House Speaker Mike Johnson misses few opportunities to remind people that he’s a constitutional lawyer. But that didn’t stop the Benton Republican from traveling to a New York City courthouse last week, where he did his level best to undermine confidence in the system outlined in that treasured document.
He called the ongoing state criminal trial of former and wannabe future President Donald Trump a “sham.” He said the prosecution is a “borderline criminal conspiracy” as well as “election interference,” and tagged the system that brought charges against Trump as “corrupt.” Johnson went so far as to invoke the word “atrocity” — a term generally reserved for things like, you know, genocide.
So much for law and order.
If that’s not enough of a disconnect, consider that Johnson is not only a lawyer but an evangelical Christian who says that, if people want to know where he stands on issues, they should consult the Bible. “That’s my worldview,” he has said. Perhaps someday Johnson will share which Biblical passage led him to vouch for a man charged with creating fraudulent business records to cover up hush money payments involving an alleged extramarital encounter with an adult film star.
Yet there he was and here we are, and can anybody really say at this point that they didn’t see this coming?
Johnson may wear a cloak of morality, but he’s got a slippery side that seems to come out whenever the morally flexible ex-president is involved.
After Trump lost his last run for president, Johnson dressed up his effort to invalidate the results in legalistic terms, concocting a constitutional argument for the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate the results (and then reminding fellow House Republicans that Trump was tracking who endorsed it).
More recently, he didn’t even bother to couch an attempt to cast preemptive doubt over the upcoming rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden.
"We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections. But it's not been something that's easily provable. We don't have that number," Johnson said at a news conference where he defended legislation to stop something that is already a federal crime.
Kind of makes you wonder: Did Johnson miss the day at law school when they talked about evidence?
All this is disappointing to those who hoped for better from Johnson, but more so because he’s actually shown he’s capable of rising to the occasion and taming some of the most disruptive elements of his party — which is another way of describing the Trump wing.
Controlling the narrowest of majorities, he’s worked with Democrats to keep the government from shutting down, despite charges that making necessary compromises amounted to unconditional surrender. He finally pushed through an aid package for Ukraine, despite Trump’s churlish isolationism. And he fended off a challenge from within his caucus to his own speakership, after his predecessor Kevin McCarthy couldn’t.
In these instances, he’s channeled not the former president but leaders like Ronald Reagan, who cared deeply about United States’ leadership role on the global stage, and — dare I say it — Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic former House speaker and legendary vote counter. Both, it should be said, are better role models than the man to whom Johnson shows so much fealty.
But again, here we are, and who can claim to be surprised? Defending Trump — no matter what he does or how far from one’s supposed values he strays — is the price of entry these days in one of our two major political parties.
Johnson’s pragmatic instincts have provided the biggest wins of his young speakership. But you can also argue that they’ve kept him under the thumb of the man from Mar-a-Lago.
Because while pragmatism used to suggest a willingness to get things done — as Johnson has on several big occasions — in today’s GOP, it also applies to those who will do whatever it takes, no matter how hypocritical or debasing, to stay on Trump’s good side and live another day.
As someone who can go both ways, Johnson may be made for this particular moment.
To which the only logical response is: Heaven help us.