Elise Stefanik is finally back on the House Intelligence Committee.
On Friday morning, Speaker Mike Johnson added the New York Republican back to the influential spy panel, after months haggling over how to return the GOP star to her coveted committee post.
Stefanik was added to the committee under unanimous consent, along with Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.).
The congressmember was originally set to maintain her seat on the Intelligence Committee this January, but gave up the assignment when she was tapped to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. President Donald Trump pulled his selection back in March due to the GOP’s narrow majority in the House.
After her ambassador bid flamed out, Johnson said in April he intended to get Stefanik back on the committee. But fulfilling that promise put him in a bind: He could either strip a current Intelligence Committee Republican of a spot, or work with the minority to circumvent committee rules and add another Democrat.
Johnson opted for the latter, pairing Stefanik with Cohen and expanding the panel past a limit under committee rules of 25 members.
A spokesperson for Johnson declined to comment on any potential deal with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). A spokesperson for Jeffries didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
Cohen has been in Congress since 2007 but has never served on the Intelligence Committee.
Stefanik’s allies hold Johnson responsible for her losing out on the ambassador post, which could have given the Republican rising star a prominent voice in Trump’s foreign policy.
Johnson and Stefanik have been warring behind the scenes for several weeks as they have sought to restore her previous positions in Congress.
Tensions spilled into public view in April when the congressmember publicly denied Johnson’s claims that the pair had spoken about potentially running for governor of New York.
The two sat down together in April in a bid to resolve tensions.
Stefanik has sat on the Intelligence Committee since 2017.
It was her role on the panel that catapulted her into the national spotlight in 2019 when the committee, then led by Democrats, spearheaded the first impeachment investigation into Trump.
Stefanik — once seen as a moderate Republican— emerged as a key defender of Trump in her prosecutorial questioning of witnesses and sharp rebukes of Democrats on the panel.
Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
Read the full article here
