Conservative Peter Wehner, who has broken ranks with the Republican Party over its embrace of Donald Trump, delivered a scathing denunciation of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) for telling what he calls a "significant lie."
Wehner's anger was sparked by Johnson being asked by a reporter on Wednesday about whether Trump will respect the peaceful transfer of power after he incited a deadly riot with the goal of blocking the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
"Trump is coming here for the first time since the January 6th attack on the Capitol," the reporter said. "Have you spoken with him about not doing anything like that again and committing to... respecting the peaceful transfer of power?”
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“Of course, he respects that, and we all do and we've all talked about it ad nauseum," said Johnson in response. "We're excited to be welcoming President Trump back... there's high anticipation and great excitement."
Trump is expected to be meeting with House GOP members Thursday.
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Johnson's response left Wehner furious.
"Speaker Mike Johnson — self-described 'Bible believing Christian' — is lying here," he wrote on Twitter. "And it's not a subtle lie; it's a significant, easily provable one. This is what the collapse of integrity looks like."
Trump repeatedly hinted throughout the 2020 campaign that he would not accept the election results, and after losing the election, he waged a campaign of lies and propaganda alleging that the election had been "stolen."
He proceeded to ask his Department of Justice to declare the entire election "corrupt," called up the Georgia secretary of state and asked him to "find" the votes he needed to overtake Biden, and tried strong-arming Vice President Mike Pence into unilaterally throwing out certified election results.
When that failed, he sent his supporters to march toward the Capitol, where they would violently break into the building, call for Pence's hanging and send lawmakers fleeing for their lives.
