can you tell Americans that there’s nothing they have to worry about right now in terms of what [Turner] describes as a national security threat?
"MR. SULLIVAN: Look, I think in a way that question is impossible to answer with a straight 'yes'— right? — because Americans understand that there are a range of threats and challenges in the world that we’re dealing with every single day. And those threats and challenges range from terrorism to state actors. And we have to contend with them. And we have to contend with them in a way where we ensure the ultimate security of the American people.
"I am confident that President Biden, in the decisions that he is taking, is going to ensure the security of the American people going forward, and I will stand here at this podium and assert that, look you in the eye with confidence that we believe that we can and will and are protecting the national security of the United States and the American people."
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Predictably, that non-specific statement from the White House podium only added fuel to the public speculation over the nature and seriousness of the threat. But instead of leaving the threat unspecified and protecting the nature of the country’s most sensitive briefings, “administration sources” came out of the woodwork to share with reporters “on background” the precise classified information on which the White House would brief the select group of congressional leaders.
Along with just about every other national outlet, the Wall Street Journal wrote, “The classified intelligence is highly sensitive and relates to a Russian military capability involving incomplete ambitions to develop a nuclear weapon in space that could be used to target satellites, according to people familiar with the matter. One of the people said the issue was serious, but something that select lawmakers had in their possession for a number of weeks and didn’t present imminent urgency that should alarm the American public or allied countries.”
What’s going on here? Why did the White House choose not to give any information whatsoever about the briefing, but instead sing to reporters about it “on background”? This is the same administration that is prosecuting President Trump for putting national security at risk by holding on to classified materials when he left office (incidentally, while playing down President Biden’s and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s years-long illegal possession of the same after they left office.)
In unsealing the Biden Department of Justice’s indictment of Trump last year for retaining the classified documents, special prosecutor Jack Smith noted, “Our laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the United States, and they must be enforced…Violations of those laws put our country at risk.”
Do Smith and his boss Merrick Garland now intend to hold an urgent investigation into who spoke to reporters about the Russian missile threat, and who from the White House national security press office directed that background briefing?
In response to the disclosure, will Garland order, as he did with President Trump, a surprise, sirens-blaring, pre-dawn, multiple-SUV raid by FBI agents on the residences of the White House and NSC press team, with media in tow and news cameras rolling overhead from a number of helicopters, to find out who leaked the classified information? Doubtful.
Also, when Sullivan told reporters, “I am confident that President Biden, in the decisions that he is taking, is going to ensure the security of the American people going forward,” did anyone in the White House press corps raise an eyebrow over that assertion after Russian leaders and state media were laughing openly just last week over Biden’s cognitive decline and failure to keep track of his own Defense Secretary in January?
If our own national security advisor with a straight face says publicly he is “confident” Biden will “ensure the security of the American people going forward,” given Biden’s clear cognitive decline that his own DOJ admitted in writing just last week, he might want to consider another line of work. Not to mention Biden’s confidence-building measures such as his EV mandates for military vehicles and his woke transformation of the military that has resulted in a record drop-off in recruiting.
Without a doubt, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner could have used better judgment than to pull the fire alarm this week on an unspecified threat to national security. Yet the White House’s response to that questionable move has only further exposed this president’s questionable leadership in the White House, and his administration’s glaring doublespeak on the protection of our nation’s most sensitive national security secrets.
Mr. Ullyot is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and former National Security Council spokesman.
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