{"id":686,"date":"2026-06-27T18:05:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T18:05:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=686"},"modified":"2026-06-27T18:05:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T18:05:34","slug":"aoc-says-mike-johnsons-gop-is-running-a-protection-racket-for-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=686","title":{"rendered":"AOC Says Mike Johnson\u2019s GOP Is \u201cRunning a Protection Racket\u201d for Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<!-- begin partial\/series-card --><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p><i><span>Honest, paywall-free news is rare. Please support our boldly independent journalism with <\/span><\/i><i><span>a donation<\/span><\/i><i><span> of any size.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=684\">State Lawmakers Are Increasingly Meddling in the Affairs of Public Universities<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York ripped into Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Friday night for saying that Republican control of Congress is the only thing keeping President Donald Trump from being held to account for his numerous scandals and abuses of power during his second term in the White House.<\/p>\n<p>Asked about comments made by the Speaker earlier in the day, Ocasio-Cortez told <em>MS-NOW<\/em>\u2019s Jen Psaki that Johnson characterized future efforts to investigate or accountability for possible misdeeds or corruption by Trump, his family members, or members of his administration \u201cas though it\u2019s some partisan witch hunt,\u201d she said. \u201cBut if you don\u2019t want to be prosecuted for crimes, don\u2019t do crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ocasio-Cortez, often referred to by her initials AOC, had been asked about remarks Speaker Johnson made at the annual summit of the right-wing Faith and Freedom Coalition, a group with close ties to Trump and the Christian nationalist movement that supports him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we lose the midterms, heaven forbid, these Democrats \u2014 y\u2019all, impeachment isn\u2019t even the real concern,\u201d Johnson told the crowd. \u201cThey will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they\u2019ll go after the president\u2019s family, the Cabinet, his donors, friends, half of you in this room will be targeted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The House speaker added, \u201cI run the protection program. We\u2019ll take care of you, OK?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Johnson\u2019s remarks unsurprisingly sparked a series of critical reactions, including AOC\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMike Johnson saying the quiet part out loud: protect the powerful. Screw everyone else,\u201d said Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Pa.).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Speaker of the House just talked like a guy guarding a operation that can\u2019t survive daylight,\u201d said Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.). \u201cBecause that\u2019s exactly what he\u2019s doing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=682\">Trans People Behind Bars Face Great Risks. Prison Officials Are Making It Worse.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou don\u2019t need a \u2018protection program\u2019 for people who did nothing wrong,\u201d Levin continued. \u201cYou need one when you\u2019re afraid of what the books would show. Congress is supposed to be a check on power, not the muscle protecting it. Johnson is a total disgrace to the office. November can\u2019t come fast enough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What Johnson is \u201ctalking about,\u201d explained AOC in her interview with Psaki, is a Republican Party in Congress \u201crunning a protection racket\u201d for Trump and his cronies, both in and out of government.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd we are already seeing that this Trump administration has run what some have called one of the largest pedophile protection programs in American history,\u201d she continued, referencing the scandal surrounding the disgraced convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd so when Mike Johnson tells a group of wealthy donors, I\u2019m the only thing standing between you, and a consequence that should rattle at the conscience of every American,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat he wants to do is create \u2014 or rather, not even create, because it\u2019s already been created \u2014 but protect a class of impunity in America that says, \u2018You can commit whatever crime, and so long as you pay a check to us, we will protect you.\u2019 And that is a model of extortion in American politics. And you know what? That\u2019s their pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Melanie D\u2019Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, responded to Johnson\u2019s comments by detailing just a few examples of possible corruption by Trump that deserve much more scrutiny and congressional oversight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrump has almost tripled his net worth during this term. His sons bought drone companies and immediately received military contracts right before Trump started another war. Trump threw a crypto contest to see who could buy the most of his meme coin, with the prize being exclusive access to him in his presidential capacity,\u201d D\u2019Arrigo noted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHis son-in-law is getting billions in business deals from the countries and oligarchs wanting political favors. Large donors are spending millions to get pardons and investigations dropped. Trump is still actively covering up the Epstein files,\u201d she added. \u201cAnd these are just a handful of the things that were publicly reported on \u2014 imagine what we don\u2019t know about yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=680\">A Former Facebook Executive Is Suing Meta Over Their Silencing and Retaliation<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Johnson told a far-right Faith and Freedom Coalition summit, \u201cI run the protection program. We\u2019ll take care of you, OK?\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>AOC Says Mike Johnson\u2019s GOP Is \u201cRunning a Protection Racket\u201d for Trump - Smart Moving Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=686\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AOC Says Mike Johnson\u2019s GOP Is \u201cRunning a Protection Racket\u201d for Trump - Smart Moving Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Johnson told a far-right Faith and Freedom Coalition summit, \u201cI run the protection program. 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