WH: Rep. Turner's Public Russia Alarm Jumped the Gun

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Turner, R-Ohio, jumped the gun by publicly demanding declassification of data on Russia's work on an anti-satellite weapon.

In a Friday interview with NPR, Sullivan said a planned discussion with lawmakers was supposed to be private — but that he didn't fault Turner's motives.

"I had put on the books days ago a meeting with House leadership on this to be able to talk to them privately," he told the outlet. "When we deal with serious threats like this that involve highly sensitive intelligence, we like to do so behind closed doors."

The White House said that while the development of an anti-satellite weapon is troubling, there's no immediate safety risk, nor could the capability "cause physical destruction here on Earth" — though it might threaten astronauts in low orbit, and interfere with systems used for communication, transportation, meteorology and financial transactions.

Sullivan said the reason why officials are tight-lipped is they want to protect intelligence sources and methods.

"But an anti-satellite capability, of course, means something that the Russians could use to go against satellites," Sullivan told the outlet. "So if people wanted to characterize it using a different word, of course, they could do so."

NPR noted the U.S., Russia and China already have the capability to attack satellites, but the use of nuclear weapons in space is banned by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967.

Deployment of the new capability "would violate long-standing international obligations of Russia, but I can't go further than that today given the limitations on what I can share," he told the outlet.

Sullivan also described his Thursday meeting with lawmakers as "deeply substantive," saying it covered the intelligence itself as well as steps the Biden administration is taking to protect the American people.

"It was a bipartisan meeting," he said. "People focused — both Democrats and Republicans — on the substance, not on the politics or the public [turmoil], and I think we emerged with a good understanding of the way forward."

Sullivan also expressed concern about reports that Russia opposition figure Alexei Navalny had died in prison after falling ill.

"If it's confirmed, it is a terrible tragedy," he added. "And given the Russian government's long and sordid history of doing harm to its opponents, it raises real and obvious questions about what happened here."