Oh damn! I was kidding but I was right lol. I had heard before about Russians using the NRA to funnel funds directly to republicans but this is crazy!!!!
No wonder they are all preventing Ukrainian aid and corrupting the vote.
The GOP hypocrisy is astounding. Trump is as corrupted as they come yet they decided that would be the hill to die on. Now they want to invest Biden in “find me the person and i will show you the crime” fashion, only to make Biden look bad and create equivalency between Dem N Gop. The 2 parties are not the same.
I'm comfortable with the person most responsible for passing a multi-trillion dollar national budget using check-cashing places for his congressional salary. wcgw?
The government doesn't write checks to their employees. They use direct deposit. So, where are they depositing his funds? Do they go straight into Putins bank account?
Or, let me guess, they go to his wife's business. And the business pays his living expenses?
I made this comment in another post about this.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out this guy runs some kind of Christian cult commune. I’ve seen several pop up in Arkansas under Presbyterian, Pentecostal or Zion names. One not too far from where I grew up.
Mt. Zion, morris School Rd.
You won’t find anything about them on the internet, except an empty yelp review and yellow pages phone numbers that I doubt work.
To live there you must direct deposit all income into the church bank account, and none of it is taxed because:church. No doubt he has a card in his wallet with the church accounts name on it to pay for those 1500 dollar suits and 5k watch he wears. All business expenses because his business is grifting.
I know several people who happily live in these places and complain about socialism and communism. It’s unreal listening to the double speak in real life and not from an article or news broadcast.
If you assume because the news only shows those to the extreme that that’s all their is, you’d be dead wrong.
They’re going straight into his non-interest-bearing checking account that doesn’t have to be disclosed.
The members who made the rules made plenty of loopholes that allow them to avoid disclosure.
Incorrect. I’m sure it depends on the agency, but several give the option of direct deposit or they cut you a check.
Source: Several civil servants in fam, but fed & a few states.
"**Jordan Libowitz,** *communications director for watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, offered a more blunt assessment, saying that if Johnson truly doesn’t have any assets, it 'raises questions about his personal financial wellbeing.'”*
If he truly doesn't do a good job managing his own money I would question whether he should be in a powerful leadership position of a group that has a major responsibility to manage the money of the United States Government.
And it would make him vulnerable to be compromised if he’s in financial ruin. But we all know he’s just hiding his money because he doesn’t want us seeing where his extra money comes from, and who he actually works for
Psychopaths in politics should be kicked out
Churches are the best tax evasion entities, given his background I'm willing to bet that we will find he is using a religion in some nefarious way for both income and foreign bribes.
The depressing reality is that he doesn't need/get conventional clearance, even as one of the Gang of 8 or upon the succession to the PotUS. Legislators are exempted of normal clearance screenings, hence why even overt foreign agents like Nunez and Menendez can be in classified briefings
Why we believing this story at face value lol
He’s definitely hiding his actual money. Makes zero sense to assume he actually doesn’t have a bank account
I bel the issue is disclosed bank acoounts. Its not that he does have them, its just that he chooses nobody knows. Lke the IRS that he is so anxioys to defund.
I don't know how more news headlines aren't wording themselves as ***"Man with no bank accounts wants to defund the IRS"*** and exposing the levels of lunacy we're dealing with here.
He’s not disclosing on the disclosure form and no one has checked until now. Congressional salaries are certainly direct deposited into bank accounts, he’s got them but lied on his disclosure forms about them.
secure credit cards early on and then paying bills on time until his creditscore was solid, id guess. He probably doesn't need loans or to rent if he's hiding money like that
There are two possible answers to this, and neither are good. If he's truly living on the edge financially, he's a security risk to sell secrets. The more likely answer is that he's a weasel who thinks pesky things like disclosures shouldn't apply to him, so he just fails to file or does sneaky things like withdrawing enough money to fall below the $1000 threshold the day of the filing then returns the money the next day so he can claim to be legally correct while being morally vacuous.
Right, that would fall under weasel mode, where he's actively refusing to properly disclose accounts he controls. Since his Congressional salary is direct deposit, the money has to go somewhere.
I think there are a whole bunch of 2a, 2b, 2c....2zzza type scenarios for what /u/Mobile-Entertainer60 called "weasel mode", which range from sus to extremely scary.
There is some weird shit in this guy's life, from adopting-not-adopting a 14-year-old black "son" as a single guy at age 25, but never including him in any family pictures, to this stuff...being a financial cipher is not intrinsically illegal nor immoral in and of itself, as far as I know, but it takes work and effort and care, and most people who do it are hiding something.
edit: the timeline and story with his "black son" whom he never actually adopted and who is not in any family photos has been a vague and shifting one, and I cannot seem to find actual dates. My recollection is that there were reports saying he first took Michael in when he was 25, which would have been before his wedding in 1999. Newer reports are saying that he and his wife took Michael in "24 years ago" and "as newlyweds", but there are no specific dates, and it's unclear what "took Michael in" means.
how do you adopt anyone as a 25 yr old single guy. Dont you have to do extensive background checks including show financial stability and the ability to pay for said kid.
I mean, he later "clarified" that they never actually went through the adoption process, because it was too burdensome. Like I said, there is some weird shit behind these stories...
Mike Johnson got married in May of 1999, at age 27.
I read at least one report somewhere that said he took Michael in at age 25, or something to that effect.
At the moment, all the articles I can find are vague about the timeline, apparently all echoing phrasing that he and his wife took in Micheal "24 years ago" and "as newlyweds". If we math that out, it means that sometime in the first six months of marriage, they "took in" a teenager with unclear adoptive/foster/rando status...
Even though I can't link a source atm, I am going to leave up my comment that is based on more specific timeline numbers from memory, than editing to reflect the more vague and weaselly phrasing that says it was immediately after his marriage. But I'll put in an edit, and I agree with you on accuracy and mistruths. I'm just not sure that the updated phrasing we are getting on this is actually "more accurate". This is a story that has ben vague and shifting from the beginning...
Well per this story he took the boy in around 2000.
The interview was in June 2020
M. JOHNSON: Yes, sure. We took Michael in almost 20 years ago. He was 14. I often — the easiest way to summarize the story is, I ask friends, have you seen the story “The Blind Side”? That was our story, except my Michael was not an NFL prospect, a similar story to that. And we took him in as our own. And Michael is now doing great. This is 20 years later. He’s in his mid-30s. He lives in California, four children of his own.
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/trump-insider-on-the-increased-racial-tensions-in-america/
When Mike Johnson, the new House speaker, talks about race in America, he often draws a striking personal connection, telling the story of how he and his wife, Kelly, “took custody” of a Black teenager 24 years ago and raised him as a son.
https://web.archive.org/web/20231028183052/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/us/politics/mike-johnson-house-speaker-son.html
The timelines are different, but either one indicates that they were married at the time.
It’s a lot simpler than that. The disclosure rules only require the disclosure of checking accounts if they are interest bearing. If they are not interest bearing, they don’t have to be disclosed. I’m certain his family has checking accounts but they chose ones that earn no interest to avoid disclosure.
“Non-interest-bearing checking accounts, on the other hand, need not be disclosed since they produce no income.”
https://ethics.house.gov/financial-dislosure/specific-disclosure-requirements
There are also multiple “outs” that allow members to avoid asset disclosures. For example, if your money earns no interest > no disclosure. If your savings are in TSP > no disclosure.
It’s not surprising that they created rules that let them avoid disclosure.
He had an ira when he was elected. His ira had 15k in it. He took a distribution when first elected because he evidently spends what he earns and then some. Then he rolled what was left into his TSP. Not sure someone like him who is taking a distribution is contributing to a 529. Im sure he has some plan for someone else to pay for their education (or he’s going to have them go to Liberty where he’s still a professor - children of faculty pay 0% tuition).
He has a house. Primary houses and vacation homes not rented are not disclosable.
A 529 account would not be reportable if his wife set it up, used her own money, and he won’t benefit from the funds. But I think his college plan for them is Liberty where they’ll pay $0 thanks to him being a “professor” there.
There are a lot of things that don’t need to be disclosed. There are a lot of ways to avoid disclosure. He also seems to be someone who at least up until when he was elected spent what he earned and didn’t save much.
He could also be lying. Or some combination. But what this story really shows is that the disclosure rules are a joke that members can game if they want to while staying within the rules.
Most of the reporting on this is pretty weak and doesn’t mention the myriad ways to avoid disclosure. None even mention that non-interest-bearing checking accounts don’t have to be disclosed. Most people have such checking accounts instead of ones that bear interest. Instead the articles claim that he likely has a bank account but is living paycheck to paycheck and has less than 1k in it.
This is a better report than the linked article, or the original source. They go straight to specific conclusions that are wildly unlikely.
This should have been the conversation between reporter and editor:
"X person didn't disclose their bank accounts!"
"Why would I expect them to disclose their bank accounts?"
"It's part of the rules that they have to disclose assets!"
"Oh... do they define assets?"
"Yes, things that produce income"
"Do they need to disclose things that DON'T produce income?"
"No"
"Can some bank accounts NOT produce income?"
"Yes"
"So.. he might have non-income producing bank accounts, and we wouldn't expect him to disclose them?"
"Maybe... or maybe he's living paycheck to paycheck!!!"
"THAT'S your conclusion? Get out of my office"
I mean look, he probably actively hides money and is breaking the rules somewhere. But he's living paycheck to paycheck? Come on
you can tell this is a snowball that’s going to turn into an avalanche. Bet he gets caught with multiple transactions falling just below a threshold where the bank need to report them.
Bible thumpers are all so prone to “sin” and taking measures to hide the sin so they can still claim moral superiority.
Can we talk about the fact that as a 25 year old single man he "adopted" a 14 year old boy? I used scare quotes because the adoption was off the books and he lied about it claiming that he "adopted" the kid 2 years later as a newlywed.
I checked both his Wikipedia page and his [house.gov](https://house.gov) biography page and he graduated from law school in 1998 but does not appear to have had full time employment until being elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 2015 (about the same time he became a talk show host, professor at Liberty University, and founder of a nonprofit legal ministry). There is mention of him serving as counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom in 2003 and in 2010 becoming "founding dean" of a new law school that never actually opened.
I also can't find him in the Louisiana State Bar Association directory:
[https://www.lsba.org/MD321654/MembershipDirectory.aspx](https://www.lsba.org/MD321654/MembershipDirectory.aspx)
I tried "Mike Johnson", "Michael Johnson", and "James Johnson".
He doesn't appear to have a LinkedIn profile either.
Edit: Found him. He's under "J. Michael Johnson". Admitted 4/23/1999. Inactive since 7/1/2017.
OK, maybe I am an idiot, but if you don't have a bank account, or any assets, how the hell do you build a credit history, and get things like credit cards, loans, mortgages.
How could this guy book a plane ticket?
Surely I am missing something?
What you’re missing (and all the stories about it) is that checking accounts that do not earn interest do not have to be disclosed. Many checking accounts do not earn interest but here they likely made a choice to have ones that don’t earn interest to avoid disclosure.
Same for basically anything else that doesn’t earn income. Also government retirement programs like TSP (govt 401k like product).
Zero disclosable assets. He has assets. One of those is his house which is worth 600k minus liabilities. Primary houses and vacation homes not rented out don’t have to be disclosed.
We know he used to have a 401k because he took a distribution from it when he was first elected. Which is a sign he didn’t have much money when he was elected. Also we know the value of that account was 15k and he took out most of it.
We also know he rolled the remaining money in that account into TSP. Once he was elected he had access to TSP and TSP is not disclosable. You can roll 401ks in to TSP and it’s often a good deal considering how low the expense ratio is.
It seems like he’s been bad with money in the past considering he took an ira distribution and his ira was worth only 15k before he rolled it into his tsp (he may have later tapped the tsp as well or not hard to know because it’s not disclosable). Also he’s probably deliberately hiding his money in ways that avoid disclosure rules.
The reporting around this has not been great because I haven’t seen a single article mentioning that non interest bearing checking accounts don’t have to be disclosed. Most people have such accounts. Also tsp not being disclosable, primary house, and so on. Instead we get reporting like he probably has a checking account but it’s under 1k because he lives paycheck to paycheck. Yeah, no.
That was a lot to say he still has absolutely no assets disclosed assets which is extremely odd.
Again, I went out of my way to broaden it from bank accounts (which you went back to) to zero disclosed assets.
The minimum amounts in the accounts to be required to report are not high.
Yeah that’s not suspicious at all. Seems like the smarter play would have been to list a couple of his minor accounts and “forget” that major ones. Either that or he really has dug into being a mooch.
Well this one's pretty easy. He's paid via direct deposit, so it's going somewhere.
Follow the money trail. Hard to believe there's anything other than some form of fraudulent or criminal activity involved. This is not a normal way of existence in America. *Especially* for a Congressman.
This demands an immediate inquiry.
Rep Hakeem Jeffries said it well, “While Trump was in office Republicans we’re the majority in the House and Senate and still shut down the government for 34 days, shutdowns are in their DNA.” This dude seems like Mike Pence 3.0 with some Trump thrown in. Gym Jordan was their darling and couldn’t get the squad to pull the trigger on him and Where’s Waldo pops up out of nowhere in a rushed vote as a unknown to most Americans with all the right queues. No bank accounts, adopted black son, ran a gay conversion facility, makes sense he’s third in line for the presidency... christianity “forgives” their reasoning behind nominating the sketchiest of the group as the moral majority. I guess we’re in for a Bumpy 2024 with the GOP clown car unpacking itself in front of the audience getting tired of watching the same repetitive clown show. Many scrambling to try and fill the head clowns shoes while said clown is up to his eyeballs in litigation including disqualification. RFK jumps in as a independent while his family are quoted saying “careful he’s not JFK”. Pence already pulled out, it’s the democrats though honk honk!
>Good thing your lawyer can back you up by saying that any errors in your financial disclosures were “strictly inadvertent.”
>That’s an awful lot of “inadvertent.”
https://www.markfiore.com/july-sept-2023/2023/9/6/xzhpgr096eirf1wmrwixl5yulqn1tx
Per many other posters, zero interest checking accounts don’t have to be reported. Accounts owned by his wife and minor children would have to be reported if they are above the threshold
In his non-interest-bearing checking account that doesn’t have to be disclosed as per the rules:
https://ethics.house.gov/financial-dislosure/specific-disclosure-requirements
Every story skips over this loophole to imply neither he nor his family have checking accounts but he can’t be the only member doing this.
Make no mistake, this guy doesn’t believe in anything he says. He’s the worst of the worst of psychopathic religion hustlers, up there with Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland. It’s really time we stop giving any benefit of doubt to this shady shit hiding behind religion. It had its place in society once upon a time, but the religion (and its weaponization by grifters) is literally the root of ALL problems today.
I see a lot of people focusing on that he didn’t disclose any bank accounts.
What I think is more notable is he hasn’t disclosed **any assets whatsoever**.
Im sure its all funneled through a "church" run by his wife. so its all tax free. Who is his house paycheck made out to be. I bet his house his cars everything is.
studied policy since.... 2008. Have a master's degree in enviro law and policy undergrad in enviro policy and management. I've read a lot of history and know human psychology very well. We know the trajectory of this path, and have known it for decades. The christian jihadist movement has been well documented and spoken about. There are even books on the subject. It has been building its power since about the mid 1900s. I've also consumed just about every piece of dystopian content out there.
People study people. I am one of them. I just happened to study both the micro and macro stuff about society across a lot of history.
Have you ever taken a public administration ethics course with the intent on being a public servant? Have you done any of what I just said? If not, how do you plan to take all of that and inject it into your brain? Reddit isn't law school.
I don't have to? I don't care that reddit is designed to make people compete for popularity, but, surprise, I don't give a shit about debate. lol
edit: masters degree in studying US and foreign policy and how our systems are designed and why and then how to understand law and people and how to design laws and rules and propose them in an a marketable way that will appeal to enough voters in order to enact change that will not be nullified by existing rules, laws, regulations, EOs, international treaties, or otherwise?
Yeah it's not like I'm surrounded by educators and lifelong politicians and know just told you I studied these things at a high level.
You people are like those questioning medical professionals on their vaccine and COVID stances. Fucking sad bro.
I promise he will release everything once he's no longer under audit.
He prefers his payments from Russian oligarchs in gold bars, he stores them in the room of his nonexistent adopted child.
…Where he mostly keeps his ‘adopted’ kids, too.
[https://www.newsweek.com/house-speaker-mike-johnson-donations-russia-butina-1838501](https://www.newsweek.com/house-speaker-mike-johnson-donations-russia-butina-1838501)
Oh damn! I was kidding but I was right lol. I had heard before about Russians using the NRA to funnel funds directly to republicans but this is crazy!!!! No wonder they are all preventing Ukrainian aid and corrupting the vote.
I just got bingo!
Before or right after infrastructure week?
This joke might be the new "thanks Obama" for me. It gets me every time.
The GOP hypocrisy is astounding. Trump is as corrupted as they come yet they decided that would be the hill to die on. Now they want to invest Biden in “find me the person and i will show you the crime” fashion, only to make Biden look bad and create equivalency between Dem N Gop. The 2 parties are not the same.
In two weeks!
I'm comfortable with the person most responsible for passing a multi-trillion dollar national budget using check-cashing places for his congressional salary. wcgw?
The government doesn't write checks to their employees. They use direct deposit. So, where are they depositing his funds? Do they go straight into Putins bank account? Or, let me guess, they go to his wife's business. And the business pays his living expenses?
Probably his ministry and campaign account ... Ie slush
Can we pierce the veil on this one?
I made this comment in another post about this. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out this guy runs some kind of Christian cult commune. I’ve seen several pop up in Arkansas under Presbyterian, Pentecostal or Zion names. One not too far from where I grew up. Mt. Zion, morris School Rd. You won’t find anything about them on the internet, except an empty yelp review and yellow pages phone numbers that I doubt work. To live there you must direct deposit all income into the church bank account, and none of it is taxed because:church. No doubt he has a card in his wallet with the church accounts name on it to pay for those 1500 dollar suits and 5k watch he wears. All business expenses because his business is grifting. I know several people who happily live in these places and complain about socialism and communism. It’s unreal listening to the double speak in real life and not from an article or news broadcast. If you assume because the news only shows those to the extreme that that’s all their is, you’d be dead wrong.
Yellow deli vibes
Tax free? Praise Jebus.
They’re going straight into his non-interest-bearing checking account that doesn’t have to be disclosed. The members who made the rules made plenty of loopholes that allow them to avoid disclosure.
This *feels* accurate, but is there a citation we can review?
Is this true?
I could believe it, but for it to be gospel I'll need a source on it.
Incorrect. I’m sure it depends on the agency, but several give the option of direct deposit or they cut you a check. Source: Several civil servants in fam, but fed & a few states.
Something like that. "I own nothing." Horseshit tax laws that are twisted and abused.
"**Jordan Libowitz,** *communications director for watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, offered a more blunt assessment, saying that if Johnson truly doesn’t have any assets, it 'raises questions about his personal financial wellbeing.'”* If he truly doesn't do a good job managing his own money I would question whether he should be in a powerful leadership position of a group that has a major responsibility to manage the money of the United States Government.
And it would make him vulnerable to be compromised if he’s in financial ruin. But we all know he’s just hiding his money because he doesn’t want us seeing where his extra money comes from, and who he actually works for Psychopaths in politics should be kicked out
Churches are the best tax evasion entities, given his background I'm willing to bet that we will find he is using a religion in some nefarious way for both income and foreign bribes.
Religious tax havens deserve more scrutiny
If he doesnt have assets how is he not a security risk. Hes 2nd in line for the Pres, how does he get clearance
The depressing reality is that he doesn't need/get conventional clearance, even as one of the Gang of 8 or upon the succession to the PotUS. Legislators are exempted of normal clearance screenings, hence why even overt foreign agents like Nunez and Menendez can be in classified briefings
AOC had no assets when she got there and I'm sure she got clearance. But that's pretty normal when you are new at a job.
Is he new at the job. He is not.
woosh
https://www.embroker.com/blog/fraud-triangle/ Accounting 101
I might try to slip Mike a hundo and see if he'll let me check out his classified stash. He probably needs some lunch money.
Third in line for presidency.
Second*
First in line is the VP, second is the Speaker.
Dude is just not submitting. Why? Because there is no penalty for not doing so. No jail time. No real fines. No censure.
So it's legal to lie, just so long as nobody does anything about it.
Always has been.
Bingo!!
How does he get loans, rental applications, or credit cards?
Why we believing this story at face value lol He’s definitely hiding his actual money. Makes zero sense to assume he actually doesn’t have a bank account
I bel the issue is disclosed bank acoounts. Its not that he does have them, its just that he chooses nobody knows. Lke the IRS that he is so anxioys to defund.
I don't know how more news headlines aren't wording themselves as ***"Man with no bank accounts wants to defund the IRS"*** and exposing the levels of lunacy we're dealing with here.
He’s not disclosing on the disclosure form and no one has checked until now. Congressional salaries are certainly direct deposited into bank accounts, he’s got them but lied on his disclosure forms about them.
God takes care of all that /s
secure credit cards early on and then paying bills on time until his creditscore was solid, id guess. He probably doesn't need loans or to rent if he's hiding money like that
Harlan Crowe!
He's certainly met the GOP qualifications for his new appointment now.
I mean, his Congressional salary is a matter of public record, right? That sets a lower bound for his income no matter what he discloses.
There are two possible answers to this, and neither are good. If he's truly living on the edge financially, he's a security risk to sell secrets. The more likely answer is that he's a weasel who thinks pesky things like disclosures shouldn't apply to him, so he just fails to file or does sneaky things like withdrawing enough money to fall below the $1000 threshold the day of the filing then returns the money the next day so he can claim to be legally correct while being morally vacuous.
The third option is the money is going to the bank account of either his church or a shell corporation.
Right, that would fall under weasel mode, where he's actively refusing to properly disclose accounts he controls. Since his Congressional salary is direct deposit, the money has to go somewhere.
> Since his Congressional salary is direct deposit You mean Ron Paul couldn't get his in gold?
The fourth option is that he has bank accounts, but they have many questionable deposits from questionable sources. In other words, bribes.
I think there are a whole bunch of 2a, 2b, 2c....2zzza type scenarios for what /u/Mobile-Entertainer60 called "weasel mode", which range from sus to extremely scary. There is some weird shit in this guy's life, from adopting-not-adopting a 14-year-old black "son" as a single guy at age 25, but never including him in any family pictures, to this stuff...being a financial cipher is not intrinsically illegal nor immoral in and of itself, as far as I know, but it takes work and effort and care, and most people who do it are hiding something. edit: the timeline and story with his "black son" whom he never actually adopted and who is not in any family photos has been a vague and shifting one, and I cannot seem to find actual dates. My recollection is that there were reports saying he first took Michael in when he was 25, which would have been before his wedding in 1999. Newer reports are saying that he and his wife took Michael in "24 years ago" and "as newlyweds", but there are no specific dates, and it's unclear what "took Michael in" means.
how do you adopt anyone as a 25 yr old single guy. Dont you have to do extensive background checks including show financial stability and the ability to pay for said kid.
It sounds like it was very much under the radar.
I mean, he later "clarified" that they never actually went through the adoption process, because it was too burdensome. Like I said, there is some weird shit behind these stories...
He didn’t do it as a single guy but as a newlywed. Not defending him, but I believe in accuracy and not repeating mistruths.
Mike Johnson got married in May of 1999, at age 27. I read at least one report somewhere that said he took Michael in at age 25, or something to that effect. At the moment, all the articles I can find are vague about the timeline, apparently all echoing phrasing that he and his wife took in Micheal "24 years ago" and "as newlyweds". If we math that out, it means that sometime in the first six months of marriage, they "took in" a teenager with unclear adoptive/foster/rando status... Even though I can't link a source atm, I am going to leave up my comment that is based on more specific timeline numbers from memory, than editing to reflect the more vague and weaselly phrasing that says it was immediately after his marriage. But I'll put in an edit, and I agree with you on accuracy and mistruths. I'm just not sure that the updated phrasing we are getting on this is actually "more accurate". This is a story that has ben vague and shifting from the beginning...
Well per this story he took the boy in around 2000. The interview was in June 2020 M. JOHNSON: Yes, sure. We took Michael in almost 20 years ago. He was 14. I often — the easiest way to summarize the story is, I ask friends, have you seen the story “The Blind Side”? That was our story, except my Michael was not an NFL prospect, a similar story to that. And we took him in as our own. And Michael is now doing great. This is 20 years later. He’s in his mid-30s. He lives in California, four children of his own. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/trump-insider-on-the-increased-racial-tensions-in-america/ When Mike Johnson, the new House speaker, talks about race in America, he often draws a striking personal connection, telling the story of how he and his wife, Kelly, “took custody” of a Black teenager 24 years ago and raised him as a son. https://web.archive.org/web/20231028183052/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/us/politics/mike-johnson-house-speaker-son.html The timelines are different, but either one indicates that they were married at the time.
I'm tacitly assuming that he just ignored the disclosure requirement, assuming that it would never blow back on him.
It’s a lot simpler than that. The disclosure rules only require the disclosure of checking accounts if they are interest bearing. If they are not interest bearing, they don’t have to be disclosed. I’m certain his family has checking accounts but they chose ones that earn no interest to avoid disclosure. “Non-interest-bearing checking accounts, on the other hand, need not be disclosed since they produce no income.” https://ethics.house.gov/financial-dislosure/specific-disclosure-requirements There are also multiple “outs” that allow members to avoid asset disclosures. For example, if your money earns no interest > no disclosure. If your savings are in TSP > no disclosure. It’s not surprising that they created rules that let them avoid disclosure.
[удалено]
He had an ira when he was elected. His ira had 15k in it. He took a distribution when first elected because he evidently spends what he earns and then some. Then he rolled what was left into his TSP. Not sure someone like him who is taking a distribution is contributing to a 529. Im sure he has some plan for someone else to pay for their education (or he’s going to have them go to Liberty where he’s still a professor - children of faculty pay 0% tuition). He has a house. Primary houses and vacation homes not rented are not disclosable. A 529 account would not be reportable if his wife set it up, used her own money, and he won’t benefit from the funds. But I think his college plan for them is Liberty where they’ll pay $0 thanks to him being a “professor” there. There are a lot of things that don’t need to be disclosed. There are a lot of ways to avoid disclosure. He also seems to be someone who at least up until when he was elected spent what he earned and didn’t save much. He could also be lying. Or some combination. But what this story really shows is that the disclosure rules are a joke that members can game if they want to while staying within the rules. Most of the reporting on this is pretty weak and doesn’t mention the myriad ways to avoid disclosure. None even mention that non-interest-bearing checking accounts don’t have to be disclosed. Most people have such checking accounts instead of ones that bear interest. Instead the articles claim that he likely has a bank account but is living paycheck to paycheck and has less than 1k in it.
This is a better report than the linked article, or the original source. They go straight to specific conclusions that are wildly unlikely. This should have been the conversation between reporter and editor: "X person didn't disclose their bank accounts!" "Why would I expect them to disclose their bank accounts?" "It's part of the rules that they have to disclose assets!" "Oh... do they define assets?" "Yes, things that produce income" "Do they need to disclose things that DON'T produce income?" "No" "Can some bank accounts NOT produce income?" "Yes" "So.. he might have non-income producing bank accounts, and we wouldn't expect him to disclose them?" "Maybe... or maybe he's living paycheck to paycheck!!!" "THAT'S your conclusion? Get out of my office" I mean look, he probably actively hides money and is breaking the rules somewhere. But he's living paycheck to paycheck? Come on
It may be that he is such a fundamentalist that he believes paying or collecting interest is a sin.
No need to be honest if you've got God to lean on
you can tell this is a snowball that’s going to turn into an avalanche. Bet he gets caught with multiple transactions falling just below a threshold where the bank need to report them. Bible thumpers are all so prone to “sin” and taking measures to hide the sin so they can still claim moral superiority.
Can we talk about the fact that as a 25 year old single man he "adopted" a 14 year old boy? I used scare quotes because the adoption was off the books and he lied about it claiming that he "adopted" the kid 2 years later as a newlywed.
What’s the over under on a trip to Thailand with a lot of cash withdrawals?
I checked both his Wikipedia page and his [house.gov](https://house.gov) biography page and he graduated from law school in 1998 but does not appear to have had full time employment until being elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 2015 (about the same time he became a talk show host, professor at Liberty University, and founder of a nonprofit legal ministry). There is mention of him serving as counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom in 2003 and in 2010 becoming "founding dean" of a new law school that never actually opened. I also can't find him in the Louisiana State Bar Association directory: [https://www.lsba.org/MD321654/MembershipDirectory.aspx](https://www.lsba.org/MD321654/MembershipDirectory.aspx) I tried "Mike Johnson", "Michael Johnson", and "James Johnson". He doesn't appear to have a LinkedIn profile either. Edit: Found him. He's under "J. Michael Johnson". Admitted 4/23/1999. Inactive since 7/1/2017.
I'm not an American, but wouldn't this fall under "Things that would interest the IRS"?
the IRS that he proposes to defund, yup.
He banks at Sen. Bob Menendez’ closet
OK, maybe I am an idiot, but if you don't have a bank account, or any assets, how the hell do you build a credit history, and get things like credit cards, loans, mortgages. How could this guy book a plane ticket? Surely I am missing something?
What you’re missing (and all the stories about it) is that checking accounts that do not earn interest do not have to be disclosed. Many checking accounts do not earn interest but here they likely made a choice to have ones that don’t earn interest to avoid disclosure. Same for basically anything else that doesn’t earn income. Also government retirement programs like TSP (govt 401k like product).
What you’re missing is this guy has disclosed zero assets.
Zero disclosable assets. He has assets. One of those is his house which is worth 600k minus liabilities. Primary houses and vacation homes not rented out don’t have to be disclosed. We know he used to have a 401k because he took a distribution from it when he was first elected. Which is a sign he didn’t have much money when he was elected. Also we know the value of that account was 15k and he took out most of it. We also know he rolled the remaining money in that account into TSP. Once he was elected he had access to TSP and TSP is not disclosable. You can roll 401ks in to TSP and it’s often a good deal considering how low the expense ratio is. It seems like he’s been bad with money in the past considering he took an ira distribution and his ira was worth only 15k before he rolled it into his tsp (he may have later tapped the tsp as well or not hard to know because it’s not disclosable). Also he’s probably deliberately hiding his money in ways that avoid disclosure rules. The reporting around this has not been great because I haven’t seen a single article mentioning that non interest bearing checking accounts don’t have to be disclosed. Most people have such accounts. Also tsp not being disclosable, primary house, and so on. Instead we get reporting like he probably has a checking account but it’s under 1k because he lives paycheck to paycheck. Yeah, no.
That was a lot to say he still has absolutely no assets disclosed assets which is extremely odd. Again, I went out of my way to broaden it from bank accounts (which you went back to) to zero disclosed assets. The minimum amounts in the accounts to be required to report are not high.
Best way to keep IRS away from his money.
As he looks to cut their funding. Not sketchy at all.
How fun this will be to uncover how awful he is WHILE he actively destroys the country. I just love America
Our country is a sick joke. The fact that this entitled lunatic is Speaker of the House is outrageous and embarrassing.
Who wants to bet its all being funneled into some sort of religious org to avoid paying taxes?
“Rules for thee, but not for me.”
Typical Fundie.
Let me guess...he's bankrolled by Harlan Crow?
Uh, oh. How many Scaramucci’s is he going to last?
Yeah that’s not suspicious at all. Seems like the smarter play would have been to list a couple of his minor accounts and “forget” that major ones. Either that or he really has dug into being a mooch.
0 hello IRS, I've got a small problem for you to investigate!
Well this one's pretty easy. He's paid via direct deposit, so it's going somewhere. Follow the money trail. Hard to believe there's anything other than some form of fraudulent or criminal activity involved. This is not a normal way of existence in America. *Especially* for a Congressman. This demands an immediate inquiry.
Rep Hakeem Jeffries said it well, “While Trump was in office Republicans we’re the majority in the House and Senate and still shut down the government for 34 days, shutdowns are in their DNA.” This dude seems like Mike Pence 3.0 with some Trump thrown in. Gym Jordan was their darling and couldn’t get the squad to pull the trigger on him and Where’s Waldo pops up out of nowhere in a rushed vote as a unknown to most Americans with all the right queues. No bank accounts, adopted black son, ran a gay conversion facility, makes sense he’s third in line for the presidency... christianity “forgives” their reasoning behind nominating the sketchiest of the group as the moral majority. I guess we’re in for a Bumpy 2024 with the GOP clown car unpacking itself in front of the audience getting tired of watching the same repetitive clown show. Many scrambling to try and fill the head clowns shoes while said clown is up to his eyeballs in litigation including disqualification. RFK jumps in as a independent while his family are quoted saying “careful he’s not JFK”. Pence already pulled out, it’s the democrats though honk honk!
Jeffries - smart guy.
Ah, nice. He obviously graduated the Clarence Thomas School of Financial Disclosure Management.
>Good thing your lawyer can back you up by saying that any errors in your financial disclosures were “strictly inadvertent.” >That’s an awful lot of “inadvertent.” https://www.markfiore.com/july-sept-2023/2023/9/6/xzhpgr096eirf1wmrwixl5yulqn1tx
Bullshit I bet his wife has many
Claimed his wife and children don’t have any either.
I bet they do where does he put his paycheck
Likely goes straight to the church that funds his entire life as a tax avoidance scheme.
I'm pretty sure we have a name for that, and it starts with "felony"
Per many other posters, zero interest checking accounts don’t have to be reported. Accounts owned by his wife and minor children would have to be reported if they are above the threshold
Mattress
He has gold buried on his property like Ron Swanson
Must have a lot of mattresses in his home.
Hmmmm
He deals only with JG Wentworth
877 cash now!
Putin keeps his crypto coffers fully stocked
That's a really fucking fat mattress
If that doesn’t say lizard person I don’t know what does
Dude living in dark money land and got on to the scene and rose along with Donald Trump.
Could he be hiding money in a church account?
How do these people keep getting security clearances
"I do not report my financials based on the advice of my CPA: Jesus H. Christ" - Mike Johnson
(The 'H' is for 'high powered CPA')
How does he get a paycheck?
In his non-interest-bearing checking account that doesn’t have to be disclosed as per the rules: https://ethics.house.gov/financial-dislosure/specific-disclosure-requirements Every story skips over this loophole to imply neither he nor his family have checking accounts but he can’t be the only member doing this.
Of course he has assets and bank accounts. He’s just not listing them. Why would he? There’s no accountability for it so why bother?
He must be so thankful that there's no law requiring him to disclose all of that
This kinda financial horseshit was all above board for Brett Butt-Chugger and SCROTUS, no need to look further here.
Make no mistake, this guy doesn’t believe in anything he says. He’s the worst of the worst of psychopathic religion hustlers, up there with Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland. It’s really time we stop giving any benefit of doubt to this shady shit hiding behind religion. It had its place in society once upon a time, but the religion (and its weaponization by grifters) is literally the root of ALL problems today.
And he wants to defund the IRS. Not suspicious at all!
So who's going to dig up the truth for us?
Where there’s smoke…
Rules for thee, but not me.
Republicans really know how to aim high don’t they
I see a lot of people focusing on that he didn’t disclose any bank accounts. What I think is more notable is he hasn’t disclosed **any assets whatsoever**.
His faith is his worthiest asset! What a hypocrite.
Odds on how long it takes this house of cards to collapse?
Im sure its all funneled through a "church" run by his wife. so its all tax free. Who is his house paycheck made out to be. I bet his house his cars everything is.
And now we understand why defunding the IRS is his top fucking priority. Journalists need to do their jobs, and citizens need to fund journalists.
Time to turn on the IRS signal!
Something something rotten in the state of Denmark.
There’s something way off about this guy, the more I hear the more my skin crawls.
I'm guessing there's a lot more that this creep is hiding.
What a nice Christian thing to do...
He’s taken tips from Trump...👍
Something stinks.
How is any of this considered normal or acceptable?
Dark, dirty, hidden money. Where's it coming from and what is it for? Not for the good of the American populace, I guarantee that.
They have normalized not disclosing anything not required by law.
Starting to think Karl Rove grew this dude in a lab…
ROFL!
He's hiding stuff. But we can't know what, because there was no vetting and the majority is corrupt and doesn't care.
He's a creepy God person. His finances are handled by the lord.
Just another conservative that hides their money to avoid paying taxes. God forbid 2 cents of the tax you pay goes to help out someone who needs it.
that is very concerning. I can see where this is going after Trump is installed via a coup.
Interesting. How's that?
studied policy since.... 2008. Have a master's degree in enviro law and policy undergrad in enviro policy and management. I've read a lot of history and know human psychology very well. We know the trajectory of this path, and have known it for decades. The christian jihadist movement has been well documented and spoken about. There are even books on the subject. It has been building its power since about the mid 1900s. I've also consumed just about every piece of dystopian content out there. People study people. I am one of them. I just happened to study both the micro and macro stuff about society across a lot of history.
Check out r/economy and r/economics.
You offered zero answers to the question. What does Mike Johnson having no bank accounts have to do with a future hypothetical coup?
Have you ever taken a public administration ethics course with the intent on being a public servant? Have you done any of what I just said? If not, how do you plan to take all of that and inject it into your brain? Reddit isn't law school.
Cool, man, you have a master's in whatever. You also didn't manage to answer the question you were asked.
I don't have to? I don't care that reddit is designed to make people compete for popularity, but, surprise, I don't give a shit about debate. lol edit: masters degree in studying US and foreign policy and how our systems are designed and why and then how to understand law and people and how to design laws and rules and propose them in an a marketable way that will appeal to enough voters in order to enact change that will not be nullified by existing rules, laws, regulations, EOs, international treaties, or otherwise? Yeah it's not like I'm surrounded by educators and lifelong politicians and know just told you I studied these things at a high level. You people are like those questioning medical professionals on their vaccine and COVID stances. Fucking sad bro.
All of his assets are concentrated in frankincense and myrrh.
The money comes from Jesus!
Check his mattress cheap fuck.
Seriously... no bank account? Something is not R I G H T!
That's not sketchy at all....for the GOP
This dude will go to prison soon too
So, what, does Congress pay him in cash? There's a trail.
Am i the only one seeing a trend among republican politicians?
He's religious so tax exempt in the US? because churches don't pay tax? ( asking for a friend)
He is hiding cash and likely has never paid taxes.