'Extraordinary step': Johnson changing House rule to prevent national security 'investigation'

29 April

House Speaker Mike Johnson at Columbia University in New York City on April 24, 2024 (Lev Radin/Shutterstock.com)

Late Tuesday morning, April 29, CNN's Wolf Blitzer delivered some breaking news: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), according to Blitzer, "is taking steps to change House rules" in a way that "would effectively block an investigation into the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth's use of the Signal chat app."

Hegseth's critics are calling for him to resign in response to reports that he discussed a U.S. military operation in Yemen in two separate conversations on the messaging program Signal — a platform that, critics say, is not secure enough for discussing sensitive or classified information. President Donald Trump's defense secretary is also drawing criticism over firings at the Pentagon.

CNN reporter Manu Raju, who spoke to Johnson, told Blitzer, "He's defending this move, Wolf. He included a provision in a House rule that would essentially deny Democratic efforts to force a vote that would call for a probe into Pete Hegseth's use of the app Signal that became, of course, very famous over the last several weeks, in which he talked about military plans, strikes against the Houthis in advance of that happening."

Raju continued, "Now, these types of votes that actually call for an investigation typically fail. Minority parties try to do this pretty regularly against.… the party in power. But in this particular aspect, there's a chance that Democrats could succeed. So, the speaker is taking the extraordinary step of including language in House rules to deny the Democratic efforts altogether, preventing that from even coming to a vote before the full House."

Hegseth's problems, Raju noted, aren't Johnson's only reason for this move.

Raju told Blitzer, "And I just asked the speaker about this. He's done this now on multiple occasions — not just on this, but also, to deny efforts to target Trump on tariff policy. I asked him why he's protecting Donald Trump."

CNN aired a clip of Johnson saying, "No, we're using the rules of the House to prevent political hijinks and political stunts. And that's what the Democrats have. As I mentioned: no leader, no vision, no platform. All they have is obstruction. They're trying to target."

Watch the full video below or at this link.

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