The Biden Administration is Weaponizing the Government – with Congressman Mike Johnson: Congressman Mike Johnson is on with us today to give us an update on some recent hearings. The Biden Administration is weaponizing government agencies. The FACE Act was put in place to protect free speech for pro life individuals, but the Biden administration has been turning it against them, by prosecuting the peaceful protesters and letting off the violent offenders on the other side. This is just one example. Congressman Johnson fills us in on a number of others, as well. As this is getting out of hand, what can be done?

Air Date: 05/31/2023

Guest: Congressman Mike Johnson

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

 

Transcription:

Rick Green
Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture it’s WallBuilders, where we take on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective, here with David Barton. He’s America’s premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders. Tim Barton’s is a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. And I’m Rick Green, America’s constitution coach and a former Texas legislator. Thanks so much for being a part of us, not only listening to the program, but actually coming alongside us and helping us to educate and equip and inspire people across the nation, to be good citizens, to be biblical citizens that help to restore liberty in this country. You can be a part of that in a couple of ways. Number one, just share the program, just be a force multiplier, get this program in as many hands as you can. Share it on social media, send the link out to your friends and family, let people know about it, and then go to the website today and make a contribution. By doing that, you’re helping us to reach more people, it allows us, you know, we’re a listener supported program. So it allows us to be on more stations across the country. It allows us to reach more people, train more pastors and legislators and teachers and all the other things that we’re doing, to get people equipped to be good citizens. When you donate, it’s an investment in freedom. And we appreciate very much for being a part of that, check it out today WallBuilders.com, you can make a one time or monthly contribution. It’s a great way to come alongside us. Alright, David and Tim, we got our good friend, Congressman Mike Johnson with us a little later in the program, going to talk about a fundamental American principle of equal justice, blind justice. You’re supposed to treat everybody the same. I say American principle. I mean, really, it’s a biblical principle, right? That whoever comes before a judge, rich, poor, whatever, supposed to be treated the same. And, man, do we have some issues with that. And we could give so many examples of it. But it’s really emanating out of, I guess DOJ, FBI, local DAs. We’re seeing a lot of this as well. This is a real problem. Because if you don’t have equal and blind justice in a country, man, it’s hard to hold the country together. This is a dangerous road, we’re headed down.

David Barton
Yeah, selective enforcement has really been a hard area and the federal government, now that the Republicans have the house, they’re looking at what the federal government is doing in selective enforcement. One of the great examples is pro life and pro abortion groups since the Dobbs decision, pro abortion groups have gone after pro life centers at an unprecedented rate, hundreds have been attacked and firebombed, and vandalized. A lot of them are in churches, so they’re going after churches and vandalizing churches as well. And there have been very few, just a tiny handful of arrests of those fire bombings, etc. And yet, the FBI is backing up sometimes four, five, six years, to people who were accused of doing something against a pro abortion clinic, and they’re prosecuting those folks, even though they were acquitted years earlier. So it appears to be selective enforcement. You’re not enforcing the law as it stands, if it’s toward pro lifers, but you’re over enforcing and making up stuff, if it’s toward pro abortion. And that is a reflection of what’s been happening in the last several decades. We more and more have moved to… and we really saw this, I mean, not only Marxism with Antifa, Black Lives Matter, but the move towards socialism. And so many people want to move towards socialism. And we even saw it with 1619 Project, critical race theory. All of that is rooted and grounded in the concept that your value is based on the group you belong to. And if you’re with the right group, you have more value. And therefore we’re going to enforce that more vigorously. If you’re in the wrong group, you have less value. If you’re a conservative that means you’re fundamentally a terrorist, you’re against the nation. And so we’re watching now selective enforcement based on the group that you belong to, rather than the fact that all men are created equal, and they stand before their creator in that way. And that’s a real fundamental change in American philosophy.

Tim Barton
Well, and Dad, even as you’re saying, the group you belong to, it’s worth pointing out that it’s the groups that are being chosen, or who chooses the groups that are protected. I mean, it really does come down to a political ruling class. And oftentimes, you have Democrats at the head of this, and I say that not tongue in cheek, because if you look at the Durham report, when the Durham report was so clear that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and some of these people that were involved, and then you have directors of these different three letter agencies, and they were all in on this Russian collusion nonsense from the very beginning, and yet you have people that were blatantly lying, and you have these department heads that were carrying water for this lie. It’s gone beyond just the if you are pro transgender, or you are pro a scientific biology… or biological reality of male and female. It’s beyond that you now have leaders that are… I mean, Dad, you mentioned this Marxism, you have leaders that are choosing groups, that are literally turning them against each other for their own political purposes, so they can elevate their position elevate their power. This is where it is so clear that you have a… I don’t even think it’s a two tier justice system. I think you have a multi layered level justice system, where depending on where you fall on this scale, depends on what level of justice you might get. And sometimes even how much media coverage you get, how much exposure your story gets, because if the truth finds out, most American people are not in favor of a two tiered or multi level justice system, that people will get different outcomes depending on if they’re part of a specific group, or if they’re part of the Democrat party and part of a political leader somewhere. Most Americans are not in favor of that. But most people don’t know what’s happening. And this is where we have to get more exposure, more sunlight on the stories, because the more than American people find out what’s going on, the more discussion there will be and then the better opportunity there is to change some of this evil that’s happening in the distribution or sometimes lack thereof when it comes to justice.

David Barton
And the Republicans in the House have really put a focus on this, and trying to bring it to attention. A lot of the media is not covering it. But our friend, Congressman Mike Johnson, out of Louisiana is part of these hearings, part of what’s gone on with the DOJ and the FBI and the others, and trying to get to this thing of hey, we’re supposed to be equal justice under the law. Everybody gets equal treatment, you have this multi tiered system. And so with these hearings just recently being concluded, we thought it’d be really important to get Mike on, let them tell us what they learned in those hearings and where we can go from here.

Rick Green
Stay with us, folks. We’ll be right back with Congressman Mike Johnson here on WallBuilders.

Tim Barton
This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. The Reverend James Caldwell was a famous minister during the American war for independence. His sermons taught liberty and God’s opposition to tyranny. The British hated him and tried to kill them. So for his own protection, he would actually take loaded pistols with him into the pulpit and lay them beside his Bible as he preached. In the 1780 Battle of Springfield, the Americans ran out of wadding for their guns, which was like having no ammunition. Pastor Caldwell ran inside a nearby church and returned with an arm load of Watts hymnals, the pages of which would provide the much needed wadding. He took this great Bible based hymnal, raised it in the air and shouted to the troops, “Now put watts into them, boys.” This pastors ingenuity saved the day for the Americans. For more information on pastor James Caldwell and other colonial patriots, go to WallBuilders.com .

Rick Green
Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. It’s always good to have Congressman Mike Johnson back with us. Appreciate you, Congressman, thanks for coming on.

Mike Johnson
Great to hear your voice, my friend, always happy to do it.

Rick Green
Well, you guys, you know, you had this press conference on the FACE act and a hearing as well. I saw some clips from the hearing, I guess start by telling us, what is the FACE act. And then let’s talk about this unequal treatment, this two tiered justice system that we continue to see out of the Biden administration.

Mike Johnson
Yeah, we see weaponization, at every turn, it’s an every agency, you know, the… go down the alphabet list of all the federal agencies, the ones that are designed to protect and serve the American people. The sad reality is they’ve been turned against those very citizens. And it’s no less than the Department of Justice itself. And so we’re having these repeated hearings. I served on two committees of jurisdiction, the Judiciary Committee, which has oversight over DOJ and the FBI and all of our law enforcement on the federal level, and then also on the select committee on weaponization. And so we have our hands full on just both those committees. So this particular hearing you’re talking about was last week, was on the FACE act, which is the freedom of access to clinic entrances act of the law passed by Congress several years back, that was supposed to give, you know, equal treatment for pro life advocates, and for abortion clinics, right? It was supposed to allow basically for the protection of free speech so that the issue can be, you know, debated in public in appropriate manner. But what’s happened is, under the Biden administration, you get a completely unequal application of justice. They’re using the FACE act, in spite of its intent by Congress, they’re using it against pro life advocates. And these crisis pregnancy centers in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the Dobbs decision. So we had a hearing to look into that, trying to figure out what’s going on and make sure it doesn’t happen going forward in the future.

Rick Green
And you had this, I think it’s Mark Houck, the pro life activist that had the raid early in the morning, I mean, all these, you know FBI agents literally coming in guns pointed on his children and himself. powerful testimony and everything I saw from that thing, even when it initially happened. I was like, okay, even if there was a shoving match, even if he wasn’t actually, you know, defending his kid, which is what it appears was actually happening here. Even if it was just an outright shoving match, the FBI, really? We’re going to bring the FBI in over a shoving match instead of the local police department?

Mike Johnson
Yeah. And the shoving match, of course, is because one of those radical abortion protesters was threatening his young son. Of course, he was completely absolved of all charges ,later on. He was, you know, acquitted of all that. But here’s the alarming thing- when his… when he and his attorneys found out that the FBI was suddenly looking into his case, a year after it happened, he offered to go turn himself in, but instead they waited to go raid his house, literally like a SWAT team… It’s like a bad… like a movie, you know, long guns pointed into his front door. At his seven young children, they’re all traumatized by it. They’re trying to make a an example of him.

Rick Green
Intimidation.

Mike Johnson
Exactly, right. That’s what it is. And you know, at the same time, they’re going after pro lifers like that are completely innocent. They’ve had… we’ve had this sharp, alarming rise of violence and vandalism against crisis pregnancy centers and churches, of course, over the last couple of years, and the DOJ has completely refused all that. They won’t prosecute anyone. I mean, they’ve done untold damage to all these facilities, in the wake again, of the Roe v. Wade overturning and the leak of the Dobbs opinion. And, the FBI just turns the other way. So they’re going against the peaceful pro life, you know, prayer advocates on the sidewalk. And they’re letting the actual vandals and the violent offenders go walk. And it’s just… it’s unconscionable. And that’s why we’ve got to draw attention to it and make sure that we get this thing under control.

Rick Green
Well, Mike, what was your, kind of your take home, after the hearing of their reasoning? Like, how did they even try to explain this away? What did… I mean, I’m assuming they tried to act like, no, no, no, we’re investigating all of them equally, and we treat them all the same, or whatever. I mean, I’m assuming that was easy to see through. But I mean, what was your takeaway from it? Is it a… Are we so politicized over there now, that they just don’t care? They’re shameless about it? Is it that they don’t realize they’re being so biased? What did you get from it?

Mike Johnson
Well, I’ll tell you, you know, it’s a great question. We’ve had a couple of dozen whistleblowers already come forward through the FBI, because you have these very patriotic field agents who are out in the various field offices throughout the FBI. You know, it’s a critical agency for us to have, they have a really important responsibility. And these are, you know, career officers, and they’re out in the field, and they’re so bothered and disturbed by what they’re being asked and expected to do, from the corruption at the top of the agency. That is the problem. And that’s the takeaway we get from all these hearings, we recognize that it’s been corrupted at the top level there, and that, you know, the people that are out in the field that have to implement these crazy politicized policies don’t want to have anything of it. But the, you know, the great threat is, Rick, when they come forward, then the FBI attacks them and we had another hearing on that last week as well and it’s a serious, serious problem. We’ve got to root out the corruption.

Rick Green
And that one too, I mean that, you know, you had these guys that, I mean, you can just tell, they love their country. It’s why they signed up to serve. It’s why they do what they do. And they’re, I mean, it looked to me like just watching them talk, they’re literally grieving over, as we all should, over just how bad it is right now inside this agency. And as you said, that apparently retaliation against them, as a result of them coming forward, which is what the whistleblower protection is supposed to be all about. Where do you think that goes? What do we do with these whistleblowers? And how does Congress protect them and encourage more of that, so that we can root out this corruption?

Mike Johnson
Yeah, it’s a really important question as well. I mean, we… our committee has highlighted just over the last, I don’t know, 45-60 days, with the, you know, we know the FBI’s not to label concerned parents at school board meetings as domestic terrorists. We know they were actually trying to recruit spies and informants, inside the congregations of traditional Catholic churches, you know, ie pro lifers, they wanted to watch them from inside their own worship centers. They wanted to, and we know they did, routinely censor conservatives online, leading up to the last two election cycles. The FBI was meeting regularly with social media platforms to censor and silence people like you and me, and our candidates out there. And then now, you have these patriotic whistleblowers coming forward, because they’re alarmed by all this. They know, this is what the FBI is supposed to be about. And the FBI turns on their own. They’ve revoked their security clearances, they suspended them, they have unpaid leave. One of our witnesses at the hearing last week, has been unpaid, and on leave for over 450 days. He’s the father of three young children. He can’t feed his family, because the FBI has prevented him from pursuing alternative employment during the suspension. So, I mean, it’s a serious problem. And they’re trying to make examples out of these whistleblowers. We have more than two dozen, I mentioned, just in the FBI alone. Only three of them, were willing and able to come forward and put their name and their face to it. The rest of them are terrified that they’re going to get the same treatment. And so the irony is too and the tragedy of it is, the FBI has the authority to investigate these claims itself. So the only checks and balances is Congress. And that’s why we’re putting so much attention on this. I don’t have the ability, we don’t have the ability in the house to put anybody on trial and a court of law. Of course, we can’t perp walk anybody, indict anybody. But we can put them on trial in a court of public opinion. And I think it’s having the desired effect, because people are alarmed by this, as they should be, and they’re… They don’t want any more of it. That’s what we got to get to as the real reform.

Rick Green
I think you’re right. I think it kind of riles up in us this… We have this sense of justice in America, you know, it used to be the Superman thing, truth, justice and the American way. Is that still existing in Congress? You know, I know it does in you and Chip Roy and other friends in Congress. Is there… Are you sensing that, you know, in the conversations around the Capitol, are other congressmen saying, this has got to stop? This is not truth, justice and the American way. This is exactly what we are supposed to stand against.

Mike Johnson
Yeah, and we are. And our Republican majority in the House is working every day on this, because really the ultimate concern here, you and I know, Rick, I mean, we teach courses on the Constitution, we try to remind people of the foundational principles that we’re losing now, every day at a rapid pace. You know, you have to maintain the people’s faith in the system of justice. If you don’t have that, you can’t keep a republic, right? I mean, that’s what’s at stake here, the people’s faith in our institutions is at all time lows. And we can’t lose that. If we lose that, we don’t hold the country together. I mean, this is… it sounds hyperbolic, but you and I know what’s really at stake here. And the encouraging thing is, a lot more of our colleagues here recognize that as well. And so I… and hopefully, what we’re trying to convey to the people, the voters, the citizens of this country, is that you better recognize where these candidates that you’re voting on stand on these issues. It’s critically important. This is not a game. This is just politics. It’s about keeping the country that we love. That’s what’s at stake.

Rick Green
I never thought it would be so crystal clear. But if you were literally in that biblical, you know, calling good evil and evil, good situation and finding candidates that will still call good, good and evil, evil is so important. It’s why you with your background and your foundation and your biblical knowledge. It’s so important to have you there in Congress. I’m not going to ask you this question, because probably not smart even asked you to be on the record on something like this. But I, you know, I think the founders were right. I think we need to get police power back to the local and state and get rid of all these alphabet soup agencies, other than the Border Patrol, but I will ask you this…

Mike Johnson
No, no, I look, I agree. I agree. And what we’re talking about right now, I mean, Jim Jordan, and I and Chip Roy and others on these committees, is how do we rein them in, and really the ultimate power we have is the purse. And so we’re talking about funding for the FBI and maybe taking away that fancy new headquarters they want and all these other perks until they’re willing to uphold the Constitution.

Rick Green
Oh, that’s so good man. And I saw Josh Hawley the other day talking about dismantling the FBI. So it’s good. I think these competition… and I was the opposite, three years ago. I was defending the FBI and all these other agencies until it went to the two tier justice system. And last thing, Mike, just from your heart. I mean, what… as you’re in the middle of all of this happening in Washington, DC, what would you encourage people at home to be praying for you guys praying for the country, like what’s… guess if… I know there’s a million issues, and it’s whack a mole right now. But if you could pick one, that’s just on your heart and your mind today to encourage us to be praying about and acting on? What would be the number one, I guess, number one issue that we needed to be really focused in on?

Mike Johnson
You know what, Rick, instead of policy skirmishes, I gave a commencement address on Saturday at Louisiana Tech University, outside of my district of Louisiana. I told the graduates, there was a thousand graduates, I said, listen to me, I can give you lots of advice today, but what I want to present is something that you must maintain, and that is the embrace of truth. And just on Friday, there was a poll that came out, and then I track all this stuff, but 54% of Americans now say truth is subjective. And if that’s true, then there’s really nothing to hold on to, there’s really nothing to fight for, or die for, for that matter, live or die for, for that matter. And that’s why the polling in this country shows that depression and anxiety and even suicide, all these terrible effects are at record highs. And so, the main thing we got to be praying for right now, we need a revival in this country, obviously. But we’ve got to elect leaders to come to the nation’s capital and to the state capitals, who will just stand the idea of truth. We were built upon this. I told the graduates of this public university, I said listen, you’re… the foundational principle of your country is articulated in the declaration that we hold these truths to be self evident, we’re all created equal, there is a creator, He’s the one that gives us our rights. He’s the one also that determines what is right and wrong. And you deviate from that at your peril. And I told the graduates, you’re going out into an environment right now into a culture that is hostile to that basic truth, not just spiritually, but politically, as well and our civic affairs are built upon these foundations and we’re losing them. So for the people of God and the people who care about the country. Thoreau said, there’s thousands hacking at the branches of evil, but one who’s striking at the root. The root of this is that we’ve got to get back… This is your message all the time, brother, that we got to get back to those founding truths, because if we lose them, we lose the whole enchilada. And we’re at a point right now that we’ve never been in US history. And this is pretty serious stuff. We better be on our knees.

Rick Green
So good, man, but I got to your quote, wait, I’m getting out my declaration. I thought it said We hold these relativistic non binary ideas partially… That’s not what it says? No, no, you’re right! You’re right! It’s… I’m looking now. Yeah, we hold these truths to be self evident. That sounds like moral absolutes to me. God bless you Congressman Mike Johnson. Appreciate your time today, man. Appreciate you coming on.

Mike Johnson
You got it buddy, keep up the good work. See you soon.

Rick Green
Yeah, absolutely. Stay with us, folks. We’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

Tim Barton
Hey, guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called The American Story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that’s just not known or not told today. And we would say very providentially in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil, and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things, like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not out the statement Black Lives Matter, but the organization that says we’re against everything that America was built on, and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There’s so many things attacking America. Well, is America worth defending? What is the true story of America? We actually have written and told that story starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln, we tell the story of America not as the story of a perfect nation of a perfect people. But the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It’s a story you want to check out, wallbuilders.com, The American Story.

Rick Green
We’re back here on WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Congressman Mike Johnson for taking time out of that crazy congressional schedule. They are in the middle of it right now. So we appreciate him coming on. And being part of the program. Guys, I think Christians tend to, especially if they’re in God’s Word, which we know from Barna’s research, that’s maybe 9%, but the ones that are, they have a sense of justice, they have a desire for justice. So Tim, you said this earlier, you know, people hear about this, and they just… they have a negative reaction to it because they want justice. They don’t want this two tiered or multi tiered justice. So like you said, the more people hear about this, I think the more they get riled up and they want Congress to do something about it.

David Barton
You know, just listening to Mike’s interview, I think one of the most disturbing things I heard was that now the FBI is prosecuting whistleblowers. Whistleblowers, it took a while to get legislation protecting whistleblowers, because they were scared to come out and say when something’s been done wrong for fear of being fired, or prosecuted, or something by the federal government. So the whistleblower protection was to help shed sunlight on bad things going on. And there’s all these whistleblowers that are now coming forward. And as Mike pointed out, turns out the FBI is now starting to prosecute whistleblowers, that’s a really dangerous place to be, where you can shed light on something without be prosecuted for it.

Tim Barton
Well, and let’s clarify too, that when you say whistleblowers are coming forward. No, whistleblowers are telling some of their story in secret, but the fact they won’t go on record, is very telling, right, the fact that they wouldn’t go to Congress when there is… there’s supposed to be whistleblower protection. But when you have someone who is put on leave, and they’re not allowed to find another job, it’s been more than 400 days, that is nothing other than vindictive, powerplay control that you are trying to punish and silence someone where you said, hey, don’t go against us or will crush you. And that’s what’s happening right now is they are trying to crush people that are coming out and shedding light on the evil of what they are doing with this two tier justice system, where they’re playing favorites, where they’re protecting their friends, where they are promoting ideas and ideals and ideologies. And they are trying to destroy opposition along the way. This is a major problem. But as Mike pointed out, the fact that some of this is getting exposure, and this was not getting as much exposure as it should, as we can imagine, there’s not a whole lot of news outlets that are gonna be covering some of the findings from these different committees. Typically, committees will have press briefings and press conferences, they will inform the press what they found out. And generally speaking, all of this is public record, people can watch it. But this kind of stuff is not what NBC and ABC and CNN and MSNBC and all these traditionally left leaning organizations are going to be talking about. So most Americans aren’t finding out what is actually happening. And so even though these committees are giving some level of oversight, giving some of exposure, and it’s positive that the FBI and other agencies are feeling the pressure. It’s not the pressure, they should be feeling because the political allies of the Democrat party that support what the FBI has been doing are not going to help expose the evil of the FBI. And that’s why it’s so important that people try to stay informed and pay attention to what’s going on. It’s why we wanted to talk to Mike on the show, to let people know more of what is happening. because there needs to be a greater public outrage and outcry. If there’s not, there’s not going to be any kind of pressure for the FBI or leaders or directors to change something along the way. And guys, let me back up. Yesterday, we were talking about different leaders and what different leaders might do when it comes to President. We talked about Trump and DeSantis. We talked about Florida, what was going on there. This is also something too that becomes increasingly significant. When we look at the leaders we’re going to have going forward, that we start electing people who have the right conservative principles that they can go and clean house. It’s something that I so appreciate that DeSantis did in Florida. When he got elected, and he saw the corruption of the systems in Florida, whether it be in some of the counties with their individuals in charge of their election system, whether it be with higher education, whether it be even with what Disney has done along the way. He is willing to remove and replace and offer accountability where it needs to be done. And guys, the only way I see we turn some of this around is we have a leader who will finally lead and hold these organizations accountable.

Rick Green
Alright, folks out of time for today. Thanks so much for joining us on WallBuilders, today. Be sure to check out again the website WallBuilders.com . Lots of great tools available for you there, but also the great place to make a contribution. Make an investment and freedom by donating today to WallBuilders. It allows us not only to do the radio program, reach more people with these truths every day, but also to equip and train pastors and legislators and teachers and young people all the different things we’re doing. Thanks for being a part of it. Make that donation today at WallBuilders.com . Thanks so much for listening to WallBuilders.