Who?
Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) — Ranking Member, House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee (HPSCI)
LISTEN: Laslo & Himes
Ask a Pol asks:
Do you know if Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has final say on security clearances for Oversight Committee members, especially when it comes to granting — or denying — access to Special Access Programs (aka SAPs)?
Key Himes:
“I think — but I'm not 100% sure — that the committee of jurisdiction can vote to make that happen,” Ranking Member Jim Himes exclusively tells Ask a Pol. “You’d have to confirm that.”*
HASC Texts I — “I don’t know actually”
BACKGROUND (ie rabbit trail…):
*The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence or SSCI — where Ask a Pol UAPs is historically best sourced — basically, told us they have no idea how House clearances work. They did acknowledge the process gets foggy-to-opaque quickly when dealing with SAPs.
SSCI then sent us to HPSCI.
“You mentioned SAPs specifically, those are mostly — we get some — but those are mostly HASC’s jurisdiction,” a helpful HPSCI aide told Ask a Pol on background.
“There are very different scenarios,” they continued. “The general rule of thumb is House Intel mostly holds their information pretty close. We don’t do a lot of sharing.”
“Oh, I know Mr. Turner!” Laslo replied to laughter.
“I would refer you to — not to pass the buck — but because it’s specific to SAPs, mostly House Armed Services handles those,” the aide said, before adding this was the first she heard of this AARO v. GOP leadership dispute. “Maybe they’d have information. I’m not familiar with that specific example.”
When we called HASC numerous times, the phone just rang eternally.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s team has not returned Ask a Pol UAPs’ request for comment, even as House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer flatly denied blocking the UAP Caucus’ investigation.
ICYMI — Who’s running the US House of Representatives?
We’ll update this post if we, well, get an update…
HASC Texts II — A lawmaker on HASC did some digging for Ask a Pol UAPs
Rules of the House of Representatives — 119th Congress
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‘Clearance’ mentioned only twice in manual
Caught our ear:
“It would be a legislative decision,” Himes tells us.
Below find a rough transcript of Ask a Pol’s exclusive interview with Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), slightly edited for clarity.
TRANSCRIPT: Rep. Jim Himes
SCENE: Ask a Pol’s Matt Laslo’s interviewing Connecticut Congressman John Larson (D-CT) on the Capitol steps when Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) exits the Capitol and interrupts their chat and proceeds to tout their accidentally matching summer suits.
Laslo waits in the humid wings on the 90+ degree day, and once they stop talking he ditches Larson and jogs after Himes as he glides down the Capitol steps.
Matt Laslo: “Can I talk to you a sec?”
Himes says nothing.
ML: “Do you know who controls access to giving people on Oversight [Committee] access to SAPs — or Special Access Programs — would that be the Speaker?”
Jim Himes: “Umm. I think — but I'm not 100% sure — that the committee of jurisdiction can vote to make that happen.”
ML: “Ahuh?”
JH: “You’d have to confirm that.”
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ML: “But it would be Congress, not the Pentagon or…?”
JH: “No, no, no. It would be a legislative decision.”
ML: “Yeah?”
Himes turns to TV correspondent.
TV Reporter: “Hi…”
JH: “Hi…”
ML: “Thank you.”
Ewoud SVG contributed to this report.
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*Pardon any typos, Laslo pulled another 48 hour day…
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