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CNN host Jake Tapper dished out inconvenient facts to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and a bit of snark in their interview on Sunday. (Watch the video below.)
After the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, Johnson tried to defend President Donald Trump’s apparent weaponization of the Department of Justice.
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“They have to hold people accountable,” Johnson said. “We have to ensure that the rule of law applies to everyone.”
“Does the rule of law have to apply to people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6?” Tapper asked.
“Well, I’m glad you brought that up,” Johnson replied. “There’s new information over the last couple of days about that, as well. Apparently, there were 274 FBI agents in the crowd on Jan. 6.”
The speaker was about to parrot President Donald Trump’s disproven claim that FBI agents acted as agitators. His own FBI director, Kash Patel, debunked it again when he told Fox News those agents were called in after the disturbance began (a move that Patel also deemed problematic).
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“No, no, no, that’s Kash Patel,” Tapper shot back at Johnson. “Kash Patel just … brought enhanced understanding to that. They were sent there to do crowd control because of everything that was going on … it wasn’t a false flag operation as President Trump suggested.”
“How do you know that?” the speaker asked.
“I’m just going on what Kash Patel said,” Tapper replied.
“Well, and 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. 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.”
Johnson shifted the chat to a new congressional probe of a previous Jan. 6 committee, which he accused of bias.
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“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. The American people deserve full transparency,” Johnson said.
“Full transparency, 100%. I’m always in favor of full transparency, including for the Epstein files, which that will probably come on the floor of the House soon and we’ll have lots of discussions about that,” Tapper snapped back.
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Johnson has aligned with Trump’s effort to stifle the publicly unread documents about the late sex offender, despite efforts by even some prominent Republicans to get the files released. The recent special election of a Democratic House member, however, put the lower chamber closer to forcing a vote on the matter.