New findings from a Breitbart News investigation may shed light on why House Speaker Mike Johnson turned his back on the Republican party and brought a $95 billion foreign aid package, including $61 billion for Ukraine, to the House Floor last week.
In the past month, the House of Representatives, under Johnson’s leadership and his comrades, passed three pieces of “America last” legislation.
Firstly, late last month, Johnson came under fire for leading the House to pass a $1.2 trillion spending bill with more support from Democrats than Republicans.
Next, the House approved an extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a measure initially enacted following the September 11, 2001, attacks, in a 273 to 147 vote. This provision allows for the warrantless surveillance of American citizens, a move that has raised concerns about privacy and civil liberties.
An amendment proposed by Rep. Andy Biggs, which sought to impose a requirement for the FBI to obtain a warrant before conducting surveillance on Americans under FISA, ended in a 212-212 tie vote, leading to Speaker Mike Johnson casting the tie-breaking vote against the amendment.
This decision drew sharp criticism, including conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, who accused Johnson of betraying the American people and undermining the Constitution.
In an attempt to halt the momentum of the FISA Section 702 extension, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna employed a procedural strategy to delay the Senate’s consideration of the bill. Despite her efforts, the bill passed again. The vote displayed a uniparty alliance, with 147 Democrats and 126 Republicans supporting the bill, while 88 Republicans and 59 Democrats opposed it.
Then another major legislative action under Speaker Johnson just last week involved the passing of three bills aimed at providing financial aid to Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, and other regions engaged in conflicts outside U.S. borders.
The Democrats waved Ukrainian flags on the floor of the United States House of Representatives as they voted to send $60 BILLION of taxpayer money to secure a foreign border.
The package Johnson announced Wednesday includes terms that will allow the President to cancel 50% of Ukraine’s debt after November 15, 2024, and the remaining 50% after January 1, 2024. It’s no wonder why Joe Biden came out “strongly” in support of the package, urging the House and Senate to pass it.
As The Gateway Pundit reported, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) revealed that only $44 to $47 billion–40%–of the $113 billion that the United States has handed out to Ukraine is lethal aid.” So what was the other 66 to $69 billion for?” Roy asked on Bannon’s War Room.
Still, Johnson, in a recent press conference, told the media that he did “the right thing,” the Gateway Pundit reported:
This departure from the conservative agenda has left many, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), wondering if the Speaker has been blackmailed or bought off by special interests and lobbyists.
According to Breitbart, Speaker Johnson has been “flip-flopped” on Ukraine matters by his top aides, Policy Director Dan Ziegler, a former lobbyist with clients who may have a financial interest in Ukraine aid, and National Security Adviser Josh Hodges.
Per Breitbart:
The inside story of how House Speaker Mike Johnson was flip-flopped on Ukraine aid starts with his top policy adviser, a former lobbyist whose clients include a number of major companies who have issued corporate statements indicating some kind of interest in the war.
Johnson’s policy director, Dan Ziegler, was–until he joined the Speaker’s office as his top policy aide when Johnson won the Speakership last year–a lobbyist with the firm Williams & Jensen. He had previously worked for Johnson in other capacities, but left Johnson to become a lobbyist and accumulated a client list that included several top companies–some of which seem to have a financial interest in seeing Congress pass Ukraine aid. The lobbying firm for which he worked represents a number of top companies. Lobbying disclosures reveal Ziegler represented many of these companies, including several that have made corporate statements about the war in Ukraine or issued press statements or other public guidance saying it could affect their business operations.
What’s more, Ziegler also represented the highly controversial News Media Alliance, which was lobbying Congress when he worked for Williams & Jensen to push a dangerous proposal that would have severely hurt conservative media. That proposal, called the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act (JCPA), has died several times in Congress but has kept coming back to life thanks to lobbyist pressure.
Ziegler is not the only one in Johnson’s inner circle who has issues. Several other staffers working for Johnson have a series of troubling developments in their backgrounds, and as of now it is unclear if the Speaker himself is aware of all of this or not. Either way, this raises serious questions about his management of the conference and his handling of major legislative proposals like the foreign aid plan before Congress this week–and it undercuts the explanation several Johnson apologists have offered up that he is just having a tough time managing a one-seat majority and things would not be different if he resigned and Republicans picked a new Speaker.
The report goes on to note Johnson’s past opposition to a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package and $47 billion for Ukraine in December 2022 and his support for a 2023 amendment to the September 2023 Pentagon Appropriations package that would have stripped $300 million in Ukraine aid.
Previously, Johnson slammed the 2022 spending package, saying, “The process for passing this bill is almost as ugly as the substance: written behind closed doors, released Monday overnight, and brought for a vote before anyone could possibly read it—much less debate or amend it.”
However, just last month, Johnson released a 1,012-page $1.2 trillion spending bill at 2:32 am on a Thursday and brought it to the floor Friday before anybody could read it, debate it, or amend it.
Johnson’s tune apparently changed when he was elected Speaker and hired Ziegler and Hodges, who, according to sources, “are at the table making bad calls, both strategically and substantively.”
Read more here.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who filed a motion to vacate the chair and remove Mike Johnson as House Speaker thanks to his actions over the House Omnibus bill, which will fund the government until September 30, shared the article from Breitbart, commenting,
Personnel is policy and Speaker Johnson’s top policy advisor is “a former lobbyist whose clients include a number of major companies who have issued corporate statements indicating some kind of interest in the war.”
They’re all in for money for Ukraine.
Personnel is policy and Speaker Johnson’s top policy advisor is “a former lobbyist whose clients include a number of major companies who have issued corporate statements indicating some kind of interest in the war.”
They’re all in for money for Ukraine.https://t.co/mjcnhGFh4V
— Marjorie Taylor Greene (@mtgreenee) April 17, 2024
The post $60 Billion to Ukraine Explained: Mike Johnson’s Top Policy Adviser is Former Lobbyist for Clients With Corporate Interest in Ukraine Aid appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
