‘Courage and fortitude’: Trump praises Johnson after Speaker’s private Mar-a-Lago visit
On Monday night Mike Johnson visited Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the scene of some of the ex-president's alleged illegal acts for which he is currently facing federal charges, including under the Espionage Act. On Tuesday Trump recorded and posted video praising the Republican Speaker of the House.
"Congratulations to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson for having the courage and fortitude to release all of the J6 tapes," Trump said in his self-serving recording (video below), "which will reveal completely what really happened on January 6. Thank you very much Mike, great job."
On his Truth Social platform, Trump added, "Mike Johnson’s Courage will Vindicate HUNDREDS of J6 Political Prisoners…"
The U.S. Dept. of Justice last month reported that since the January 6, 2021 insurrection, "Approximately 594 individuals have pleaded guilty to a variety of federal charges, many of whom faced or will face incarceration at sentencing." More than 1000 individuals have already been charged.
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Johnson, who recently endorsed Trump for president, is releasing what he says is almost all of the video taken by congressional cameras on January 6, more than 40,000 hours worth.
Calling his trip to Mar-a-Lago "his first pilgrimage to see the Republican presidential front-runner since his surprise elevation to the top post in the House last month," The New York Times reports Johnson "is positioning himself as the first speaker to be in complete lock step with the former president."
Speaker Johnson is one of the core actors in Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election he lost. The New York Times called him "a key architect of his party’s objections to certifying President Biden’s victory."
"Many Republicans in Congress relied on his arguments," The Times noted. "In 2020, Mr. Johnson embraced Mr. Trump’s wild and false claims of fraud. In a radio interview, he asserted that a software system used for voting was 'suspect because it came from Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela.'"
"Mr. Johnson also falsely claimed the election was 'rigged,'" The Times reported. “'You know the allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with this software by Dominion, there’s a lot of merit to that,' Mr. Johnson said."
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"Johnson was part of Trump’s inner circle and traveled regularly with him on Air Force One while he was president," Politico has reported. “'It’s surreal,' he once told a Shreveport reporter. 'When I call him, he calls back within a couple of hours.'”
Johnson, a "Big Lie" promoter, just four days after the 2020 election posted on social media, "I have just called President Trump to say this: 'Stay strong and keep fighting, sir! The nation is depending upon your resolve. We must exhaust every available legal remedy to restore Americans' trust in the fairness of our election system.'"
As Politico has also reported, Johnson "was a lead organizer of the December 2020 amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court lawsuit contesting the election results."
Watch a portion of Trump's remarks at this link.