Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” with host Jake Tapper on Sunday and defended the recent indictment of former FBI head James Comey.

Tapper pressed Johnson on the indictment, asking if it was proper for a president “to publicly or privately instruct their Attorney General to prosecute a political opponent,” but Johnson pushed back.

“As a constitutional attorney and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, do you believe it’s acceptable for any president to publicly or privately instruct their attorney general to prosecute a political opponent and go as far as firing a U.S. attorney if they don’t bring charges because they don’t think the case is strong enough?” Tapper asked.

Johnson rebutted Tapper, noting that it wasn’t the president who indicted Comey, but a grand jury of his peers.

“I’m glad you brought up the principle, that is exactly what’s at issue here. James Comey lied to Congress. He took an oath. He said things to Congress that were simply not true. It’s called perjury. A grand jury … a non-partisan, non-biased grand jury that was assembled looked at the charges and they agreed. They voted to bring an indictment of James Comey — not President Trump, not the DOJ, but a grand jury,” Johnson said. “That’s how our system works. It’s a very important principle for us to apply that everybody has to subscribe to the law — even a former FBI director. And he has lots to answer for.”

Johnson added that there were “many things” over which Comey could have been indicted, but the statutes of limitations ran out.

CNN’s Jake Tapper: “As a constitutional attorney and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, do you believe it’s acceptable for any president to publicly or privately instruct their Attorney General to prosecute a political opponent and go as far as firing a US attorney if… pic.twitter.com/8fE3Fk04pi

— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) September 28, 2025

Comey was indicted on Thursday by a grand jury for allegedly lying under oath.

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The indictment stems from statements the former FBI head made to Congress in September 2020 when he testified regarding his handling of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, according to the indictment. Comey’s indictment comes just days ahead of a major deadline: September 30, when the statute of limitations was set to expire on claims made by Comey during the 2020 hearing.

Comey is the first former senior administration official to be indicted in connection with the Russian collusion conspiracy and the FBI investigation into false ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.

Tim Pearce contributed to this report.

On Friday’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher slammed the media for their constant criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza while ignoring the horrific and systematic slaughter of Christians by Muslims in Nigeria.

In his back-and-forth with guest Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Maher bitterly denounced not only the media for ignoring the crisis in Nigeria, but American youths who routinely slam Israel, but never mention the obvious genocidal effort by Boko Haram and other Muslim groups to eliminate Nigerian Christians.

Open Doors, a Christian charity that reports on persecution of Christians around the world, told Fox News Digital, “The crisis facing large areas of sub-Saharan Africa is hard to overstate. It is potentially existential for the future peace and stability of several nations in the region, not least Nigeria. Around 150,000 people have been killed in Jihadist violence over the last 10 years. Over 16 million Christians have been driven from their homes and their land across the region.”

“Recent Open Doors research shows that more Christians are killed for their faith in Nigeria than the rest of the world combined,” Fox News added.

“It’s pretty amazing,” Maher began. “If you don’t know what’s going on in Nigeria, your media sources suck. You are in a bubble. And again, I’m not a Christian, but they are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria. They’ve killed over 100,000 since 2009. They’ve burned 18,000 churches. This is so much more. These are the Islamists, Boko Haram. This is so much more of a genocide attempt than what is going on in Gaza. They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country. Where are the kids protesting this?”

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“No one will talk about it, so thank you,” Mace responded. “It’s Africa, so no one’s talking about it, and they should be. You can’t read about it on mainstream media. It’s sad, so thank you for bringing it up.”

“Well, because the Jews aren’t involved. That’s why,” Maher responded. “It’s the Christians and the Muslims — who cares?”

As far back as April 2021, Maher took aim at the legacy media’s coverage of Israel, saying after coming back from a bout with COVID, “One of the frustrations I had while I was off is that I was watching this war go on in Israel … and it was frustrating to me because there was no one on liberal media to defend Israel, really. … We’ve become this country now that we’re kind of one-sided on this issue. And I’d also like to say off the bat I don’t think kids understand — and when I say kids, I mean the younger generations — you can’t learn history from Instagram. There’s just not enough space.”

“Hamas’ charter says they just want to wipe out Israel,” he said bluntly. “Their negotiation position is, ‘You all die.’”