Conservative GOP lawmaker 'badly undermines' Mike Johnson’s 'core' argument against Jack Smith

14 June 2024

During an interview with right-wing Fox News on Wednesday, June 12, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) offered some possible ways to "rein in" Jack Smith — the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel who is prosecuting two federal criminal cases against former President Donald Trump.

Johnson, a Trump loyalist, proposed using "the power of the purse" to defund Smith's office. And some Democrats have been arguing that when Johnson threatens to defund the DOJ, he is doing something that Republicans often accuse Democrats of: defunding the police (in fact, many prominent Democrats, from President Joe Biden to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker, have made it clear that defunding law enforcement is something they vehemently oppose).

Trump and his allies, including Johnson, have been attacking the four criminal indictments he is facing as the politically motivated work of "the deep state."

But The New Republic's Greg Sargent, in an article published on June 14, argues that a conservative congressman — long-time Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) — has collapsed their argument in a major way.

Interviewed by Politico, the 73-year-old Simpson discussed MAGA proposals to defund Smith — describing them as "stupid" and saying, "I don't think it's a good idea unless you can show that (the prosecutors) acted in bad faith or fraud or something like that…. They're just doing their job — even though I disagree with what they did."

Sargent, in response to that interview, writes, "Wait, what? Trump's prosecutorial tormentors are not acting in bad faith or being fraudulent? Do tell!"

The New Republic journalist continues, "Simpson apparently thought he was just rebuffing a tough question, but he also badly undermined a core argument of Trump and his propagandists: that the prosecutions of Trump are wholly illegitimate, exposing the 'deep state' as irredeemably corrupt to its very core. Now comes along a top Republican who disagrees with the prosecutions of Trump on their interpretation of the law but appears to allow that the special counsel's office is not abusing its institutional role in a way that merits maximal GOP tactics in response, such as defunding it."

Read Greg Sargent's full article for The New Republic at this link.

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