WASHINGTON —
A top U.S. lawmaker is sounding an alarm about a potentially significant threat to the country’s security, publicly calling on President Joe Biden to declassify intelligence so that the American public and its allies can formulate a response.
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Representative Mike Turner, issued a statement Tuesday warning of a “serious national security threat.”
Turner’s statement did not elaborate on the threat, but noted he has requested that the president share the information more quickly and more widely.
A copy of an email Turner reportedly sent to colleagues, shared on social media by various news outlets, described the danger as a “foreign military destabilizing capability.”
Still, the White House on Wednesday sought to downplay Turner’s concerns.
I’m confident that President Biden, in the decisions that he is taking, is going to ensure the security of the American people going forward,” said White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
“We believe that we can and will and are protecting the national security of the United States,” Sullivan told reporters, adding he was surprised that Turner took his concerns public since they were scheduled to meet for a classified briefing Thursday.
Sullivan also defended the decision not to make the threat intelligence public, pointing both to concerns about protecting U.S. “sources and methods,” and the president’s willingness to declassify intelligence in the past.
You definitely are not going to find an unwillingness to do that when it’s in our national security interests to do so,” he said. “This administration has gone further and, in more creative, more strategic ways, dealt with the declassification of intelligence in the national interest of the United States than any administration in history.”
Some key lawmakers also pushed back.
The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Jim Himes, called the threat “a significant one” but “not a cause for panic.”