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WASHINGTON, DC – Today, new Accountable.US research, first covered in Truthout, revealed Speaker Johnson in 2019 preached the importance of “submitting to government authorities,” even going so far as to claim that presidents take office by the will of God. One year later, Johnson led over 100 of his extremist congressional colleagues in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. To this day, Johnson continues to defend debunked “stolen election” claims.

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Speaker Johnson’s past comments are especially damning given that he himself led radical attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and undermine the will of voters. His extremism knows no bounds. Speaker Johnson is a champion for the fringe right-wing faction of his MAGA majority — and his leadership only means more desperate attempts to force his far-right agenda on everyday Americans,” said Accountable.US president Caroline Ciccone.

Truthout highlights:

“In an unearthed video recording, highlighted by Accountable.US in research provided exclusively to Truthout, Johnson hailed his conviction that God, and no one else, gives presidents and the government authority.”

“The address was part of a seminar given by Johnson and his extremist anti-LGBTQ wife, Kelly Johnson, titled “Answers for Our Times: Government, Culture, and Christianity.” It was organized by a company owned by Johnson’s wife, known as Onward Christian Education Services, Inc., a Christian counseling company which espouses the hateful belief that homosexuality is akin bestiality or incest.

In other parts of the address, the now-speaker of the House warns that widening welfare programs means that “Government is becoming God,” as Mother Jones reported recently. He suggests that democracy and majority rule are a form of tyranny, and that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation — a notion that historians have said is untrue, with the founders repeatedly espousing the importance of religious freedom.”

“[The statements] also speak to an inherent hypocrisy, as Accountable.US argues, in what Johnson says he believes about the power given to presidents — evident in his role as a key architect of former President Donald Trump’s attempted coup over the 2020 election. Though Johnson preached the importance of supposedly submitting to authorities, when Trump lost the 2020 election, Johnson orchestrated an amicus brief signed by over 100 House Republicans in a Texas lawsuit to invalidate the election results.”

Accountable.US has worked to expose Mike Johnson’s far-right extremism since he was elected Speaker last month. Accountable.US released a report on Johnson’s decades-long legal history working to roll back critical LGBTQ and reproductive rights, revealed his decade-long leadership of far-right extremist Living Waters Publications, exposed his extreme views intertwined in his political and business life, and highlighted his ties to the Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group Alliance Defending Freedom.

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