Mike Johnson Punts On Implications Of Trump's Alleged Adultery Cover-Up
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who suggested that if people wanted to know where he stood on a topic they merely needed to check the Bible, took a pass when asked what he thought of the former president being on trial for trying to cover up payments made for alleged adultery.
“Look, I’m not going to comment on that,” Johnson said at his weekly press conference Wednesday.
“What we’ve said about what’s happening in Manhattan — I’ve called it a disgrace because it is. It’s clearly lawfare, they’re clearly going after President Trump because of who he is,” he said.
His comments were in response to a query on whether character questions were raised by the underlying behavior Trump is alleged to have engaged in that led him, prosecutors say, to make $130,000 in payments to buy the silence of Stormy Daniels, a porn actor, in regard to an adulterous affair.
Daniels testified that she and Trump, who was married, had sex in 2006 at Lake Tahoe while both were in town for a golf tournament. She said she later met him at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles to discuss possibly being on Trump’s reality television show.
Trump has denied the pair had sex, despite Daniels recounting the 2006 meeting in vivid detail on the witness stand. Trump declined to testify at the trial.
In his comments Wednesday, Johnson went on to accuse — without citing specific evidence — the Joe Biden administration of coordinating prosecutions against Trump but did not return to the ex-president’s alleged adultery. A prohibition against adultery is one of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament of the Bible.
Johnson, a Southern Baptist, has proudly worn his evangelical faith publicly during his time in Congress and after ascending to the speaker’s chair. In an interview soon after taking the gavel in October, Johnson described the Bible as informing “my personal worldview.”
If people wonder what his stance is on an issue, Johnson said, they should “go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it — that’s my worldview.”
Johnson and his wife, Kelly, are also in a “covenant marriage,” a type that makes it more difficult to obtain a divorce. According to the state of Louisiana, couples in covenant marriages must obtain counseling before divorcing and divorce is only allowed in certain circumstances.
Those conditions include commission of a felony by the spouse; abandonment by the spouse for one year; abuse; living apart for two years (or less in some cases); and adultery.