Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) defended his removal of Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) as House Intelligence Committee Chair as his own decision, not one ordered by President-elect Donald Trump.

Turner had served on the committee since 2015. As he was the most senior member following the 2022 elections, he served as chair since 2023. Johnson opted to replace him with the next most senior member, Rep. Rick Crawford (R-LA), near the start of the current Congress where Republicans hold a slim majority with 220 seats in the House.

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“The idea, the notion that this was directed by the incoming administration, is simply false. There’s a range of decisions that are made when you’re determining chairmanships. I have nothing but praise for my colleague Mike Turner and good friend,” Johnson said on NBC News’s Meet the Press Sunday.

“But the whole intelligence community suffered a lack of trust, I think, over the last few years because of abuses — not on the part of anyone in the House — but the intelligence community is the oversight mechanism that we have over that and it just seemed like a good time to have a new change so that’s all it was,” Johnson said.

Johnson went on to dismiss Meet the Press host Kristen Welker’s implication that Turner could feel “alienated” by the decision. Instead he continued to view Turner as a “team player” who he can count on to vote in favor of his agenda.

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The Washington Examiner reported that a major cause of Turner’s removal was his lack of serious action on Havana syndrome, a diagnosis for unexplained ailments among U.S. diplomats, including dizziness, extreme pressure in the head, and unsteady gait.

Johnson was seeking a more thorough investigation into the matter that has resulted in some premature deaths.