House Republicans are engaging in an investigation into whether prosecutors leading cases against former President Donald Trump are using “political retribution in the court system to go after political opponents,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said on Sunday.
Johnson told “Fox News Sunday” anchor Shannon Bream the GOP will “fight back” with “everything in our arsenal” after Trump was convicted on all counts in a New York hush money trial last week, though he stressed “the confines of the rule of law” will be their guide.
“What we’ll do with our tools that we have in Congress, in the House, is we’ll use our oversight responsibility,” Johnson explained. “We’ve already done that,” he added before referring to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and one of his prosecutors being invited to testify before the Weaponization of the Federal Government panel.
🚨 @SpeakerJohnson says House Republicans will lead investigation into corrupt state and federal prosecutors who are weaponizing the justice system to attack political opponents pic.twitter.com/utvtnOCHiC
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) June 2, 2024
“And the purpose of the hearing is to investigate what these prosecutors are doing at the state and federal level to use politics, you know, political retribution in the court system to go after political opponents, federal officials like Donald Trump. That’s a really important thing for us to delve into,” Johnson said.
On Thursday, a jury returned a guilty verdict against Trump on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to allegedly cover up payments in a bid to conceal a tryst with adult film star Stormy Daniels as part of a “catch-and-kill” scheme to influence the 2016 election.
Trump, who denied the affair and pleaded not guilty to the charges, said he would be “appealing this scam.”
Three other criminal matters on the state and federal levels hang over Trump as he seeks re-election this year, potentially setting up a 2020 rematch against President Joe Biden.
Johnson said House Republicans will also scrutinize Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by the Biden administration’s Department of Justice to spearhead a classified documents case and a 2020 election case against Trump in Florida and Washington, D.C., respectively.
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The speaker did not explicitly mention Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is leading a separate 2020 case against Trump, though House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has been seeking documents from her and even threatened contempt of Congress if she does not comply with a subpoena.
“And we’re going to look at special counsel Jack Smith, who we believe is abusing his authority as well,” Johnson said. “We have the funding streams. We have mechanisms to try to get control of that. We’ll be doing that within the confines of our jurisdiction.”
The speaker continued, “And I think that can have the desired effect and show the American people we’re not going to tolerate this. Shannon, at the end of the day, people are losing their faith in our system of justice itself, and that’s a serious threat.”
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