Trump Angrily Demanded Mike Johnson Help Overturn Conviction: Report
Donald Trump may be the first American president convicted of a felony, but he has no plans to let his conviction stand — and he’s enlisting congressional Republicans to help him undermine the case.
According to a report from Politico, shortly after his May 31 conviction, an enraged Trump called House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and treated him to an expletive-filled rant about the verdict.
“We have to overturn this,” Trump reportedly said between f-bombs.
Johnson — already in a tenuous position with certain hardline members of his party — has attempted to stave off efforts for his removal by positioning himself as a close ally to the former president. Johnson was one of a slew of House Republicans who made the pilgrimage to Manhattan to lambast the trial on Trump’s behalf, and the newly reported phone call likely set the tone for Johnson’s public statements in the aftermath of the verdict.
The House speaker told Fox News shortly after the conviction that he believed “the Supreme Court should step in” on the matter of Trump’s criminal verdict. “I think that the justices on the court — I know many of them personally — I think they are deeply concerned about that, as we are. So I think they’ll set this straight,” Johnson said. “This will be overturned, guys, there’s no question about it; it’s just going to take some time to do it.”
As previously reported by Rolling Stone, Trump has lobbied House Republicans to pass a law that would effectively shield presidents — both current and former — from nonfederal prosecutions. Last year, Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.) introduced the No More Political Prosecutions Act of 2023, a law that would allow presidents and vice presidents to move state or civil cases against them to federal court. Johnson is one of the primary co-sponsors of the bill.
“I think it’s common sense that you can’t have the president sitting in the Oval Office worried about whether some lawyer or some local DA somewhere is going to go after him,” the speaker told Politico in May.
Trump will visit the Capitol on Thursday to talk to Republican lawmakers about his plans for a second term in office. It will be Trump’s first time in Congress since the Jan. 6 insurrection, and Johnson was asked on Wednesday if he plans to speak with the former president about not fomenting another attack and committing to respecting the peaceful transfer of power. “Of course, he respects that,” Johnson replied, “and we all do.”
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