(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . GOP House speaker shocked at idea we'd ever have 'crazy criminal' president [1] ['Daily Kos Staff'] Date: 2024-07-02 In case you were worried about the Supreme Court’s blank check to do presidential criming, never fear! Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, a chief enabler of a certain criminal former president, is here to reassure Americans that there’s nothing to worry about because—get this—it’s not as if we’d ever have a president who is “prone to this kind of crazy criminal activity.” Yeah. He said that. Johnson had a good chuckle about the misplaced concerns of non-MAGA Americans during a Fox News interview with Kayleigh McEnany, the former mouthpiece for Donald Trump, on Monday. “There’s all sorts of hyperbole tonight, and this fantastical—these hypotheticals they’ve made up,” Johnson said. “Future presidents are going to turn into assassins, and all the rest. It’s madness.” Hmmm. Where could anyone have gotten the idea that a president could turn into an assassin? Oh yes. From Trump attorney John Sauer, who told an appellate court during oral arguments in January that a president should be able to order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival without fear of prosecution. Maybe that’s where the madness came from. But even if the Supreme Court says it’s okay to murder your enemies as long as you did it while you were president, Johnson’s not worried. “The president and the vice president are the only two offices in our constitutional system that are elected by all the people,” he said. “No one who is elected to that office is going to be prone to this kind of crazy criminal activity.” Not to get all hung up on facts, but we did have someone elected to the office of the president who is prone to criminal activity: Donald J. Trump. And he was recently convicted of 34 felonies. Maybe that doesn’t qualify as “crazy criminal activity,” in Johnson’s mind. But it’s certainly criminal! Trump also faces dozens of other charges in two federal cases, plus a case in Georgia. And while the Supreme Court seems to want to make all of that go away, it’s because they think having served as president is a get-out-of-jail free card when you do commit crimes. To Johnson, though, our entire democracy is dependent upon former presidents retroactively receiving that get-out-jail-free card. “You have to have the president with the ability to make difficult decisions hourly, daily, and not be worried about rogue prosecutors going after them at some point in the future,” he said. “The president can’t operate if he has that kind of sword of Damocles hanging over his head. And that’s very simply what the court ruled today.” Funny that no presidents before Trump felt hamstrung by the invisible sword supposedly hanging over their heads. But suddenly, for the first time in our nation’s history, a president simply will not be able to do ​​the job without the unfettered freedom to crime. One would think that the oath a president swears— to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States”—would be in direct contradiction to the need for criminal activity. But no. Trump has repeatedly insisted that a president must be allowed to commit crimes, and the speaker of the House, second in line to the presidency, agrees. And so, tragically for our country, does the Supreme Court. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/2/2250673/-GOP-House-speaker-shocked-at-idea-we-d-ever-have-crazy-criminal-president?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_9&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/