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So let’s take a more in-depth take a look at Johnson’s document as a propagator of the Large Lie, as a result of it exposes the hazard of what would possibly occur if there may be one other shut presidential election and the GOP retains management of the Home with Johnson as speaker.
“You don’t need individuals who falsely declare the final election was stolen to be ready of deciding who gained the following one,” Rick Hasen, a legislation professor on the College of California, Los Angeles, advised The Related Press.
“Johnson is extra harmful as a result of he wrapped up his try and subvert the election outcomes in lawyerly and technical language,” Hasen stated.
Earlier than being elected to Congress in 2016, Johnson, a constitutional legislation lawyer, served as senior authorized counsel from 2002-2010 for the Alliance Protection Fund (now generally known as the Alliance Defending Freedom), a Christian conservative authorized advocacy group that opposes abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. Johnson himself wrote opinion items in opposition to marriage equality and endorsing briefs filed by the ADF meant to criminalize sexual exercise between consenting adults, Rolling Stone reported. The Southern Poverty Legislation Heart designated the ADF as a hate group in 2016.
So it was no shock that Johnson despatched out this tweet on Nov. 7, 2020, when media retailers largely known as the race for Biden:
Two days later, Johnson despatched out one other tweet indicating that he was in common contact with Trump:
Politico wrote that in an interview with a Louisiana-based radio host on Nov. 9, Johnson added particulars on his name with Trump and made clear that “they already had their eye on a Supreme Court docket showdown.” Johnson stated he thought “there’s at the least 5 justices on the court docket that may do the proper factor.”
Then on Nov. 17, Johnson repeated the debunked declare put forth by Trump legal professionals that there was a world conspiracy to hack Dominion voting machines so Trump would lose the election, The Related Press reported. The AP quoted Johnson as saying:
“In each election in American historical past, there’s some small component of fraud, irregularity,” Johnson stated within the interview. “However when you’ve gotten it on a broad scale, when you’ve gotten a software program system that’s used throughout the nation that’s suspect as a result of it got here from Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, when you’ve gotten testimonials of individuals like this, it calls for to be litigated.”
As extra states moved to substantiate their election outcomes, Texas Lawyer Basic Ken Paxton filed a hail-Mary lawsuit in early December asking the Supreme Court docket to reject the election leads to 4 states carried by Biden—Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin—on the premise that these states launched pandemic-related modifications to election procedures that have been unlawful.
In Congress, Johnson, who had served on Trump’s first impeachment protection crew in early 2020, helped lead the trouble to get 126 Republican lawmakers to signal an amicus temporary supporting the Texas lawsuit. Johnson tweeted:
Then on Dec. 11, in a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court docket rejected the Texas lawsuit. On Dec. 14, the electoral school members met of their states to solid their ballots for president. That very same day Johnson stated in a radio interview that Congress nonetheless had the ultimate say on whether or not to simply accept Biden’s electors on Jan. 6, 2021, Politico reported.
On Jan. 5, Johnson met with fellow GOP Home members in a closed-door assembly to debate what they need to do in Congress the following day.
Politico wrote:
”This can be a very weighty resolution. All of us have prayed for God’s discernment. I do know I’ve prayed for every of you individually,” Johnson stated on the assembly, in line with a document of his feedback obtained by POLITICO, earlier than urging his fellow Republicans to affix him in opposing the outcomes.
On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, simply hours earlier than the mob of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol, Johnson tweeted:
After the mob of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol, Johnson condemned the violence, in line with The New York Instances, however he defended the actions of Republican lawmakers to object to Biden’s victory. And when Congress reconvened, greater than half of the Home GOP caucus supported objections to Biden’s victory.
In an October 2022 report revealed weeks earlier than the midterm election, The New York Instances emphasised Johnson’s position within the vote:
In formal statements justifying their votes, about three-quarters relied on the arguments of a low-profile Louisiana congressman, Consultant Mike Johnson, an important architect of the Electoral School objections.
On the eve of the Jan. 6 votes, he offered colleagues with what he known as a “third possibility.” He faulted the way in which some states had modified voting procedures in the course of the pandemic, saying it was unconstitutional, with out supporting the outlandish claims of Mr. Trump’s most vocal supporters. His Republican critics known as it a Computer virus that allowed lawmakers to vote with the president whereas hiding behind a extra defensible case. …
Even lawmakers who had been among the many noisiest “cease the steal” firebrands took refuge in Mr. Johnson’s slender and lawyerly claims, although his nuanced argument was misplaced on the mob storming the Capitol, and over time it was the imaginative and prescient of the rioters — {that a} Democratic conspiracy had defrauded America — that prevailed in lots of Republican circles.
Johnson has not wavered from his place that he and different Home GOP members had been proper to object to the election outcomes.
In its report, the Congressional Integrity Challenge famous that Johnson had voted in opposition to making a fee to analyze the Jan. 6 assault, calling it “a 3rd impeachment.” He additionally voted in opposition to holding former White Home adviser Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for refusing to adjust to a subpoena from the Home Jan. 6 choose committee.
And simply months earlier than the Home GOP caucus voted unanimously in October to put in Johnson as speaker, he gave oxygen to the baseless conspiracy concept held by right-wing Republicans that federal brokers orchestrated the Jan. 6 riot. He alleged that FBI Director Christopher Wray was “hiding one thing” in regards to the FBI’s presence within the Capitol on Jan. 6, the Congressional Integrity Challenge reported.
In November, Johnson fulfilled a promise he made to far-right members of the Home GOP caucus as a way to safe the speaker’s publish when he introduced plans to publicly launch hundreds of hours of safety digicam video footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol assault, blurring the faces of particular person protesters. Earlier final 12 months, then-Fox Information host Tucker Carlson used selectively edited safety digicam footage to make the declare that Jan. 6 was largely a peaceable protest and the demonstrators have been “not insurrectionists, they have been sightseers.”
In its report, the Congressional Integrity Challenge stated one of many greatest risks is that the tried Jan. 6, 2021 coup by no means ended as a result of Johnson and the identical Trump allies behind that riot are actually totally behind the sham Biden impeachment effort.
These Republicans embody Johnson, Jordan, Comer, and such firebrands as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Matt Gaetz of Florida, the report stated.
With the report, Kyle Herrig, the manager director of the Congressional Integrity Challenge, issued an announcement that learn:
“The identical MAGA Republicans who led Donald Trump’s lethal riot and try and overthrow an election he knew he misplaced, are the identical ones pushing the bogus impeachment of President Biden. MAGA Republicans are a menace to all Individuals and our democracy. They are going to cease at nothing to pursue their radical, out-of-touch agenda, together with violence. All of their actions on behalf of the disgraced former president in an try and distract from his 91 legal indictments and assist him return to the White Home in 2024—and so they don’t care who stands of their approach.”
RELATED STORY: Home GOP kicks off a brand new 12 months of dysfunction with one other impeachment
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