Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), a top House Democrat, on Wednesday responded to the stream of congressional Republicans attending Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) joined several other prominent GOP lawmakers Tuesday in making the trip to Manhattan to attend the trial and to support the former president.
Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in New York as part of a hush money scheme to bury stories of alleged extramarital affairs that he feared could hurt his presidential campaign in 2016.
“You guys stepped in last week to help save Speaker Mike Johnson from potential ouster,” a reporter said to the House Democratic Caucus chair at a press conference. “I just want to get your reaction to him going up, and supporting, and boosting up former President Donald Trump this week in New York.”
“It’s disappointing to see someone in that position, as Speaker of the House, to go up and to speak negatively of independent criminal investigations, is just odd, but that’s the price that House Republicans have to pay, and that’s the price specifically Speaker Johnson has to pay, to have President Trump have his back,” Aguilar replied.
“So, the parade of elected officials and Republicans in the House and Senate who go up specifically to get around the gag order that the former president is under, it just never fails to amaze us, you know, the depths at which they will go in order to bend a knee to the former president,” he continued. “But that’s exactly the nature of House Republicans these days.”
