A rhetorical battle has broken out between the Republican speaker of the House and a Republican congresswoman who is running in the gubernatorial election in New York.
Rep. Elise Stefanik accused Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana of lying about the process to include a provision in this year’s defense policy bill.
‘This is an easy one. This bill is DOA unless this provision gets added in as it was passed out of committee.’
Stefanik’s proposal would require the Federal Bureau of Investigation to notify Congress when it opens an investigation into a candidate for federal office. She threatened to kill the National Defense Authorization Act if her demands aren’t met.
“My provision will strengthen this accountability and transparency to deter this illegal weaponization and it passed out of the House Intelligence Committee in this Congress and previous ones,” she wrote on social media Monday. “If Republicans can’t deliver accountability and legislative fixes to arguably the biggest illegal corruption and government weaponization issue of all time, then what are we even doing.”
She went on to accuse Republicans of siding with Democrats on the issue.
“It is a scandalous disgrace that Republicans are allowing themselves to be rolled by the Dems and deep state on this,” she added.
On Tuesday, she said she walked out on a briefing about the issue and again lambasted Johnson.
“This is an easy one. This bill is DOA unless this provision gets added in as it was passed out of committee,” she added.
Johnson reacted to Stefanik’s accusations during a briefing with reporters Tuesday.
“All of that is false. I don’t exactly know why Elise won’t just call me. I texted her yesterday,” he said.
“She’s upset one of her provisions is not being made, I think, in the NDAA,” Johnson added. “I explained to her on text message — as soon as I head this yesterday, I was campaigning in Tennessee — and I wrote her. I said, ‘What are you talking about? This hasn’t even made it to my level.'”
He went on to explain that the provision had to be agreed upon by other committees before it could be included in the bill, and it was not approved.
“I don’t know why she’s frustrated with me. I literally had nothing to do with it. But I’m happy to roll up my sleeves and help her,” he added.
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Stefanik fired back on social media and accused Johnson of siding with Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland.
“Just more lies from the Speaker,” she wrote.
“It wasn’t on your radar? This is the ONLY provision in the bill to root out the deep state rot,” she continued in part. “You torpedoed this siding with Jamie Raskin. You said you would fix it, so fix it.”
Stefanik is running to replace incumbent Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, but recent polling shows she has an uphill battle in the Empire State. While one poll from the Manhattan Institute shows Stefanik just slightly above the Democrat, other polls show Hochul with a double-digit lead.
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