Speaker-designate Mike Johnson once called for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to be charged with a felony after she tore up former President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech in 2020.
House Republicans nominated Johnson Tuesday evening after Majority Whip Tom Emmer dropped out of the race. Members of Congress have been scrambling to elect a new speaker since every House Democrat and eight Republicans voted to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in an Oct. 3 vote.
Pelosi ripped each page of her copy of speech during the Feb. 4, 2020, State of the Union address. Johnson, along with other congressional Republicans, suggested Pelosi may have violated a federal law.
Johnson told Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson that Pelosi’s action was “unlawful” and a “shameful display.” He said the copies of the State of the Union address are the official documents of the House, making it unlawful to tear them up.
“It was shameful display, it was stunning, really, to many members in the House. It was totally unprecedented, it was shameless and it was also unlawful, Tucker,” Johnson said during a 2020 interview. “You know, a lot of people have been talking about this in the last 48 hours and I did a little legal memo to my colleagues that she actually committed a felony when she tore that paper up. It wasn’t just any copy of the State of the Union Address, it was the copy, the original.”
“And we have over two centuries of custom and tradition and of course, the constitution that calls for the State of the Union Address, that when the president delivers the copies to those top legal officers, the two top legislative officers in that legal branch of government, they’re the official documents of the House and when you tear those up, you violated a specific statute in the criminal code,” he continued. (RELATED: Pelosi Pre-Ripped Pages Of Trump’s SOTU Speech)
Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz filed charges against Pelosi to the House and Ethics Committee in February 2020.
“She disgraced the House of Representatives, she embarrassed our country and she destroyed official records,” Gaetz said at the time. “The law does not allow the Speaker of the House to destroy the records of the House and the rules of the House do not permit some little temper tantrum just because you don’t like what the president of the United States says.”