Mike Johnson Defends Innocent, Misguided January 6 Insurrection Tourists

The worst GOP speaker since the last one

Current temp-to-perm House Speaker Mike Johnson was knee-deep in Donald Trump’s 2020 coup attempt. Although he didn’t go full “Today is 1776” like his Republican colleague Lauren Boebert, he did post on January 6: “We MUST fight for election integrity, the Constitution, and the preservation of our republic! It will be my honor to help lead that fight in the Congress today.”

Johnson would likely insist that he meant “fight” in the metaphorical way that involved tossing out the Electoral College results in Arizona and Pennsylvania, disenfranchising millions of American voters, and keeping Trump in office against the people’s will. He didn’t support a literal “fight” where MAGA goons viciously assaulted cops and terrorized members of Congress. He even released a statement calling the January 6 insurrectionists “a lawless mob of criminals.” That was before they were rebranded as innocent tourists.

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Johnson’s record so far as speaker isn’t much to celebrate, but he is proud to have defended violent insurrectionists from the consequences of their unlawful actions. Last December, as part of the MAGA propaganda response to the January 6 Committee, he released raw footage of the Capitol attack but blurred rioters’ faces “because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ.”

The Department of Justice prosecuting people who were caught on camera committing felonies is not “retaliation.” It’s the criminal justice system.

Monday, Johnson raved about his accessory-after-the-fact achievements to Newsmax’s Eric Bolling.

“I made a commitment immediately after I got the gavel that we would start releasing [footage of the Capitol attack],” he said. “Originally we were trying to blur some of the faces to protect the innocent, you know, people who were there and just happened to be walking through the building.”

No, that’s what he said. You can watch for yourself.

Roughly 2,000 people stormed the Capitol on January 6. They destroyed federal property and left behind feces and urine in offices and hallways. They interrupted — as was their clear intent — an official congressional proceeding. Maybe a small percentage only stepped over battered cops before quietly wandering around the building, avoiding the poop on the floor. There’s never a bad time to check out that neoclassical architecture — unless it’s in the middle of a violent coup, which is the absolute worst time. However, they were still breaking the law. The Capitol wasn’t open to the public, as you could tell from all the cops ordering the rioters to leave before they were beaten with flagpoles. Much like a Limp Bizkit concert, no one present was truly innocent.

We all know that Johnson would never describe someone as an “innocent” bystander who was “just there and happened to be walking through” a CVS or Target that had been illegally broken into during a riot in Seattle or Waukesha, Wisconsin. Prior to Trump, Republicans just turned a blind eye to white collar crime, but now they defend white criminals regardless of wardrobe choices — blue collar, no collar, commit all felonies you want. The Capitol is MAGA’s very own Pleasure Island, and Johnson will blur the face of every jackass.

After Johnson’s interview aired, DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd released this scathing statement:

“Instead of trying to ‘protect’ January 6 insurrectionists, Mike Johnson should listen to the law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line to defend against this horrific attack on our Capitol and stop downplaying a violent attempt to overturn an election. Claiming that insurrectionists were ‘innocent’ and only ‘walking through the building’ isn’t just a slap in the face to law enforcement who were there — it’s also yet another desperate and dangerous attempt to whitewash a direct assault on our democracy.”

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More MAGA pandering

Johnson was behind the soft coup, and now he’s on board with the hard coup, as well. He danced the same seditious soft shoe as his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy. Johnson remains Speaker of the House for as long as Marjorie Taylor Greene permits, and literally blurring the events of January 6 isn’t too high a price for him to pay. Of course, Greene still isn’t satisfied. The perennial April Fool spent most of Monday trashing Johnson.

“If Speaker Johnson gives another $60 billion to the defense of Ukraine’s border after he FULLY FUNDED Biden’s deadly open border, the cruel joke would be on the American people,” Greene wrote on Elon Musk’s digital bathroom wall.

“And it won’t be April Fools,” she helpfully clarified before later ranting, “Speaker Johnson completely surrendered all power we had in the House to stop horrendous crimes like child rape by illegals when he fully funded Biden’s deadly open border without a fight.”

Greene and her MAGA brethren exploit sexual assault for their own political ends, while dismissing the events of January 6, when sick thugs stalked the halls shouting, “Where are you, Nancy (Pelosi)?” They didn’t want an autograph. Leah Han, an aide to Speaker Pelosi, has recounted how she and her colleagues hid in an office, with the mob pounding on the door. She didn’t know if she’d leave the Capitol alive or intact.

Johnson has tried reasoning with this walking Klan hood. During an appearance on Fox News’ “Sunday Night in America With Trey Gowdy,” Johnson defended negotiating with Democrats and funding the government rather than throwing tantrums like Greene.

“Marjorie’s a friend,” he said, although there’s no evidence of this. She keeps calling him Speaker Johnson, so he should probably stick with Rep. Greene. “She’s very frustrated about, for example, the last appropriations bills. Guess what? So am I. As we discussed, Trey, these are not the perfect pieces of legislation that you and I and Marjorie would draft if we had the ability to do it differently.”

“But with the smallest margin in U.S. history, we’re sometimes going to get legislation that we don’t like,” he added. “And the Democrats know that when we don’t all stand together with our razor-thin majority that they have a better negotiation position. And that’s why we got some of the things we didn’t like.”

I’m not sure admitting he’s totally helpless is the best strategy. Hyenas like Greene don’t respond well to displays of weakness. And he somehow made it worse:

“Now we fought like warrior poets to keep some of those Senate appropriations or some of those Senate earmarks out of the bill. And we were successful in getting a lot of the terrible stuff out, but a few of them made it through. And that’s what Marjorie’s upset about, and I am, too.”

Warrior poets? It’s as if he’s daring Greene to give him the Scar treatment. I’d consider that a fitting end — metaphorically, or course.

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