House Speaker Mike Johnson told a hotel conference roomful of Christian conservatives that he was the only thing stopping Democrats from investigating not just President Donald Trump, but all of his allies and family members — and many of them, too.
Johnson spoke on Friday to the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s annual summit, a gathering of religious conservatives, where Trump also spoke later in the day. Most polling shows Democrats have a good chance of winning back the House of Representatives, but Johnson warned of the consequences for such a Republican defeat.
He warned that while Trump will not be on the ballot again, his future might be, along with their own.
“Y’all, impeachment’s not even the big concern,” the House speaker said. “They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the cabinet, his donors and friends.
“Half of you in this room will be targeted. I run the protection program. I’ll take care of you.”
The House impeached Trump twice during his first term as president after Democrats won back control of the lower chamber in 2018. First, he was impeached in 2019 due to him attempting to withhold weapons from Ukraine to force President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate then-candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
Trump would face a second impeachment for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021 on charges he incited the riot at the U.S. Capitol where supporters of the president raided the building and clashed with police officers in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
The president has repeatedly said, falsely, that he won the 2020 election and Johnson led the charge to help overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Even after the riot, he voted to object to the 2020 presidential election results.
When he returned to office, Trump pardoned defendants convicted for their actions on Jan. 6, which he had pledged to do. In addition, Trump faced criticism when Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the creation of an almost $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund to financially compensate people the Trump administration said were unfairly targeted by the Biden administration.
Republicans hold only 218 seats in the House of Representatives compared to Democrats’ 212 thanks to handful of resignations and deaths.
Johnson Trump and Republicans have taken extraordinary measures to try and prevent Democrats from winning back the House. Last year, Texas Republicans convened a special session at Trump’s behest to redraw the state’s congressional maps to create five new Republican-leaning districts. Republicans made similar efforts in Missouri, though efforts to redraw congressional maps in Indiana failed.
Democrats responded in kind. Last year, California passed a ballot initiative to allow for the creation of five Democratic-leaning districts. Virginia attempted a similar measure, but the state’s supreme court ultimately killed the the effort.
But Democrats responded cheekily to Johnson’s threat.
“We are the Homeland Security Committee Democrats and we approve this message,” the House Homeland Security Committee Democrats’ X account posted.
