Thriller in the USA. The head of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Turner, made a puzzling appeal to the US president Joe Biden to declassify information about a “serious threat to national security” to allow for a public debate about how the US should respond.

Committee member Jim Hymes, however, cautioned that the matter was not extremely urgent and that “people should not panic.”

“Today, the House Intelligence Committee made available to all members of Congress information about with a serious threat to national security,” Turner said in his statement.

Mike Turner/AP

“I am asking President Biden to declassify all information related to this threat so that Congress, the administration and our allies can openly discuss the actions needed to address this threat.”

Late Tuesday, Turner sent a letter to his colleagues noting that the committee had voted to provide information on “an urgent matter concerning with a destabilizing foreign military capability that all congressional policymakers should know.”

During a White House briefing on Wednesday, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said he was “surprised” that Turner tried to release the information while the White House was planning a briefing with the eight congressional intelligence chiefs.

Watch Turner’s announcement:

USA

“The case concerns Russia”

Two sources familiar with the matter, and a US official, told CNN that the threat is related to Russia.

Multiple sources familiar with the intelligence issues characterized the information as “very sensitive”.

One of the sources with knowledge of the evidence confirmed that “it is, in fact, a tip disturbing and destabilizing” Russian capability “of which we have recently been informed.”