Mike Johnson just revealed his true 'panic' with 'astonishing' remarks: ex-GOP operative
Far Left
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson's recent "protection program" comment reveals his true fear, according to an ex-GOP operative.Johnson's comments came at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's annual conference on Friday, where he said, "I run the protection program. I'll take care of you." Johnson made the remark in the context of a warning about electing Democrats in the midterms, which he said will lead to committees investigating Trump along with his family, Cabinet, donors and allies.According to a Saturday piece by Steve Schmidt, the "extraordinary" and "astonishing" remarks reveal that "Mike Johnson is panicking" about accountability."Mike Johnson isn't panicked because he believes innocent people will be persecuted," Schmidt wrote. "He's panicked because he understands that accountability may finally be coming to Washington."Johnson's speech "sounds like dialogue written for Burgess Meredith playing the Penguin in the old 'Batman' TV series," Schmidt continued."He knows there will be subpoenas. He knows there will be hearings. He knows there will be oversight," Schmidt wrote. "He knows investigators will begin asking questions that should have been asked years ago — and he knows the answers may be devastating."Schmidt predicted that if a Democratic majority "should reclaim the Speaker's gavel in the House" after the November midterms, they would "understand the assignment."
A former senior Department of Homeland Security official said Saturday that Vice President JD Vance's recent comments dismissing Watergate amount to a "tacit admission" that the Trump administration's conduct is more serious than the scandal that ended Richard Nixon's presidency — and could ultimately make it easier to hold administration officials accountable.Miles Taylor, the former DHS chief of staff who now runs the group Defiance.org, made the remarks during an appearance on MS NOW's "Alex Witt Reports," responding to Vance's claim that Watergate would be little more than a brief news story if it happened today.Taylor offered a grim partial agreement, saying that compared to what President Donald Trump is doing now, Watergate might warrant only a multi-day story. The reason, he argued, is that Trump has done things he described as substantially more unconstitutional than Watergate — and Vance's comment, in Taylor's view, was an acknowledgment of exactly that.But Taylor drew a sharp distinction between the two presidencies. Nixon, he noted, tried to cover up his abuses. Trump and his team, by contrast, have carried out actions that federal judges have ruled facially unconstitutional out in the open, without any attempt to hide them.That brazenness, Taylor argued, cuts both ways.He pointed to prosecutors who previously worked in the Justice Department who believe the administration's open defiance of the law will ultimately work against it. By wearing what Taylor called the lawlessness on their sleeves, officials may be handing a future Democratic Congress and a future administration the evidence needed to pursue accountability.Taylor framed the dynamic as a double-edged sword for the administration — the same out-in-the-open conduct that alarms defenders of the rule of law could, down the line, become the basis for holding those responsible to account.
Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York ripped into Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Friday night for saying that Republican control of Congress is the only thing keeping President Donald Trump from being held to account for his numerous scandals and abuses of power during his second term in the White House.Asked about comments made by the Speaker earlier in the day, Ocasio-Cortez told MS-NOW’s Jen Psaki that Johnson characterized future efforts to investigate for possible misdeeds or corruption by Trump, his family members, or members of his administration “as though it’s some partisan witch hunt,” she said. “But if you don’t want to be prosecuted for crimes, don’t do crimes.”Ocasio-Cortez, often referred to by her initials AOC, had been asked about remarks Speaker Johnson made at the annual summit of the right-wing Faith and Freedom Coalition, a group with close ties to Trump and the Christian nationalist movement that supports him.“If we lose the midterms, heaven forbid, these Democrats—y’all, impeachment isn’t even the real concern,” Johnson told the crowd. “They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the Cabinet, his donors, friends, half of you in this room will be targeted.”The House speaker added, “I run the protection program. We’ll take care of you, OK?”Johnson’s remarks unsurprisingly sparked a series of critical reactions, including AOC’s.“Mike Johnson saying the quiet part out loud: protect the powerful. Screw everyone else,” said Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Pa.).“The Speaker of the House just talked like a guy guarding an operation that can’t survive daylight,” said Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.). “Because that’s exactly what he’s doing.”“You don’t need a ‘protection program’ for people who did nothing wrong,” Levin continued. “You need one when you’re afraid of what the books would show. Congress is supposed to be a check on power, not the muscle protecting it. Johnson is a total disgrace to the office. November can’t come fast enough.”What Johnson is “talking about,” explained AOC in her interview with Psaki, is a Republican Party in Congress “running a protection racket” for Trump and his cronies, both in and out of government.“And we are already seeing that this Trump administration has run what some have called one of the largest pedophile protection programs in American history,” she continued, referencing the scandal surrounding the disgraced convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.“And so when Mike Johnson tells a group of wealthy donors, I’m the only thing standing between you and a consequence, that should rattle at the conscience of every American,” she said. “What he wants to do is create—or rather, not even create, because it’s already been created—but protect a class of impunity in America that says, ‘You can commit whatever crime, and so long as you pay a check to us, we will protect you.’ And that is a model of extortion in American politics. And you know what? That’s their pitch.”Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, responded to Johnson’s comments by detailing just a few examples of possible corruption by Trump that deserve much more scrutiny and congressional oversight.“Trump has almost tripled his net worth during this term. His sons bought drone companies and immediately received military contracts right before Trump started another war. Trump threw a crypto contest to see who could buy the most of his meme coin, with the prize being exclusive access to him in his presidential capacity,” D-Arrigo noted.“His son-in-law is getting billions in business deals from the countries and oligarchs wanting political favors. Large donors are spending millions to get pardons and investigations dropped. Trump is still actively covering up the Epstein files,” she added. “And these are just a handful of the things that were publicly reported on—imagine what we don’t know about yet.”D’Arrigo called on voters to help “flip the House” away from the Republicans and investigate these examples of grift and corruption as well as others.
Appearing to go off-script at a conservative gathering on Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) suggested that he is the last thing saving Donald Trump, and just as importantly, his supporters, from new investigations because he will run interference for them.Speaking at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's annual summit, Johnson warned supporters that if Democrats take control of the House, they would "turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body" and target "Trump, his family, his Cabinet, his donors, and his allies."He then admitted "I run the protection program. I'll take care of you."The phrase "protection program" caught the ear of MSNOW's Steve Benen, who noted that after Trump returned to the White House, "the GOP-led Congress continued to show very little interest in legislating, but this time, lawmakers also abandoned their oversight responsibilities to an almost cartoonish degree, pretending not to notice any of the incumbent president's many abuses and scandals."According to the analyst, with the bill for compliance coming due, Johnson was serving notice that the GOP would go into bunker mode if the House was lost to Democrats."It was nevertheless remarkable to hear a sitting House speaker declare, out loud and in public, that he wants and expects to run a 'protection program' — a phrase more commonly associated with organized crime — on behalf of the White House."
The South Dakota Republican Party on Friday turned its back on grassroots conservatives and the America First agenda by voting down a resolution to censure Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) over his repeated failure to advance President Donald Trump’s critical SAVE America Act.
The post OUTRAGEOUS! South Dakota GOP Delegates Protect RINO John Thune — Overwhelmingly Vote Down Censure Resolution After He Tanks the SAVE America Act appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
