Speaker Mike Johnson happily reeled off not one but two major conspiracy theories as he defended Donald Trump’s targeting of his political enemies.
Kevin McCarthy’s replacement spoke with host Jake Tapper on State of the Union Sunday and debated the president’s public call outs for enemies to be indicted.
Johnson was quick to turn to two popular MAGA theories as arguments against Trump’s actions counting as a weaponization of the Department of Justice. The speaker countered these overreach allegations by claiming both that a former FBI director had called for Trump’s murder, and that the agency might be to blame for the Jan. 6 riots.
CNN host Tapper first opened up discussion about the indictment of former FBI director James Comey, who could face up to five years in prison if convicted of the charges laid against him on Thursday.
Just days before Comey’s indictment, Trump publicly called for Attorney General Pam Bondi to take immediate action against him in a bizarre Truth Social rant.
Asked whether it was right for the president to set the DOJ on someone’s tail, Johnson reasoned, “Comey has been on a tirade against Trump since way back then. Since 2016, 2017.”
He then turned to a conspiracy theory stemming from an Instagram post that Comey shared of seashells arranged to show the numbers 86 and 47 back in May. MAGA fanatics believed that the post called for Trump to be ousted from office using the restaurant shorthand ‘86’ to signify removal and ‘47’ to represent the 47th president. Johnson echoed the theory that the shell formation was a call for blood.
“Remember, he famously walked on the beach and put 86 47. You know, implying that President Trump should be should be exterminated, effectively,” Johnson said.
“It was a big controversy several months back, right? He has shown his bias, and they have used the Department of Justice against him.”
As Johnson spoke of the “rule of law” being used against figures such as Comey, Tapper asked, “Does the rule of law have to apply to people who stormed the Capitol on January 6th?”
The House Speaker again turned to a fresh theory about what went down during the riots.
“Well, I‘m glad you brought that up. There‘s new information over the last couple of days about that as well. Apparently there were 274 FBI agents in the crowd on January 6th,” he said.
Johnson seemed to be referring to a Truth Social post from Trump on Saturday, claiming that 274 FBI Agents were in place “prior to and during” the riots.
However, a 50-page FBI report clarifies that the 274 listed agents were not in the area prior to the attack, but were sent in response only after the riot began.
Tapper pointed out that even loyalist FBI Director Kash Patel has now confirmed that the FBI weren’t involved in a “false flag operation” on the day.
Johnson glossed over the update, and continued, “Well I‘m telling you that there’s videos, and it‘s always been disputed what involvement some of those persons, you know, engaged in. What involvement they had.”
He openly wondered, “Did they spur on the crowd? Did they open the gates to allow them in? I don‘t know, these are questions. But they should be answered.”
Ending his musing on Jan. 6th, Johnson shared that there was now a “committee investigating the previous committee” to figure out what happened on the day.
“That committee was rigged, I think. And I think they—my theory is I‘ve always believed that they got rid of evidence and they hid some of this. So all of it‘s going to come out.”
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