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Johnson: Trump Impeachments a ‘Sham’ but GOP ‘Coming to a Point of Decision’ on Biden

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson says he expects House Republicans will soon come to a decision on impeaching President Joe Biden, and praised Oversight Chairman Jim Comer’s “methodical” investigation he characterized as “outside the scope of politics,” while attacking both impeachments of then-President Donald Trump as a “sham.”

While claiming he has not “predetermined” if President Biden should be impeached, before becoming Speaker, Johnson had strongly suggested impeachment of the President was required by the Constitution in a House floor speech:

Contrary to Speaker Johnson’s remarks on Thursday at his first official weekly press conference, Chairman Comer’s investigation has been seen, even by Fox News, as lacking any actual substance or proof of any criminal or impeachable offense, while Democrats impeached Donald Trump for at least one action which he was later indicted on.

Earlier this year “Fox & Friends” host Steve Doocy slammed Chairman Comer live on-air.

READ MORE: Listen: Mike Johnson on Conversion Therapy and ‘Rampant Homosexual Behavior’

“I know the Republicans said that the smoking gun were these financial records that you were able to subpoena and got your hands on,” Doocy said May 11, as HuffPost reported. “But that’s just your suggestion ― you actually don’t have any facts to that point. You’ve got some circumstantial evidence.”

“And the other thing is, of all those names, the one person who didn’t profit is ― there is no evidence that Joe Biden did anything illegally.”

HuffPost also reported Geraldo Rivera had written “that the committee’s ‘angry allegations are vague and general and do not point to specific crimes.'”

“And former Donald Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka said he was ‘not impressed’ by Comer’s allegations because he hasn’t found a ‘smoking gun’ example of the money actually influencing an official act by Biden.”

But on Thursday, Speaker Johnson declared Republicans have been working as the founders intended.

“So, many of you know my background, I’m a constitutional law attorney,” Johnson told reporters. “I believe this is a very serious matter. I was called upon to serve on the impeachment defense team in the House twice under President Trump when the Democrats used it for raw partisan political purposes, and I decried that at each step of the way.”

Trump’s first impeachment was for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The second impeachment of Donald Trump was for incitement of insurrection.

READ MORE: Damning Document Produced in Court Shows Trump Knew He Lost Election Before Leaving Office: Expert

Insisting impeachment “cannot be wielded for political purposes,” Johnson, Speaker for less than two weeks, said he has “been very consistent, intellectually consistent in this and and persistent that we have to follow due process and we have to follow the law,” which he said means “doing appropriate investigations in the right way at the right pace, so that the evidence comes in and we follow the evidence where it leads, we follow the truth where it leads.”

He declared he was “not predetermined” on a decision to impeach President Biden, nor did he offer what the charges might be, “but I do believe that very soon we are coming to a point of decision on it.”

He claimed that “a lot of American people are anxious about this, many Republicans across the country are anxious to get to the end point on this. And I think some Democrats want to know how it ends as well. What you’re seeing right now is a deliberate, constitutional process that was envisioned by the founders, the framers of the Constitution.”

Despite what critics have charged is a clear lack of evidence of wrongdoing, Johnson insisted, “this is how” America’s founders “envisioned this to go – not the way the Democrats did it, snap impeachment, sham impeachment and all the rest.”

“So I know that I know that people are anxious about it, but I will say, Chairman Comer, Chairman Jordan in Judiciary, Chairman Smith in Ways And Means, they’ve done an extraordinary job, very methodically, and I would say outside the scope of politics, they’ve been taking in the evidence as it goes, so we’re going to follow the evidence where it leads and we’ll see. I’m not going to predetermine it this morning.”

Responding to Johnson’s remarks on Thursday, HuffPost’s senior politics reporter Jennifer Bendery said: “Mike Johnson, the architect of the GOP’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, says Dems impeached Trump twice for ‘raw, partisan, political purposes’ but commits to ‘follow the evidence where it leads’ in the GOP’s baseless impeachment inquiry into Biden.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

 

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‘This Isn’t Justice’: Legal Experts Blast Cannon for Postponing Trump Case Indefinitely

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U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon late Tuesday afternoon issued an indefinite postponement of the court date in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Donald Trump on Espionage Act charges, in the indictment commonly referred to as the classified documents case.

Claiming it would be “imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court,” along with other matters, Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee, wrote: “the Court finds that the ends of justice served by this continuance…outweigh the best interest of the public and Defendants in a speedy trial.”

Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports, “It may be months before we know the new schedule.” Trial had been slated to begin May 20.

“With 13 days before her trial was supposed to kick off, Judge Cannon finally says what has been obvious to every legal journalist I know: She’s not just canceling the existing trial date; she’s also not picking a replacement,” MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin reports.

READ MORE: Johnson Demands All Trump Prosecutions Cease, Vows to Use Congress ‘In Every Possible Way’

The 37 count indictment was brought after Trump removed well over 1000 items, including hundreds of classified documents, out of the White House, retained then refused to return them, allegedly violating several statutes under the Espionage Act.

“Trump mishandled classified documents that included information about the secretive U.S. nuclear program and potential domestic vulnerabilities in the event of an attack,” according t0 the federal indictment, Reuters reported last year.

The trial now is not expected to conclude before the November presidential election this year.

This is news but it’s hardly unexpected,” declared professor of law, former U.S. Attorney, and MSNBC contributor Joyce Vance wrote. “Judge Cannon seems desperate to avoid trying this case. This isn’t justice. defendants aren’t the only ones with speedy trial act rights, we the people have them too.”

“After the election,” professor of law and former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter commented, “if Trump wins Jack Smith gets fired, the case gets dismissed, and Judge Cannon is ready for SCOTUS.”

READ MORE: Trump Threatens to Violate Gag Order and Go to Jail: ‘I’ll Do That Sacrifice Any Day’

Attorney and author Luppe B. Luppen noted, “Judge Cannon’s rationale for indefinitely postponing Trump’s classified documents trial is that a large number of pretrial motions remain unresolved—a state of affairs she has literally engineered by failing to resolve them.”

Professor of law and noted election law expert Rick Hasen asked: “Is it too cynical to believe that Judge Cannon timed the announcement of the postponement of a Trump classified documents trial to take away from the salacious sex details from Stormy Daniels’ testimony today?”

National security attorney Brad Moss served up a “silver lining to Cannon not setting a new trial date: she isn’t blocking the DC or Georgia election cases from resuming in the late summer/early fall, pending SCOTUS ruling on immunity.”

Foreign policy, national security, and political affairs analyst David Rothkopf added, “Justice delayed is justice denied. Both the defendant and the public have the right to a trial ‘without unnecessary delay.’ (Sixth Amendment.) When does Jack Smith seek a remedy for the problem Judge Cannon clearly represents? Tick freaking tock.”

READ MORE: Judge Hands Trump ‘Incarceration’ Threat as Experts Say Next Time He’ll Toss Him in Jail

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Trump Battled to Go to Son’s Graduation – So Why Is He Speaking at a Fundraiser That Day?

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Last month Donald Trump falsely told reporters Justice Juan Merchan had blocked him from attending his youngest son’s high school graduation, refusing to give him the day off from his required attendance at his New York criminal court case.

Justice Merchan had actually told Trump he would take the request under advisement, but Trump quickly ran to reporters painting the judge as heartless.

On April 15 Trump said, “it looks like the judge will not let me go to the graduation of my son who’s worked very, very hard and he is a great student.”

“It looks like the judge isn’t going to allow me to escape this scam. It’s a scam trial,” Trump alleged.

The Associated Press reported, “Trump then furthered his criticism of the judge on his Truth Social platform, writing in one post both that he ‘will likely not be allowed to attend’ and that ‘the Judge, Juan Merchan, is preventing me from proudly attending my son’s Graduation.’ He wrote in another post less than two hours later that he is ‘being prohibited from attending.'”

READ MORE: Johnson Demands All Trump Prosecutions Cease, Vows to Use Congress ‘In Every Possible Way’

None of that was accurate.

Last week Judge Merchan granted Trump the day off from court to attend his son’s high school graduation.

But The Lincoln Project and others on Tuesday posted the announcement for “Minnesota’s 2024 Lincoln Reagan Dinner With Special Guest DONALD J. TRUMP” on Friday, May 17, 2024.

Trump, as The New Republic notes, will be the headline speaker at the event in Saint Paul, Minnesota, which starts at 5:00 PM.

The fundraiser offers supporters the opportunity to spend $100,000, which grants them “10 VIP Dinner Seats | 10 VIP Reception Passes | 3 Photo Opportunities with President Trump.”

Or, for example, for $50,000, a supporter can get a “Chairman’s Host Table – 10 VIP Dinner Seats | 10 VIP Reception Passes | 1 Photo Opportunity with President Trump.”

KARE reports “the visit is expected to be the former president’s first trip to Minnesota of the 2024 election cycle.”

READ MORE: ‘I’m Not Talking About That Meeting’: Noem Implies She May Have Met With Kim Jong Un

Trump has strong motivation to head to Minnesota.

Over the weekend, as NBC News reports, “Top officials for former President Donald Trump’s campaign believe they can flip Democratic strongholds Minnesota and Virginia into his column in November, they told donors behind closed doors at a Republican National Committee retreat Saturday.”

Barron Trump’s graduation from Oxbridge Academy in Palm Beach, Florida reportedly will be the same day, May 17. Depending on timing, It’s possible Trump could fly from Florida to Minnesota to get to the fundraiser by 5 PM.

Watch Trump’s remarks from April 15 below or at this link.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene Delivers Demands to Johnson as Her Three-Person Posse Weakens

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Under her threat to call up her motion to oust Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) met with the Louisiana Republican for several hours on Monday, delivering her list of demands, while knowing that Democrats have vowed to ensure her efforts to have him removed will fail.

Congresswoman Greene, a far-right extremist and self-proclaimed Christian nationalist, tried to build a faction of disaffected House Republicans but only two other GOP lawmakers have signed on to her “motion to vacate.” One of them, Christian nationalist U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) did not show for her Monday meeting.

At the top of Greene’s list of demands is ending all aid to Ukraine, according to Punchbowl News. The second item is defunding Special Counsel Jack Smith’s criminal investigations into Donald Trump. And lastly, promising to adhere to the so-called “Hastert Rule,” putting on the floor for a vote only legislation that is supported by the majority of the Republican majority.

“Of course, the Senate would never take this up, and President Joe Biden would never sign any such bill including this provision if it somehow landed on his desk. Senior House Republicans privately admit this,” Punchbowl News reports.

READ MORE: Judge Hands Trump ‘Incarceration’ Threat as Experts Say Next Time He’ll Toss Him in Jail

Calling these maneuvers “cosplay” and “mostly theater,” Punchbowl notes: “Greene doesn’t really see those political realities as hurdles — or care. She wants to cause legislative crises and get media coverage.”

Johnson has the support of Donald Trump, along with, for now, the support of House Democrats including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Greene and her number two supporter, U.S. Rep. Tim Massie (R-KY), possibly with Congressman Gosar – whose support for Greene’s motion to vacate appears to be wavering – are expected to meet again with Speaker Johnson on Tuesday.

The Guardian reports some observers are “suggesting the Georgia congresswoman is looking for an off-ramp,” and adds that Greene’s “lunchtime summit” could “finally offer clarity” on whether she “still intends to press ahead with her drive to oust speaker Mike Johnson, or accept a face-saving alternative that would give the impression of a win.”

Gosar’s apparent wavering has not gone unnoticed.

Punchbowl News’ Mica Soellner reports: “Rep. Paul Gosar tells me he’s still very much behind the MTV [motion to vacate] effort and missed today’s meeting due to a flight delay.”

READ MORE: Trump Threatens to Violate Gag Order and Go to Jail: ‘I’ll Do That Sacrifice Any Day’

He told Soellner: “If Marjorie wanted me to come, I would’ve been there.”

She notes Gosar did not commit to attending Tuesday’s meeting.

Meanwhile, from the non-Greene side of the House Republican conference, Fox News’ Chad Pergram reports on comments made by U.S. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE).

Citing his Fox News colleague Brianna O’Neil’s reporting, he writes (not direct quotes): “GOP NE Rep Bacon on Greene’s efforts to remove Johnson: We don’t like it. We’d be angry about it because all it does is weaken all of us. And it’s it’s like 2 or 3 people working for the other side of the aisle…it appears to us, you know, the other side shooting this also foot right now over all the campus stuff. Joe Biden’s polling at 36%, the lowest of any president going back to 1952. So why jump in the way of that? And we’ve got 2 or 3 people are doing that. And it’s just a tactical and strategically. It’s not smart.”

Last week, Congresswoman Greene held a news conference and vowed to call up her motion to vacate, “next week, absolutely.”

On Monday, Greene alleged a “deal” has been made between Johnson and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi.

READ MORE: ‘I’m Not Talking About That Meeting’: Noem Implies She May Have Met With Kim Jong Un

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