Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner said Sunday that the Russian propaganda taken has infiltrated his Republican colleagues and is “being uttered on the House floor.”
The Ohio Republican was reinforcing a claim made by Secretary of State Michael McCaul last week to Puck News: “Unfortunately, Russian propaganda has reached the United States and infected a good portion of my party’s base.” “.
“It’s absolutely true,” Turner said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“We see attempts coming directly from Russia to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even heard spoken in the House.”
“To the extent that this propaganda takes hold, it will become more difficult for us to see this as a battle between authoritarianism and democracy,” he added.
Support for increased funding for Ukraine has waned among the House Republican conference as the conflict in the east drags into its third year. President Mike Johnson is believed to be planning to accept some form of aid for Ukraine after Congress’s Easter recess.
Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner said Sunday that the Russian propaganda taken has infiltrated his Republican colleagues and is “being uttered on the House floor.”
The Ohio Republican was reinforcing a claim made by Secretary of State Michael McCaul last week to Puck News: “Unfortunately, Russian propaganda has reached the United States and infected a good portion of my base.” game”.
After the Senate approved a national security supplement with $60 billion in aid to Ukraine in February, funding for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific has languished in the lower house.
In a statement on Thursday, Johnson suggested he would include border provisions in any foreign aid package.
‘As I have always said, national security begins at our southern border. Any funding in the President’s supplemental request must be based on meaningful policy to help the American people and ultimately address the invasion at our southern border.’
The House is expected to approve a supplemental funding package with foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific in the weeks after the Easter recess.
But the details of the package are still unclear. It is expected to include some provisions from HR 2, the House Republican border package.
People sit in front of a house hit by a recent bombing, what local officials called a Ukrainian military strike, in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine, April 7, 2024.
Some policymakers have been pushing for Russian assets to be seized, rather than simply frozen, and repurposed for Ukraine under the REPO Act. But the process would be difficult and has essentially never been done before.
The United States, the European Union, the G-7 and Australia have frozen around $280 billion in Russian Central Bank assets, mainly in the form of securities and cash. Sanctions on Russian citizens have frozen another $58 billion in assets, according to the US Treasury.
The United States, the United Kingdom and Canada are in favor of confiscating the assets. But France, Germany and the European Central Bank have expressed concern about possible Russian retaliation and the precedent it would set for international law.
In this photo taken from a video and published by the press service of the Russian Ministry of Defense on Thursday, April 4, 2024, a Russian tank fires at an undisclosed location in Ukraine.
Others have suggested that aid to Ukraine will likely include a lend-lease provision. Providing defense materials under the Lend-Lease Act means they must be returned if they are not destroyed in war. Funds could also be loaned to Ukraine with the promise that they would be repaid over the long term.
Meanwhile, Johnson previously suggested attaching a lifting of the ban on liquefied natural gas exports after Biden said in January he would suspend approvals for applications to analyze the economic and environmental impact. It’s unclear whether the White House would agree to that.
Johnson would likely need significant Democratic support to pass the legislation, as many of his Republicans remain firmly against any additional funding for Ukraine.
Democrats largely support funding Ukraine’s war against Russia, but some progressives could reject a package that includes money for Israel, which they believe has not taken enough care of the lives of Palestinian civilians in its mission to eradicate Hamas. The recent murder of an American aid worker could further entrench their opposition.
Last month, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., launched an attempt to oust Mike Johnson from the presidency. She did not force an immediate vote, but as a staunch opponent of aid to Ukraine, introducing a national security supplement in the House would further jeopardize Johnson’s job.
Turner said Sunday that he did not believe Johnson is at “any risk” of being ousted by the “chaos caucus,” referring to members “who seek attention for themselves and try to stop all important work in Congress.”