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Speaker Johnson Will Be Honored Tonight at Christian Nationalists’ Museum of the Bible Gala

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson will give a keynote address and receive an award at a gala being held by the National Association of Christian Lawmakers at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. The Museum of the Bible has become a base camp for right-wing Christian organizing in the nation’s capital.

The National Association of Christian Lawmakers was founded a few years ago by Jason Rapert, a former Arkansas state senator who has received a “mantle” from dominionist New Apostolic Reformation apostles Chuck Pierce and Dutch Sheets, who, like NACL leaders, want to “take authority” over government and bring American law and society in alignment with their “biblical worldview.” In June, NACL met at Liberty University, where Rapert got choked up at the idea of an NACL member one day becoming president of the United States.

The NACL has modeled itself after the American Legislative Exchange Council, which feeds its member legislators model right-wing legislation to introduce on behalf of ALEC’s corporate funders. Rapert has taken credit for anti-trans legislation signed into law by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in March. In a video celebrating that legislation, he said, “We are fighting against the people that are putting the queer books into your school libraries and trying to groom these children into homosexuality.” In November, Sanders appointed Rapert to serve on the state library board.

Among the other dominionists, Christian nationalists, and anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ extremists Johnson will be joining:

  • Andrew Wommack will be receiving a Lifetime Christian Leadership Award at the gala Johnson is addressing. Wommack has used his Charis Bible College and Truth & Liberty Coalition as platforms for promoting Christian nationalist ideology and political organizing to take over the local public schools in Woodland Park, Colorado and then broadening their power-building plans. Wommack is vehemently anti-LGBTQ; he has declared that gay people should be required to “put a label across their forehead” declaring that homosexuality “can be hazardous to your health.” He has said that supporting transgender rights is “demonic.”
  • Gene Bailey, who will emcee the gala, hosts the “FlashPoint” program on televangelist Kenneth Copeland’s Victory Network. FlashPoint is a major platform for spreading far-right conspiracy theories and pro-Trump propaganda to conservative Christian viewers. As Right Wing Watch noted in April, “’FlashPoint’ played a key role in spreading lies about the 2020 election and the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, with Bailey regularly welcoming right-wing “prophets” and evangelists like Lance Wallnau, Hank Kunneman, and Mario Murillo on to the program, where they steadfastly refuse to accept the election results.”
  • Janet Porter is an anti-abortion activist and promoter of abortion-banning “heartbeat” legislation. In the lead-in to Ohio’s recent vote on a pro-choice constitutional amendment, she and her allies promoted false claims that it would abolish all limitations on abortion and tried to mobilize an anti-trans panic against the amendment. But voters overwhelmingly approved the amendment to protect reproductive choice, after which Porter began arguing that the amendment had no authority over the state’s anti-abortion laws, and urged state lawmakers to ignore voters’ wishes and strip state courts of the power to enforce the constitutional amendment.
  • E. W. Jackson, a right-wing pastor and radio host who launched a farcical campaign for the presidency in June, has a long record of using his radio program to vent viciously anti-LGBTQ views.  At the Family Research Council’s 2021 activist conference, Jackson lumped homosexuality, “transgenderism,” Marxism, socialism, and abortion together as “works of the devil.” At his presidential campaign kickoff, Jackson demonstrated a Trumpish disdain for the rule of law, declaring, “I don’t care what the Supreme Court says, I don’t care what the legislature says, I am not bowing down to a law that violates the law of God.”
  • Frank Pavone, a longtime leader of anti-abortion Priests for Life, is a former advisory board member of Catholics for Trump who denied that Trump lost the 2020 election. Inaccurately described in NACL promotional materials as Father Frank Pavone, he was defrocked—dismissed from the priesthood—by Pope Francis last year for “blasphemous communications on social media” and “persistent disobedience” of his bishop.
  • Glenn and Jenny Story are co-founders of Patriot Mobile, a cellphone company whose profits are used to fund Christian nationalist political activism, including the takeover of school boards by right-wing Christians. Earlier this year, Patriot Mobile organized an “Equip and Educate” event that featured David Barton and his son and heir apparent Tim to promote their bogus Christian nationalist pseudo-history. At the Moms for Liberty national summit this summer, the executive director of Patriot Mobile Action introduced herself this way: “My name is Leigh Wambsganss. And my pronouns are Bible believer, Jesus lover, Gun Carrier and mama bear.” Wambsganss declared, “This is a spiritual war, not a political war,” and she vowed, “we will take America back.”
  • Illinois state Rep. Mary Miller claimed this year that the Biden administration is “wholly against Christian Americans.” In February, she was at the Museum of the Bible for a “National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance,” at which politicians and religious-right activists prayed that God would remove “ungodly” people from positions of authority. During her turn at the microphone, Miller lamented that we as a nation “have lost our way because we have rejected you as Creator, Lord, and Savior. Now we are adrift and foolish, calling evil good and good evil. And we are bankrupt, morally and financially.”

 

This article was originally published by Right Wing Watch and is republished here by permission.

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News

‘I Don’t Know—He Was Recommended’: Trump Struggles to Justify Latest Pardon

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12 hours ago

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October 23, 2025

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Just after pardoning the founder of Binance, President Donald Trump struggled to explain his decision — appearing unfamiliar with both the recipient and the legal issues surrounding the case that led to his conviction.

“President Trump has pardoned Changpeng Zhao,” The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, “the convicted founder of the crypto exchange Binance, following months of efforts by Zhao to boost the Trump family’s own crypto company.”

Asked on Thursday why he chose to issue the pardon, and if it had anything to do with Zhao’s involvement with the Trump family’s crypto business, the President responded, “Who is that?”

READ MORE: ‘Amateur Historian’ Mike Johnson Hails Trump’s Ballroom as ‘Greatest’ White House Upgrade

“The founder of Binance,” the reporter replied.

“The recent one, yes,” Trump said. “I believe we’re talking about the same person, ’cause I do pardon a lot of people.”

“I don’t know — he was recommended by a lot of people,” Trump continued. “A lot of people say that — are you talking about the crypto person?”

“Yes.”

“A lot of people say that he wasn’t guilty of anything,” the President declared. “He served four months in jail, and they say that he was not guilty of anything, that what he did —” Trump said before the reporter interjected.

“Well,” Trump responded, “you don’t know much about crypto, you know nothing about, you know nothing about nothing. You’re fake news.”

READ MORE: ‘Racist on Its Face’: Top Democrat Blasts Trump’s ‘Truly Vile’ New Policy

“But let me just tell you that he was,” Trump said, “somebody that, as I was told, I don’t know him, I don’t believe I’ve ever met him. But I’ve been told, a lot of support. He had a lot of support, and they said that what he did is not even a crime.”

“It wasn’t a crime, that he was persecuted by the Biden administration, and so I gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people.”

The Wall Street Journal also reported that a “pardon will likely pave the way for Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, to return to the U.S. after the company pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating U.S. anti-money-laundering requirements and was barred from operating in the country.”

READ MORE: ‘Pay to Play’: Trump Ballroom Donors List Draws Concern and Condemnation

 

Image via Reuters 

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‘Blatantly Illegal’: Dems Probe Trump’s Push to ‘Steal’ Millions From Taxpayers

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15 hours ago

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October 23, 2025

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The top Democrats on the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees have issued a scathing letter announcing they are launching an investigation into President Donald Trump’s efforts to obtain $230 million in compensation for investigations conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice.

In that letter, addressed to President Donald Trump at “The White House (whatever’s left of it),” they describe his  efforts as “blatantly illegal and unconstitutional,” “comically unconstitutional,” a “shake down,” “theft,” and an “outrageous conspiracy.” CBS News Justice Correspondent Scott MacFarlane posted the three-page document to social media.

“Your plan to have your obedient underlings at the Department of Justice (DOJ) instruct the U.S. Treasury to pay you, personally, hundreds of millions of dollars especially at a time when most Americans are struggling to pay rent, put food on the table, and afford health care—is an outrageous and shocking attempt to shake down the American people,” wrote Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin and Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia.

READ MORE: ‘Pay to Play’: Trump Ballroom Donors List Draws Concern and Condemnation

“The Founders feared presidents like you might one day be tempted to use their powers to steal U.S. taxpayer funds,” the two Democrats continued.

They described the U.S. Constitution’s Domestic Emoluments Clause, which they said prohibits any payment from the federal government or from the states, except for the president’s salary.

“Your plan to have your former criminal defense attorneys, including the Deputy Attorney General and the Associate Attorney General, sign off on your demand for an astronomical $230 million payout from the U.S. Treasury clearly violates this ban on additional payments,” they said, calling his demands “bogus.”

They allege that Trump waited until he “became President and installed your handpicked loyalists at DOJ, knowing that you could instruct them to co-sign your demand notes in secret behind closed doors, and then you could present the notes to the U.S. Treasury for cold hard cash courtesy of the American taxpayer. That isn’t justice, it is theft.”

READ MORE: ‘Racist on Its Face’: Top Democrat Blasts Trump’s ‘Truly Vile’ New Policy

They add that they “urge you to renounce your plan publicly and assure the American people that their President is not pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars at their expense.”

The Democrats are asking the President to produce related documents and information by October 30.

READ MORE: ‘Amateur Historian’ Mike Johnson Hails Trump’s Ballroom as ‘Greatest’ White House Upgrade

 

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‘Pay to Play’: Trump Ballroom Donors List Draws Concern and Condemnation

Published

16 hours ago

on

October 23, 2025

By

President Donald Trump’s demolition of the White House East Wing and his plan to construct a 650-person ballroom in its place have attracted deep-pocketed donors, some of whom are now facing ethical concerns, or condemnation for supporting what many view as the needless erasure of American history and heritage.

“Apple, Amazon, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Google, Coinbase, Comcast and Meta are just some of the major companies who have made donations to build President Donald Trump’s proposed 90,000-square-foot ballroom, according to the White House,” CNN reported on Thursday.

The list of 37 names of corporations and individuals also includes HP, T-Mobile, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and family, and SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler and her spouse, Jeff Sprecher.

READ MORE: ‘Racist on Its Face’: Top Democrat Blasts Trump’s ‘Truly Vile’ New Policy

One name missing from the White House’s list: President Donald Trump, who initially had said he would pay for the ballroom himself. TIME magazine reported that “Trump confirmed on Monday that some of the money for the ballroom would come from his personal funds.”

On Wednesday afternoon, as ABC News reported, Trump said the ballroom would be “paid for 100% by me and some friends of mine.”

CNN senior reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere wrote: “Lots of companies with contracts and other business before the government on the list of donors to fund the president’s gold-colored ballroom.”

Critics are now blasting not only the President for demolishing the East Wing — which he had originally said would remain untouched — but also for raising pay-to-play ethics concerns, while turning their ire on the donors themselves.

Pointing to video of the demolition, veteran journalist Barbara Starr asked, “Curious….do donors to this ballroom want to be known for contributing to tearing down this piece of history? Is it good corporate PR?”

READ MORE: ‘Amateur Historian’ Mike Johnson Hails Trump’s Ballroom as ‘Greatest’ White House Upgrade

Last week, CREW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, wrote: “Any gifts to fund the White House ballroom need to be completely transparent so that the American people can judge for themselves what the funders are getting in return for their millions.”

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich on Tuesday also focused on ethical concerns.

“Trump’s ballroom donors include:

-Google, whose CEO thanked Trump for ‘resolution’ of an antitrust case
-Palantir, which has lucrative contracts with ICE
-Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, who would profit from Trump’s regulatory rollbacks for private equity”

“Pay-to-play,” he concluded.

On Thursday he added, “The biggest corporate donors to Trump’s ballroom either have big federal contracts, are currently doing business with the Trump family, or have active antirust cases before the courts. Everything is for sale.”

Professor of law and former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter also called it “Pay to play.”

Last week, Painter told The New York Times, “This is payment for access, not just to the grounds of the White House but access to the president of the United States.”

READ MORE: ‘Sick’: Jeffries Torches Trump’s ‘Out of Control’ Press Secretary

 

Image via Reuters

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