Speaker Mike Johnson announced a “three-pronged approach” for how Republicans on Capitol Hill would push back against the prosecutions of the former president.
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Speaker Mike Johnson defended former President Donald J. Trump against his convictions.
House Republicans have spent the past 18 months vowing to use their majority to attack what they claimed was a “weaponization” of government against conservatives, including the prosecutions of former President Donald J. Trump, but have made little headway in doing so.
But following Mr. Trump’s felony conviction last week, they are promising again to use every congressional tool at their disposal to avenge their party’s leader, seeking to show their fealty and fire up the G.O.P. base.
Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday announced a “three-pronged approach” for how Republicans on Capitol Hill would push back against the prosecutions of the former president.
Mr. Trump was convicted last week of 34 counts of falsifying business records, prompting widespread outrage in the G.O.P. and a rush by Republicans to capitalize politically on it. Mr. Trump faces three other criminal cases, including two brought by the Justice Department over his handling of classified documents and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
“We’re looking at various approaches to what can be done here,” Mr. Johnson said at a news conference, “through the appropriations process, through the legislative process, through bills that will be advancing through our committees and put it on the floor for passage, and also through oversight. All those things will be happening vigorously, because we have to do that because the stakes are too high.”
Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, laid out some of the proposed cuts in a letter to the Appropriations Committee, which determines spending levels.
Mr. Jordan recommended prohibiting taxpayer funding for any new F.B.I. headquarters facility; eliminating any federal grants for those prosecuting Mr. Trump, including Alvin Bragg in Manhattan, Fani Willis in Atlanta and Attorney General Letitia James of New York; and cutting all funding for the special counsel Jack Smith’s office.
“We have rogue prosecutors around the country that have drug President Trump through this process because of who he is,” Mr. Johnson said. “Everybody knows if it wasn’t him, the charges in Manhattan would never have been brought.”
Mr. Jordan also pushed for cuts to federal law enforcement last year, including some of the same ones he is proposing now, and other Republicans introduced bills to defund Mr. Smith’s office, but the G.O.P. did not have the support in its own ranks to win passage of any of those measures, and they were never enacted.
Luke Broadwater covers Congress with a focus on congressional investigations. More about Luke Broadwater
See more on: U.S. Politics, U.S. House of Representatives, Republican Party, Mike Johnson, Donald Trump, New York
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Source: nytimes.com
