Speaker Mike Johnson carries January 6 election denialism as negative baggage

Echo report published in Politico by Kelly Garrity: 

Ken Buck blasts his Republican party’s hardliners for ‘lying to America’.

Republican right wing House Speaker Mike Johnson was regularly in communication with Trumpzi, now the leading MAGA-GOP presidential candidate, during the period between the 2020 election and the January 6 Capitol riot, Politico reported.

“Everybody who thinks that the election was stolen or talks about the election being stolen is lying to America,” Buck said.

Republican Rep. Ken Buck laid into his own party Sunday, blasting those who continue to propagate the lie that the 2020 election was stolen for “lying to America.”

“Everybody who thinks that the election was stolen or talks about the election being stolen is lying to America,” the Colorado Republican said during an interview in CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Buck didn’t stop there.

“Everyone who makes the argument that January 6 was, you know, an unguided tour of the Capitol is lying to America. Everyone who says that the prisoners who are being prosecuted right now for their involvement in January 6, that they are somehow political prisoners or that they didn’t commit crimes, those folks are lying to America.”

It’s not the first time Buck, a member of the Trump-aligned House Freedom Caucus, has decried his party’s unwillingness to accept the results of Biden’s 2020 victory or condemn the violent attack on the Capitol. The Colorado Republican voiced a similar warning earlier this month in announcing that he would not seek reelection in 2024.

“Too many Republican leaders are lying to America,” he said in his announcement video in early November.

Buck didn’t name the former President Donald Trump, who has brandished lies about the 2020, election and elevated January 6 rioters (calling them “hostages” earlier this month) on his seemingly runaway road to the GOP presidential nomination. 

Buck pleaded with his Republican party to defeat President Joe Biden with “someone who’s not lying to the country.”

“I hope all of my Republican colleagues become more clear and recognize the fact that Joe Biden is an existential threat to this country. We need to defeat him and we do that with someone who’s not lying to the country,” Buck told CBS’ Margaret Brennan.

When asked specifically about MAGA House Speaker Mike Johnson, who spearheaded an effort to undo the 2020, election results through a longshot legal scheme in Texas, Buck noted that he had signed onto the amicus brief Johnson was pushing.

“I signed on to that brief also and I believe that going through the courts to challenge an election is absolutely proper and it’s been done dozens of times in American history. What’s wrong is to try to stop a legal function, a legislative function like counting the votes in an election, as happened on January 6,” he said.

Johnson took over as speaker after Rep. Kevin McCarthy was ousted in an effort led by a small faction of Republican hardliners, including Buck, who were unhappy the California Republican sought help from Democrats to pass a stopgap bill to keep the government open.

Though Johnson was forced to do much the same earlier this month, Buck said Sunday he doesn’t expect he’ll face the same blowback as McCarthy.

“I don’t think that most Republicans blame Speaker Johnson for the problems that he is now facing, the challenges he’s facing. Those were created during the McCarthy time period, and Speaker Johnson is "trying" to do a good job to work his way through those issues,” Buck said. “So no, (at this time....) I don’t think he’s going to face a rebellion.”