Mike Johnson Desires to Be MAGA’s “Get Out of Jail Free” Card

Republicans aren’t solely sacrificing their dignity to attempt to hold Donald Trump out of jail—they’re additionally going to bat for his embattled adviser. Home Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday confirmed that he would again Steve Bannon’s effort to enchantment his conviction to the Supreme Courtroom, because the MAGA strategist tries to keep away from reporting to jail on July 1 for defying a January 6 committee’s subpoena. “We’ve been investigating the committee itself,” Johnson stated on Fox Information, baselessly suggesting the bipartisan panel was “wrongfully constituted” and engaged in unnamed “nefarious actions” in investigating 2021’s pro-Trump assault on the Capitol. “We expect it violated Home guidelines,” Johnson added. “We’ll be expressing that to the courtroom, and I feel it is going to assist Steve Bannon in his enchantment.”

The announcement got here as Johnson and different Home Republicans in a closed-door vote formally determined to “withdraw” the earlier Congress’s assist for the committee and file an amicus temporary on Bannon’s behalf. It’s unclear if the trouble will change Bannon’s destiny, which might be determined by Chief Justice John Roberts as quickly as Wednesday; the amicus temporary, as Politico’s Kyle Cheney reported, is not going to are available by the excessive courtroom’s deadline. However Bannon cheered the transfer by Johnson, the speaker he derided simply months in the past as a “revolting loser” for replenishing international help to Ukraine.

“Speaker Johnson and Home management confirmed great braveness in repudiating the illegally constituted J6 Committee and its actions/investigations,” the previous White Home strategist stated in a textual content to Axios.

After all, there was nothing “unlawful” or “nefarious” concerning the structure of the January 6 committee or the investigation it undertook. The inquiry, led by Democrat Bennie Thompson and Republican Liz Cheney, gave the general public a radical accounting of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and its violent denouement on January 6, 2021, as lawmakers convened to certify Joe Biden’s victory. Johnson—who helped lead the disgraceful push by congressional Republicans to dam that certification—is in search of to rewrite that historical past, suggesting that the actual crime was not dedicated by these in search of to subvert the democratic course of however those that sought to uphold it.

Johnson and the opposite 146 elected Republicans who participated in Trump’s assault on democracy have an apparent private curiosity in smearing the committee that shone a light-weight on their culpability. However there’s something notably pathetic of their doing so for the sake of Bannon, whose delinquency and depravity are maybe solely exceeded by the demagogue he serves. The GOP is asking the Supreme Courtroom to spare Trump from jail time, too, after he was convicted on 34 felony expenses final month—and are hoping that the conservative supermajority, which incorporates three justices the previous president appointed, will indulge his outrageous “immunity” claims and additional undermine the felony case Jack Smith introduced towards Trump over his makes an attempt to steal the 2020 election.

Trump’s fortunes are prone to be higher than these of Bannon, who will most likely need to report back to jail subsequent week as deliberate except Roberts has a shock in retailer. However even when the GOP’s assist doesn’t cease his four-month sentence, it may assist “flood the zone with shit”—as Bannon himself would say—whereas the MAGA proper seeks to painting accountability as political persecution.