EXCLUSIVE — A House Republican who was a serious contender to become the next Homeland Security chair suggested private deals Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) made with House Freedom Caucus members to secure the gavel may have doomed his bid.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) had been making moves to lead the House Homeland Security Committee but was passed over for a more conservative member of the Freedom Caucus, whose members pressed McCarthy for certain committee concessions in the messy speakership fight.
“It’s all speculation, but you know, I certainly have many ideas about what happened behind the scenes,” Crenshaw said in a phone call.
Asked if he believed the concessions McCarthy made were a factor or the cause of Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) being tapped for the job, Crenshaw danced around the issue without pointing fingers.
“Well, we’ll never know, right? Because there’s a few pages, things outside the rules package, that nobody ever gets to see,” Crenshaw told the Washington Examiner, “and beyond that, [things] that were never really written down.”
Crenshaw and Green both came to Congress from the military, as a Navy SEAL officer and Army doctor, respectively. The two were friends beforehand, and that has not changed, Crenshaw said.
However, a leader among those defectors, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), admitted earlier this week that McCarthy traded votes in return for committee assignments, making Crenshaw’s suspicions even more likely.
“There was specifically a side-by-side sheet where we made offers to McCarthy. There were some offers he accepted, some he modified, some he rejected, just like you’d see in any negotiation,” Gaetz said in an interview on MSNBC. “I can tell you that Thomas Massie, Chip Roy, and Ralph Norman being on the Rules Committee would not have happened but for this negotiation.”
In addition, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) won a seat on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, a significant get given the body’s focus this session on investigations into the Biden administration’s first two years.
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) ran against McCarthy for the seat and lost but walked away as the speaker’s designee for the steering committee, as well as a seat on the Financial Services Committee.
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Gaetz said he had “no objection” to the list of agreements being publicly shared, but it has remained secret.
Crenshaw, who is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and House Energy and Commerce Committee, said he had faith in Green’s leadership.
“He’s not going to screw it up,” Crenshaw said. “I just thought I would have been much better. That’s why I ran for it.”
A spokesperson for the Homeland Security Committee said in a statement that Green earned the job on merit and not by any backroom deal.
“Chairman Green is unaware of any deal—nor would he have supported one,” the statement said. “Congressman Crenshaw is a good friend of his, and a brother in arms, who he was honored to compete against. The Chairman spent nearly a year meeting with every member of the Steering Committee and presenting his plan to secure America, ultimately winning their hearts with his vision and leadership.”
A previous version of this story was corrected to reflect Crenshaw’s current committee assignments.
