Senate Republicans have mentioned elevating Sen. John Cornyn to chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, in keeping with get together officers, a transfer that will hand Cornyn a prized gavel as comfort for dropping his GOP chief bid and will assist induce him to run for reelection in two years.
The complication, and virtually sure deal-breaker: Cornyn must leapfrog the Republican subsequent in line to chair the Intelligence Committee, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), and Cotton has privately made clear to Cornyn he would declare the place.
Probably guaranteeing Cotton’s ascension to the chair is the uncooked politics of final month’s Senate Republican management race between Cornyn and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). A choose fairly than standing committee, the intelligence panel’s chair is chosen by the bulk chief. And Cotton supported Thune on the personal poll, in keeping with a 3rd Senate Republican, and now Thune is poised to reward him fairly than the person he defeated.
A spokesperson for Thune declined to remark.
Requested if he expects to assert the gavel, Cotton on Tuesday mentioned, “No remark.”
On Tuesday evening, Cotton spokeswoman Caroline Tabler mentioned: “Senator Thune has advised Senator Cotton he’s taking on as chair. He’s hiring employees, working with Senator [Marco] Rubio (R-Fla.) on the transition, and planning with Senator [Mark] Warner (D-Va.) for January affirmation hearings.”
A Cornyn consultant declined to remark.
However I’m advised the Arkansan has already began hiring employees and refused to be coaxed into letting Cornyn take the chair, which shall be open due to Rubio’s appointment as Secretary of State. Cornyn approached Cotton to take his temperature concerning the put up final month after the chief race, I’m advised by a Republican senator, and Cotton responded by saying: “I’m going to be the chairman.”
Cornyn mentioned after his defeat within the chief race that he deliberate to hunt a fifth time period in 2026. But a number of the Texan’s colleagues are extra skeptical, partially as a result of Cornyn might face a formidable major problem from state Lawyer Normal Ken Paxton.
Providing Cornyn, a 72-year-old former choose popular with his colleagues, management of the panel that oversees the nation’s intelligence packages was seen as a win-win, in keeping with two GOP officers who described the issues. He’d declare a weighty place at a second of battle overseas and tensions at residence over the nation’s intelligence and regulation enforcement providers. And Cotton wouldn’t be and not using a important put up, after his victory final month for convention chair, the third-ranking slot within the Senate GOP management.
Cornyn served because the second-ranking Senate Republican and chaired the NRSC however, as he enters his twenty second 12 months within the chamber, has but to chair a committee. And since he got here to the intelligence panel later in his profession than 47-year-old Cotton, who was first elected to the Senate in 2014, he’s extra junior than his a lot youthful colleague.
Some well-placed Republicans hoped Cotton may very well be glad, and occupied, along with his new management put up as Senate GOP convention chair. Different Republican officers, although, had been skeptical that Cotton, an Military veteran who was additionally eyed for a nationwide safety appointment within the Trump administration, can be so benevolent as to surrender the gavel.
The beforehand unreported discussions amongst GOP senators come weeks after Cornyn misplaced 29-24 to Thune, a race the Texan had deliberate for years and privately expressed confidence he would win. Lamenting the uncertainty of the key poll contest after his loss, the Texan ruefully recognized with one other lawmaker who was defeated for a management place and was compelled to jot down “27 thanks notes for twenty-four votes.”
A detailed ally of former President George W. Bush and Karl Rove, Cornyn was state legal professional normal earlier than claiming his Senate seat in Bush’s first midterm election. He went on to develop into Senate GOP Chief Mitch McConnell’s deputy for six years and, since leaving the management, has develop into one thing of a deal-maker. He helped negotiate, for instance, the bipartisan firearms invoice that handed the Senate after the 2022 faculty capturing in Uvalde, Texas.
Ever the affable and even-keeled jurist, Cornyn has not had a pure relationship with Trump. However the senator has tried to maintain a relationship with the as soon as and future president, an effort which can have ensured Trump’s neutrality within the chief race. After assembly this week with Kash Patel, Trump’s decide for FBI director and the creator of an enemies checklist of Trump adversaries, Cornyn mentioned he was “inclined to help him, barring some unexpected circumstances.”
The take a look at of Cornyn’s friendship with the president-elect, although, will come ought to the much-anticipated showdown between the senator and Paxton, Texas’s present legal professional normal, come to fruition. Trump is near Paxton, who performed a key function within the president-elect’s effort to overturn the 2020 election outcomes.
And now that Trump is accountable for the Division of Justice as soon as extra, it’s extremely unlikely the federal corruption probe into Paxton will proceed. The Texas legal professional normal has already been acquitted by the Texas Senate in an impeachment trial and agreed to a deal on local charges, for which he’d carry out group service and keep away from a responsible plea.
Paxton has been circling Cornyn, and with out a lot subtlety, a lot in order that final 12 months the senator memorably shot again: “Arduous to run from jail, Ken.”
Since dropping his race towards Thune, Cornyn has publicly and privately insisted he’ll run once more in 2026, looking for to serve within the Senate for the rest of his 70s.
If he does fend off Paxton, although, Cornyn is in line to be Senate Finance chair in 2027.
Invoking the lawmaker he succeeded, Cornyn famous that former Sen. Phil Gramm, whereas not in “elected management, was all the time in the course of a number of the hardest points that confronted the Congress and was a warrior. And I feel it’s a fairly good function mannequin.”
There may be, although, one other mannequin. After former Sen. Alan Ok. Simpson, a Wyoming Republican who like Cornyn had served as whip, misplaced a management race by a single vote after Republicans claimed the bulk in 1994, he retired when his time period was up two years later.