May 15, 2024 - NEW YORK — On Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson released the following:

Today, in Manhattan, Speaker Johnson spoke to the media about the political persecution of the 45th President of the United States by President Biden’s weaponized Department of Justice and the left-wing Manhattan District Attorney.

Click here to watch Speaker Johnson’s remarks

Read Speaker Johnson’s remarks below:

 President Trump is a friend and I wanted to be here to support him. I’m here speaking with you outside because the court won’t allow us to speak inside the building. That’s just one of the many things that are wrong here.

This is the fifth week that President Trump has been in court for this sham of a trial. They are doing this intentionally to keep him here and keep him off of the campaign trail. And I think everybody in the country can see that for what it is.

I’m an attorney, I’m a former litigator myself. I am disgusted by what is happening here, what is being done here to our entire system of justice overall. The people are losing faith, right now, in this country, in our institutions. They’re losing faith in our system of justice. And the reason for that is because they see it being abused as it is being done here in New York.

The facts here are very important. Facts are always important in a trial, or at least they’re supposed to be. The President’s actions in this matter were previously reviewed and no charges were filed. Why is that? Because there’s no crime here. Now, eight years later, suddenly they’ve resurrected this thing. They’ve brought it back. And why is that? Well, just apply common sense. Everyone can see. It’s painfully obvious that we’re now six months out from Election Day. And that’s the reason. That is the reason why they brought these charges here and across the country.

What we’ve got here is a partisan Democrat District Attorney. We have a Biden donor judge, and we have an assistant DA who was recently a top official at the Department of Justice—Biden’s DOJ—and recently received over $10,000 in payments from the Democratic National Committee. The star witness here is Michael Cohen. I just listened to a few moments of his testimony this morning and it is consistent with what he’s already done. This is a man who is clearly on a mission for personal revenge and who is widely known as a witness who has trouble with the truth. He is someone who has a history of perjury and is well known for it. No one should believe a word he says today. He lied to Congress. He lied to the IRS. He lied to federal election officials. Even Cohen’s own lawyer testified to a grand jury that he is not reliable. So, there’s nothing that he presents here that should be given any weight at all by a jury and certainly not this judge.

The crime that they are accusing President Trump of is falsification of business records, but I think everybody knows he is not the bookkeeper for his company. President Trump is innocent of these charges, and again, anyone with common sense can understand what is happening here. In the midst of all this nonsense and corruption, they have placed a ridiculous and unprecedented gag order on President Trump. They are overriding his constitutional right to defend himself from political smears from his harshest critics at the most important time. He is soon to be officially the nominee of one of the major parties in our country, running for president, and they have him tied up here in this ridiculous prosecution that is not about justice, it’s all about politics, and everybody can see that.

President Trump is leading in swing state polling. The American people see right through these politically motivated attacks. I’ve been in 102 cities in over half the states in the last few months. I can tell you that no matter where we are around the country, I’ve been doing large events. People from all walks of life come to these events and they are concerned about this. They are disgusted about this. They are fed up. They’ve had enough because they see what’s happening. It’s impossible for anybody to deny that looks at this objectively, that the judicial system in our country has been weaponized against President Trump.

The system is using all the tools at its disposal right now to punish one president and provide cover for another. And meanwhile, among the atrocities here, the judge’s own daughter is making millions of dollars doing online fundraising for Democrats. They’re using this trial as a hook, it’s so corrupt. It’s so corrupt, and everybody knows it.

If Alvin Bragg thinks the American people will believe these absurd charges, take a look at the turnout at Trump events, compare those to Biden events, by the way. But you have over 100,000 people in New Jersey. By some estimates, far more than that, because the lineup of people getting into the event was thousands deep as well. That shows you where they are. They know this trial is a sham. They know that President Trump is being mistreated by the judicial system, and it’s not just this case, of course. This is a year-long partisan witch hunt. Years long. And it’s been going on for quite some time.

We’re seeing the same thing in the classified documents case. That one is so egregious the trial has been indefinitely postponed. I’m working with Chairman Jordan of the House Judiciary Committee, Chairman Comer of our Oversight Committee on measures to rein in the abuses of Special Counsel Jack Smith. The latest revelation is that they’ve manipulated documents, they might have tampered with the evidence in the case, it seems, and that doesn’t surprise any of us. In Congress we have oversight responsibility and it is our objective and our responsibility to hold them accountable.

These are politically motivated trials, and they are a disgrace. It is election interference, and they show how desperate the opposition that President Trump has and how desperate they truly are. The American people are not going to let this stand. Election Day cannot get here soon enough, and we will continue to shine a light on all of this in Congress because we have that constitutional responsibility.

Again, I came here again today on my own to support President Trump because I am one of hundreds of millions of people and one citizen who is deeply concerned about this, so I’m glad to be here.
Source: House Speaker Mike Johnson