Jack Smith Gets Good News From Mike Johnson

Speaker Mike Johnson rejected calls from Republican hard-liners to defund special counsel Jack Smith during an interview with Politico which was broadcast on Thursday.

House Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, a committed Donald Trump supporter, has made a number of bids to end funding to Smith, a special counsel for the Department of Justice, over the past year. However in the interview, Johnson claimed you can't "wave a wand and just eliminate the special counsel."

Smith is overseeing two of the ongoing criminal cases against Trump, over claims he mishandled classified documents after leaving office in January 2021 and broke the law attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election result. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all counts and claims the charges against him are politically motivated.

Referring to calls for Smith to lose federal funding, in a bid to frustrate his legal actions against Trump, Johnson said: "That's not something you wave a wand and just eliminate the special counsel as a provision."

He went on to defend the function of special prosecutors, who are appointed to investigate suspected wrongdoing in a specific case. Johnson commented: "There is a necessity for a function like that because sometimes the Department of Justice, which is an executive branch agency, can't necessarily, without a conflict of interest investigate or prosecute the president who's their boss, or the president's family."

Asked whether he would try to amend appropriations bills to remove special counsel Smith's position, Johnson replied: "No." Any such move would be extremely unlikely to be passed into law as it could be blocked by the Democratic controlled Senate or President Biden.

Newsweek approached Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and the Department of Justice press office by email and online media enquiry form respectively, at around 6 a.m. ET on Friday. This article will be updated if either decide to comment.

On Tuesday, CBS News Congressional Correspondent Scott MacFarlane reported on X, formerly Twitter, that Greene had included a call for the "defunding" of Smith as part of her list of demands to the speaker to avoid her pushing a motion to vacate, triggering a House vote on his future.

The following day, Greene did bring forward her motion to vacate aimed at Johnson but the House overwhelmingly voted to table her effort in a bipartisan 359-43 result.

Relations between Greene and Johnson sharply deteriorated in April when the House agreed to spend an additional $95 billion on foreign aid, primarily for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The package was later approved by the Senate and signed into law by Biden.

Greene also called for Smith's office to be stripped of federal funding in an X post on June 12 2023, which was supported by Florida representative Matt Gaetz.

She wrote: "This morning, I'm writing an appropriations rider to DEFUND Special Counsel Jack Smith's office and entire investigation.

"I will not vote for ANY appropriations bill to fund the weaponization of government. I hope every one of my Republican colleagues will join me."

Trump has also been charged over allegations he falsified business documents to cover up the payment of hush money to a former pornographic actress and acted illegally while attempting to reverse Biden's 2020 election victory in the state of Georgia specifically. He has pleaded not guilty to all counts and denies any wrongdoing.