Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., floated the possibility of defunding the U.S. Office of Special Counsel on Wednesday, the day after he pledged to \u2018rein in\u2019 Special Counsel Jack Smith\u2019s investigation into former President Trump.<\/p>\n
\u2018There\u2019s a lot of different ideas. People are alarmed that the special counsel, in that capacity, has been abused in recent years,\u2019 Johnson said in answer to a Fox News Digital question at his weekly press conference. \u2018How does Congress correct that error and ensure that a special counsel is not abusing their authority? You know, we have oversight, of course, we also have the power of the purse.\u2019<\/p>\n
Johnson became the highest ranking congressional lawmaker to support Trump in person Tuesday at the Manhattan courthouse, where the former president is facing a criminal trial related to accusations that he falsified business documents to cover up hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That trial is unrelated to Smith\u2019s probes into Trump in connection with the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents, but Johnson lambasted those investigations as well in comments to reporters after his court attendance.<\/p>\n
He pledged on Tuesday, \u2018I\u2019m working with Chairman [Jim] Jordan of the House Judiciary Committee and Chairman [James] Comer of our Oversight Committee on measures to rein in the abuses of Special Counsel Jack Smith.\u2019<\/p>\n
Asked by Fox News Digital on Wednesday what that looked like, Johnson said, \u2018There\u2019s a lot of different ideas being discussed now on what that would look like. Do you defund the entire Special Counsel\u2019s Office?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018What most people don\u2019t realize is that is not funded in the regular appropriations process. It\u2019s a separate, distinct account, and it\u2019s effectively\u2026funded autopilot,\u2019 Johnson said.<\/p>\n
He said House Republicans would continue \u2018actively discussing\u2019 various avenues to hold Smith accountable \u2018even today.\u2019<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the first time Johnson has criticized Smith\u2019s investigations or dismissed them as political operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But his comments on Wednesday came after he poured cold water on calls to take Smith\u2019s funding away in a Politico interview last week.<\/p>\n
\u2018That\u2019s not something you wave a wand and just eliminate the special counsel as a provision,\u2019 Johnson told the outlet. \u2018There is a necessity for a function like that, because sometimes the Department of Justice \u2013 which is an executive branch agency \u2013 can\u2019t necessarily, without a conflict of interest, investigate or prosecute the president who\u2019s their boss, or the president\u2019s family.\u2019<\/p>\n
When reached for comment on the different statements, Johnson\u2019s office referred Fox News Digital back to the speaker\u2019s comments in the press conference and to a recent X post when he pledged to \u2018rein in\u2019 Smith.<\/p>\n
Fox News Digital also reached out to the Justice Department for comment.<\/p>\n\n
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., floated the possibility of defunding the U.S. Office of Special Counsel on Wednesday, the day after he pledged to \u2018rein in\u2019 Special Counsel Jack Smith\u2019s investigation into former President Trump. \u2018There\u2019s a lot of different ideas. People are alarmed that the special counsel, in that capacity, has been abused in recent <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":19154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}