Devout Christian Mike Johnson shows up to hush money trial to defend a guy accused of cheating on his wife with a porn star

MicroWave@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 962 points – Devout Christian Mike Johnson Shows Up to Hush Money Trial to Defend a Guy Accused of Cheating on His Wife With a Porn Star
vanityfair.com

House Speaker Mike Johnson describes himself as a Christian before anything else. He has said his “faith informs everything I do.” He has told people curious about his views to “pick up a Bible.” His wife reportedly runs a counseling service whose operating agreement, which he himself notarized, states, “We believe and the Bible teaches that any form of sexual immorality, such as adultery…is sinful and offensive to God.” He has said he and his son use a software program called Covenant Eyes to ensure neither is looking at porn.

Given all this, you may think that Johnson would not be comfortable showing up to a criminal trial to defend a guy who allegedly had an affair with an adult film star (according to the adult film star anyway, though Trump denies it), paid her to stay quiet about the alleged affair, and then was accused of covering up said payment. But you would think wrong!

On Tuesday, Johnson attended Donald Trump’s hush money trial in Manhattan, where—prior to the proceedings getting underway—the congressional leader nodded approvingly at Trump from behind a metal barrier, like a groupie at his favorite band’s concert.

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and is known to have shitloads of other affairs, and has been determined by a court to be a rapist.

Oh also he's a liar, a thief, a cheat. He's corrupt, he doesn't pay taxes or other bills and is a fucking traitor and oathbreaker.

also according to Mike's scriptures... Trump is a mass murderer. (the scriptures make it clear that murder is the only of the ten commandants that could be broken by inaction. for example, the parable of the good Samaritan, the reason that parable was offensive was that the two who did nothing both 'pillars of the community' types- a prominent and respected business man, and a priest- but they committed murder by not providing aid they could provide where the "dirty" Samaritan did.) (edit just to clarify, COVID trump could have saved millions of lives by countering the antivax narrative. or by encouraging masking. Or lockdowns. or just shutting the fuck up. he did not, and who knows how many people died as a result. biblically, Trump is a mass murderer.)

but details.

Trump is literally a Golden Calf, and Johnson is worshiping him.

Ugh now there's an image I have to get out of my head...

The only time I'm in favor of veal.

& it already happened:

https://images.jpost.com/image/upload/f_auto,fl_lossy/t_JD_ArticleMainImageFaceDetect/472066

I’m an atheist and still find this blasphemous mockery of Christianity disturbing.

I assumed that was a troll or performance art stunt at the time, but nothing ever came out, and now all evidence points to his supporters genuinely worshipping his gold shit.

Though wearing gold diapers is probably a lot more affordable than his sneakers.

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Who was it that said Trump “lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House”? Cause Mike Johnson should listen to that guy.

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The Evangelicals have addressed this.

David had Bathsheba's husband killed; Noah was a drunk; Lot had sex with his daughters. All were holy men, chosen by the Almighty to perform great deeds for the faith.

Sometimes the Lord chooses broken vessels.

This isn't satire, it's how they explain it.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/26/17164268/stormy-daniels-donald-trump-bible-christian

Apologetics is an amazing thing! You'll never guess how that one thing doesn't mean what you think it means, and I'm the sole authority to tell you why!

Yeah, self made man Obama who never looked at another woman after he married is a tool of Satan, and the guy who embodies all Seven Deadly Sins is the finest man alive.

Imagine the year is 2012. Many Christians are taking their views door to door, urging you to vote for the Christian candidate, Mr. Mormon Mitt Romney, and not the Muslim, professing Christian Barack Obama. One of them goes to church. The other got married in ceremonial underwear. But one is black and the other is white.

Someone said that they think the Mayans were right and the world did end in 2012. It's just sputtering along on momentum.

Lot was raped by his daughters in his sleep. And he was devastated and enraged when he found out.

wasn't he drunk as fuck ?! in his sleep is that even possible ?

is that even possible ?

Compared to everything else that happens in these stories?

Oedipus blinded himself after he found out he'd slept with his mother.

That's devasted.

I wish we didn't have to make the same brain-dead decisions. I surely don't respect it any.

Complete hypocrisy is the norm for Christianity.

I was gonna say this was on par for the modern Christianity as we know it. I don't think death threats are very Christian either but it seems that's been par for the course now.

I wonder if the porn monitoring app he shares with his son gave a little beep today?

Accused of cheating on his wife...? Seriously? This is the best they could come up with? How about:

"Devout Christian Mike Johnson Shows Up to Hush Money Trial to Defend the Poster Child for the Seven Deadly Sins"

  • Lust: “I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait,” Trump said. “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

  • Gluttony: Trump's favorite McDonald's order: two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fishes, and a large chocolate milkshake.

  • Greed: Do we really need examples?

  • Sloth: Trump ascribes to what has been described as the “battery” theory of, um, life force. Evan Osnos, in a profile of Trump in the New Yorker a few years back, described it thusly: “Other than golf, he considers exercise misguided, arguing that a person, like a battery, is born with a finite amount of energy.”

  • Wrath: “Lyin’ Cassidy said that I threw my lunch at the wall,” Trump wrote on his social network, Truth Social. “I actually threw it at Rudy Giuliani, and he ducked.”

  • Envy: We have a new ailment that has come onto the political scene and that is presidential jealousy. I don’t ever remember a current president taking constant and ongoing digs at a former president. Now, I can say that I have seen it. Almost since day one, Donald Trump has made disparaging and disrespectful remarks about Barack Obama.

  • Pride: Do we need examples? The man puts his name in gold letters on everything he touches.

What are you gonna do when you go to heaven and see Donald Trump there?

Feel pretty sure that I was right that a loving God wouldn't sentence anyone to eternal torture and damnation.

The bible is not univocal. So saying "pick up a bible" to understand his views perhaps includes killing those who wear mixed fabrics and giving women instructions for abortions. Maybe it also includes killing his firstborn son whenever the voices say he should. Or maybe he doesn't think those parts mean what they say, but other parts do?

Correct. If you actually read the bible you know that all these people are just making it up as they go along. You will find some quote that supports whatever you're trying to say and you'll find some quotes for the opposite too.

Average modern Christian behavior at this point.

tHoSe aRe nOt rEaL cHrIsTiAnS!!

Well mainly normal for the us in Sweden the church is almost more progressiv than the Democrats

Not a super high bar, tbf. Y'all's overton window is considerably to the left of ours. Your point is solid, though, I think, in that cultural identity is a much better predictor of personal politics than religion.

did he ask his son if it was okay for him to suck donald off?

I hope he's not allergic to mushrooms

I don't.

.. want to know about Trump's mushroom dick?

Why not, the rest of us have to know about it.

No, I don't care if Mike Johnson is allergic to it. If he died from anaphylaxis sucking Trump off, nothing of value would be lost.

If Trump weren't such an existential threat to our country, I'd be enjoying all his republican friends debasing themselves publicly in very humiliating situations.

I can see you haven't met many christians if you think this is hypocritical behavior.

Ghandi ? I like your Christ, you Christians are so unlike him.

Even if it is typical it is still hypocritical.

Yeha but you know Republicans will just look the other way when confronted with such arguments.

It’s still important to call out the hypocrisy, even if it is their normal modus operandi. Ad nauseatum.

Liars and conmen need to be exposed again and again until the most misinformed and thickest victim finally gets it.

Trump has proven that this will take until the end of time but it is still worth it. If you save one victim per bunch of Trumpists it’s worth it.

He is a grifter. He is not truly devout, he doesn’t follow the Bible despite claiming that he does.

My first thought when looking at the headline was, "Devout should be in quotation marks."

He is a devout Christian. People should stop mistaking “devout” for “pious”, and “Cristian” for “humane”.

I believe he's a devout Christo-fascist. I think only a special kind of devout Christian could come up with the porn accountability scheme with his son. He's a "lying for the lord" kind of person.

All Christians are hypocrites, it's simply not possible to follow the letter of the Bible because it's self contradictory, so the only way to be Christian is to be a hypocrite.
But even among religious/Christian hypocrites, Mike Johnson is a particularly bad one. So bad it's borderline insanity.

Not accused. I thought the sex was already a forgone conclusion, which is why this is about the illegal payoff for her to keep it quiet

Defense tried to say that it never happened, which opened the door to Stormy telling the jury about what was effectively a rape by the defendant. They probably didn't want to be arguing these facts, but that's where they ended up!

They were put in a box by Trump's refusal to admit any guilt, even for things that are not crimes.

Any normal defense attorney would admit the fact that their client cheated on their wife and tried to cover it up. Those are not illegal, and are pretty defamatory, so you can have the judge exclude any testimony about the act.

Then it's just a boring documents case. The jury doesn't pay as much attention when the evidence is less interesting, so the prosecution's case seems weaker.

Stormy came out a few years ago though and admitted they never had sex. She also said that she wasn't a victim and wasn't a part of the "me too" crowd. If you're watching the MSM though, you probably don't know about that

Damn, she must have crumbled when Trump’s lawyers brought that up when cross-examining her. As far as the jury is concerned, that would be game over for the prosecution.

Trump’s lawyers did bring that up, didn’t they?

I'm not in the court room, just look it up. It's on video and I have seen that

Ah but how convenient it is that anything we look up that doesn't fit your narrative can simply be dismissed as being the MSM which obviously has an anti Trump agenda and therefore is a lie. That's pretty convenient, yes? It is almost like that's exactly why Trump made up this whole MSM is liars who are out to get him thing. He has even tried to turn "doesn't like Trump" into an insult that he then uses against anyone not supporting his lies to try to discredit them so that his own lies seem more believable.

I hope you can eventually see out of his cloud of lies, deception, and manipulation. It may be painful briefly, but you'll eventually start seeing all the ways you have been manipulated. It will eventually feel good like a nice warm blanket to finally be free of it.

I can say the same about your side when it comes to Fox news, Newsmax, etc.

Btw, Trump didn't just make it up about the MSM lying. It's pretty obvious to anyone willing to venture outside the MSM bubble. Things like the Russia hoax, the burying of the Hunter laptop story, waiting until campaign season to bring every case they've got and then saying it's not political, or spending 3 years telling everyone the border is secure and closed, refusing to say certain words or phrases such as illegal alien, and anytime someone calls them out on something they just tell everyone you're a racist MAGA supporter, etc. are all examples of the fake news that Trump talks about.

Or that didn't happen and you think it did because you listen to and believe lying liars who lie.

That’s not at all what the Maher article says. She said she wasn’t coerced, not that they didn’t have sex. It’s also not the point of the trial.

I never said that it was Mahr she said she didn't have sex to. Word for word, this is the letter she signed in 2018.

To Whom It May Concern:

Over the past few weeks I have been asked countless times to comment on reports of an alleged sexual relationship I had with Donald Trump many, many, many years ago.

The fact of the matter is that each party to this alleged affair denied its existence in 2006, 20011, 2016, 2017 and now again in 2018. I am not denying this affair because I was paid “hush money” as has been reported in overseas owned tabloids. I am denying this affair because it never happened. 

I will have no further comment on this matter. Please feel free to check me out on Instagram at @thestormydaniels.

Thank you,

Stormy Daniels

She did sign that letter. But she had previously said they did have the affair (and described it in detail). And shortly after she signed that letter, she admitted to Anderson Cooper the letter was a lie. She explained that she lied because... Get this... She was concerned about legal complications because she had accepted the hush money to not reveal the affair.

She also admitted that statement was a lie during her recent testimony while under oath. Signing that statement was not likely a crime. But if she had lied under oath this month, that would be a crime.

So, she was clearly lying at some point. Why do you choose to believe the much less plausible option that she was truthful the one time in 2018 but she was lying all the other times? There's no logical explanation for that, yet the opposite (lied in the 2018 statement you posted) has much more logical support. The only reason I can see to believe her only that one time when she had reason to lie is because it lets you believe Trump's lies that you really wish were true.

Well why do believe that Cohen is honest now, but lied every other time in the past? Stormy came out the third time and said they slept together again to try and get some money, even telling her attorney to hurry it up before the election or she'll lose her leverage to get paid. The point is that her and Cohen both just aren't credible witnesses at all. They're both making a living on Trump being guilty so they've got everything to gain from saying whatever they need to say to keep the money flowing

It's about falsifying business records although they still haven't said what the actual crime was and Trump has always denied the sex allegations. Stormy even lost a defamation case against Trump and owes him 500k. The MSM tries to get you to think they slept together though

How do you think they just skipped the parts where they would state the actual alleged crimes? They in fact didn't skip that part.

Alright then, what is the folony crime they're claiming he committed?

It's falsifying business records, which becomes a felony when combined with it being a campaign finance violation.

Not as strong of a case as the docs one but it is a crime.

Right, that's why the FEC and Braggs office declined to prosecute the case already, and then wouldn't ya know, campaign season rolls around and all the sudden it's being prosecuted. I'm just not that naive. I see it for what it is although I do expect a guilty verdict to come and then to get overturned on appeal

You're just imagining facts that are convenient to what you want to think but are not true. This case has been in the works for years. It didn't just happen recently all of the sudden because it is election season.

Yeah, it was in the works before and 2 courts declined to prosecute it, one being the very court that it's being tried in now, the other being the Federal Election Commission. I'm not imagining anything. That's just the facts bud

Falsifying business records is an actual crime.

So what? Even if he did falsify them (which they failed to prove) statute of limitations already ran up. They're trying to claim he falsified them to influence the outcome of the election but that's impossible considering that they weren't labeled as a legal expense until after the election was over. Facts matter

Again, do you think they can just ignore things like statute of limitations and proceed anyway just because they don't like Trump and are out to get him? The case would not be in progress if that claim of yours was accurate. The charges were indeed filled before the statute of limitations expired. This is a real court with real rules that apply and matter. It isn't a clown sham court like Trump wants you to think it is. Facts do indeed matter. Stop fabricating them (or believing someone else's fabrications) to fit a narrative that you want to be true.

The statute of limitations ran up on the bookkeeping charge, so Bragg claimed that the false bookkeeping was done in order to hide another supposed crime which allows him to try and make a felony out of it, but they haven't proved the first or second crime. Some say the second crime was election interference but the problem with that theory is that Trump didn't sign the bookkeeping documents until well after the election was already over, so that wouldn't make any sense. We've basically just gotta wait until the judge gives his directions to the jury to find out what this second crime is

You obviously don't understand how it works. If you have a corrupt jusge and prosecutor, you can absolutely bring cases to court that doesn't belong in court. They have the power to do so. The judge doesn't have some boss standing over his shoulder telling him what he's allowed to do or not do. They've got the power to just about anything they want. The judge can decide what evidence to allow and what evidence not to allow and right now, the judge doesn't want the defense to allow an expert witness to testify and he has that power. The jury could decide in the end that Trumps not guilty and the judge even has the power to override the jury verdict and impose a sentence anyway. Sure, it's not ethical, but he can certainly do it. The powers above him don't come into play until the case is over and there is appeal made by the defense, and everything the judge did could be overturned. Our Justice system isn't perfect at all and a judge having that much power is a big problem in my opinion and it largely goes unnoticed most of the time because like you, a lot people think that if it's the court system it must be legit, but there's more people waking up to it now that they're using against political opponents so we'll see if something changes down the road but as it stands a corrupt judge and prosecutor can destroy a completely innocent person with no problem

There is a world of difference between "he didn't do it" and "so what if he did it?" and opened the link aiming to figure out which of these two kinds of defenses Johnson was trying to make - but his approach was not even relevant enough to the actual issue for that distinction to be meaningful.

Reports of Johnson twerking for trump as he passed by could not be verified by press time.

Theres not a single teaching of christ amongst conservative politics.

according to the bible, the character jesus said that he was here to bring a sword and turn families against each other, so fits right in from what I can see.

This is a violation of trump's gag order since it's just johnson acting as a ventriloquist's dummy for trump, so the speaker can shore up support on his right.

Ah yes, Mike Johnson and Donald Trump. Pinnacles of American virtue, as evidenced by Americans electing them into office. Indeed, all of our politicians are examples of the best America has to offer.

When people start realizing that hypocrisy is nothing to the Alt-right, they will understand how Nazis came to power in Germany.

A hypocritical, insurrectionist false prophet shows up to support and grift for a greedy, lying, malignant narcissist rapist - seems normal, for Republicans.

If Mango Mussolini wins the election, the lunatic hypocrite Christian Fascist will force Covenant Eyes on every single resident in the USA. Johnson is sick.

The christianity he is involved in is a corrupted version of cherrypickers so he is self agrandised and will argue his version is the only one that counts.

Yeah, accused by a porn star trying to extort money from someone and was also ordered to pay Trump 500k for defamation. Left wing propaganda

If that's true then why is he on trial for paying her off with misappropriated funds?

He's not. He's on trial for labeling the payments to his lawyer a "legal expense" and Braggs trying to say he should've used campaign money instead of personal money and if he would've done that, they would've charged him for campaign finance violation. That's why almost everyone knows it's a sham trial. The FEC already declined to prosecute the case as well as Braggs office. The only reason they brought the case all these years later was to keep him off the campain trail. Why do you think they brought every case they could against him during campaign season? Someone's got to be pretty naive and gullible to believe this isn't political.

So the thing is I went ahead and took a look at the indictment and didn't need to spend more than two minutes reading it to find that you're wrong

This is what going down with the ship looks like

You're close... Stormy Daniels, through disgraced former lawyer Michael Avenetti (hey, remember him??!?), sued Trump for defamation, not the other way around.

When that case failed, she was on the hook for Trump's legal fees, not for any defamation on her part.

$300,000, not $500,000, later reduced to $120,000.

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/05/1168215663/trump-stormy-daniels-defamation-lawsuit

NPR isn't a very good source for news. They even recently had 25 year veteran reporter blow the whistle on them about how they've been reporting news since around 2015-16. They're completely one-sided similar to MSDNC, Rawstory, etc. Anytime a news organization doesn't allow healthy debate, I've quit using them as they're no more than propaganda now

One should note that American Left is literally only left by weird American standards.

Literally everyone outside Land of the free will tell you Dems are moderate rights, and the truth is super far from "between Dems and Reps".

America hasn't seen a healthy political debate since the Red Scare. With the real left eradicated and members of any left organizations, let alone past or current member of the communist parties, becoming essentially enemies of the state, politicians felt comfortable instating that Dems are "actually left", so as to gradually put real left to serve a slightly leftier flavor of capitalists.

And as such, you don't see the actual unbiased debate you expect. You see two kinds of right-wingers debating how right America should go.

Real "unbiased" center, by international standards, is more left than Democrats, even. It's around Bernie Sanders.

And the left is about dismantling capitalism and building a real socialist state. Like, USSR socialist, not Sweden "socialist".

We just gotta agree to disagree on the comment about two right wingers debating how right America should go and that the left is eradicated. I see people all the time wanting to bring down capitalism in favor of guaranteed healthcare and income, etc.

Universal healthcare doesn't "bring down capitalism" and doesn't mean socialism. It's just a norm of civilized capitalist world, one of the achievements of the working class that became entrenched in policies. Same for guaranteed income. All good policies, but can absolutely exist in a non-socialist world.

Socialism is characterized by common ownership of the means of production, i.e. all the big businesses go away and the control of industries is public, either through government or worker's cooperatives.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans offer anything close.

(Socialist political groups can advocate for things such as universal healthcare/UBI/etc, but their endgoal has to be the eradication of private property)

NPR is one of the pre-eminent sources of US news, reliable and fact checked. If you're blind to that there is absolutely no hope for you.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/npr/

"Overall, we rate NPR (National Public Radio) Left-Center Biased based on story selection that leans slightly left and High for factual reporting due to thorough sourcing and accurate news reporting. (5/18/2016) Updated (M. Huitsing 06/30/2023)"

Maybe it was at one time, but that changed. This is a reporter that's been there 25 years, and was ultimately let go for speaking out about it. Just like some of the other media outlets, they did anything they could to help stop Trump from getting elected and boost Bidens chance by burying the Hunter Biden laptop story before the election. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/npr-whistleblower-uri-berliner-claims-colleagues-confidentially-agree-with-him-about-broadcaster-s-hard-left-bias/ar-BB1lpy5Y

Again, that doesn't change the basic factual nature of NPR.

You can argue bias all you want, but the basic facts are the basic facts and NPR gets it right.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/npr-whistleblower-uri-berliner-claims-colleagues-confidentially-agree-with-him-about-broadcaster-s-hard-left-bias/ar-BB1lpy5Y

Doesn't change the basic facts of the matter:

  1. Trump did NOT sue Daniels for defamation, it was the other way around.

  2. The amount charged was for legal fees, not damages.

  3. The amount wasn't 500,000, it was 300,000, then reduced to 120,000.

Factually, you got all three points wrong, NPR got it right.

Facts are facts.