{"id":16183,"date":"2025-12-02T16:47:59","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T16:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/stefanik-accuses-johnson-of-lying-blocking-her-defense-bill-provision\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T16:47:59","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T16:47:59","slug":"stefanik-accuses-johnson-of-lying-blocking-her-defense-bill-provision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/stefanik-accuses-johnson-of-lying-blocking-her-defense-bill-provision\/","title":{"rendered":"Stefanik accuses Johnson of lying, \u2018blocking\u2019 her defense bill provision"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Rep. Elise Stefanik is taking aim directly at Speaker Mike Johnson over signals a provision she has championed won\u2019t be included in the annual defense policy bill the House wants to pass next week \u2014 marking a notable and unusual split inside the House GOP leadership team.<\/p>\n

Stefanik, a New York Republican who serves as a member of Johnson\u2019s leadership team, said in a social media post<\/a> Tuesday morning she would help tank the National Defense Authorization Act if it doesn\u2019t incorporate her provision that would require the FBI to notify Congress when it opens investigations into candidates running for federal office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an easy one,\u201d the New York Republican posted on social media Tuesday morning. \u201cThis bill is DOA unless this provision gets added in as it was passed out of committee.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stefanik also blamed Johnson for the expected omission.<\/p>\n

\u201c[T]he Speaker is blocking my provision to root out the illegal weaponization that led to Crossfire Hurricane, Arctic Frost, and more,\u201d she wrote on X. \u201cHe is siding with Jamie Raskin against Trump Republicans to block this provision to protect the deep state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stefanik\u2019s proposal, which would require the public disclosure of all \u201cFBI counterintelligence investigations into presidential and federal candidates seeking office,\u201d is designed to combat what many Republicans consider politically motivated investigations related to Russian interference in the 2016 election and former special counsel Jack Smith\u2019s probe into President Donald Trump\u2019s efforts to subvert the election in 2020.<\/p>\n

Asked about whether he thwarted the provision\u2019s inclusion in the NDAA, Johnson said Stefanik\u2019s retelling of events is \u201cfalse.\u201d He said he supported the provision and that there could still be a path for its passage in some other legislative vehicle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t exactly know why Elise just won\u2019t call me,\u201d he said, recalling that he told his colleague over text, \u201cWhat are you talking about? This hasn\u2019t even made it to my level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson explained the bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, who he suspected have jurisdiction over this issue, had not agreed to include the language, leading to the provision being dropped from the defense bill. A spokesperson for Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary panel, deferred to Johnson\u2019s explanation.<\/p>\n

Stefanik quickly responded in another post on X<\/a>, \u201cJust more lies from the Speaker,\u201d while insisting the Intelligence Committee, on which Stefanik sits, has jurisdiction over her provision.<\/p>\n

Leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have been negotiating the NDAA for weeks and could roll out a compromise package as soon as Thursday; Stefanik said in her social media post that she got early details of that package in an Intelligence Committee briefing.<\/p>\n

The narrow GOP majority in the House means that Johnson can barely afford to lose any Republican support if Democrats reject the legislation en masse, but it\u2019s far from guaranteed Stefanik\u2019s opposition will doom the NDAA on its own.<\/p>\n

While most Democrats opposed the hard-right version of the Pentagon bill the House passed in September, more Democrats might come on board to support a compromise measure and make up for a shortfall of votes on the Republican side of the aisle. The NDAA is typically a broadly bipartisan package.<\/p>\n

Connor O\u2019Brien contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rep. Elise Stefanik is taking aim directly at Speaker Mike Johnson over signals a provision she has championed won\u2019t be included in the annual defense policy bill the House wants to pass next week \u2014 marking a notable and unusual split inside the House GOP leadership team. Stefanik, a New York Republican who serves as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}