Mike Johnson Must Exhibit Stronger Leadership Over The House As President Trump Endures Political Persecution

So much of the Left’s egregious, unprecedented, and shameless abuse of our justice system to persecute their political opponents is the result of Republican incompetence.

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This week, President Trump faces a political prosecution in New York State, forcing him into the courtroom and off the campaign trail.  Every single day President Trump, who now leads in most state polls as the frontrunner for the 2024 general election, is hamstrung from campaigning is another day Biden and his regime apparatchiks get an unfair advantage.  The strategy of what President Trump’s enemies are doing is readily on display: Biden has deliberately rigged the playing field to give his team, which languishes in countless self-inflicted crises, every opportunity it could get to make up lost ground. 

The Biden Regime, of course, already has allies in the administrative (or deep) state, the mainstream media, Big Tech, the judicial system, and hundreds of lawmakers working on both sides of the aisle that carry out the marching orders of the Uniparty with abandon. Thus, to achieve yet another advantage, in abusing the levers of power to attack his foremost political opponent, would seem almost wantonly gratuitous. 

And yet, Biden and his henchmen get away with such brazen abuses of power time and again.  In large part, this is because they have internalized a timeless lesson of politics: when you have power, use it to benefit friends and punish enemies.  This, Biden and the Uniparty that backs him does with impunity. 

Many Republicans remain controlled opposition.  Many more are simply kowtowed into staying silent to carry out the policies of the regnant political class in Washington DC – open borders, corrupted elections, millions of dollars of aid wasted on Ukraine, Israel, and China – all of which harm hundreds of millions of Americans. 

Indeed, many Americans have died, literally, as a result of the Biden Regime’s suicidal policies.  The border policy, being perhaps the most destructive, has unleashed upwards of 7.2 million illegals upon the homeland, a catastrophe that will permanently rupture the cultural and economic fabric of this country, save mass deportations of a historic scale, to rectify the crisis.  Many Americans have been killed by illegal aliens – either the victims of homicide from dangerous gangs like MS-13, or casualties of a drunk driver – who may or may not have a license depending on how sadistic the Governor of the state in which the DUI-caused homicide occurred is. (The latter issue memorably achieved national prominence in President Trump’s first term when he personally highlighted the tragic stories of “Angel Moms” at rallies and other public events, an advocacy group composed of mothers and relatives of Americans dedicated to raising awareness of the now unmanageable illegal alien crisis.)

Countless other Americans have suffered from the devastating indirect effects of an open border.  Upwards of a quarter million Americans have died from Fentanyl overdoses since 2018.  Fentanyl is a highly lethal Schedule II controlled substance that is widely accessible on the black market.  Fentanyl dealers obtain the lethal drug from countries like Mexico and China, two of the most prominent beneficiaries of our reckless, open border policies — and two of our greatest adversaries.

And yet, as the United States is being driven to the ground by open borders policies that shake every aspect of our society – culturally, economically, linguistically – Republican lawmakers largely remain indifferent to or downright afraid of challenging the status quo. 

Perhaps no one better embodies this pitiful state of affairs than current House Speaker Mike Johnson, who was disgraced former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s replacement.  McCarthy, who served as Speaker for just eight months, had arguably the most turbulent and ineffective Speakership in all of American history.  His Speakership was contested from the moment he announced his candidacy for the office, having nearly gone down in defeat before it began — but for a highly contested, multi-day vote last January that culminated in an eleventh hour switch on the part of some holdouts, landing the Californian the vaunted position on the fifteenth ballot.  That drawn out vote nevertheless set the tone for the next eight months, a period marred by unkept promises and myriad disappointments, as McCarthy repeatedly failed to make good on several key promises – such as the disclosure of exonerating J6 footage – that resulted in the motion to vacate his chair, initiated by Congressman Gaetz, putting the nail in the coffin to his political career.

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Johnson, who stepped into McCarthy’s shoes as the next House Speaker, had a perfect model of what not to do in that office.  One was to leave in play the omnibus spending bills that funded agencies like the FBI and IRS, which have now been weaponized against political dissidents of the Biden Regime — and stop giving more aid to faraway places like the Ukraine and Middle East, which, in peacetime, offer few if any geopolitical benefits at all to the United States.  

In deranged, war-spiraling times like ours — defined by a weaponized DOJ, crumbling infrastructure, and wide-open borders – it gives every reason on earth to shift our priorities inward, refocusing attention on cleaning up our own house before searching abroad for monsters to destroy. Thus, continuation of those reckless policies can only be chalked up to a ruling class-wide suicide pact for the country. Short of that explanation, pursuing those same failed policies is simply inexplicable.

And yet, the current Speaker still fails to grasp the magnitude of these calamities.  On his recent visit to Mar-a-Lago, he only begrudgingly spoke of systemic voter fraud – all byproducts of the Biden Regime – when directly confronted with the issue by none other than President Trump himself, who unsurprisingly minced no words in discussing the lingering problem. 

Ditto also the FISA court issue – and the reauthorization and expansion of our spying laws in general. Of course, these illegitimate “courts” should not be given another penny, given the appalling rights violations they have committed, over decades, against the American public. The fact that FISA court-spending, rather than, say, securing the border or holding those rogue district attorneys presently waging lawfare against President Trump and his supporters accountable, was an important agenda item for Johnson, again, exemplifies a rank failure of leadership of the highest possible order.

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Johnson has a major crisis on his hands – and the more strident members of his caucus, like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie, detect his weakness.  That is why they recently proposed a second motion to vacate the Speaker’s Chair – in large part owing to Johnson’s own failures to display strength, rather than lead from behind, a plague that affected every single one of his recent Republican predecessors.  One would think, given just how bad the examples of his predecessors were, that Johnson would have every incentive to take a dramatic course correction – for he has at his immediate disposal the playbook of exactly what not to do. 

And yet, alas, Johnson appears afflicted by that same curse – incredulously reverting to the tired policies that made McCarthy, and before him, Paul Ryan and John Boehner, so woefully unpopular — including continuation of the omnibus bills to avoid a government shutdown, which many conservatives would more than welcome – particularly among the grassroots and MAGA base of the party. 

Of all the challenges Johnson currently faces, however, perhaps none is more pressing — and sure to determine Johnson’s political fate — than his ability to retain his quickly dwindling House majority through the November presidential election.  If Johnson somehow loses his majority, a problem that becomes more urgent by the day with the slew of Republicans who have recently announced early retirements, like Mike Gallagher, he will be toast.

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The Gallagher example is particularly illustrative: Gallagher announced that he will be stepping down later this month, adding to a mounting list of House departures.  This vacancy will now last through November’s election, because Gallagher decided to hold off retirement until after Wisconsin Election Law’s special election deadline.  The deadline set under Wisconsin law “requires a special election to fill a vacancy if it occurs before the first Tuesday in April of an election year.”  Johnson had the ability, as House Speaker, to exert political pressure on Gallagher to get him to step down early, before the deadline, allowing for a special election that could have potentially stopped the bloodletting – allowing a Republican to replace Gallagher, padding their razor thin majority from getting more slim.  Instead, he fumbled and remained silent – or simply failed to come up with a counter-strategy to force Gallagher’s early leave, for reasons unbeknownst to the public.  Johnson had a prime opportunity to expose Gallagher in his tracks — and yet he dropped the ball. Now the clock has run out, and Johnson will have to deal with an even slimmer House majority as a result of his inaction.

Even if, as conventional wisdom in DC would hold, that Johnson or those groups who exert pressure on him are being artificially handcuffed by deterrents, including potentially blackmail, that still is no excuse for inaction.  If it is scandal Johnson fears, at this point most of the public has been desensitized to it. The country is on life support.  The greatest scandal that Congressional Republicans could thus commit at this late hour is not doing enough to salvage their majority, back President Trump, and do everything they can to make his pathway back to the Oval Office all the more easy in November.

Despite the fecklessness he has thus far exhibited, Speaker Johnson, for better or worse, remains in a powerful office – third in line to the presidency.  He is the most powerful elected Republican officeholder in the country.  He has political capital – and a bully pulpit to boot – to exert strong pressures on his party to do more on behalf of the broader MAGA movement.  

An issue that really should be front and center for him, which Johnson could easily advocate for, is subpoenaing Alvin Bragg, Jack Smith, Fani Willis, and other rogue prosecutors, district attorneys, and attorneys general throughout the country, who have weaponized the Department of Justice to try to sabotage the 2024 race and imperil the American people in the process.  Even easier: encourage the Republicans that have still not endorsed President Trump to do so, or face sanctions.

The Constitution of this country hangs by a thread; our rights and liberties are being viciously attacked by a Regime and its various apparatchiks that seek to put asunder what remnants of the Founding Fathers’ original handiwork still exists, for all time.  

The stakes are in fact that high.  Yet, Johnson continues to waffle and waver.  Disclosure of the remaining J6 tapes should not even be a point of discussion – it should have been done already without a second thought. 

Nor should the gratuitous spending on Eastern European and Middle Eastern conflicts, all products of the Military Industrial Complex, operating at the behest of the Biden Regime, and paid for by the American taxpayer.  Johnson and his colleagues in leadership positions in the House, particularly those on the House Judiciary Committee, must realize that governing involves both hard and soft powers – official powers are offset, more today than ever, by unofficial ones, including shaping narratives and mobilizing public opinions through various media.

That Johnson does not go on Fox News – or any media outlet – day in and day out, encouraging his colleagues to join him in filing ethics complaints, drafting legal motions in pursuit of a counter-lawfare strategy, and, indeed, waging all-out lawfare themselves on the Biden Regime’s weaponized Department of (in)Justice is an affront to every law-abiding American so despondent over the destruction of the rule of law happening in real time. 

All it requires is some collective action on part of Congressional leadership. Johnson, being House Speaker, is in prime position to take the lead.  

As I have said from the beginning, so much of the Left’s egregious, unprecedented, and shameless abuse of our justice system to persecute their political opponents is the result of Republican incompetence.  No cosmic law exists in the universe that dictates Republicans not take action, or at the bare minimum, at least speak publicly about what needs to be done in order to mitigate the excesses of a rogue and tyrannical government that has persecuted, so far with impunity, everyone from the leading candidate to be the next president, all the way down to Bible-reading grandmas who just so happened to be at the wrong place, at the wrong time, on January 6^th, 2021.

The corruption of the Biden Regime must be put to an end. There is no second option.  Time is of the essence.  President Trump has his hands tied with groundless lawsuit after lawsuit.  Johnson, as the most powerful Republican officeholder in the United States, has a prerogative — constitutionally and morally — to take dramatic actions to keep his slim House majority, mitigate the weaponized justice system’s assaults, and pave the way for President Trump’s reelection come November.  

That should be his chief priority, and he should work around the clock from now until at least November to do everything possible to make that happen. 

So far, the man some pundits used to jokingly refer to as “MAGA Mike” has not displayed a capacity to do what is necessary. If that is truly the case, the second motion should indeed be exercised. And Johnson, like his three Republican predecessors, must be ousted for someone more worthy of the office, willing to do the critical job to offset the diabolical programs of Biden, before it really is too late.

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A slightly modified version of this piece was originally published in The Gateway Pundit, and can be found here.

Paul Ingrassia is a Constitutional Scholar; Communications Director of the NCLU; a two-time Claremont Fellow, and is on the Board of Advisors of the New York Young Republican Club and the Italian American Civil Rights League. He writes a widely read Substack that is regularly posted on Truth Social by President Trump. Follow him on X @PaulIngrassia, Substack, Truth Social, Instagram, and Rumble.