(RepublicanJournal.org) – After weeks of paralysis, the House has a new speaker at last. The limelight is now on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), and that means the media is already sniffing around him looking for any financial irregularities. Liberal news site “The Daily Beast” thinks it’s found one already — but it isn’t actually against any rules, which seems to have left them slightly puzzled.
The New Speaker Has No Assets
On October 25, the second tense election in less than a year for House speaker ended with the election of 51-year-old Johnson, the most junior representative to win the job since 1883. He’s now been catapulted from relative obscurity to the most powerful position in the House, and the liberal media is scrambling to catch up and find out as much about him as they can. They’re looking at his conservative Christian beliefs, his positions on all the policies that matter to them, and of course his financial affairs. On that last one, they’re coming up blank.
Like all members of Congress, Johnson has to submit annual financial disclosures, listing all his assets to identify potential conflicts of interest. What’s puzzling journalists is that, during his seven years in the House, the new speaker has never listed a bank account of any kind on his disclosures. He doesn’t have a checking account. He doesn’t have a savings account. His wife and children don’t appear to have any bank accounts either. His latest filing, submitted on August 11 and covering 2022, shows him as having no assets at all.
Is This for Real?
House Ethics Committee rules state that all members have to disclose every account they have that holds over $1,000, where the total value of all accounts is at least $5,000. Does Johnson — and his entire family — really have less than $5,000, after seven years on a congressman’s salary?
That isn’t impossible; according to The Daily Beast, 57% of Americans don’t have $1,000 they could use in an emergency, and the average American has $5,300 in the bank. Johnson isn’t an average American, though. In fact, he’s in the top 12% of Americans, by income; Jordan Libowitz, a director at a government finance watchdog, says the new speaker earned over $200,000 last year. The Beast is clearly struggling to believe he has no assets at all. Is this an oversight in Johnson’s paperwork, or does the new speaker live from paycheck to paycheck? Only time will tell.
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